The Christmas Boutique

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  His words soon proved prescient.

  Gretchen found a worthy cause for the gifts of her needle—Project Linus, a nonprofit that provided quilts and blankets to children in need, from offering a comforting quilt to a seriously ill child at a hospital to providing a warm blanket to a youngster rescued by the fire department. A few days after Thanksgiving, she had persuaded Sylvia to make Elm Creek Manor an official collection site for local quilters, knitters, and crocheters. And then there was Sarah, a young expectant mother who had suddenly found herself in great need of reassurance and care.

  “You’re not alone,” Gretchen had told her when Sarah tearfully confided how much she regretted Matt’s decision to spend most of the winter far from home, how anxious and fearful his absence made her feel. “Agnes has been beside herself wanting to help you decorate the nursery; she would have offered before but she didn’t want to intrude. Joe can childproof the manor; he’s brought far more treacherous buildings than this up to code. And as for your childbirth classes, I know it’s best to have your husband along, but if Matt can’t be there, I’ll go with you.”

  “You would? You’d do that for me?”

  “Of course.” Gretchen had accompanied frightened girls little more than half Sarah’s age through the birthing process and had witnessed nearly every possible complication. She knew what to do. “I’m not as handsome as Matt, but I’m far more experienced, and I promise you, you’ll be in good hands.”

  Although the bitter cold lingered, the roads were cleared in time for Jeremy to pick up Anna on Wednesday afternoon and take her home. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed our extended slumber party,” Anna said as she threw on her coat and snatched up her purse, “but, well . . .” She gestured to the back door, where Jeremy waited, and dashed off.

  Later that evening, although the winds had picked up, blowing drifts over the road through the woods between the manor and the highway, Gretchen borrowed the Elm Creek Quilts minivan and escorted Sarah to her childbirth class. As they drove to the Elm Creek Valley Hospital, they observed that shopkeepers and apartment superintendents had cleared sidewalks and parking garages in downtown Waterford, and that heavy trucks had hauled countless loads of snow to outlying fields so the eventual thaw would not flood the city streets. In a quiet, comfortable room in the hospital, as they were setting up Sarah’s pillows and yoga mat for a lesson on breathing and relaxation techniques, they overheard alarming reports of how other regions of the Elm Creek Valley had weathered the storm. Some neighborhoods were still without electricity after wind-toppled trees had brought down power lines; frozen pipes had burst in a building south of the Waterford College campus, flooding adjacent streets until they were coated in a solid sheet of ice. “We were fortunate,” said Gretchen, and Sarah nodded, wide-eyed. They had been cut off from town for a couple of days, but at least they’d had light and heat.

  By Friday afternoon, the sun had emerged and the temperatures had risen slightly, easing Sarah’s worries about Matt’s long drive home. Later that evening, at the sound of his pickup truck pulling into the rear parking lot, Sarah sighed with relief and hurried to greet him. Gretchen and Sylvia broke off their conversation and watched through the kitchen doorway as Matt greeted her at the back door with a hug and a kiss, and then he dropped to his knees and pressed his cheek against her ample belly to tell the babies how much he had missed them.

  Sarah had mentioned that she wanted Matt to help her paint the babies’ room on Saturday, but by the end of the day, not a single stroke of Sunshine Yellow had been applied to the walls. “He’s exhausted from the week on the construction site in the cold,” Sarah explained to Sylvia and Gretchen as they tidied the kitchen after supper, although neither of them had said a word of rebuke. “He had to fit a week’s worth of his caretaker’s duties into the day too, and now all he wants to do is relax. Who could blame him?”

  Joe could, Gretchen thought, but she merely murmured something noncommittal and continued wiping down the counters. “Matt has no business taking off when his wife’s expecting his babies,” he had told her privately just the day before. One quick exchange of glances with Sylvia told her that Andrew had made similar remarks behind closed doors.

  On Sunday Matt helped decorate the manor for Christmas, which seemed to restore Sarah’s naturally cheerful spirits. That evening, the manor’s six year-round residents enjoyed a family-style supper around the long wooden table in the kitchen, but when Sarah offered everyone dessert and coffee, Matt begged off so that he could do laundry and pack his duffel bag. “More cake for us, then,” said Sarah lightly, but as soon as Matt left the room, her smile faded.

  On Monday morning he left shortly after breakfast. “This week won’t be as bad as the last,” Sarah said forlornly, watching through the back window as his truck rumbled across the bridge over Elm Creek. “I’ll get used to his absence. Each week I’ll feel a little less lonely.”

  “You shouldn’t feel lonely,” Gretchen said. “Matt’s just a phone call away if you need to hear his voice, and you have plenty of company.”

  “Yes, indeed, dear,” said Sylvia, passing by Sarah’s booth to pat her affectionately on the shoulder. “How could you be lonely when you’re surrounded by such marvelous friends?”

  Sarah managed a smile. “You’re right. Anyway, I should be grateful for a few quiet moments to myself. Once the babies come, I might not have another until they leave for college.”

  As if to prove her point, a cell phone rang.

  Sarah sat up with a start and reached into her right sweater pocket for the phone, but its screen was dark. Sighing, she set it on the table and quickly retrieved a second phone from her left pocket—vibrating, screen alight—and pressed the button to answer. “Good morning, Elm Creek Quilts,” she said, her voice warmly professional.

  Instinctively, Gretchen and Sylvia drew closer in case this unexpected bit of camp business required their attention.

  “Oh, hello, Nancy.” Looking to her friends, Sarah mouthed the last name silently—Reinhart. Gretchen needed a moment to recall a woman she had met briefly at the last farewell breakfast of the camp season in August. She was the president of the Waterford Quilting Guild, if Gretchen’s memory served. “We made it through the storm just fine, thanks, but we’re not eager for the next one. How are you?” Sarah’s eyebrows rose. “That sounds ominous. What do you mean?” Another pause. “Oh. In that case, you’re welcome to come by anytime.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Twenty minutes? Sure, that’s fine. We’ll be here. See you soon.” She hung up the phone.

  “What’s going on?” asked Sylvia, taking a seat in the booth across from Sarah. “It sounds urgent.”

  “Apparently so. Nancy called it a minor emergency, but from the strain in her voice, it sounds more serious than that. She and a friend want to discuss it with us right away, but not over the phone.” Sarah glanced at the clock again and winced. “We have twenty minutes. Anna could put together a banquet in that time, but we’re on our own.”

  “I’ll get coffee started,” said Gretchen, rising. “We have some of Anna’s marvelous cinnamon shortbread left. That should do nicely.”

  “That’s our Anna, looking after us even from afar.” Sylvia rose and went to the walk-in pantry. “Did Nancy mention her friend’s name?”

  “Melanie Tibbs, I think? I don’t believe I know her.”

  Sylvia emerged from the pantry carrying a cookie tin and wearing a thoughtful frown. “I knew a Dolores Tibbs, but that was decades ago. She was a friend of my mother, a librarian and one of the four founders of the Waterford Quilting Guild.”

  “Melanie could be her daughter,” said Gretchen, placing a filter into the basket and quickly filling it with scoops of coffee grounds.

  “A granddaughter, more likely. Perhaps they need to see us about a quilting emergency of some sort.”

  “A quilting emergency?” echoed Gretchen, amused.

  Sylvia nodded. “You’d be surprised how often they occur around here
.”

  “Whatever it is,” said Sarah, climbing awkwardly from the booth and resting a hand on the table for balance, “Elm Creek Quilts must be uniquely qualified to help, or Nancy would have enlisted the Waterford Quilting Guild instead.”

  They mulled over the possibilities as they went to the banquet hall to set up a table and chairs. Working swiftly, their motions deft and perfectly timed, thanks to many hours spent preparing for quilt camp meals, they placed a cheerful red-and-green-tartan cloth over one of the round tables, arranged chairs all around, and set the table. Sarah had just carried in two plates of cinnamon shortbread while Gretchen followed behind with the coffee service on a tray when the back doorbell rang. Sylvia answered, and by the time she led their two guests into the room, everything was in place.

  “Anna would be proud of us,” Sarah murmured to Gretchen as they went forward to meet their guests.

  “She’s taught us well,” Gretchen murmured back.

  Sylvia made introductions, but while Nancy and Melanie were perfectly cordial, their smiles seemed a bit forced, their expressions strained. Nancy was the elder of the two, in her mid-fifties, with strong, angular features and salt-and-pepper hair cut in an asymmetrical curve that began at her right earlobe and swooped to a point just below her jawline on the left. Melanie was taller and slender, perhaps ten years younger than her companion. She kept her scarf on though bits of snow clung to it, as she no sooner tucked strands of her thick, wavy brown hair behind her ears than they slipped free again.

  Sylvia invited everyone to be seated, and Sarah poured coffee while Gretchen invited their guests to help themselves to shortbread. Melanie flashed a quick smile and took a cookie, but Nancy kept to black coffee. Through a bit of small talk as they settled in, Gretchen noticed the two visitors glancing around the banquet hall appraisingly, noting the ample space; the convenient butler’s pantry; the floor-to-ceiling window on the western wall; and the two sets of double doors, one leading to the ballroom and the other to the front foyer.

  It occurred to Gretchen that they were studying the banquet hall rather purposefully, especially since Nancy had seen it fairly recently, on her tour in August. When she and Melanie exchanged significant, hopeful looks, Gretchen suspected that their emergency required Elm Creek Manor itself as well as the quilters who lived and worked there.

  “Thank you for allowing us to impose on you on such short notice,” said Nancy, her alto voice firm and calm, as if she were accustomed to taking command in a crisis.

  “It’s no imposition, but you’ve certainly piqued our curiosity,” said Sylvia. “Please tell us what’s wrong and how we can help.”

  “Melanie and I serve on the facilities committee at Good Shepherd Church,” Nancy began. “We’re also in charge of the Christmas Boutique. As you must be aware, Sylvia, given that you’ve been so generous with your donations through the years, the event is our annual fund-raiser for the county food bank.”

  “Your most important fund-raiser,” Sylvia added. “Are donations not keeping pace with previous years’? I’m sure the storm accounts for that. I myself have a quilt upstairs that I made especially for the boutique. I just haven’t managed to drop it off yet.”

  “I have a crib quilt to donate as well,” said Gretchen. “Anna, our chef, also plans to contribute some baked goods.”

  “If they’re as tasty as this shortbread, we’ll rake in a fortune,” said Melanie, helping herself to another piece.

  “We’ll gladly accept your donations,” said Nancy. “I can take them with me today, to save you a trip. But that isn’t the emergency I referred to on the phone.”

  “Although the storm accounts for that too,” said Melanie, a tremor in her voice. “But really, it’s my fault.”

  “How is it your fault?” Nancy protested.

  “I’m chair of the environmental impact subcommittee. I should have taken care of the lights and the thermostat myself.”

  “Oh, goodness. Asking someone to turn off the lights and set the thermostat for you is hardly abandoning your responsibilities. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s—” Nancy shook her head. “Let’s not place blame. The point is, our committee met right before the storm struck, and since activities for the next few days had been canceled, Melanie asked the last person to leave to turn off the lights and set the thermostat a few degrees lower in the community hall.”

  “Just a few degrees,” Melanie lamented. “Sixty-four instead of sixty-eight, that’s all I meant.”

  “Let me guess.” Sarah sat back in her chair and rested a hand on her abdomen. “That person, who shall remain nameless, instead turned off the heat entirely, as well as the lights?”

  “I’m afraid that’s so.”

  “Oh, my,” said Gretchen, thinking back to several occasions when the ancient furnace at Abiding Savior had not been able to keep up with the bitter cold of deepest winter. She could imagine the worst.

  “The pipes froze and burst,” said Melanie. “The community hall was flooded, but since the church was closed and everyone was snowbound, no one realized it until two days later.”

  Sylvia pursed her mouth and drew in a breath as if to steel herself. “Were the donations for the Christmas Boutique ruined?”

  “No, we were spared that, at least,” said Nancy. “Only about half of the items we were promised had been dropped off by then, and they were safely out of reach in a storage closet on the second floor. I’m afraid the damage is to the hall itself.”

  “Wood flooring?” Gretchen guessed.

  Nancy nodded. “Mid-century parquet, warped from one end of the hall to the other.”

  “It looks like it’s frozen in waves more than a foot high,” said Melanie. “I didn’t know a floor could do that.”

  Gretchen knew it all too well. “It’ll have to be torn up and replaced, and the joists beneath it examined for rot. Is the church insured?”

  When Nancy nodded again, the Elm Creek Quilters sighed with relief.

  “The adjuster has already inspected the damage and approved payment on our claim, but the contractors can’t fit us into their schedule until January,” Nancy said. “In the meantime, the community hall is entirely unusable.”

  “The Christmas Boutique,” exclaimed Sylvia. “Oh, dear. This is an emergency.”

  Nancy and Melanie nodded bleakly. “So,” said Melanie, “after indulging in a minor panic for an hour or two, we thought of you.”

  “You shouldn’t have wasted a moment in panic,” said Sylvia. “I know what you’re going to ask, and the answer is yes. We’d be delighted to host the Christmas Boutique at Elm Creek Manor. I insist.”

  “I knew you’d take us in!” Melanie clasped her hands together, eyes shining. “Thank you so much!”

  “We have ample space, and camp isn’t in session, so why not?” said Sarah. “It’s been too quiet around here lately anyway.”

  “Think it over carefully before you jump in,” said Nancy. “We have volunteers assigned to set up the merchandise, handle the sales, and clean up afterward, but keep in mind that there will be crowds of strangers passing through the manor all day long, Friday through Sunday.”

  Sylvia waved a hand. “We’re used to that, but we prefer to call them visitors, not strangers. And let’s hope they come in crowds. The more customers the better.”

  “That’s true,” said Nancy, “but the larger the crowds, the louder the noise and the bigger the mess.”

  Gretchen smiled. “I’d imagine that people inclined to support the local food pantry by shopping for homemade and handcrafted goods at a church fund-raiser would be a fairly well-behaved bunch.”

  “Nancy, what are you doing?” Melanie protested. “They already agreed. Don’t talk them out of it.”

  “I think full disclosure is best.” Turning to Sylvia, Nancy added, “As in the past, we’d like to sell refreshments, light meals and snacks, nothing too elaborate. Our volunteers will cook at home, but we’d need to use your kitchen for last-minute preparations,
heating some items, keeping other things cold, and so on.”

  “I’ll have to clear that with our chef, but I’m sure it won’t be a problem,” said Sylvia.

  “The problem will be getting Anna to agree to keep it simple,” said Sarah. “She may insist upon preparing a lavish holiday buffet.”

  Melanie’s eyes went wide. “Do you think she would? My friends who’ve attended your quilt camp absolutely rave about the food. I’m thinking of pretending to be a quilter just so I can attend next summer.”

  “You don’t have to pretend. Come to quilt camp and we’ll teach you. In the meantime, let’s pencil in a yes for use of the kitchen, and a maybe for the buffet. Unless Anna prefers something more à la carte.” Sylvia rose and studied the room, turning slowly in place. “If she prefers a buffet, we can collect fees at the door and arrange the serving table along the west wall by the windows, as we do for quilt camp.”

  “That would work well,” said Sarah, nodding.

  “On the other hand, if Anna would rather offer counter service, we could use the butler’s pantry. And let’s be sure to set up all the tables and chairs, because as soon as the smell of Anna’s cooking fills the air—” Sylvia broke off, laughing at herself. “Listen to me making plans when I haven’t even asked her if she’ll do it.”

  “I think it’s a safe bet she will,” said Gretchen.

  “But . . .” Nancy too rose and looked around the room, wavering between relief and puzzlement. “If you fill this space with dining tables, where will we set up the boutique?”

  “Not in here,” said Sylvia, surprised. “Don’t you remember your tour? I have something better in mind.”

  Beckoning to Nancy and Melanie to follow, Sylvia crossed the room and opened the double doors on the southern wall. Gretchen and Sarah brought up the rear as Sylvia led their bemused guests into the ballroom, which took up almost the entire first floor of the newer wing of the manor. A carpeted border roughly twenty feet wide encircled a broad parquet dance floor, most of which was subdivided into classrooms by tall, movable partitions. Three crystal chandeliers hung high above from a ceiling covered with a swirling vine pattern of molded plaster. A dais on the far side of the room served as a stage for teachers, lecturers, or performers during the camp season, but during the Christmas season it displayed a tall, verdant, fragrant evergreen tree adorned with the accumulated treasures of three generations of the Bergstrom family—ceramic figurines from Germany, sparkling crystal teardrops from New York City, carved wooden angels with woolen hair from Italy—as well as more recent contributions from Andrew and Sarah. Tall, narrow windows topped by semicircular curves lined the south, east, and west walls. The heavy drapes had been drawn back, and through the glass Gretchen saw a glittering shower of icy flakes swirling in a light wind. She felt a pang of alarm until she realized that the snow had simply blown off the roof, and not that a new storm had swept in while they were engrossed in conversation.