Arlene Sachitano - Quilt As You Go

"Are you sure it isn't that you liked having everything your way?"

"Thanks for your caring support,” Harriet said and dipped a tortilla chip into her bowl of guacamole.

"What good would I be if I only said what you wanted to hear?"

"You're right. It's one more reason why Aiden and I don't belong together. I got used to having things my way. I'm not used to accommodating anyone else's needs anymore."

"That's not true,” Aunt Beth said around a bite of burrito. “You can be a very flexible person. Look how you helped Lauren through her tough spot. And you don't even like her."

"You're right. I can be. It's just hard. Aiden and I are still figuring out our relationship. Adding another person or persons makes it harder."

"I'm going to be going over there tomorrow after Threads to see how the changes she and I talked about are working out, housekeeping wise. She feels so grateful-she thinks she has to work constantly to earn her keep. She may be using the time we freed up from cleaning to cook. I'll see what I can do."

"Don't tell her I said anything."

"Don't be insulting,” Aunt Beth said and then smiled. “I'll feel Marjory out, too. She cut back Carla's hours at the quilt shop when the girl moved to Aiden's so she could get settled. I'll put a bug in her ear about restoring the old schedule. If Carla doesn't have so much time on her hands, it'll be easier for her to stick to a reasonable housekeeping schedule."

"You're the best,” Harriet said and hugged her aunt with her good arm.

Harriet and Fred were in the kitchen the next morning when Aunt Beth came downstairs.

"Are you trying to put me out of a job?” Beth said when she saw Harriet's cereal bowl.

"You're helping enough, taking on all my quilt jobs; especially the one for the woman in Angel Harbor."

A woman they had met at quilt camp had pieced a quilt she hoped to enter in the upcoming Jefferson County Quilt Guild show. It was a blended floral quilt, and the woman had asked for stitching that suggested a small iris image combined with some equally small cross-hatching. It would take at least twice if not three times the amount of time to finish as for an average quilt of the same size.

"Honey, I could do that job in my sleep,” Aunt Beth said.

Beth's familiarity with the long arm machine aside, Harriet knew her aunt was more tired than she let on. In the few short months since retiring, she'd become accustomed to a life of leisure, or at least a life of not being on her feet all day.

"My collar bone and shoulder are feeling a lot better already. I'm supposed to start exercises today."

"For your shoulder?” Aunt Beth asked in disbelief.

"No, no, not my shoulder-my wrist and elbow. It says so on that paper they gave us when I left the emergency room. I'm supposed to squeeze a rubber ball. I thought I'd squeeze a needle through fabric at Loose Threads today instead. I was going to go rummage through projects in the studio when I finished my cereal and see if I could find something I'd already cut out that would be easy to hand piece."

"You have so many UFOs that shouldn't be too hard,” Aunt Beth said, making reference to the euphemism that quilters used for unfinished projects or “objects."

Harriet laughed as she got up and put her empty cereal bowl in the sink.

"Come on, Fred, we have work to do."

It was a good thing I started early, Harriet thought later. It had taken almost thirty minutes to wade through her partially started projects one-handed. She'd finally picked up a Lemoyne star project she'd started in a class years ago on one of her visits to Aunt Beth. The stars were made up of eight diamond-shaped pieces with setting triangles and squares in a background color. Harriet had cut her diamonds from brown-and-red print Civil War reproduction fabrics. Fred batted at the pieces as she tried to gather them up and put them into her quilting bag.

"You're not helping, you know,” she scolded. “This is hard enough one-handed without having to pick pieces up off the floor where you keep knocking them."

"Are you ready?” Aunt Beth asked as she came into the studio, her purse in one hand and her quilt bag in the other.

"I am in spite of excessive feline help."

"I got decaf or fully leaded here,” Connie said and held up a coffee carafe in each hand. “Anyone?"

Jenny held up her cup and pointed to the decaf. Sarah held her mug out for the caffeinated coffee when her turn came. Connie filled her own cup with a blend and returned the pots to the shop kitchen. The rest of the Loose Threads seated around the table in the large classroom at Pins and Needles were drinking tea of one sort or another.

"No Carla today?” Harriet asked, a brief vision of Carla and Aiden dead on the floor of his house, killed by Terry, flashing past her consciousness. She pushed it from her mind. It had to be the pain medication talking, if you considered the two ibuprofens she'd taken that morning pain medication.

"She's in the back room pricing fabric,” Robin said. “She said Marjory got in a big shipment from Kona Bay she had to check in."

"So, Ilsa agreed to meet us here?” Jenny asked.

"Yeah,” DeAnn said. “I asked her if she quilted, and it turns out she does, so it was easy. She had to go by the police station this morning, and then she should be joining us."

"Harriet?” a little-girl voice called from the shop. “Are you here?” Bebe Brewster leaned into the room. “Oh, there you are,” she said when she spotted Harriet sitting between her Aunt Beth and Mavis. “ Carlton asked me to come by and have you fix this report."

She tottered to Harriet's side on the impossibly high heels of her gladiator sandals, a process made more difficult by the tight strip of pink fabric that surrounded her hips. The girl was wearing fishnet tights, and Harriet wasn't sure if the pink piece above them was supposed to be a skirt or an artfully placed shawl. Bebe flipped the papers in her hand back and forth, not quite fanning herself.

Harriet turned toward her. Bebe continued flipping the papers without handing them over. Aunt Beth finally reached out and grabbed the girl's left hand.

"Wow,” she said. “That's, ah…” She paused a moment, trying to find the right word to describe the obscenely large bauble adorning the younger woman's finger. “That's some ring you have there. What's the occasion?"

Bebe grinned and batted her eyelashes. “This ole thing?” She held her hand out, tilting it from side to side, catching the light with the stone and sprinkling the resulting twinkles around the room. “It's me and Carlton 's one-year anniversary. I know it's supposed to be paper or clocks, but I didn't want a watch, so Carlton decided to super-size my wedding ring.” Her smile widened as the Loose Threads ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the ring with a lack of sincerity that went right over her head.

Harriet cleared her throat and waited. When Bebe ignored her and kept talking, she grabbed her arm.

"The papers,” she said. “There's a problem?"

"Oh, yeah,” Bebe said, and laid the papers on the table. “ Carlton said there was a mistake in the security costs.” She pointed to a line that had been highlighted in yellow. “He said the cost went up the second and third day for the same amount of hours."

"See the little star beside the figure here?” Harriet pointed to a number on the page. “That star refers to a note at the bottom of the page.” She moved her finger to the bottom of the page. “See, it says here the on-duty Foggy Point policemen had to be paid at their overtime rate per hour. They get paid time and a half for overtime, so that's what we paid. Most of the security force was made up of private security people, but your husband made a deal with the mayor to use policemen, too. This is the price we paid for that deal."