Chapter 15
KATE
Tell truth and shame the devil.
“It is nice to have young people around,” Linda comments after the door closes. “Very good of her to come along. Have you known her long?” she asks Bardy.
“My wife and I fostered her mom for a while. Tay hasn’t had the easiest start. I guess I feel a bit like a surrogate granddad.”
More like a dad, Kate thinks.
“She works in customer service.” He adds, “She recently got a promotion.”
“Has she? Who told you that?” Is Lou laughing at Bardy?
“Is she also at college?” Pia asks.
“No. Although she’s very bright,” Bardy says, and Kate thinks he sounds defensive.
“You can see that,” she remarks, and Bardy smiles at her.
“She does go to college two afternoons a week,” Lou intervenes, and now Bardy looks put out. Kate thinks he is going to say something, but then he turns to Pia. “So, have you had any more ideas? You mentioned you might be having second thoughts about quilting.”
Pia pulls what looks like an overnight bag toward her. “I did try and think of something else, but I’m afraid that is not the way my brain works. If I were able to draw, it would be simple. I would do that. It would be logical.”
“You are musical,” Kate suggests, “you said you played the piano.”
“Ah, but my family is so much better than I am. Everyone is so accomplished.” Her amber eyes twinkle.
“I find I do not like to be second best. No, I like to be good at things.” She shrugs, “Maybe that is why I am finding this so hard.” She unzips her bag.
“So I decided to go back to my first idea and look at one of the quilts I made in the past.”
She pulls a pale cream quilt from the bag. Very plain, but covered with delicate stitches. There is no other color. “I, rather like you, Leonard, have been doing my research.” She smiles warmly at him. “This type of quilt is what I believe you would call a Durham quilt.”
Linda is now stroking the edge of it, “Yes, that’s right. I remember these from my grandmother. Is this machine or handsewn?”
“We use a combination of both. It is really about the layering, building up the fabrics that will create the greatest warmth and softness.”
“It is beautifully soft,” Linda comments.
“I told you it was all about the ‘hygge.’” More twinkling. “The only thought I have had is perhaps the stitching could tell a story. I once read a phrase that talked of the shadows cast by the stitches.”
“Now that is poetic,” Linda comments. “I wish I’d written that.”
“So for now,” Pia continues apologetically, “this is all I have to share with you.” She turns to Bardy. “But you think it will be good enough? This idea.”
“Oh yes,” they all agree. Especially Bardy.
Kate looks at him and sighs inwardly. Just one of those things.
“So what about you, Kate?” Bardy is now focused on her.
Like Leonard, she pulls a canvas from her bag, but gingerly; her oil paints are still wet.
It strikes her that it feels natural to talk to these people about this—even if she doesn’t go into how painting felt like coming home, like Tash had said when she burst into the last meeting.
But it was like rediscovering a part of herself.
Even if she found the oils tricky to work with in many ways.
Kate turns the painting around.
“Oh what fun!” Linda cries.
Despite her best efforts, Kate starts to laugh.
“What?” There are confused exclamations. Pia and Lou combine in protesting, “But it’s really good!”
“I’m sorry,” Kate manages, grinning at Linda.
“It’s just I used to paint with someone who would always try to put you down.
” She holds her hand out toward Linda. “I’m not for a moment saying that’s you.
This woman was . . . well, she was more like Tash.
Looked down on us all, and her favorite put-down was to pretend she couldn’t tell what you had painted.
So, she might ask if something was, say, a sheep.
And when you said it was a hedge, she would cry, ‘Oh what fun!’”
Linda is laughing, “Well, I can see for certain that that is a mackerel.”
“Anyone could, Kate. It’s really good,” Bardy says.
“Why a mackerel?” Pia asks.
Kate props the painting on the ledge beside her, careful not to get paint on Lou’s walls.
“It was the strangest thing. I haven’t been able to paint or draw for ages.
I just couldn’t seem to get started. But after last week’s meeting, I woke up one morning and thought, I want to paint a mackerel. Weird.”
Had dwelling on the past and thinking about Alice unlocked something in her?
She doesn’t tell them this, but she does share, “Maybe it was because I’d seen a mackerel cloud the evening before down on the beach.”
“Ah, a mackerel sky!” Leonard proclaims, “Cirrocumulus at their best.”
Kate smiles, “No, not so much a sky with those lovely mackerel patterns, but an actual cloud that, well, looked like a mackerel. Bones and all.” This makes her think of Alice saying, “Paint how you see the world.” She knows Alice would have laughed at a glorious fish cloud swimming in a bright blue sky.
She remembers once, after one of Alice’s flying visits, pulling on an old navy blazer and finding an embroidered goldfish swimming out of the inside breast pocket.
Bardy is leaning in, looking at the painting. “This is great, Kate. Did you study art?”
Suddenly, she knows she’s on tricky ground. She says carefully, “I did for two years but dropped out when my mom died.”
The murmur of sympathy makes her feel like a fraud. She can’t bring herself to add: I went home to look after my dad. All she can think of is Alice.
“I thought you wanted to paint the view from your cottage?” Pia queries, and Kate is thankful for the diversion.
“I do. This is more of a practice piece.”
Bardy is not so easily distracted. “You could sell this, Kate. It’s great.” He presses, “Have you never sold any of your art?”
She looks around at their faces. She likes them so much.
Wants to keep coming to the group. Everything will change if she tells them the truth.
Even if they let her stay, they would feel awkward with a “professional” in the room.
Leonard would hate it. Or he would never leave her alone.
Also, isn’t it a bit arrogant to presume JoJo Rose was—is—such a big thing?
And, worse, she would have to explain all about her mom and dad and Alice.
“No. I’ve never sold anything.”
The briefest of silences follows. A breath. It is an infinitesimal gap. But to Kate, it seems a chasm. She cannot possibly take the step over and keep lying. She needs to laugh now and confess. These people don’t deserve to be lied to. She opens her mouth to speak.
The door handle to the café starts rattling furiously, and all turn to see a couple, their noses pressed against the glass.
“It’s open. Just give it a shove,” Lou calls to them.
The door swings open and a woman stumbles in. Youngish. Maybe not yet forty. She is followed by a man about the same age. He all but pushes her into the room.
“This is the place, Satya.” He nods at Bardy. “Hi Bardy, Satya is interested in doing more photography. Told her she should come along.”
Kate forgets what she might have said. She just wants to laugh. Satya looks like she has been dragged along. Not exactly unwilling but certainly flustered.
“Got to go!” He kisses Satya on the cheek. “Love you. See you later.”
Just before he heads for the door, he grabs Bardy’s arm and furiously whispers something to him that Kate can’t hear. She hears Bardy’s stifled bark of laughter.
His last cry at the door, to Satya, who is now taking off her coat and sitting down beside Kate, is, “Have fun!”