Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13
C ora played with a piece of fabric in her lap when she called Brandon to put her back on the schedule. It had been raining all morning, and she sat in the bedroom among all the folded piles of fabric. She didn’t want to go back to the city, but her mother was right. She needed to be an adult, which meant she needed to keep a job.
“I was literally just thinking of you,” he said the second he picked up. She could tell he was driving somewhere.
“Oh, yeah?” she asked. “Why’s that?”
“I’m on my way to see Julian.”
Cora put the fabric down. He was going to see Julian. “Really? How’s he doing?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m headed up there now.”
“Wow, that’s so nice.” She picked at a loose thread. It was beyond nice. She looked back at all the time she had worked at the restaurant. Brandon had always been a stand-up guy, but this was beyond that.
“I told him I’d check in,” he said, sounding like it was no big deal, but to Cora, this was a very big deal.
“Where is he in Vermont?” she asked. “That’s got to be a far drive.”
“It isn’t close,” he said. Then she heard someone clear their throat in the background. A man’s voice. “Hey, Cora, I should let you go.”
“Brandon,” she said before he hung up. “Could you let me know how he’s doing?”
“Yeah, of course,” he said. “Have a good visit with your family.”
“Thanks,” she said. She didn’t know if she should tell Julian good luck or leave well enough alone. “Tell him I wish him well.”
“I will,” Brandon said and then hung up.
She looked down at her phone. To get to Vermont from the city would take Brandon an hour, maybe two. How could she ever pay him back for all that he had done already? And now, he was driving all the way there to check in on a guy he barely knew? While she sat at her mother’s cottage and felt sorry for herself?
She could text Brandon to ask to be put on the schedule.
In the meantime, she could prove to her family and herself that she could do this textile thing—that she could create and design her own fabric. She wanted to show them that it wasn’t some fairy tale but an actual viable career.
Hopefully.
She pulled out a new sketchpad she had found digging around in the piano room. She was almost certain it would have been her grandfather Jacob’s notebook. With a pencil, she started sketching hard lines with very geometric shapes but then stopped. She tore out the page and crumpled it into a ball, tossing it aside. It already looked like something she had designed before. She picked up the fabric. The way it wrinkled reminded her of the way sand ripples by the waves at low tide.
With the tip of her pencil, she sketched again, but this time with soft, smooth lines, mimicking the sand and the way the tides meet.
When the rain stopped, she stopped sketching and decided to walk to the beach. She put on the warmest sweatshirt she brought and took off on her walk. As she strolled the now familiar sandy path, she took pictures of everything. The waves, the seagulls, and the beach plum roses still trying to bloom in fall. She took pictures of how the sun made the water reflect on the ocean floor. She collected seashells, seagrasses, and sea glass. She noted the colors and the muted pastels in the granite cliffs.
When she returned from her walk, her mother and Gordon were emptying groceries in the kitchen.
“There she is,” Gordon said, chipper that morning. He nodded at the shells in her hands. “Have you been hunting for treasure?”
“You could say that.” Cora held up her hands filled with items from the beach.
Without having to ask, Meredith swooped a colander under her hand. “Here, let me clean them.”
“Thanks,” Cora said, feeling a little tension in the air. Her mother and she didn’t fight often, but Cora never felt good when they did. “I’m sorry I got upset last night. I know you just care about me.”
Meredith made a half smile, but worry lines still creased her forehead. “I am, too. I shouldn’t have had that conversation the way I did, when I did. Or in front of Quinn. I’m sorry.” Meredith put the colander in the sink and turned to Cora. “I do want you to follow your dreams, Cora. I never want you to give those up.” Then Meredith made that face she did when there was something else she wanted to bring up.
“But…” Cora said.
Meredith shook her head. “No, no buts.”
Meredith looked at Gordon, who said, “We want to support you in any way we can.”
Cora teared up. “Thanks.”
They didn’t discuss what that meant, but Cora’s heart felt a bit less anxious knowing she had her family’s support. They all unpacked the groceries and Cora helped put things away where she could, starting to get to know where most of it went.
When she opened the freezer, she saw freezer bags of wild blueberries that had been grown on her mother’s property.
“Do you have more frozen blueberries from the fields?” Cora asked.
“How much do you need?” Meredith asked, flicking on the light to the basement where the big freezer was.
“Can I just take a few cups for now?” Cora could make her own dye using the berries. With the fabric she had left, she could use the blueberry dye for a new design.
As she defrosted the blueberries and began boiling them.
“Do you have any alum?” she called out to her mother as she opened up the cabinets to find the spices. “You know for pickling?”
She’d soak the linen in the natural mordant. It wouldn’t give it a deep color like an iron fixative, but she wanted something soft like the waters of Blueberry Bay. Using the blueberries as the dye, seemed perfect for her process.
“I don’t know,” Meredith said, opening a cabinet that Cora hadn’t reached. “I bet Ginny does.”
Meredith texted Ginny, and twenty minutes later, she came over with a small spice container of alum. “I just finished pickling my cucumbers last week.”
After a small chat with Ginny, Cora got to work. She filled a large pot with water, added the alum, and put it on the stove. In a separate pot, she boiled the blueberries for a couple of hours until they were heavily concentrated. Then, she mashed them through a strainer to extract all the color as the fabric simmered in the mordant. She spent the rest of the day using small strips of fabric and dipping them into the dye, then drying and waiting. After seven batches and dozens of strips of light blues to deep lavenders, Cora finally got the color she had been looking for.
“Do you want to take a break and go for a walk on the beach?” Muriel asked as Cora lifted another strip from her mixture.
Cora gently laid the strip of fabric onto the counter she had taken over in her mother’s kitchen. She looked at all the strips. “I think this one feels right.”
“Feels right?” Muriel asked as though Cora had lost it a little bit.
But it did feel right. Cora’s heart started pumping with excitement. This felt…right.
This dye wasn’t like other dyes she had made in the past, where the color faded as it dried. This created much richer, deeper colors, like periwinkle, lavender, and pastel blues. She even created a light shade of pink by adding the blueberry mixture to powdered sugar. The colors were gorgeous.
“I think I’ve got my dye!” Cora jumped up and kissed her sister on the cheek.
“So, do you want to go for a walk?” Muriel didn’t see the possibilities that Cora did.
“Mom!” Cora called out, racing to the piano room. “Look at the blue!”
“I think it looks like purple,” Muriel said thoughtfully in the kitchen behind her.
Cora laughed because it did like a blueberry! And she laughed because she knew she had something special on her hands. “I think I need to do more colors.”
“I think we need to call Ginny,” Meredith said, pulling out her phone to call her next-door neighbor. “She did it.”
Ginny came over right away and picked up the fabric. “How about that. And you used our blueberries?”
“Yup.” Cora nodded as she carefully planned her next piece of fabric. She wanted to create a design for the fabric using her dye, so she needed to go to the hardware store quickly.
“So, are we going on that walk?” Muriel asked one more time, but Cora had already grabbed her keys.
“I can’t! I have to go to the hardware store before it closes,” Cora said, rushing toward the door.
“Wait for me!” Muriel came running out of the house with Cora. “I’ll join you.”
“I thought you wanted to go on a walk,” Cora said “I’m going to buy wood and stuff.”
“I know,” Muriel said. “I just wanted to hang out with you.”
Cora stopped and looked at her sister. Cora had been so wrapped up in her own demise that she had forgotten that her sister was going through a very important moment in her life. Muriel had been so happy and busy with the wedding planning that Cora hadn’t thought she wanted to hang out.
“That’d be great,” Cora said. And she should be grateful that her sister still wanted to hang out with her when she had a great guy willing to do anything for her at any time.
“We should listen to one of our old playlists,” Cora said as she got into the car and drove downtown. They spent the time on the drive talking about the wedding.
“Your bachelorette is in two weeks?” Cora asked, thinking about the next few weeks and what she needed to do. How many showers and parties would she be expected to attend and pay for, as well as buy gifts for?
She was going to go broke.
And driving to the hardware store to make silkscreens was also probably a bad idea.
But instead of worrying about it like she probably should, she turned up the music, and she and her sister belted out the lyrics to their favorite tunes as they drove to the hardware store. They passed through the small village with its white church steeple on top of the hill. The leaves had hit their peak colors, but the bronze of the oak leaves created a warm amber glow throughout the harbor town. Fisherman cottages dressed in gray and brown clapboard lined the road decorated with potted orange, yellow, and maroon chrysanthemums, big and small pumpkins, and colorful ornamental gourds.
They pulled into a parking spot and got out of the car as soon as she turned the engine off.
“So, what are you planning on doing with this blueberry fabric?” Muriel asked, following Cora into the store.
Cora didn’t have a clue, but she needed to make it. “I just think it’s going to be beautiful.”
She opened the door, and a bell swung against the glass, ringing out and alerting a black cat that scurried across the floor.
“Are you making a pillow? Or, like, a dress?” Muriel asked, kneeling down to the cat. “Hi kitty.”
The black cat sauntered over to Muriel and rubbed her fingers, then rubbed its whole body, including its tail, against Muriel’s leg.
“She likes you.” Cora went straight up to the counter to an elderly man who resembled Santa Claus. “Excuse me, I’m looking for someone to help me find these items.”
“I can do that for you,” the man said, putting on a pair of readers.
She passed him her list. “I’m making silkscreens.”
“Do you have the tools to assemble it?” he asked, taking the paper from her hand.
“Yes,” she said, wishing she had asked her mother before she left, but she was fairly certain Jacob or at least Quinn would have the tools she needed.
“Alright, follow me,” he said, waving at the women as he walked down the long aisle around the perimeter of the store.
Within twenty minutes, Cora had everything she needed, along with a blueberry pie recipe Hal’s wife made each year for the Blueberry Festival.
“Tell your mother I said hello,” Hal said as he rang Cora up at the register.
“I will,” Cora said. “Thanks again for your help.”
“I’d like to see the final product. My Vi loves sewing and making things with all different types of fabrics.”
“I’ll bring some samples in just for your wife,” Cora said as she grabbed her things, but Hal took half the bags for the women and walked them out.
“Thank you so much,” Muriel said to Hal.
“It’s good to see new life coming to town,” Hal said, placing Cora’s items in the trunk. “We want the young to stick around.”
“I’m just here visiting,” Cora said before she gave off the wrong impression.
“Don’t tell me you’re going back to that crowded, noisy city?” Hal shook his head. “You can’t get me there unless I’ve got a seat in Fenway Park. Why on earth would you leave such a beautiful place like Blueberry Bay?”
Cora opened her mouth to answer when she realized she didn’t really have a reason. Most of her friends had moved out of the city and into the suburbs. She had stayed because of her job and Madame Dubois, but now, who was she staying for if she didn’t even want to go back?
Then Brandon flashed in her head, and…it surprised her.
“The rent has got to be an arm and a leg,” Hal continued. “And all the people. You couldn’t drag me there.”
“It has some nice parts,” Cora said, thinking of her little neighborhood where she lived in the North End. She adored it. On Saturday mornings, she’d head down to the farmer’s market, where she’d frequently just meander among all the different carts and tents set up. She loved looking at the colors, touching the items, and feeling their textures. During the summer, tourists from all over the world flocked to the North End to eat some of the best Italian food around, but Cora preferred the little places down the back alleys that catered to locals. She’d walk to Quincy Market and have coffee or walk to the T and visit the art museum. Everything was just a walk away from where she lived. Even Brandon, who frequently joined her on her escapades around the city.
Then she thought about what Brandon had said on the street in front of her apartment. She deserved better.
“And to get anywhere!” Hal went on. “You need the whole afternoon just to get across town.”
That was true.
“Thank you for your help,” Muriel said, ushering Cora along to the car.
“Don’t forget to come back,” Hal said, waving.
“I won’t!” Cora waved as Hal stepped back. She did like the friendliness Blueberry Bay had to offer as opposed to the silence she got from strangers in Boston. In Boston, if she waved or said hello to a stranger, she had a fifty-fifty chance of getting an obscenity in return. But not in Blueberry Bay. People around here walked your things out to your car. And to see the rocky coast of the Atlantic Ocean every day was a nice bonus. Plus, her whole family lived in Blueberry Bay.
“Maybe I should move up here,” Cora said as they got into the car.
“Don’t say it,” Muriel said, changing the song.
“Why not?” Cora looked at her sister.
“Because you’ll get my hopes up, then you’ll get bored and want to go back to the city.” Muriel shrugged.
Cora wasn’t sure if Muriel was far off. She did get antsy, but what if she could learn something from Bonnie that she hadn’t with Madame Dubois? With Bonnie and her mill, Cora would learn every step. That excited her, but Cora decided to drop it. She didn’t want to get her own hopes up.
Once they got home, Oliver met Muriel for a walk, and Quinn met Cora in the garage.
“Let me help you with the frames,” he said, pulling out a tape measurer. “Your mom said that you need them put together with a screen.”
Muriel hadn’t even thought about the basics. She’d need to measure out the wood, cut it, then piece it together with glue and staples, cut the silk mesh, tape it…the list went on. “That would be really helpful.”
At first, Cora felt awkward working together with Quinn. She had never been alone with him without her mother. She worried he thought her fabrics were silly like her own father, but instead, Quinn asked questions about her craft, her experience working with textiles, and the history of silk screening. They talked about what she hoped to do with the fabric, how she wanted to use it, and her plans for the screens. He asked about her process for using the silkscreens and about her designs.
For the rest of the day and into the evening, Quinn showed Cora how to use all the tools in her grandfather’s garage, including the table saw. He told her stories about growing up in Blueberry Bay and a few about being a lawyer. By the end of the night, Cora had six beautiful silkscreen frames made.
“They look beautiful,” Cora said. She and Quinn stood in the garage looking at their work. The frames had turned out better than she could have expected. “Just, beautiful.”
Quinn crossed his arms and studied the frames. “They came together quite nicely.”
This made Cora smile. She liked Quinn. He had a quiet presence to him that felt calming. The night had passed quickly, and Cora left not only with six new silkscreens but with a whole new respect for Quinn.
“Thank you for all your help,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Anytime,” Quinn said, and Cora thought about her own father, who would say the same thing, but she never believed it as she did with Quinn. But that’s the difference between a man like Quinn and men like her father and Julian. She could only count on them fifty percent of the time.
She should have called her father like she promised or told him she skipped town. But even before the divorce, she never talked to her father about much. Parenting had been mostly up to Meredith throughout Cora’s childhood. Her father had always used the “full-time job,” as an excuse for not attending most of her recitals, sporting events, or minor ceremonies. He’d sometimes attended the big things, like her graduation or if her team made the finals, but there weren’t really any situations where he was guaranteed to be there.
“My mom’s really lucky to have met you,” Cora offered. But she was really thinking they were all lucky to have met Quinn. She hadn’t spent a lot of time with him, but what the past two years had brought for her mother was enough to see what a genuine guy he was. “Thanks for helping me.”
Quinn gave her a smile and said, “I’m looking forward to seeing what you create.”
Cora looked at the finished screens. “The possibilities are endless now.”
“Do I need to get like an LLC or something if I want to create my own fabric and sell it?” she asked, basically wishing at this point.
Quinn burrowed his eyebrows in interest. “Are you thinking of starting a fabric business?”
She hadn’t before that moment, but… “Maybe? I’d like to create fabrics with my designs and sell them. Maybe design a line of specialty items that I could sell at the little gift boutiques around Maine, like aprons and tea towels.” She watched Quinn’s expression as she kept going. “Maybe even bedding.”
Was she being ridiculous, thinking she could do something like that?
“I think that’s a brilliant idea,” Quinn said right away. Cora’s face lit up. “I know the owner of the Maine and More gift shop downtown. I’d be happy to introduce her to you.”
Cora would need to produce something in order to show the gift store owner if she actually wanted to do this.
And Cora finally figured out what she was chasing.