Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15
T he next morning, Cora woke up before everyone in the house and set out for the beach. As she walked along the sandy path, frozen from a cold night, she thought about her next steps. She needed to develop her brand right away, to create her place in the luxury textile landscape.
She needed to reach out to people who knew her talent. She had a professor who loved her work and had written her references. She also had a few contacts she had made while working with Madame Dubois.
But before she did that, she needed to become established. She needed actual samples of her designs ready to show, a website that looked professional and attracted business, and she’d worry about an actual space for her work later. If Bonnie could sell online, she could do it too.
She knew she wanted to create a collection of her designs with Blueberry Bay as her inspiration. If she hadn’t come to this small seaside village she may still be stuck in her old life, lost with who she was and who she wanted to be. Blueberry Bay opened her eyes to new possibilities.
When she creates enough swatches of fabric to send out samples, she’ll send them to as many interior designers, restaurants, and small boutiques along the East Coast as she can.
She finished her walk with more shells and ideas. When she got back to the cottage, she helped with breakfast as the house got ready for the day.
“What are you doing today, Grandpa?” she asked Gordon.
“I’m going lobster fishing with Kyle,” Gordon said with a wink. “Want to join us?”
“Please be careful,” Meredith said, making him a sandwich.
“It’s going to be an adventure!” Gordon pumped his fist into the air.
“I’m good,” Cora said, pouring a cup of coffee.
Muriel laughed and kissed their grandfather on the cheek. She wore her typical teacher outfit with her hair up in a bun. “I better get going. We have a speaker coming in today.”
When it was just Meredith and Cora in the kitchen, Meredith turned to Cora and said, “I thought you might need a space to do your silk screening.”
She handed over a key. “This is the key to the barn.”
“You’re letting me use Jacob’s barn?” Cora held the key in her palm. “Are you sure?”
Meredith nodded. “I’m really proud of you for chasing after something you want. I wish I had done that when I was your age.”
“Thank you.” Cora hugged her mom.
“There are a few little spaces where you can do your emulsion stuff,” Meredith said, remembering the process Cora had to follow for her designs on the silk screens. And if it gets too cold, there’s a woodstove that still works.”
Cora squeezed her mother. “Thank you so much, mom!”
She set out for the barn right away. Inside, it felt chilly on a fall morning, but she didn’t care as she looked around the space. It was perfect. Wide pine floors creaked as she walked around, checking out the space. She found a corner in the back that would be perfect for setting up her screens.
As she cleaned up, she found an old table, along with a desk and chair, that she could use. By the time Cora took a break, she had applied the emulsion to all six of her silkscreens and had them resting to dry on the table and a desk.
She covered the one window with dark fabric, darkening the space as much as possible. If sunlight hit the emulsion on the screens, it would ruin her design.
When she worked, her mind traveled back to Boston and back to Brandon. She wondered whether he really would come up. She imagined walking him along the beach, taking him to her grandfather’s barn, and bringing him to her grandmother’s mermaid statue.
She sent him a photo outside the barn. It showed the cottage sitting among the blueberry fields and granite cliffs of the Atlantic Ocean. Off in the distance, the white and red lighthouse could just barely be made out.
Gorgeous spot to write. She wrote.
Very tempting. He wrote back. Then he sent another message. How’s your fabric?
Cora smiled at his text. If there was one thing she most regretted about the whole situation with Julian, it was disappointing Brandon.
I call this one scallop and snails. She sent a picture of her newest design, a scalloped seashell with its fan-shape body and the swirling shell of a mollusk.
Clever name. He sent.
She laughed out loud.
It’s really beautiful. He wrote right after. What’s next?
A mermaid , she wrote, taking a picture of her drawing of her family’s mermaid, her favorite design yet.
It’s incredible.
She stared at the exchange between them. There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t be attracted to Brandon. Six foot two, muscular, and killer blue eyes. Brandon was always cool and collected. Never once had Cora seen him lose his patience with an employee or a customer, and that said a lot working in the restaurant industry. Over the years, she had seen customers flip out on him, employees do unprofessional things to him—including herself—and not once had Brandon been anything other than a complete gentleman in those situations. Even with Julian.
Julian.
She should probably call Julian and work things out between them before the wedding. But she was afraid of two things. One, she would lose it on him because she was still upset about losing her internship. Or the old Cora, who couldn’t think around him, would show up. No, it was better to take some more time away from Julian. Things seemed to only get worse when she was around him.
She needed to figure things out on her own and not have a guy get in the way again, so she put her phone away.
She went back to her designs. Thinking about her next steps.
She wanted more than just blueberry dye, mermaids, and shells. She wanted lots and lots of color. She wanted more designs and patterns. The more she thought about the possibilities, the more ideas filled her head like waves rolling onto shore. One idea after the other spun in her head. And with each new idea, her excitement grew. She was going to do this.
When she came in from the barn, Muriel and Oliver were hanging out in the kitchen.
“So, you're making fabric?” he asked, and he seemed genuine, unlike so many others who didn’t get what Cora was trying to do.
“I want to design fabrics for things like bed linens, tablecloths, and kitchen tea towels,” Cora explained to them, but she explained her plan to herself. “I want to design beautiful fabric that’s also versatile and functional, and that will last a lifetime.”
Muriel smiled with pride. “I think it’s a wonderful idea. You could set up shop here in Blueberry Bay. I mean, all you need is the internet and you could sell online. You could even make your own catalog with pictures and stuff. Put it on Etsy or eBay.”
“That’s a really good idea, Muriel,” she said, thinking about creating her own catalog online, like a virtual brick-and-mortar store.
That night, she sat up in bed, sketching more designs in her notepad. She couldn’t remember a time recently when she’d been this excited about designs. Ever since she’d left college, life had become too busy. She was busy working, doing all of Madame’s errands, dealing with her family’s issues, and doing everything but what she wanted to do, which was design fabrics.
She heard a knock on the door and peeked at her clock. It was past midnight.
“Come in,” she whispered.
The door creaked as her mother slowly opened it. “Hey, you’re still up?”
“You too?” Cora said to her mother, who was still in her daytime clothes. “When did Quinn leave?”
“Just now.” Meredith looked at her watch. “Geez, it’s late.”
Cora held her pencil as her mother sat down on the bed next to her.
“I didn’t think I’d still have to come into your bedroom at night and tell you to stop drawing and go to bed.” Meredith squeezed Cora’s hand to let her know she was joking.
“How did today go?” Meredith scooted further onto the bed.
“Great,” Cora said. “Thanks for letting me use the barn.”
“I really love having my family together under one roof,” Meredith said. “I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect time together, too. So many people don’t get to take time together before a big change like a marriage. Muriel may never stay in the same house with us again.”
“That’s sad.” Cora frowned at the thought of never having a morning together with Muriel.
“It’s life,” Meredith said.
“I don’t like that idea,” Cora said.
“Well, I don’t like the idea that my daughter’s old enough to get married,” Meredith said. “But here we are.”
“Are you disappointed that I’m not this super adult, yet, like Muriel?” Cora hated to admit her feelings. But was her mother disappointed? All she had from her years of piano lessons, and private swimming lessons, and good schools was a waitressing career and two pieces of fabric. “I’m sorry, I’m just”—she held up her hands at the pages of sketches— “all over the place.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, Cora, as long as you keep working at what you want.” Meredith smiled. Then gently shook Cora’s leg.
Cora didn’t say anything, just let the sound of the waves outside her window fill the space as her throat tightened up. And then, when she could gather her voice, barely over a whisper, she began to confess.
“I’m afraid I’m going nowhere, and no one will love me as much as Quinn and Oliver love you and Muriel.” The knot in her throat grew. “I feel like I’m a complete loser.”
“You are not a loser.” Meredith slid over on the bed closer to Cora and wrapped her arm around her. “That’s the hardest thing—not knowing if all your hard work will pay off, not knowing if you’ll find the right person. But it’s not only about the end goal; it’s also about the journey, because you’ll find yourself in that journey.”
Cora nodded, leaning into the crook of her mother’s arm.
“I promise you will find someone who makes you happy, but not until you’re happy first.” Then Meredith added, “That’s the story of us mermaids. We first fall for men we can’t have for one reason or another. And then we find the one.”
Cora thought about the relationships in her family. Her grandmother’s first husband had been unable to care for them, and they’d ended up divorced. Her parents’ marriage had ended after twenty-five years. Maybe it was best she had ended it with Julian when she’d seen the first signs of trouble. She had never officially been Julian’s girlfriend or in a relationship with him, but it had crashed and burned just as badly as the rest of them.
“You have to go through the storm in order to get to calm waters,” Meredith said.
Oliver was Muriel’s calm waters. Quinn was certainly Meredith’s calm waters. Even Gordon, her grandfather, who was her grandmother’s second husband, had been her grandmother’s calm waters.
“I just don’t want you to worry about me,” Cora said.
Meredith laughed a little at that. “You are the one I never worry about.”
“Really?” Cora looked up at her mother. That surprised her. Out of the three children, Cora hadn’t followed a straight path to meeting expectations. She always chose the less traveled, more difficult way. Muriel, on the other hand, always did what was expected of her without question. And Ryan had always been the golden child.
“You always took care of yourself,” Meredith said as though this were fact, but Cora didn’t believe her. “When Ryan was in the hospital after his accident, you took care of everything, no questions asked. I’d come home from staying with him at the hospital and the house was clean, there was food in the fridge, and you’d take your sister to school. Your father had gone to work pressed and ironed. You’d stepped into my shoes without any hesitation or problem.”
Meredith squeezed Cora again. “You roll with what life gives you and then slam into it full force like a tidal wave coming into shore. You don’t let anything stop you.”
Cora smiled at the analogy. She had forgotten the months her brother had been hospitalized after a car accident. With the grace of God’s goodwill, Ryan had recovered fully from his injuries, but the first few weeks, even months, had been touch and go. Death had literally stared their family in the face, and Cora had answered by stepping in her mother’s shoes. When her mother stayed at the hospital to be by Ryan’s bedside, Cora went home and prepared meals for everyone to eat. When Ryan had to learn to eat and talk and walk again, she’d cleaned out the cupboards and kept up on everyone’s schedules. She’d been the one who’d sent the thank-yous to everyone who supported them, signed by her mother. She’d been the one who’d greeted every visitor and well-wisher at the door.
“Mom?” Cora didn’t know if she was making a huge mistake or not, but she couldn’t start a journey without taking the first step. “Do you think I could stay here while I work on my designs?”
Meredith squeezed Cora with both arms. “You can stay as long as you need.”
That night, Cora hardly slept. She woke up in a cold sweat, worried she had forgotten her ideas and designs.
When daylight broke, she traveled downstairs to find her mother and grandfather reading in the living room, with a fire crackling in the fireplace.
“Good morning,” she said, staring at the flames dancing inside the hearth. Charcoal glowed shades of oranges and reds, with pulsating embers. She wanted to create that color, the color of charcoal, and the color of the sky on an autumn morning. She wanted to create all the colors.
“I’m headed to the mill this morning,” Cora reminded them as she poured herself a bowl of cereal. A flutter of excitement hit her belly. “Bonnie texted me last night. She found her father’s original workbook with the different fabric blends he created.” This had been the buried treasure Cora had been looking for. Like a recipe for a cake, so were the instructions on how to make his cotton-linen blend.
“Well, that worked out,” Muriel said, coming downstairs already dressed and ready for work.
“You look nice,” Cora said.
“Thank you.” Muriel twirled and showed off her dress. “I got this last summer at that shop with you over in Burlington.”
“Oh, right.” Cora remembered their outing together at the mall that sat in between Boston and Concord, New Hampshire. “Think of how much has changed.”
Last year, Muriel lived in Concord, New Hampshire, to be near her longtime boyfriend, Zack, while he went to law school.
“Do you even know what Zack’s doing now?” Cora wondered if he’d ever figured out what he had lost by not marrying Muriel.
Muriel shook her head. “I have no idea.”
Cora never would have believed when she’d gone shopping with her sister, who had looked at engagement rings without an engagement, would be marrying someone other than Zack.
If things had worked out for Muriel, maybe things could work out for Cora. Maybe it was the change of pace or place. Maybe the disaster at the show with Madame Dubois; either way, she needed something to change.
She grabbed her sketch pad, a slice of banana bread, and the lunch she had packed the night before and took off for the LeCroix mill. The fifteen-minute drive seemed to only make her nerves more jittery. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. She had worked with some of the top textile designers on the East Coast. So why was she freaking out that she was going to some dinky little mill?
When she walked through the front door, Bonnie waved at her, shuffling right toward her. Her petite, stout roundness moved quicker than Cora had expected, and before Cora had a chance to compose herself, Bonnie was ushering her toward the machines.
“I spent all weekend going through my father’s books,” Bonnie said.
“You shouldn’t have done that for me.” Cora’s body immediately flooded with guilt. “I didn’t mean for you to work all weekend.”
“I enjoyed every minute of it!” Bonnie said. “I forgot how really special my father was in this industry.”
Bonnie picked up a binder and handed it to Cora. “He called it his Fabric Bible.”
Cora opened it up. Scribbles filled the pages with words she couldn’t read.
“It’s mostly in French.” Bonnie tapped her finger at the columns of the pages. Some words were written in English. “My father tried to go through and translate as he needed it. I’d give anything to be able to go over it with him, but…”
Cora half-smiled, sympathetic to Bonnie's loss. “Are you sure you don’t mind sharing this with me?”
“As long as you keep me in mind when you become a famous designer.” Bonnie flipped the pages of the binder to the middle of the pages. “This is your fabric, I think, but I’m not exactly sure. Feel free to take a picture of his notes.”
Cora looked at the words but could barely make out the English. Scribbles filled the page.
“If we can figure out the process,” Bonnie said. “I think we could produce that fabric using old Bernie here.”
She patted the large loom that sat in the middle of her office.
“Really?” If Cora could get that fabric, she could start her collection of samples right now. “That would be amazing. What do I need to do?”
“Learn French,” Bonnie said.
Cora promised to take care of the binder, and for the rest of the day, she followed Bonnie around the mill, learning everything there was about the process of their textile manufacturing. The mill had been known for its bedding and bedspreads and, at one time, sold to large department stores throughout the country. However, with prices going up, recessions, and resources going overseas, the quality of the materials they used had gone down, and now they made generic, cheap linens for mass production.
“My grandfather would probably be ashamed of me at this point.” Bonnie shook her head. “I’m going to have to close the doors if I want to retire. Who wants to deal with a mill that’s barely making any money? Our business is nothing like it used to be back in my grandparents’ day.”
Cora didn’t know what to say. The fabric she had come here to find was nowhere to be found. The cheap synthetic blends felt scratchy and stiff, hard against the skin. She couldn’t imagine being in a nursing home and having to rest on the sheet they produced. She could see why business wasn’t booming.
But production looked smooth. Cora didn’t know much about this part of the textile industry, but the mass production of linens seemed to work effortlessly as the workers did their jobs, and Bonnie walked around without having to do much more than oversee.
“You run a really tight ship,” Cora said, impressed with how efficient everything ran. The whole floor where the machines weaved the material appeared clean and well-kept.
“It can be a dangerous place,” Bonnie said. “You need to make sure everyone is following the right steps, so no one gets hurt.”
Cora had once gone on a field trip to the mills near Boston. They’d shared stories of girls’ hair and limbs being caught in the machines, fires that had started from the loose fiber dust in the air, and people who had gotten sick from poor air quality. So many horrible things had happened in textile mills over the years. It was nice to see how serious Bonnie was about keeping her workers safe.
Hungry, Cora took a lunch break and went to the staff room to eat. She pulled out her phone and noticed her dad had called and sent a text message saying, Call me.
But she didn’t call her father until after dinnertime, when she left for the night. She dialed his number as she waited for her car to heat up. The autumn days were getting colder, and most of the leaves had fallen by then.
“Cora,” he said.
“Hey, Dad.” She played with some of the cotton fabric Bonnie had let her take home, pulling apart its edges as she sat there.
“I wondered if you were going to tell me you aren’t working at the restaurant anymore, or were you just going to make your mother tell me everything at this point?”
She took a deep breath before responding. A trick Brandon had taught her while waiting on tables with rude customers. Her dad thought he had a right to be angry, but to Cora, he did not.
“I just left my job,” she said, but each word grated at her. What made him think he had a right to know anything that was going on with her?
“Your mom told me you lost your internship, too,” he huffed out. “And from what I heard about your show, it was not a pretty situation.”
“Dad.” Cora interrupted his rant. “What do you want? Are you just calling to yell at me?”
She may be his daughter, but at almost thirty, she no longer allowed her father—or anyone else—to yell at her.
“I asked you to come by and see your family, and not only did not answer me one way or the other, but then left the city without bothering to say anything to me. You know, I’m still your father.”
“How did you hear about the situation at my show?” Cora hadn’t told her mother about it.
“I went to the show and heard from one of your friends that you were asked to leave by Madame Dubois,” he said without taking a breath. “I couldn’t believe it. You’ve never been fired. From anything. Then I went to the restaurant and found out that you don’t work there anymore. What has gotten into you?”
“I should have asked the same thing.” Cora couldn’t believe that her father, the biggest hypocrite of them all, was giving her a hard time about her life! “You have no right to talk to me about my choices after the choices you’ve made.”
“I’ve made some bad choices, but?—"
“Ha!” Was her father being serious right now? “Bad choices?! You literally make one bad choice after another, and you expect me to listen to you?” She could feel her emotions building up in her chest. “I have to go. I’ll call you later”
She hung up before he could stop her. She had nothing more to say to him.