Chapter Three
Gracie and I always leave the house as soon as I lower the quilting frame out in the garage. I meant to tell you sooner, but you were so busy with the computer that I didn’t want to interrupt you,” Walker said on Friday evening when he locked up the store.
“Why?” Tina asked.
“Today is the last Friday of the month.”
“I know that, and also that it is quilting night, but why do we have to leave?” Tina continued as she got into Walker’s truck.
“We disappear for a few hours to give the old gals some time to catch up on the gossip. We could just stay in our rooms, but where’s the fun in that?
” he answered. “Mae and Cleo have been so busy all day getting the food ready for the evening that they haven’t had time to make supper.
So tonight, Gracie and I are driving over to Bard for a picnic.
You are welcome to go with us, but if you don’t want to, my advice is to stay in your room and let Cleo and Mae have their time without us around. ”
Was he really inviting her to go somewhere with him after she’d been standoffish all week? But in her defense, she had thought maybe he wasn’t really warm, either.
Her therapist’s voice popped into her head. Can you blame him if he isn’t all warm and fuzzy? He doesn’t really know you anymore. You aren’t that kid who constantly got into trouble because you wanted your parents to pay attention to you instead of being so wrapped up in each other.
“I remember a quilting night when we were kids. My folks were out of town, and I stayed with Mae and Cleo for a couple of days. They let me help thread needles. They may want me to stick around and do that tonight,” Tina said.
“Suit yourself, but if you change your mind, be ready to go soon as Gracie gets home. She wants you to ride with her so that she can fill you in on . . .” He paused.
“On what?” Tina’s curiosity was piqued.
“That’s her story to tell, but if you go, we’ll be home by eleven. That’s when the quilters break up the party. They sip a little moonshine and eat way too much sugar while they work. If they’re tipsy, we might need to take them home.”
“What about their vehicles?” Tina asked.
“Most of the time, they have designated drivers and come together in two SUVs.”
“I sure don’t mind helping, but why can’t I return with Gracie?”
“She won’t be back from Bard until Sunday evening, or maybe Monday or Tuesday now that school is out for the summer. And you sure ask a lot of questions for a girl who was always ready to go do something on a whim,” Walker said.
“That girl got into a lot of trouble.”
“Yep, she did, and so did her two friends who would have walked on hot coals for her. Like the night we went joyriding in your folks’ antique Caddy.
Or maybe when we used your fake ID to buy liquor and a New Mexico policeman stopped us?
We would have all been in jail if your folks hadn’t come and bailed us out—again. ”
“God bless good old Mama and Daddy.” Tina’s tone dripped with sarcasm. Not even five years’ worth of therapy could totally erase the bitterness in her heart. “That reminds me, I should send them a text to tell them that I won’t be intruding on their lifestyle anytime soon.”
“Forgive them,” Walker said. “Not for ignoring you except when you were in trouble, but to get that hard, cold knot out of your chest. Love and hate cannot survive in the same place.”
“They weren’t your parents,” she whispered.
He chuckled. “No, but Bull was my grandfather.”
“Point taken,” Tina said. “Just a couple more questions, though. Why are y’all going to Bard? Isn’t that still a ghost town? And where is she staying? There’s not a house or even an old hotel over there.”
“That’s also her story to tell, but if you go, you’ll be riding with her, so she can answer your questions. I’m sure she’s been dying to tell you all about this past year, but Mae and Cleo have been underfoot all week,” Walker replied.
“Well, with all that buildup, I wouldn’t miss going with y’all for anything, and I didn’t say anything to Mae or Cleo about helping out with the quilting,” Tina said.
“But this better be good. I’m tired and was looking forward to a long bath in that big old deep tub, and afterwards catching up on Poker Face.
Besides, I thought she was working for her folks all summer. ”
“Only when she has time. She also writes children’s books, so that gives her a good excuse to do whatever she wants.” Walker stepped inside the foyer and yelled, “Your quilting-frame magician is home! I smell chocolate. Is it brownies or cupcakes?”
“You leave the brownies alone.” Cleo appeared out of her bedroom and shook her finger at Walker.
“But I’m hungry,” he argued.
“You can have one cupcake from the ones on the cabinet. The icing isn’t as pretty on those as the ones we’re serving the girls. Everyone will all be here in thirty minutes, which means I don’t have time to make any more.”
Her salt-and-pepper hair had been set in finger waves, and she had topped off a red-and-white-checkered blouse with chunky multicolored jewelry that rattled with every step.
“Don’t you look beautiful,” Tina said and sniffed the air. “And you smell just like I remember back when you were going somewhere special.”
“Thank you,” Cleo said with a grin. “It’s Chanel No. 5. Mae gives me a little bottle every year for Christmas. But don’t think you can say sweet things and I’ll let you have more than one cupcake.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Tina said. “But if there happens to be leftovers, I would be glad to help get rid of them tomorrow.”
Walker picked up one of the chocolate cupcakes as the three of them went through the kitchen toward the garage. “This will give me enough energy to make it out to the garage. Are those extra sandwiches over there on the cabinet, too? Did you make them just for us kids?”
“Of course I did,” Cleo said.
“You could charm the pantyhose off a nun,” Tina laughed.
“Hello, everyone. I thought I heard y’all talking. How do I look?” Mae entered the kitchen and turned around a couple of times to show off a flowing floral blouse worn over a pair of loose-fitting dark blue pants.
Tina did a perfect curtsy. “Like a queen.”
“Oh, stop it.” Mae blushed and beamed at the same time. “Walker, you watch Tina and tell me if she licks the icing off any of those cupcakes and throws away the rest like she did when she was little.”
“You know me all too well,” Tina said. “At this stage of my life, if one of y’all’s cupcakes fell on the floor, I might do battle with a grizzly bear if he tried to get at it, no matter how ugly it is.”
“Honey, that don’t surprise me one bit,” Mae said. “Folks grow up, but the nature they are born with stays pretty close to the same. Me and Cleo helped raise y’all, and we’re glad to have the family back together—we always knew you were a scrapper.”
Cleo went straight to the end of the food table, crossed her arms over her chest, and guarded it.
“Amen to that, but this table is off limits to the both of you. I got to admit that it’s kind of nice to need to say something like that again—we missed you kids when y’all scattered seven ways to Sunday after you graduated.
Mae got so cranky that I thought I was going to have to find another place to live. ”
Mae popped her hands on her hips. “Well, you acted like somebody had done up and died.”
“I was going through menopause!” Cleo countered.
“We was both long since out of menopause when the kids left the nest.”
“You should have been one of them psychiatrist people. I swear, it wasn’t no grief we was going through,” Cleo declared.
“It was late menopause. I looked it up on the internet, and them people on there tell the truth. Now, Walker, you and Tina go get that quiltin’ frame down from the ceiling and set up eight chairs around it, two on each side.
I’m not sittin’ beside Mae tonight. She’s too moody. ”
“Me?” Mae growled. “I don’t want to sit by you, either, and if I hear any juicy gossip, I’m not tellin’ you.”
“Yes, you will,” Cleo argued. “You might not tonight or even tomorrow, but if you don’t tell me by Monday morning, you will have a stroke and explode.”
In the garage, Walker chuckled as he and Tina lowered the quilt rack down to the right level.
Spools of thread bounced in the middle like little kids on a trampoline.
Eight needles stuck around the edges marked the places where the chairs should go.
They eased it through the doorway and back to the pair.
“Y’all haven’t changed since I was a little girl,” Tina said.
“We’ve gotten old, but just like you three, we are the same as we was the first day that Cleo came to school here in Benson,” Mae said. “She was every bit as cantankerous then as she is now.”
“I was scared out of my mind to come to the white school,” Cleo said. “I was the only little Black kid in the first grade. Mae took me under her wing, and we been best friends ever since.” She turned slightly to face her friend and grinned. “I love you, girl!”
“Hush!” Mae barked.
A warm feeling spread throughout Tina’s whole body.
Someday she, Walker, and Gracie would be just like Cleo and Mae.
Neither race, religion—or lack of—politics, ethics, nor anything else could ever break the bond they had.
She’d proven that to herself when she came back to Benson.
Now it was just up to Gracie and Walker to figure out that she was dead serious about never leaving again.
After abandoning them, she would gladly be patient for however long that it took them to know what was already in her heart.
“You kids get on out of here and let us old hens cluck around the quilt.” Mae giggled at her own words. “We can tell you stories about the olden days another evenin’, when we ain’t got company coming.”
“I believe they are kicking us out,” Tina said.
“Ain’t no believe to it,” Cleo said. “You can leave or go to your room. It’s your choice.”