Tessa September Lee slipped his arms into his blue blazer and turned toward me.

"How do I look?"

"Good," I answered before wiping away a trace of shaving cream his razor had missed. "Definitely the best man for the job."

"Yeah?" He peered into the bathroom mirror and examined his reflection, as if worried that I was just being nice.

I wasn't. He did look good. Farmwork had made his shoulders wider, more solid, and his face, bronzed brown from working out of doors, was handsome against the crisp white collar of his shirt. But the sight of him dressed so formally depressed me. I knew he'd rather be wearing overalls and barn boots than a blazer and wingtips.

Lee flicked imaginary lint off his lapel. "Tie or no tie?"

"No tie. It's just a temp job. You don't want to look too anxious."

"I am anxious. I need this job. No point in pretending I don't." He pulled a blue paisley tie out of his jacket pocket and looped it around his neck. "The head of HR is George Korteka.s.s's cousin. He called her and put in a good word for me."

George Korteka.s.s was another accountant in Lee's division back in Boston. It was nice of him to recommend Lee, but I really wasn't keen on the idea of his taking this job; the company was clear on the other side of the state. Still, the pay was pretty decent.

"Here," I said, taking the ends of Lee's tie. "Let me do that for you."

"Thanks." He sniffed and leaned his head closer to my hair. "You smell good."

"It's a new shampoo I've been working on-orange and clove. I thought it might be good for the holidays. What time is your interview?"

"Not until eleven, but I want to get down there early. You never know what kind of traffic you'll run into on Ninety-five."

I finished making the knot and slid it into place under his shirt collar. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Stamford is such a long commute."

"Winter is coming. We need to order heating oil before the prices go up. If there were any job openings closer to home, I'd take them. n.o.body's hiring."

"I know. But maybe if I . . ."

Lee made an impatient noise, half sigh, half growl. "We've been over this ten times. It has to be me. A good holiday season for the shop would solve all our problems, and you're the only one who can make that happen. I've got no idea how to make citrus and clove shampoo. You do." He stretched his neck and hooked his finger inside his shirt collar, trying to get more comfortable. "Besides, it's not that far."

"Hour and a half each way."

"It'd just be for a few months." He smoothed the lapels of his jacket and looked at his watch. "Gotta scoot. I'll drop those coolers of tea off at the church before I leave town. Can you collect the eggs before you go?"

"Sure. When will you be home?"

"Dunno."

"Call me when you do. I'll be at the church helping out with the fair this morning, but I'll be in the shop after lunch. I want to hear how everything went."

He nodded and he fished his keys from his pocket. "Wish me luck," he said.

I kissed him on the lips. "Luck."

The weekend forecast predicted sunny skies with temperatures in the low sixties and a slight breeze from the northwest; perfect weather for drinking cider, wearing sweaters, oohing and ahhing over the fall colors, and going to a country fair.

The fair had been pulled together on such short notice that I wondered how people would know it was even taking place. As I crossed Commerce Street, carrying two shopping bags with my auction items, the answer was obvious.

At the west end of the Green, across from the stately white elegance of the New Bern Community Church, someone had stretched three long lines of rope between the trees and hung them with dozens of bright, colorful quilts that fluttered like flags in the breeze and commanded the attention of everyone pa.s.sing by. And as it was the peak weekend of fall foliage season, the pa.s.sersby were plentiful.

The fair wouldn't open until ten, but already there were cl.u.s.ters of people wandering between the artfully constructed corridors of quilts, taking pictures of them and each other, like visitors to a museum of masterpieces hung en plein air. Every parking spot on Commerce Street was filled and in the time it took me to cross the Green and find the silent auction, three buses pulled up to the curb and released streams of tourists who immediately made a beeline to the Green, drawn forward by the vivid colors and arresting patterns of quilts.

I found Candy Waldgren, who was in charge of the silent auction. Candy and I had served on the high school prom committee. We'd been friendly in school, though not close. Candy was pleasant but nervously energetic, involved in all kinds of church and community activities. Whenever we ran into each other, she'd say we must get together soon, but somehow we never did. I suppose she meant it, but like so many of my childhood friends and acquaintances, Candy had a busy life and a full circle of friends. She didn't have time to add another to the roster, not even an old new friend. It was probably just as well. When we were in school Candy had been something of a gossip. I had the feeling she still was.

"This is so generous of you, Tessa. Thank you so much," Candy said, pushing a stray lock of hair off her forehead and tucking it behind her ear before taking my bags. "This was all pulled together so quickly, I've been simply frantic. Next is the library fund-raiser. I don't know why I said I'd chair it, but I suppose someone has to. Mark Simonson was supposed to do it, but he had to pull out because of some unexpected 'work commitments,' " she said, making air quotes with her fingers.

"Work commitments, my foot. Sylvia's divorcing him, that's what. About time too. He's been cheating on her with a c.o.c.ktail waitress over at the VFW for years. Can you believe it? Poor Sylvia." Candy sighed with momentary pity. "Anyway, once I'm done with all that we've just got to get together and catch up on old times."

"Yes. Have you seen Margot Matthews? I'm supposed to help her sell tickets for the quilt raffle."

Candy already was busy refluffing the bows on my donated baskets but she looked up briefly to scan the crowd. "I don't see her. They were looking for help making sandwiches earlier. Maybe try the kitchen?"

Margot wasn't in the kitchen, but while searching for her I did find Jake Kaminski, who was setting up the dunk tank. He said Margot had run to the quilt shop.

"Why don't you wait at the raffle table? She'll be back in a minute." He crouched into a pitcher's stance and threw a baseball at the bull's-eye as hard as he could. He hit his target at dead center, releasing the spring-loaded dunk seat with a startling slam.

Jake straightened up and grinned. "Not too bad for a one-eyed man, eh?"

"Not too," I agreed.

I made my way back toward the quilts, past carnival booths that volunteers were scurrying to finish setting up, a roped-off area for the used book and tag sale, and a booth where Charlie Donnelly was already selling lemonade and cookies to hungry tourists.

The raffle table sat at the end of the center aisle of quilts, under the branches of a large tree still loaded with bright orange leaves. Seeing no sign of Margot, I took a stroll through the aisles of quilts, pausing before each one and marveling at the variety of colors, patterns, and styles. Some were simple, using only two or three fabrics to make bold statements; others were perfect mishmashes of color, with scores of sc.r.a.ps that I would never have imagined going together but that somehow did. A few of the quilts were very modern-looking, asymmetrical and abstract arrangements of shapes whose meanings and messages could only be guessed at. But most were very traditional collections of squares, rectangles, and triangles arranged into an orderly geometry of stars, hearts, and flowers, patterns created and crafted by women since colonial days and before, then shared among generations of mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends without credit or copyright.

The traditional quilts appealed to me most. I liked the history behind them and the balance. My Yankee roots were showing; we New Englanders prefer to live life in proper proportion and good order. Or maybe that's just what I prefer and I've generalized it into a regional disposition that suits my personal taste. Who can say?

I returned to the table just in time to see Margot approach carrying a big cardboard box. She smiled when she saw me, lifting her fingers from the edge of the box and fluttering them in greeting.

"Can I carry something for you?"

"Oh, no. It's not heavy, just bulky."

Margot set the box on the table and started unloading it. Inside was a roll of raffle tickets, a cash box, a gla.s.s fishbowl, some cla.s.s brochures for Cobbled Court Quilts, and, of course, the raffle quilt.

It was a square quilt, meant to hang on a wall rather than cover a bed, with nine multicolored blocks of red, yellow, orange, blue, brown, and green maple leaves on a white background, separated by panes of beige, with four borders surrounding the leaf blocks: a thin band of black, then a wider border made up of sc.r.a.ps of the fabrics that had been used in the leaves, then another black border and, finally, a wide border of a printed leaf fabric that incorporated the colors used in the large leaf blocks. I helped Margot unfold the quilt and hang it on a wooden frame so people could see it.

"Gorgeous!" I exclaimed. "Who made it?"

"I did. A couple of years ago. The fund-raiser came up so quickly that there wasn't time to make a new quilt, so I decided to donate this one."

"It's beautiful. I'm going to be the first to buy a raffle ticket. I've never won anything in my life, but who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky."

I fished a dollar bill from my pocket, put it in the cash box, and tore a ticket off the roll.

"And if you don't," Margot said, "you can always make one like it."

"Sure, if I had your talent and a couple of years with nothing to do but sew. Maybe I should buy two tickets."

I sat down on one of the folding chairs and began filling in my name and phone number on the back of my ticket. Margot sat down next to me.

"It's not as hard as you think. Evelyn always says, 'If you can sew a straight line, you can make a quilt.' Nearly all of these," she said, tipping her head toward the rows of beautiful, colorful quilts, "are made of straight lines. Nothing more. You should give quilting a try, Tessa. I wish you'd reconsider taking my cla.s.s."

"That's sweet of you, Margot, but I'm just not creative." I dropped one half of my raffle ticket into the empty fishbowl and put the other half in my pocket.

"Yes, you are! You're very creative! Look at what you did with For the Love of Lavender. The s.p.a.ce was so dark and gloomy before. You've transformed it."

I shook my head. "I reproduced it. From pictures in a magazine. Right down to the paint colors and the plates on the light switches."

"Well, what about all those wonderful potpourris and lotions you make?"

"That's just gardening and following a recipe. It's a whole different thing."

Our conversation was cut short when a woman approached the table to buy a ticket. Over the next two hours, Margot and I sold seventy-eight raffle tickets. In between customers, Margot kept at me about quilting, overruling my every objection.

When I told her I couldn't leave my shop during the day to take cla.s.ses, she suggested that Emily could watch the shop while I did. When I told her that today was Emily's last day before returning to college and admitted I couldn't afford to replace her, Margot said that I could join their quilt circle, a small group that included Margot, Evelyn, Evelyn's mother, Virginia, Ivy, who also worked in the shop, and Abigail Spaulding. The group met on Friday nights after work. Margot had an answer for everything.

"We need fresh blood in the quilt circle. Now that Abigail's niece, Liza, has moved to Chicago, we're down a member. And, actually, I already talked to Evelyn and the others about you. They think you're the perfect person to take her place. So do I," she said with a triumphant little smile, then crossed her arms over her chest and looked at me pointedly.

"You know something? I used to think that Evelyn Dixon's business savvy was the reason Cobbled Court Quilts is so successful, but now I'm beginning to wonder. I think you're her secret weapon. You just don't take no for an answer, do you?"

Margot giggled and dropped her arms, her posture changing from obstinate to amiable in the time it took to crack a smile. "I didn't spend ten years learning marketing in Manhattan for nothing."

Margot blinked twice, pausing for a moment before speaking. "Salesmanship aside, it would be good for you. I'd like to get to know you better, and I hope you don't mind my saying this, but . . . I think you could use some friends right now. Am I right?"

I didn't say anything, just dipped my head to one side to signal a.s.sent.

"You won't find a better group of women in the world than in our quilt circle. We're all as different as we can possibly be, but everybody has something to offer. We've been through a lot together, but what is said in the circle stays in the circle.

"You get all that and quilting too. You'll love it. Maybe you don't see yourself as a creative person, but if you've got an ounce of creativity in you, quilting will bring it out. Plus it's a great way to put aside your troubles and focus on something positive and productive. Quilting can even be therapeutic. It's way cheaper than therapy," she said with a self-deprecating laugh, "and a lot more fun. So? What do you say?"

I looked at the gla.s.s fishbowl where seventy-eight red raffle tickets already covered my lone and unlikely slip of chance, then glanced back at the maple leaf quilt.

"You think I could learn to make one of those?"

"Absolutely."

I was quiet for a moment, replaying her reasons in my mind.

"Friday night, you said?"

"Friday nights," she confirmed with a nod. "Six o'clock. You could come tonight if you wanted."

"No, not tonight," I said, thinking of Lee and his interview. Tonight I wanted to be with my husband. "But soon. You've convinced me."

9.

Madelyn Returning to New Bern has aged me-on many levels. I'm long overdue for a round of Botox, but that sort of thing is far out of my budget now. Maybe it's just as well. It never worked on that deep frown line between my eyebrows anyway. And another thing: Those injections hurt. They do. Don't let anybody tell you different. I don't miss that part one bit.

But I do miss my hairdresser. Deeply. My roots look awful. I can get away with backcombing over my part for another week or so, but then I'm going to have to pick up a bottle of dye at the drugstore or something. There are limits to how far I'm willing to succ.u.mb to the "natural look." But for today an altered appearance suits my purpose.

When I called to schedule a Friday morning appointment at the bank, I gave my name as Beecher. Eventually the bank manager is bound to figure out my connection to Sterling, but I'm hoping to buy myself some time before that happens-time enough to win him over and convince him that, my unfortunate marital status notwithstanding, I'm a good risk. I need a loan. I need it badly.

Just because I don't pay a mortgage on Beecher Cottage doesn't mean that I get to live here for free. The property taxes are high, and according to a letter I received from the town last week, they'll be higher next year. Utilities for such a large house aren't cheap either. The estimate for my winter heating oil nearly stopped my heart!

And then there's maintenance. Over the last few years of her life, I doubt Edna spent ten cents maintaining Beecher Cottage, preferring to leave that legacy to future generations-i.e., me. I've already spent over a thousand dollars on plumbing. I'm not talking about remodeling the dated bathrooms; this is money I've had to spend just to make sure the toilets flush. Don't even ask about the roof; I wish I hadn't. But those watermarks on the upstairs walls and ceiling are there for a reason. We've had a dry summer and fall, but come spring, when the snow melts on the eaves and April showers start to shower, what am I going to do?

In its current condition, Beecher Cottage is all but unlivable. But performing even the most basic and necessary repairs on the house will empty my bank account by a third-I've got estimates to prove it. With zero money coming in and lots of zeros going out for taxes, utilities, and repairs, how am I supposed to live?

I've got to sell Beecher Cottage; I've just got to. It's the only solution. But I've no hope of selling the house at any price unless I remodel it first. Remodel, not repair. New roof, new bathrooms, new kitchen, new appliances, new paint, wallpaper, and carpets-new everything. And, as everyone knows, new everything doesn't come cheap.

And so, with her crow's feet and worry lines in full flower, her hair backcombed and swept into a ponytail to hide the gray, and wearing the most nondesigner, nondescript outfit she owns, Madelyn Beecher is walking downtown to try to borrow one hundred thousand dollars from the New Bern National Bank.

The bank sits two blocks south of the Green, about a mile's walk from my house. The stone exterior is solid and serious, the interior cool and formal, with tall ceilings, ornate woodwork, wrought-iron teller cages, and marble floors that echo when walked upon. Employees work at desks on the outer walls of the lobby, their activities overseen by the bank manager, whose walnut desk sits on a raised platform in the center of the room surrounded by a carved wooden railing with a swinging gate that subordinates must unlatch before entering this holy of holies. Everything about the structure is designed to inspire confidence and a certain level of awe. Inside the sacred confines of New Bern National, no one speaks above a murmur, and no one questions the manager, Mr. Fletcher, a well-fed man, not quite sixty.

Until I saw his face, I didn't realize that Mr. Fletcher was, in fact, Aaron Fletcher, one of the few boys whose attentions I had utterly rejected in high school, partly because my taste trended toward athletes but mostly because his superior att.i.tude irritated me. Apparently, Aaron was unchanged.

He rose halfway from his chair with an acid smile and gestured for me to take a seat in one of the low chairs opposite his desk.

"Madelyn. Or should I say Mrs. Baron?" he asked in a voice slightly louder than necessary, a tone that attracted surrept.i.tious glances from customers standing in the tellers line. "How nice to see you after all these years. How can I help you?"

The moment he called me Mrs. Baron, I knew I was in trouble, but I had to at least try to win him over. I smiled as sweetly as I could and murmured some nonsense about it being good to see him as well and how impressed I was that he'd risen so far but that I wasn't really surprised, that even in high school it was apparent he was destined for big things. When I ran out of compliments, I leaned a little closer, close enough for him to spy a glimpse of cleavage (yes, I was that desperate), and made my request.

He listened, sort of, with his eyes glued to my decolletage. When I was finished, he looked up and proceeded to subject me to a ten-minute lecture on the links between the soft housing market, the credit crunch, toxic a.s.sets, bank failures, the Wall Street meltdown, rising unemployment, sinking tax revenues, and, if I recall correctly, the falling test scores among eighth graders in math and science, and the "shenanigans"-he actually used the word "shenanigans"-of Bernie Madoff and people like him.

The writing was on the wall. Aaron Fletcher was not going to give me a loan. Not today. Not ever. I gathered up my things.

Aaron rose from his chair and placed his hand on a stack of papers in the top tray of his in-box. "I've got sixty applications for home equity loans here, Mrs. Baron. All from honest, hardworking people who've done nothing wrong but have lost their jobs or their savings because of the greed of others. I doubt I'll be able to help more than one in twenty. Most of them owe more on their homes than the homes are now worth."

"Yes, I understand, Mr. Fletcher. Thank you for your time."

Being polite was an effort, but I made it. When you live in a small town, politeness is more than just good manners; it's a survival skill.

"Do you understand? Do you, Mrs. Baron?" He was grandstanding now, playing to the crowd of onlookers. His fleshy jowls wobbled as he moved to the other end of the desk and laid his hand on another pile of papers even higher than the first.