I'd heard of Abigail Burgess Wynne Spaulding, she of the many surnames-who in New Bern hasn't? But I'd never met her. Rumor is that she owns half the town. Rumor also is that, after her recent marriage, she prefers to be called Abigail Spaulding.

She was beautiful for her age (though it was hard to tell exactly what her age might be), elegantly but simply dressed in a pair of light wool slacks, sweater, and a tweed jacket that said old money. She was tall, though not as tall as I'd expected. Her wedding earlier in the summer-or rather her re-wedding-to Franklin Spaulding, her attorney of many years, had been the talk of the town.

When Abigail's niece, Liza, who'd been engaged to Evelyn's son, Garrett, got cold feet and backed out of the wedding, Abigail and Franklin used the occasion to renew their own vows. It was, I'd heard, the wedding to end all weddings, with lobsters trucked in from Maine and music by a twenty-five-member orchestra. Afterward, they'd headed off to Bermuda for what was supposed to be a two-week honeymoon, but they'd liked it so much that they stayed on until fall.

Since Abigail's niece had called off the engagement to Evelyn's son, I wondered if there might be any tension between the two women, but if there was, I certainly didn't see it. They looked to be the best of friends.

"h.e.l.lo, all," Abigail said cheerily. "Evelyn! Good news! Your wedding present has finally arrived. I'm having it delivered to your house tomorrow afternoon at two. Will you be home?"

"Abigail, you didn't have to give us a wedding present. . . ."

"You're certainly right!" she retorted in pretended offense. "If you're not invited to the wedding, you don't have to send a gift."

I'd heard about that too. Apparently Evelyn's wedding to Charlie had been a very last-minute affair. Though they'd been dating for years, so, really, does that count as last minute? In any case, they'd finally decided to tie the knot and eloped to Ireland for the honeymoon.

"Getting married without me. Tsk, tsk. How could you? However," Abigail said magnanimously, "I have decided to forgive you."

"That's big of you, Abbie."

"Isn't it?" she said with a little smile before turning to face me. "Who are you?" Her expression was pleasant, but I was a little taken aback by her abrupt manner. I'd heard that Abigail Spaulding was a little odd. Guess I'd heard right.

Margot came to my rescue. "This is Tessa Woodruff. She owns For the Love of Lavender."

"For the Love . . . Oh, yes. Yes, of course! You're the one who's joining us on Friday nights, aren't you?" Abigail exclaimed in recognition as she reached out to shake my hand. "I've seen your shop. Very sweet. I keep meaning to go in. . . ."

Story of my life.

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Spaulding."

"Please, call me Abigail."

"Tessa is here to pick out fabric for a quilt," Virginia said.

"Well, I'm here for the same reason. Ted Belden has talked me into making a quilt for the library auction." Abigail rolled her eyes. "I don't know why I agreed to it. It'd be so much easier, and probably more profitable for the library, if I just wrote a check. But Ted is insistent. I can't think why. It's not as if my quilting talents are particularly legendary."

Evelyn tipped her head to one side. "Maybe not, but you are."

"Oh, stop it."

"I mean it, Abbie. You know everybody in town. The chance to own an Abigail Original will generate a lot of interest, might start a bidding war."

"I seriously doubt that. But," she said, heaving a martyred sigh, "I've already agreed to do it, so there it is. I just can't make up my mind about a pattern. It can't be anything too complicated. I don't have time for that. The auction is the Sat.u.r.day after Thanksgiving. What are you making, Tessa?"

"This," I said, showing her the picture.

"Oh, this is lovely. I'd have no trouble getting this done in time." She drummed her fingers on her cheek. "Hmm. Christmas colors, I think. Something festive. Tessa, what colors are you using for your quilt?"

"We were discussing that when you came in," Bella replied.

Abigail peered at the photo again. "Well, you really could use anything, couldn't you? Should be fun to make."

When Margot brought up this whole thing I'd thought it would be fun, too, but I was beginning to have doubts. "I wanted to make the exact same quilt Margot did, with the exact same fabrics. But if they aren't in stock, what do I do? There must be a dozen different fabrics in this quilt."

"More like twenty," Connie replied. "It's very sc.r.a.ppy."

I groaned. "Twenty? How am I supposed to find twenty fabrics that look good together?"

"By starting with one," Virginia declared, "and building from there. What are your favorite colors?"

"Green. Blue. Purple. Actually lavender, like the plant."

Virginia shook her head. "Then why in the world were you planning to make an autumnal quilt? Never mind," she said, waving me off before I could answer.

Virginia walked to the opposite side of the room and stood in front of one of the triple-decker shelves, with her hands on her hips. "Something came in last week that might do for your border. Now, where did it go? Oh! Here we are!" Virginia was a tiny thing. She rose up on her toes but could barely reach the top display shelf.

"Let me get that for you." Bella bounded to Virginia's side, pulled down the bolt Virginia pointed to, and then carried it to the cutting table before rolling it out.

"Oh, that's pretty," Connie said.

It certainly was. The collage of leaves in rich shades of green, blue, turquoise, and taupe was veined with threads of gold that glittered, but barely, giving those deep colors a lighter, almost translucent feel, like sunlight shining through treetops. I loved it. Even more than I loved the border on Margot's quilt.

"Do you think this would work?"

"Absolutely," Evelyn a.s.sured me. "And with so many colors to play off, you can take this in all kinds of directions, really make it your own."

I reached out to touch the fabric, rubbed it between my fingers. It was so soft. I never expected cotton to feel as smooth as silk. "I love this shade of green," I said, pointing to one of the leaves.

"So," Margot said, "if you use that green as your anchor color, then add a few more shades, maybe pick up a couple of the background colors as an accent, just to give it some punch . . ."

"Like this?" Abigail pulled a fabric the color of a ripe pear off the shelf and laid it next to the leafy print. It was a perfect choice, picking up the subtle veins of gold in the leaves and making the other colors richer without overpowering them.

"Oh, I like that!" Virginia exclaimed. "But Margot's right. We need more green. How about these?" she asked, pulling out two more fabrics from the shelf.

"Or this," Evelyn said, carrying another bolt to the table. "Do you like this sage color?"

"It'd be nice to bring in a little more turquoise, just a touch," Bella added, eyeing a shelf loaded with blue and turquoise fabrics.

Soon everyone was engaged in the hunt for the perfect color combinations, even me. I found two more greens, rejected one as too muddy but left the other, a diamond print a shade or two brighter than emerald, on the table with the bolts under consideration. Twenty minutes later, we had twenty beautiful fabrics that, miraculously, looked beautiful together-my diamond print among them.

"Now we'll need a good neutral," Connie said. "Ivory, leaning a little toward yellow. Like the pages of an old book."

"That's what this reminds me of," I said, brushing my hand across the bolts. I still couldn't get over how soft they felt. "When I was a little girl, I used to collect autumn leaves, then lay pieces of paper over them and make rubbings of green and blue and yellow and paste them in a sc.r.a.pbook. I think I had some idea of trying to preserve the summer in them. This is sort of like that, a leaf sc.r.a.pbook in fabric."

"Well, there you go," Margot said, spreading her hands. "You've got a concept, an image to aim for. And you told me you weren't creative." She clucked her tongue, pretending to scold. "You've been holding out on me."

"Yeah," I deadpanned. "That was it. My latent creativity has suddenly emerged. Margot, you never told me that quilting was a team sport."

"Didn't I? Well, it is. And you're now an official member of the team. We've got jerseys and hats and everything."

Margot was teasing, but from what I'd just seen, there was some truth in what she said. When I walked into the shop that evening, I'd felt like a party crasher. Not anymore. As soon as I'd expressed an interest in quilting, these women I barely knew started scurrying from one end of the shop to the other, carrying bolts, thumping them down on the table, seeking my opinion, smiling when they'd hit the mark, gamely hauling them back to the shelf if their choice was rejected, just as engaged in the process as if they'd been making it for themselves. It was incredible.

I'd yet to sew a single st.i.tch but already I realized there was more to this quilting business than just making blankets, a lot more. And whatever it was-a club, a party, a team-I wanted to be part of it.

14.

Tessa Aspool of cotton thread, plus four full yards of fabric and sixteen of those eighteen- by twenty-two-inch fabric cuts that quilters call "fat quarters" made a pretty, and pretty large, pile on the checkout counter.

Bella and Connie had gone off to meet their father for dinner. Abigail was standing at the cutting table, debating the merits of white snowflakes on a bright red background versus scarlet poinsettias on ivory and gold as a border fabric. Margot stood next to her, rotary cutter in hand, waiting for Abigail to reach her decision. Virginia was working at her quilting frame near the big display window while Petunia rubbed against her legs. Evelyn stood at the register, ringing up my order. I stood with pen poised over my checkbook and braced myself for the total.

"Thirty-eight dollars and twenty-four cents."

I frowned. "That can't be right."

"Yes, it can. Four yards of fabric, plus tax, comes to thirty-eight twenty-four."

"But what about the fat quarters and thread?"

"There's no charge for those," she replied with a quick shake of her head. "Part of our can't-miss marketing strategy for novice quilters. We build up your fabric stash to the point where you're really hooked. Once that happens, you're ours for life."

"That sounds kind of sinister."

"Nothing of the kind. Quilting fabric is calorie-free, nontoxic, and made from one hundred percent cotton. It's practically organic. Can I help it if my customers can't seem to get enough of it? We all have our little vices."

"And it's your job to feed them?"

She shrugged. "Somebody's got to."

"Very funny. Evelyn, you can't give me free fabric."

"Yes, I can. I own the joint."

Before I could argue with her, the doorbell jingled. Evelyn looked up and called out, "Hi, Candy. Did you decide to sign up for the applique cla.s.s after all?"

Candy Waldgren said h.e.l.lo to the group, then shook her head. "No time right now, Evelyn. I'm swamped. One of these days I've just got to learn to say no. I'm on committees for the library fund-raiser and the Christmas tree lighting on the Green, and I'm in charge of costumes for the church pageant. Maybe I'll have time to take a cla.s.s after New Year's, but right now, I'm just making pillowcases. My grandson is going through a cowboy phase. Do you have any Western fabrics?"

"Right there in the juvenile prints. Let me show you." She came out from behind the counter to help Candy, leaving me to fill out my check.

Lee was right, I shouldn't have said anything about the store being in trouble. She meant well, but I wasn't buying Evelyn's "novice quilter discount" story, not for one minute. I hesitated for a moment before writing in the amount Evelyn had quoted, telling myself I'd figure out a way to repay this unsolicited favor.

Candy quickly chose two fabrics from the shelf, one with a blue bandanna theme, the other with scenes of bucking broncos ridden by hat-waving cowboys. She carried the bolts to the cutting table and let them drop with a thump right next to Abigail's fabric.

Abigail shot her an indignant look, but Candy either didn't notice or didn't care. She asked Margot to cut two yards from each bolt. Margot cast a questioning glance toward Abigail, who twitched her shoulders to indicate her continued indecision. Margot carefully moved Abigail's yardage to the side before unrolling Candy's fabric.

"Two yards, you said?"

Candy nodded. "Yes. Two of each. Actually, make it two and a half. Better too much than too little."

She turned away from the table to face the rest of us. "So, has everybody heard the news about Madelyn Beecher? She's moved back into Beecher Cottage and wants to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. Tessa, you were friends with her back in grade school, weren't you? After all the stuff she pulled, can you believe she had the nerve to come back to New Bern?"

Madelyn is back in New Bern?

That couldn't be true, could it? A dozen questions circled in my brain, but none of them found their way to my lips. Candy's revelation left me speechless, but it didn't matter. Candy chattered on without waiting for answers to her questions, apparently oblivious to the effect her words might have on others.

"You of all people must know what I'm talking about, don't you, Abbie? After all, she had that affair with your husband, didn't she?"

For a moment that felt far longer, the room was dead silent. Everyone looked at Abigail, who was looking at Candy with an impenetrable stare.

During my senior year, I'd heard whispers about Madelyn, who had dropped out of school and was working as a secretary for Abigail's then-husband, Woolley Wynne, but I hadn't believed them. Yes, Madelyn had, as we called it back then, "a reputation." But she had a policy when it came to boys: "anything but." Woolley Wynne wasn't a boy; he was a grown man. Surely he wouldn't have been satisfied with anything less than everything. And surely Madelyn, just a teenager at the time, wouldn't have carried on with a married man. Would she?

From where I was standing, I could see Abigail's jaw clench and unclench. She smiled beningly and in a voice that was neither warm nor cold, she said, "Candy, I never realized you were a student of ancient history. Or shall we call it ancient rumor? How fascinating. I'm rather more interested in current events myself. So tell me, where did you hear all this?"

Candy swallowed before answering. "From Aaron Fletcher. Madelyn inherited the house from her grandmother, and Aaron said she came to the bank asking for an enormous remodeling loan. When Aaron turned her down, she made a scene. What could she have been thinking? Did she really think that Aaron would approve her for a loan?"

"Especially after she turned him down every time he asked her out in high school," I said. "Which, as I recall, was dozens of times. Yes. That was foolish of her."

Candy pressed her lips together and her eyes darted between Abigail and me, her confusion apparent. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Abigail's lips bow into a small smile.

"Well, you know what kind of girl she was, Tessa," Candy said defensively, trying to regain her footing. "You can't blame Aaron for turning down her loan. And I certainly don't blame you for dropping her the way you did."

If Candy thought her words would win me to her cause, she thought wrong. Years ago, I had stood by in shamed silence as Ben Nickles verbally bashed Madelyn. I wouldn't make the same mistake twice.

"You know, Candy, I've come to the point in my life where I think it's best not to lay blame too thick on anybody. Especially if you've never walked in their shoes," I said. "I wouldn't wish Edna Beecher as a grandmother on my worst enemy."

"Well," Candy puffed, "that may be, but, as Abigail says, that's ancient history. According to the papers and blogs, she's even more notorious-"

Abigail put up her hand and cut Candy off. "I haven't the least interest in what the tabloids are saying. I've been targeted by those leeches myself from time to time. You were saying something about Madelyn turning Beecher Cottage into a bed-and-breakfast. Where did you pick up that bit of gossip?"

Candy smiled triumphantly. "It's not gossip. It's the absolute truth. Cecil told me about it."

Cecil was Candy's husband. He worked in the New Bern zoning department.

"He said she came into the office and asked about changing the zoning on Beecher Cottage from residential to light commercial. When Cecil asked why, she said she was thinking of turning it into a small inn with herself as the innkeeper." She crossed her arms over her chest and tipped up her chin, as if daring anyone to take issue with her account.

"That's not a bad idea," Evelyn observed. "New Bern could use a nice inn. And Oak Leaf Lane is a perfect location."

"Well, maybe," Candy said grudgingly. "But have you driven by Beecher Cottage lately? The place is a complete wreck, ready for a bulldozer. You'd have to be crazy to think about turning it into an inn."

"Crazy," Abigail mused. "Or desperate."

Abigail looped her handbag over her shoulder and smiled. "Margot, dear. Can you put aside my fabric for now? I just remembered something I need to do."