Retreat to Love (4 page)

Wren nodded. “You’re right. So see if Zach will come up here and we’ll go to the club place and get drunk and throw stones in a river or something, whatever passes for excitement in small-town Texas, and then I’ll seduce Caleb and we’ll live happily ever after!”

Her exuberance was fetching. “Whatever you say, darlin’. I’ll email him right after lunch. But for now, you two get out of here. I’m only here for eight weeks and I’d damn well better get a thing or two done while I’m here besides helping you find the love of your life.”

“You go girl!” laughed Lizzy in her pseudo-American voice. “Come on, Wren, we’re in the way of Ashlyn’s work, and if she tells Margie we’ll be in big trouble. I don’t want to come away with demerits on my first day.”

I made them promise to return the mugs they were taking, and sent them off. Closing my eyes and inhaling my own coffee, I decided the chain part of the piece could be a collage of reverse sides of the fabrics making up the other patches. And the patches themselves would all center around Gran, of course. It would be the first large thing I made for her, without her supervision. It would be my way of saying thank you to her for her love, and her encouragement, and her offering up of her home as my refuge. And my way of saying to myself ....

Well, I had ideas. I didn’t have anything definite, but I had ideas. As I went to rummage in my boxes of fabric, it occurred to me that the best thing that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, and perhaps in the past twenty-four weeks or so, was I finally had some ideas.

“Bro -

“You miss me yet? I’m working away here. (Okay, I’m taking a break, but I’ve been at it since breakfast. You’re probably still asleep, right?)

“Hey, I know I’m clueless, but can you remember Gran’s little brother’s name? I got Brian, Albert, Danny, Maura, “someone”, Mabel. And Berneen. Trust me, this is work related.

“Long story, but how would you feel about coming up here this Sun. for a Z & N thing? I could bring Wren along & the four of us could have some laughs (gee, what a brilliant idea, which just now popped into my head! Perhaps C & W will hit it off & start a relationship or something! Wouldn’t that be great –> we could be the matchmakers!). Since C & I have to cook that day, it’d have to be a night thing. We could meet at my cabin if you’d be so kind as to pick us up, or we could take the shuttle to town & hook up at John Henry’s (remember THAT place?)—let me know.

“Okay, here’s the other part. I suppose you should email C on your own & suggest this—I thought I’d swing by to see sis, how bout dinner, etc. So as it’ll be a surprise, you know.

“Catch up w/ ya later!

“Love,

“A

“PS—Bring some booze for our pal Lizzy, who’s about to dehydrate from a lack of whiskey. A more complete order will follow. Gracias!”

I hit send just as blondie walked into the computer room.

“Hey, gal, I hope you’re still on for this thing. I just told Zach to set it up.”

She lounged into the chair next to me. “I am.  Trust me, I am. I’ve been fondling clay all day. My houses look more like dildos.”

“Please. Stick with the need-to-know, okay?” I logged out. “How many houses are you making?”

Wren squinted as she thought. “The first series is four. My grandmother’s house in Juneau, the row house on the base of Ft. Stamhood where my brother was born, the ranch house in San Antonio from when I was thirteen, and a little cabin in the hill country I hope you’ll recognize. White, blue, red, yellow. After that we’ll see. If it goes well I’ll move on to orange, green, purple, and black.” Wren had decided to create intricate scales of typical American houses, mono-colored to symbolize the life-phase she was experiencing while she lived in each abode.

“What were you saying earlier about the house thing in Connecticut?”

“Oh,” she shrugged. “It’s kinda strange, I guess. But I’ve been living in the same duplex for eight years. The landlord told me when I moved in he was wanting to remodel and sell the thing one day, so that ax has been over my head the whole time. But all this long, nothing, not a word from him about it. Or if there was word, it was ‘we’ve just lost in the market and can’t fix it up now’ or ‘interest rates are too high, no one’s buying’ or something. Then, three months ago, out of nowhere, a decorator shows up on my doorstep to take room photos and measurements. I mean, the place is like a second skin to me now!” She dabbed at her eyes, then rolled them self-deprecatingly. “So I called him up, the landlord, to see what was going on. Seems his wife’s parents just left them some major cash, and housing in the area has gone through the roof, and he gave me two months to get out. The same day—I was taking a house-hunting break to surf some art boards—I ran across the FireWind info, and something just, I don’t know, made me apply. Isn’t it strange? There I was, devastated about losing my home, having to move—which I hate, of course—and this new sanctuary threw itself in my lap. That’s why my cabin is one of the important first pieces of my series.”

“Awesome.” It seemed more like well-aligned events than destiny, but I got that the move here moved her. And the emotion would drive her art. “Sounds like they’ll be great, your houses.”

She snorted. “If I ever manage to make them.”

“You don’t have anything sculpted yet? Just the sketches?”

“And the concept. It took me ages to figure out what I wanted to do with all these houses we’ve had. Like, make them into tree ornaments so I could give them roots, or nesting in each other like one of those Russian dolls, kind of interactive, you know?”

I nodded.

“But clay’s no good for interactive, and I didn’t want to go with anything more delicate, less structural. So this is where we’re at. If I can just get my mind off you-know-what I’ll be able to focus.” She scratched her nails along her scalp. “But besides all that, I have about three minutes to find Rafael and place the order for dinner. He’s not at his cabin, down any obvious trails, or around here.”

“Get Margie to find him.”

“She’s on her way to San Marcos to pick up the groceries I haven’t ordered.”

“I haven’t seen him all day. Suppose he’s bailed?”

She double-clicked on the supermarket program. “Either way, I guess the menu’s up to me. You have any favorites? If I’m cooking for eight solo it’d better be pretty damn simple. Like, hot dogs and potato chips simple.”

“Do they have tofu dogs?”

“Oh, God, you’re one of the veg-heads.” She crossed her eyes at me. “Pizza it is, then. Let’s see—frozen cheese pizza, with some added flourish. Green peppers, tomatoes, corn, ground beef for the normal ones here. Salad on the side. What else?”

“Up to you, Team Three. I’m off to soak up inspiration from the hills around me.” I stood up and squeezed her narrow shoulder on the way past.

By Tuesday dinner, Rafael had been declared among the missing. Margie claimed he was still on the grounds, and merely nocturnal. The trail of dirty dishes in the rec room and porch Theo discovered every morning supported her claims. Over pasta, Wren declared war.

“Look, you’ve all been nice about helping to clean up and stuff, but no more. No more saving leftovers for him. No more washing dishes for him. If Margie can’t bother to make him follow her precious rules, I’m figuring out a way on my own.”

“Guerrilla training at the base camp at dawn?” asked Lizzy.

“If it comes to it. I’m no sergeant’s kid for nothing. But I think we’ll start with Operation: Palmolive. Stack the sink so high he can’t get his midnight snack without clearing it, and leave a nice little note pinned to the rubber gloves.”

Angelica and Theo started in at the same time, but he deferred to her. “And what about when he’s ignored them and we need to make breakfast and there’s dried primavera sauce on the bowls?”

“Drag me out and I’ll do them. But if that happens, tomorrow I’m lugging the dishes to his porch. And if that doesn’t work, I’m ordering paper plates and you’re all eating frozen food the rest of the week. Just so you all know.”

I took my plate to the sink and returned with a cup of chamomile tea.

“… Sunday night,” Caleb was saying. “I’m sure they’ll be happy if you join us. Right, Ashlyn?”

“Right what?”

“I told Wren she should come with us Sunday, since she seems to need a break already.”

“Come where?” I asked, as Lizzy nudged me under the table.

“Hasn’t Zach told you? He emailed me he’s coming in to see you and suggested we all go into Wimberley for a meal. I told him it had to be Sunday night because of the cooking and everything.”

“Oh. Well, fine with me, I guess. I told him to come back and see me sometime, but I didn’t think Austin would be boring him already.”

“I guess Wimberley has its attractions,” Caleb said, crinkly brown eyes tracking from me to Wren.

Zach’s message mostly complained about his spring allergies kicking, but reported he’d accomplished my mission and Sunday was good for him. When I got back to my cabin the lights were on.

“I knew I shouldn’t have told y’all my door code,” I said to Wren as I joined Lizzy on the sofa. “What did you think of that, then?”

She grinned the first true face-splitting grin I’d ever seen. “I’m pleased.”

“Don’t let her lack of euphoria fool you,” Lizzy deadpanned. “I forced her to stop asking me after the eighth time if he really said what she thought he said and did it seem to me too he was saying what he might be saying. I mean, obviously he is smitten and my hopes of taking her on the rebound are forever crushed.”

“So next time poor Zach and I are going to be left all alone?”

“Let’s toast to that,” Wren said, handing us mugs of the cocoa she’d remembered to order for me from San Marcos.

The next morning I ignored the tapping at my window, figuring setting Wren up with the hottest guy at FireWind was my good deed for the week and she could get Lizzy to wash up the mess Rafael had obviously left. After sleeping late I took my long-awaited bubble bath then lounged in my robe as I watched the deer from the studio window and pretended not to look at the sketches on the drafting board. Once it was bound to be quiet at the Main House, I gathered my notebook and headed for the computer center.

It was empty, and I chose the CPU connected to the plotter printer, which was a luxury on my artistic wish list. A few times I had taken designs to a copy center to print out full-scale patterns, but for most of my quilts I tiled the pattern pieces to a page each and used the old-fashioned cut-and-paste method. It took most of the morning, accompanied by illicit slices of coffeecake, to create the
Gran Chain
(or whatever I would call it). When it came off the plotter I made a few adjustments and corrections on paper, then on screen, and sent a line drawing to print.

Brandon came in. “Can I see?” he asked, approaching.

“Nope.”

He pulled his hair back. “Oh. ‘Kay. I get it.” Turning his back to me, he switched on another terminal.

“It’s the way I work.”

“Yeah. It’s cool. Some people are insecure about things until they’re done. They don’t think anyone else can see the big picture but them.”

“Some people don’t want the flow of their ideas interrupted by the comments of others, actually,” I said, and rolled the final print outs to take back to my cabin.

Threading my machine is my mantra. Before each project, I start by cleaning the feed dog, shuttle race body and hook to remove any lint, then I oil the moving parts of the take-up lever, needle shaft, winder, and bobbin casing. And then I make my bobbins. I like a full one for each thread color ready to drop in the casing as soon as I need it. But it’s when I tighten the stop motion knob and take the thread from the spool pin through the upper guides, down around the tension dial and up again to snap into the check spring that I begin to focus on what’s ahead for the day.

Snaking the thread through the take-up eyelet and dropping it past the thread guard, weaving it through the lower guides, I anticipate the dry taste of the frayed end. I moisten it to a sharp point before I finally thread the needle. My drops of saliva won’t make it into the actual project, but in my gut I know the process of licking the thread that will appliqué, embroider, or quilt together my creation solidifies the connection between me and my artwork.

I’d spent the afternoon crouching on the floor rearranging fabric, and was ready to develop a backache based on hunching over a machine. After a few shoulder rolls I selected a yellow spool and stretched a scrap of bright green fabric onto a small oval embroidery hoop. My first step was always to monogram ‘Ashlyn May’ with the date and title of the piece, if I knew it. I could embroider my name on the reverse side of the fabric freehand now, but had to trace the title in a dark pen on the front—I’d named this piece
Chains of Love
. The yellow thread gleamed golden against the green; perfect. A nice bright mood, energetic. Before the final stage, I would appliqué the title patch to the backing in the lower right corner. Meanwhile, it would be pinned to the wall near the machine.

Just as I finished cutting the upper thread to tie it up, Lizzy knocked on the front door.

“Dinner’s in about a minute. You coming? Wren sent me to ask.”

I popped my spine and turned to get my shoes. “I just lost track. Ignore the mess.” We headed out. “Wren mad? I told her I’d help set the table and stuff.”

“No, I did it. She figured you were working. Which is not to say she’s fine and all; Rafael is still among the missing and Margie never went over there today.”

I sighed. “Tomorrow get me early if he’s not around and you are, I’ll help her cook.”

“I wish I could, but it would blow my cover with Brandon.”

“Have I told you the latest Brandon-as-ass story?” I asked. We had already compiled quite a few, but that didn’t stop me from relating what he’d said in the computer room.

Caleb was on the porch. “What are you laughing about this time?”

“An annoying photographer we know,” I replied, winking at him.

“Geez, be more subtle, will you? I’ll back off already.”

Lizzy walked up the steps to look him in the eye. “We’ll let it go this time, boy, but just remember you’ve been warned. None of your macho man stuff from now on, eh?”

Caleb literally did back off. “No contest, Lizzy, you are way tougher than I am. I’ll keep away, I promise.”

“Poor Caleb,” I said, holding the door for them both.

“Poor nothing,” Lizzy replied. “He’s had a little too much of being the dominant paradigm in my opinion. Time to spread the wealth.”