The Aloha Quilt (14 page)

“Thank you,” she told Midori after they had eaten their fill. “This was a rare treat.”

Midori looked up from cleaning the cutting board to smile at her. “Thank
you
.”

Later, after the day’s work was finished, Bonnie borrowed paper, pencil, and scissors
from Midori and returned to the courtyard lanai, greeting guests in passing, answering
questions, offering suggestions for their dinner plans. Then, left to her own devices,
she set herself to work.

Inspiration had come to her as she and Claire collaborated in Claire’s cozy office
earlier that day, making a few minor changes to the job description and discussing
how best to distribute it. As she considered the response the ad might generate, Bonnie
reflected upon how welcome she had felt at the Hale Kapa Kuiki since the moment she
arrived. Soon, if the job description succeeded, it would be up to her to pass along
that same aloha spirit of welcome to the applicants for their teaching staff, just
as she and the Elm Creek Quilters had done the previous summer at the manor.

For her first quilt in the Hawaiian style, Bonnie decided to draw upon the natural
beauties of the islands as well as a traditional symbol of welcome: the pineapple.
The foundation paper pieced Pineapple block was one of her favorites, making this
new interpretation of the theme even more appropriate and meaningful.

She cut a piece of paper one yard square, and then folded it into eighths as Midori
had shown her. Studying the pineapples growing in the lanai garden, sketching, erasing,
trying again,
Bonnie drew a plump, ripe pineapple crowned with short, spiky leaves, set snugly within
a flourish of long, slender, tapering fronds. She tried to imagine how her pattern
would look after she cut it out and unfolded it, and when she thought she had it just
about right, she carried her supplies upstairs to her suite and held the edge of the
folded paper up to her bathroom mirror. The reflected image gave her a better idea
of what the whole pattern would look like when complete, and she was inspired to make
a few changes—an erasure here, a smoother curve there—until at last she was pleased
with what she saw.

It was time to commit herself, to put scissors to paper and see if what she had created
matched what she had envisioned.

On the privacy of her lanai overlooking the sandy beach where vacationers relaxed
and played, Bonnie carefully trimmed the folded paper along the drawn lines. Leaves
and fruit took shape with every snip, until at last she trimmed away the final excess
piece, set aside the scissors, and carefully unfolded the paper.

She held it up to the sunlight and, against a background of green palms, sandy beach,
and surging ocean, she beheld four pineapples nestled within a sunburst of tapered
leaves, an ordered, symmetrical rendition of the garden’s beauty. The pattern looked
almost as she had thought it would as she had worked upon the eighth-fold paper, using
her imagination and aided by mirrors, but new curves appeared in unexpected places,
extra leaves where she had not thought she had drawn any. But rather than detracting
from the design she had imagined, the new and unanticipated changes to her pattern
delighted her.

She had created more beauty than she had been able to imagine by glimpsing the fragment
and envisioning the whole.

Chapter Six
 

On Tuesday morning, Darren Taylor phoned. He had received the detective’s final report
about Craig’s weekend tryst, including the woman’s name.

“There must be some mistake,” said Bonnie. “Terri—that was the woman from his first
cyber-affair. He intended to meet her at the Penn State Blue and White game but I
tagged along and spoiled things. You must have mixed up your notes.”

Gently, Darren said, “There’s no mix-up, Bonnie.”

“But she met me,” said Bonnie numbly. “She liked me. Now all this time later, they
went through with it after all?” Another thought triggered a flood of doubt and revulsion.
“How long have they been meeting?”

Darren didn’t know, but the detective had collected pages of detailed notes about
Craig and Terri’s rendezvous, including more incriminating photos—all of which he
could forward to Bonnie via email, if she wished. She didn’t.

The next step, Darren reminded her, was to present the new evidence to Craig’s lawyer.
With it in hand, any judge would grant Bonnie a divorce on grounds of adultery. Craig
could still
delay the process by contesting the division of property, but he couldn’t hold out
forever, and if their pressure tactics worked, he would agree to the original settlement
rather than expose the affair, and possibly ruin Terri.

Time would tell whether Craig cared more about money or his lover.

“Do what you have to do,” she told Darren, wishing she were clever enough to think
of another way to free herself from her failed marriage. Then her heart hardened.
She owed Terri nothing. Terri was divorced—or at least she had been the first time
around—but she had children who depended upon her. Terri should have thought of them
before she got involved with a married man.

Darren’s call left Bonnie snappish and angry for the rest of the day. When a call
came from Elm Creek Manor, she didn’t answer. When Claire invited her for lunch on
the beach, she said she wasn’t hungry. When Midori offered her another quilting lesson,
she hesitated before explaining that her heart wasn’t in it.

“If your heart isn’t in your quilting,” Midori asked, “where is it?”

Shattered into a thousand pieces and rattling around the bottom of her ribcage was
what it felt like, but Bonnie thought it melodramatic to say so. “I didn’t sleep well,”
she said by way of excuse. “I’ll feel better after a good night’s rest.”

And she did, a little. The next morning she extended her walk and even broke into
a jog part of the way, reminding herself to appreciate the beauty of the whitecaps
dancing along the edge of the waves as they swept the beach, the fragrance of the
abundant flowers, the unfailing sunshine, and the majesty of the West Maui mountains,
green and lush, their tops often swathed in white clouds. She could not fail to appreciate
the beauty all around her because of the disappointments of the past or worries about
the future. She could not miss a moment of her once-in-a-lifetime visit to a land
so rich in beauty.

She barred Craig from her thoughts and focused on work, a welcome diversion. Every
day she helped Midori prepare breakfast and tend guest rooms. Claire had sent the
job announcement out into the quilting world and they eagerly awaited the first responses.
She went through Hinano’s notes and made plans to investigate each location, each
event. At the bottom of the list she added a second visit to the Nä Mele Hawai‘i Music
Shop. Why not? Hinano had invited her, and she didn’t have to follow the list in any
particular order.

Later that week, Bonnie attended a second meeting of Midori’s quilting bee and found
herself welcomed back warmly. When she showed the circle of quilters her Pineapple
pattern, several praised her design and everyone was curious about her color and fabric
preferences.

Bonnie soon learned that apparently Hawaiian quilters were not unanimous in their
opinions on the subject of fabric selection. Some referred to their ancestors’ belief
that it was bad luck to have more than two colors in a quilt, and they urged her to
choose a traditional scheme of two solid fabrics, one dark and one light. Others remarked
that in recent years, some Hawaiian quilters had begun using multicolored batiks for
their quilts with stunningly beautiful results, and some had departed from the single-cut
pattern by layering appliqués of different colored fabrics in a style reminiscent
of the appliqué one saw in mainland quilts. With few exceptions, the divide fell along
generational lines, with most of the older women advocating tradition and the younger
ones encouraging her to explore new alternatives.

When they teased her to choose a side, Bonnie laughingly responded that she would
consider everything she had heard, but she was sure to have difficulty deciding. In
truth, she favored a traditional, two-color scheme. That was what she had envisioned
when she had first asked Midori to teach her, and that was what she imagined hanging
on her wall when it was complete.

She couldn’t envision which wall or what dwelling it belonged to, but at least she
could see the quilt.

A few days before Halloween, guests began filling the Hale Kapa Kuiki in such numbers
that for the first time since Bonnie’s arrival, the inn had no vacancies. Work on
Aloha Quilt Camp was abandoned in the sudden dramatic increase in activity. Claire,
who always worked best under pressure, seemed to be in constant motion—greeting guests,
offering sightseeing advice, resolving computer glitches, managing a shortage of beach
towels—all with a smile and seemingly inexhaustible good cheer. Even Eric pitched
in as porter, mechanic, and jack-of-all-trades. Bonnie was glad to see more of him,
even if they could only exchange a few words in passing as they rushed from one task
to another.

Although Bonnie found the unexpected increase in her workload overwhelming at times,
she was happy for her friend’s windfall of success. “Claire’s marketing strategies
are really paying off,” she remarked to Midori one morning as she quickly squeezed
oranges to fill a second pitcher.

“It’s not the marketing,” said Midori. “It’s the holiday. Halloween is a big deal
in Lahaina. So many tourists come for the party that even places averaging only two
stars out of five on the Internet fill up fast.”

“We won’t be stuck at two stars for long,” said Claire, sailing into the kitchen with
a laundry basket of napkins fresh from the dryer. “Maybe our current guests settled
for us because they couldn’t get rooms elsewhere, but this is our chance to impress
them. Next time, they’ll forget about the big chain resorts and make us their first
choice.”

“Then let’s impress them already,” Midori called after Claire as she dashed from the
kitchen, already intent on another errand. With a wry smile, she added to Bonnie,
“We’ll start with these guests, and later we’ll get around to the rest of the thirty
thousand.”

“Thirty thousand?” Bonnie exclaimed. It didn’t seem possible that Lahaina could accommodate
so many. “Just for Halloween?”

“We like a good party,” said Midori. “It started out among some mainland transplants
when Lahaina was still a small town. Since everybody knew everybody, dressing up for
Halloween gave us some anonymity for a change. It probably startled visitors at first
to see half the town in costume, but they must have gotten into the spirit of it because
year after year, more tourists have joined in. Eventually the crowds grew and grew
until one year the town had to take it over and turn it into an official event just
to manage the chaos.”

“We could use a little help with chaos management ourselves,” remarked Bonnie, hurrying
outside to the lanai with the refreshed pitcher of orange juice.

Later Bonnie learned from Eric and Claire that Halloween in Lahaina was not quite
the uncontrolled revelry Midori had implied, at least, not until after nightfall.
The festivities began in a family friendly way at five o’clock with a children’s costume
parade and a Halloween Arts Festival in Courthouse Square, with food booths, music,
crafts, and entertainment
for all ages. Restaurants and bars throughout town sponsored costume contests where
local residents and visitors alike vied for cash prizes while entertaining sightseers
with their imaginative, humorous, and daring disguises. Sensible parents whisked their
children home after the sun went down, away from the raucous celebration that commenced
later in the evening.