The Half-Stitched Amish Quilting Club - 02 - The Tattered Quilt (15 page)

“What do you mean, ‘sort of ’?” Terry pointed to the clock on the far wall. “You’re forty-five minutes late!”

Blaine glanced briefly at the clock; then he smiled at Emma and said, “I caught a largemouth bass, and it’s in a bucket on the porch. If you like fish, I’d be happy to give it to you.”

Emma nodded. “Lamar and I both like fish, but don’t feel obligated to give it to us.”

“No, I want to,” Blaine insisted. “Should I go out and get it or wait until after class?”

“Just wait until Emma’s finished teaching the class,” Selma interjected. “In case you haven’t noticed, the others have already started sewing, so you’d better take a seat.”

Terry looked over at Blaine and said, “You knew you had class today, didn’t you?”

Blaine gave a nod. “Of course.”

“Then you oughta get your priorities straight, instead of going fishing and showing up late.” He plugged his nose. “Phew! No wonder you smell so fishy.”

“It’s better than reeking of smoke,” Blaine countered. “Besides, if you want to catch anything, you have to go when the fish are biting. And they sure were hungry today,” he added. “I caught a bigger fish than the one I’m giving Emma, but it rolled just as I was about to net it, and off went the hook.”

Emma was surprised at Blaine’s change of mood, and how his face lit up when he talked about fishing. It was nice to see this side of his character, but while she hated to burst his bubble, she’d better do something quick, or these two men who were acting like boys might end up in a fight. It was becoming more obvious to Emma that some sort of duel was going on between Terry and Blaine. She was sure it had nothing to do with Terry’s smoking or Blaine’s fishing, and everything to do with a certain blond woman in her class.

“Here are the pieces of material you cut out last week,” she said, handing them to Blaine. “All you need to do is pin them in place, and you can begin sewing.”

Blaine shook his head. “I don’t know anything about using a sewing machine.”

“I’ll show you how,” Emma said.

As the others took turns at the sewing machines, Emma instructed Blaine on how to pin his pieces of material together before sewing them. Once she was sure he could handle things on his own, she went to the kitchen to get some refreshments.

She’d just placed some banana bread on a platter, when her nine year-old granddaughter, Lisa, who lived next door, rushed into the kitchen. “Mama wants to know if you have any
zucker
she can borrow,” she told Emma. “We’re gonna bake some chocolate-chip
kichlin
, but we don’t got enough zucker.”

“Of course you can borrow some sugar.” Emma lovingly patted Lisa’s head, then went to the cupboard and took down the plastic container she kept her sugar in.

“Did you do some baking this morning?” Lisa asked, pointing to the banana bread.

“I made it yesterday,” Emma explained. “I’m getting ready to serve it to my quilting students.”

Lisa grinned. “Are you gonna teach me how to quilt someday?”

“Of course. Unless your mamm decides she’d rather teach you.”

Lisa shook her head. “I’d rather you teach me,
Grossmammi
. You’re the bestest quilter in Shipshe.”

Emma chuckled. It was nice to know her granddaughter felt that way, but she was sure others could quilt equally well. “I’d better get back to my students now, and you’d better go home. You’ll never get any cookies baked if we keep gabbing.” She handed the sugar to Lisa, then bent down and kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you later this evening when Lamar and I come over for supper.”

Lisa nodded and skipped out the door.

Emma was about to carry the tray of banana bread to the other room, when Carmen entered the kitchen. “I came to see if you needed any help,” she said.

Emma handed the tray to Carmen. “You can take this into the quilting room, while I get some coffee and mugs.”

“Okay.” Carmen paused near the kitchen door. “I’ve been wondering about something, Emma.”

“What’s that?”

“Since I’ve been in the area I’ve heard some things, and one of them is that all Amish young people go through a time of running-around after they finish the eighth grade and are done with their formal schooling.”

“That’s right. It’s called rumschpringe.”

“That’s what I thought; although I can’t pronounce it correctly.” Carmen shifted the tray in her hands. “What can you tell me about—”

“I came to tell you that Selma doesn’t want any coffee,” Lamar said, entering the room. “She said she’d prefer a cup of tea.”

“Oh good, you’re back. How’d Katie’s chiropractic appointment go?”

“It went fine. She’s home resting now with an ice pack.”

“That’s good. Now about Selma’s request…Did she say what kind of tea she wanted?”

Lamar shook his head. “But to be on the safe side, maybe you should give her a cup of hot water and offer a choice of tea bags.”

“That’s a good idea.” Emma looked at Carmen. “What was it you were about to ask before Lamar came in?”

“It was nothing important. I’ll talk to you about it some other time.” Carmen hurried from the room.

“Have things gone any better with the class today?” Lamar asked, reaching into the cupboard to get the tin filled with tea bags.

Emma sighed. “Not really. There seems to be some undercurrent going on between Terry and Blaine, and Selma’s still a bit overbearing. Then there’s Anna. I can’t seem to get through to her, Lamar.”

“Just give it more time. I’m sure things will improve. This is only the second class.” He gave her arm a loving pat. “Remember how it went with your first class, Emma?”

“Jah. It was a bit rocky at first, but as time went on things got better.”

“And so they shall again. Just remember to ask God for guidance.”

“Yeow!” Blaine hollered. “I stuck my finger with a pin!”

Cheryl reached for her purse. “I have a bandage if you need one.”

“Yeah, that’d be good.” Blaine smiled at Cheryl in a way that nearly made Terry gag.

Terry rolled his eyes.
I’ll bet he did that on purpose, just to get some attention
.

“You need to be careful with pins,” Cheryl said as she put the bandage on Blaine’s finger.

“I know that now.” Blaine pointed to the pieces of material he’d already sewn. “I’m no better at sewing than pinning. Look how crooked my stitches are.”

“They’re not that bad,” Cheryl said, leaning closer to Blaine. “It just takes a little practice to get the hang of it.”

Hearing the conversation between the two of them was almost Terry’s undoing. It was irritating watching how comfortable Cheryl seemed with this guy who smelled like fish.
I wonder if Cheryl’s interested in him. If so, could the feeling be mutual? And Blaine—just look at him
. Terry had noticed before that Blaine didn’t make eye contact with anyone much, but he sure wasn’t having trouble looking into Cheryl’s beautiful, doe-like eyes. The worst part of it was she was looking back.

She does seem to be better suited to him than me. Of course, opposites are supposed to attract, so there might still be some hope
, Terry told
himself. If I could just get her to go out with me, maybe she’d see that I’m not half-bad
.
The biggest problem I see is that I smoke, and since Cheryl’s allergic to smoke
,
that’s a strike against me. There’s only one thing to do
, he decided, reaching for a piece of banana bread.
I need to quit smoking. But can I do it?

C
HAPTER
13

Elkhart

W
ould you say that again?” Jan asked as he and Terry headed to a job on Monday morning. “I think I might’ve been hearing things.”

“You heard me. I’m gonna quit smoking.”

Jan quirked an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What made you decide that?”

“Cheryl’s allergic to smoke,” Terry replied, trying to sound nonchalant. “Don’t think she’ll ever go out with me if I smell like smoke. Besides, as you’ve pointed out many times, it’s bad for my health.”

“Funny, but you’ve never worried about that before.” Jan’s deep laughter bounced off the roof of his truck. “Boy you must really have it bad!”

“What do you mean?”

“All the times I’ve tried to get you to quit, and you’ve just ignored me.”

“That’s ’cause I wasn’t ready,” Terry retorted.

“So you meet some gorgeous blond who you’ll probably only date once or twice before you dump her, and suddenly you’re ready to throw away your cigarettes? I’ll have to see that to believe it.”

“You can laugh all you want, but I will quit smoking, and if Cheryl agrees to go out with me, I’m sure I’ll wanna date her more than a few times.”

“You sound pretty confident. Have you even tried asking her out?”

“No, but I will…Next Saturday, in fact.”

“And when are you planning to quit smoking?” Jan pointed to the pack of cigarettes in Terry’s shirt pocket. “I see you’re still toting them around.”

“I’ll quit as soon as I’ve smoked my last cigarette.”

“When will that be?”

“When I’ve emptied this pack,” Terry said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting up.

“Well, you’d better smoke it up quick then, ’cause there’s only four weeks left before your quilt classes end, and that don’t leave you much time to win Cheryl over.”

“I can do it,” Terry said with a vigorous nod. “Just wait and see. Besides, I’ll bet I can quit smoking before you get this dirty truck cleaned out.”

Jan grunted. “I’d be more worried about your smoking habit than my truck. And you know what?”

“What’s that?”

“I think you oughta stop right now, so you have some time to get the smell outta your clothes. I mean, why wait around? If you expect Cheryl to take notice of you, then you oughta get right on it.”

“I don’t know.” Terry scratched his head. “It’s not gonna be easy.”

“Maybe God wants you to quit. Did you ever think of that?” Jan elbowed Terry in the ribs. “I’ve invited you to attend church with me and Star many times, but you always come up with some sort of excuse. Maybe if you sat in church once in a while and let God into your life, you’d have the strength and willpower it takes to quit smoking.”

“I’ll give it some thought,” Terry said, blowing smoke out of his mouth and breathing it back up his nose.