Mornings On Main

“Museum-quality preservation. I understand. I worked at the Southwest Collection on the Texas Tech campus while I was in college. My salary will be twenty an hour for that detailed kind of work.”

She stood her ground and he had no doubt she knew what to do. Which was more than he knew about the process. The county curator had been excited about the collection but offered no time or advice.

Now Connor was sure he was the one afraid of her. “All right. I’ll walk you over and let you meet my grandmother. If you last an hour, you’re on the payroll. She’ll be the boss. Some days you’ll be working at her pace.”

Nodding, she passed through the front door he held open. When they started across the street, she hesitated. “Aren’t you going to lock your office door?”

“What, and hamper anyone trying to steal my copier? No way.”

The woman was giving him that look again. She’d obviously decided he was missing critical brain cells.

“I’m Jillian James.” She held out her hand, palm up as if to say, your turn next.

“Connor Larady.” He grinned. “I’m the town mayor.”

She didn’t look impressed. She’d probably heard he’d run unopposed.

Without another word, they stepped inside the quilt shop. He didn’t miss her slight gasp as she looked up at the size of the place. It widened out from the small storefront windows in a pie-slice shape, with two stories opening to an antique tin ceiling. Massive fans turned slowly, so far above he couldn’t feel the air move.

Every inch of the twenty-foot-high walls was covered in colorful quilts; a collage of fabric rainbows.

Deep shelves lined the wall behind the wide front counter. Folded quilts were stacked five deep for a dozen rows.

“This may take longer than three months,” she whispered.

“I’ll help,” he offered. “But I should tell you, Gram is in charge here. This is her world, so whatever she wants goes. I don’t want the cataloging to cause her any stress.”

“I understand.”

“I’m not sure you do.” He looked at her closely, wondering how much to tell a stranger. “We’re working against a ticking clock and it’s in Gram’s head. The cataloging, the inventory, may not always be her priority. You may have to gently guide her back to the task.”

Her intelligent eyes looked straight at him, and he guessed she was one of those rare people who listened, really listened.

“I can put in overtime and will work Saturdays, but I can’t promise you I’ll stay in town more than three months. If you think I can complete the job by then, I’ll give it my best shot.”

“I understand,” he said, even though he didn’t. Why couldn’t she stay longer? Who moves to a town for three months? Someone just killing time, he reasoned.

A mix of conversation and laughter came from the back of the shop where the ceiling lowered to eight feet, allowing room for a storage room above and a meeting room below.

Connor took the lead. Unlike the stranger, he knew exactly what he was walking into. The twice-a-week quilting bee. An old frame hung from the beams, allowing just enough room for chairs to circle the quilt being hand-stitched together. It might be a lost art in most places, but here, the women seemed to love not only the project, but the company.

The moment the ladies saw him their voices rose in greeting. All eight of them seemed to be talking to him at once. As soon as he greeted each one, he introduced Jillian James to them. “I’ve hired Jillian to help catalog my grandmother’s collection. Gram’s got a great treasure here in her shop.”

The ladies agreed with his plan, but two reminded him that it would be a long time before his gram retired.

His grandmother, Eugenia Ann Freeman Larady, slowly stood and offered her hand to Jillian. Where Connor had been told his eyes were Mississippi River brown, his gram’s had faded to the pale blue of shallow water. Every year she’d aged he’d grown more protective of her, but today he needed to take a step backward and see how she got along with a stranger brought in to work with her.

Gram winked at Jillian as if she already counted her as a friend. “Call me Gram if you like. All Connor’s friends do.”

“Gram,” Jillian said with a genuine smile.

“I’ve decided.” The willowy old dear cleared her throat before continuing. “I’ll probably be working on a quilt when the good Lord calls me home and I’ll have to say, ‘Just give me time to finish the binding, then I’ll come dancing through the Pearly Gates.’”

He’d heard her say those words a thousand times over the years. Now, most of what she said were old sayings like that. New ideas, new thoughts, were rare.

“Gram,” he said gently. “Jillian wants to help you get these quilts all in order so someday they’ll be on display in the county museum.”

His grandmother nodded as she looked around the shop, every inch of its wall space covered in quilts. Gram smiled. “I’d like that. I’ll even get out my pioneer quilts. The ones brought here in covered wagons. Some are worn. They were used, you know, but then, that’s what quilts are made for, too. Plain or fancy, they wrap us in our families’ warmth.”

“She’ll write down the details and take pictures so you can show them all off at once to your friends,” Connor pressed, hoping Gram understood.

Eugenia had lost interest in talking to him. She took Jillian’s hand and tugged her to the only empty chair around the six-foot square of material pulled so tightly on the quilting frame it could almost have served as a table. “Before we start, we have to work on this quilt. Dixie pieced it for her niece, and the wedding is in two weeks. Hand quilting takes time.”

Connor moved away as the ladies folded Jillian into the group. She glanced over at him, looking as if she hoped he’d toss her a life preserver.

He shook his head. “We’ll go over the details later,” he said, low enough for only Jillian to hear. “As of right now, you’re on the clock. I’ll return at a little after five.”

At the door he looked back, wondering if the tall woman would still be there at closing time.

Once on the street, Connor walked left toward the natural park entrance near the bridge. He dodged traffic, three cars and a pickup, then headed down a trail to the creek. A stream meandered through Laurel Springs as wild as it had been when his people settled here. The tall grass, dry now, appeared bunched in thick clumps over the uneven land. Huge old cypress trees huddled by the water, hauntingly gray in their dusty winter coats. February. The one month he’d always thought of as void of color.

Connor could breathe here by the stream. He could think. He could relax.

The rambling acres running untamed through town were more swamp than park now, but next spring the city would have the money to clean it up. They’d fight back nature to make running trails and small meadows spotted with picnic tables.

But Connor craved the wildness of this spot in winter. The cold. The loneliness of it. As he strolled near the water, the sounds of the town almost disappeared, and he could believe for a few minutes that he was totally by himself. That he was free. No responsibilities. No worries.

Duty would pull him back soon. It always did. But for a while he could allow his mind to drift, to dream. There were days in his organized, packed routine that all Connor wanted to do was run away.

Only he never would.

Some people are meant to grow where they’re planted.

Jillian’s words echoed in his thoughts. I can’t promise you I’ll be here in three months, she’d said, as if it were a possibility for everyone. Didn’t she know that the people in this town of Laurel Springs were like the residents of the mythical Brigadoon: they lived here forever, and she was simply a visitor for a day?

A story danced in his head as he walked through the dried buffalo grass of winter. The stiff stalks made a swishing sound, like a brush lightly moving over a drum. His imagination was all the escape he needed most days.

He was leaving his world, his reality, his home, if only for an hour. If only in his mind.

3

Jillian closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. She loved the smells of the quilt shop. Lavender soap left on the women’s skin as they routinely washed their hands so no perspiration stained the quilt. Lemon wax on the eighty-year-old counter that had been left behind when a mercantile became the quilt shop. The smell of cotton, fresh and new, blended with the hint of dyes pressed into material. She even liked the scent of the oil on the hundred-year-old Singer Featherweight machines lining the back wall. Soldiers waiting to do their duty.

Eugenia served orange blossom tea and gingersnap cookies when the ladies took a break. Her hands were worn, with twisted bones covered over in paper-thin skin so fine not even fingerprints would show.

Jillian was surprised that they’d accepted her into their group without many questions. She’d never spent much time with women more than double her age and found it fascinating that they talked in stories, flowing from one to another. No hurry, no debates, no lectures. Just a gentle current that moved as easily as the sharp needles through the padded layers of material.

Paulina, with her funny tales of living in Dallas in the sixties.

The three Sanderson sisters, who finished each other’s sentences and laughed at their own jokes.

The classy lady, dressed in a silk pantsuit, who didn’t seem to mind a bit that everyone called her Toad.

Dixie didn’t say much; she worked with her head down. Neither did a pixie of a woman named Stella, but she laughed at everyone’s jokes as if she’d never heard them before.

Stories they’d all probably heard a hundred times circled around them like classical music, comforting and welcoming to their ears.

Eugenia Larady sat on Jillian’s left, showing her how to make the stitches. Jillian tried her best but didn’t miss the fact that Paulina, on her right, pulled each of her lines and redid them.

The afternoon passed with Eugenia and Jillian getting up each time a customer came in. The old woman Connor had lovingly called Gram treated each stranger as a special guest. Some only wanted to look, so she followed them about the shop offering them cotton gloves so they could examine the quilts. Some customers wanted to buy squares of fabric called fat quarters, or tools of the quilting trade.

The third time Eugenia stood in front of the cash register, Jillian noticed she seemed to have trouble remembering the order of making a sale.

“Let me, Gram,” Jillian suggested. “I’ll try not to mess up.”

Eugenia moved to the side. “All right, dear, but I’ll be watching you.”

Jillian had worked a dozen jobs that had this standard cash register, but she glanced over to Eugenia for approval with each step. She’d rarely been around anyone in their eighties, but she assumed memory slips might be common.

The woman smiled and nodded each time.

Jillian almost wished she had a grandmother. Her father had told her from the beginning that she had no living relatives except him. Not one. She’d known it so young she hadn’t thought to be sad. No sense missing someone you’ve never had around.

As the day ended, she took Gram’s arm. They walked back to the now-silent quilting corner. No constant stream of voices echoing off the walls. No ting of the cash register drawer after each sale of the day.

Jillian thanked her for teaching her so much, and Gram patted her hand as if pleased she could be of help.

The shop was empty now, but the place still seemed alive in the late-afternoon light. Shadows slow dancing beneath the multicolored sky of quilts above.

“You’re a fast learner. A great help.” Eugenia patted her hand again. “You’d best be going. It will be dark soon.”

Jillian didn’t want to leave her alone. “I thought I’d help clean up. After all, I ate most of your cookies.”

“Oh, no, you didn’t. Paulina always eats a dozen.” Eugenia covered her mouth as if she might hold back the words.

They both giggled as the front door chimed, and Connor walked in.

She found herself thinking more of this man now that she’d met his gram. A man who cared so dearly for his grandmother couldn’t be as clueless as he appeared. She laughed suddenly as she noticed a pencil sticking out of his shaggy head of hair. Or maybe it was a small tree branch. She didn’t plan to get close enough to see.

“Did you have a good day, Gram?” Connor passed Jillian as if he hadn’t noticed her.

“A grand one, as always. I taught your friend many things about the shop today.” Gram grinned. “Now, what did you say her name was again?”

“Jillian,” he said, smiling over Gram’s head at her. “She’s Jillian James.”

Gram nodded. “She’s a keeper.”

Connor looked away. “Good. I’m glad everything went well.”

Jillian saw a shyness in the mayor she hadn’t noticed before. He might be comfortable around the quilting circle ladies and Gram, but he was nervous around her.

Two short beeps sounded from the street.

Connor lifted Gram’s sweater from behind the counter. “Time to go, Gram.”

“But I don’t want to go home. I don’t like it there. Benjamin won’t be there. He’s gone and the boys went off to college and never came back. They grew up, I know. But Benjamin just doesn’t come home anymore.”

Jillian felt anger rise. She didn’t care if Connor was Eugenia’s grandson; he shouldn’t try to make her go home to an empty house.

Connor put his arm around Gram and walked her to the door. “You’re not going home. The girls have supper waiting for you. Don’t you remember? Tonight you’re having dinner with your friends at Autumn Acres. Then all of you are going to watch a movie.” He stuffed a bag of popcorn into her knitting bag. “I got you caramel corn tonight, but you have to share it.”

Gram smiled. “Oh, yes. I remember. It’s my turn to bring a snack. Tell Benjamin I might even sleep over.”

Jillian watched Connor walk his grandmother out to a little bus that had steps that lowered almost to the street. He helped her all the way to her seat, then stood on the curb waving as she waved back.

The side of the bus read Autumn Acres: Senior Living in Style.

When the bus was gone, he turned back to the quilt shop. His face was cold now, sad, tired. “I need to lock up.”

“I’ll get my bag.” They bumped shoulders as they neared the door. She tried not to notice and asked, “What’s Autumn Acres?”

“It’s a new living center being built for the aging. They’ve got the independent apartments finished and one wing of the added care where they check on residents, give them their meds, etcetera, but the final wing, the nursing care, isn’t finished.”

“Gram just visits?”

His gaze met hers. “No,” he said in almost a whisper. “She’s lived there for a while, but she thinks she’s just visiting.”

Connor vanished into the back room to turn off the last of the lights.

When she collected her things and stepped back outside, he was waiting. All the little stores on Main were closing, and the sun’s glow seemed to be pulling any warmth with it. Now the smell of coffee drifted from the bakery as low clouds hugged the horizon and the few people left on the street seemed to be in a hurry.

He fell into step with her as she turned toward the bed-and-breakfast. Her long strides seemed to match his in an easy gait. “How’d it go today?” he asked without looking at her.

“Fine. She thinks you and I are friends.”

“That’s all right. Just log your hours. Give me the report at the end of the week, and I’ll write you a check. She can think you’re just helping out, if it doesn’t bother you and it makes her happy.”

“I will.” They walked in silence for a few minutes before she added, “You don’t have to walk me home.”

“I’m not. This is my way home.” Without any hint of a smile, he added, “I thought you were trying to walk me home. I was starting to get a bit freaked out about it. Thought you might be after the other bag of popcorn.” He patted the stuffed pocket of his raincoat.

Jillian smiled. He was as hard to read as his grandmother. Shy one minute, funny the next. In an odd way she found it cute. She usually had to fend off at least a few advances from men she worked with. Even the married, do-it-by-the-book bosses sometimes took casual flirting too far.

Somehow, this good-looking man who carried a book under one arm didn’t frighten her.

Trying to kid him into smiling, she said, “I don’t like caramel, but if it had been cheesy flavored, you might have needed to worry. I could easily mug you for nacho-cheesy popcorn.”

He didn’t respond. Just nodded as if logging her comment to think about later. No jokes. No flirting. She wasn’t sure Connor Larady even knew how.

Jillian matched his steps and his mood. “Your grandmother doesn’t have a home to go to besides Autumn Acres, does she?”

“No. She moved to the Acres last spring right after it opened the first wing. My grandfather, Benjamin, died when I was a kid. She lived as a widow for years, ran the shop, walked home, and claimed she enjoyed her quiet time. Then one day she just decided Benjamin wasn’t dead—he simply forgot to come home.” Connor grinned suddenly, but there was no humor reflected in his eyes. “She’s been mad at him ever since. I used to think it was just a game she played with herself, but lately I think she forgets that she moved to the Acres and just thinks she’s spending a night out with the girls. Strange thing is, she’s never asked to go back to her house, not once. So, I’m thinking somewhere in the back of her mind she knows she’s where she needs to be.”

“What about your parents?” Maybe because she had no family, Jillian felt a need to know about other families.

“My folks died in a car crash my last year of college. My dad was Gram’s only living son. I came home and finished my studies online while I took over his newspaper business. My brother went the other direction. We hear from him now and then. The conversation is usually about how busy he is, but he hasn’t been home since our folks died.”

“Gram mentioned her boys were grown?” Jillian was trying to make the pieces fit.

“She did have two sons. My uncle died before he started school.”

He offered no more explanation and she didn’t want to ask. She knew the story would be sad.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. The streetlights blinked on, making the shabby old homes on the block with the bed-and-breakfast look quaint, charming. The lights on an old refinery across the creek morphed the ugly pipes into the towers of a castle.

“On the days I can’t come get Gram for lunch, I’ll have something for you and her delivered from Mamma Bee’s Pastries.” He looked straight ahead, not seeming to see the beauty around them. “I just don’t want Gram left alone. She knows not to leave until I come, but I’d feel better if you were with her.”

“I’m not a nurse.” Jillian wondered exactly what she was getting into. There was far more to this job than she thought. She could handle museum-quality logging, but she wasn’t prepared for taking care of anyone.

“I’m not asking you to be. Just sit down and eat with her.” His voice was still low, but frozen now.

“Fair enough.” Jillian stopped at the gate of Flancher’s Folly Bed-and-Breakfast. “I eat a big breakfast. If you order her a meal, just make it soup for me. I’ll eat with her, but if you take her out as she said you do when it’s not a quilting day, I’ll stay and work. I can take care of myself. Feeding me is not your problem, and those days I can log another hour.”

He nodded. “Understood. Just a job, right? Don’t want to get too involved.”

“Right.” She answered without looking up at him. He might read her lie in her eyes. She needed the job, but she was in town hoping to find a tiny piece of her dad’s life. She hadn’t been surprised when he first vanished, but as the years passed she wished for one thing, one thread, to hang on to.

Part of her still looked for him in a crowd. Still thought about what she would have said, or asked, if she’d known he’d be disappearing the last time he’d walked away so casually.

For the first few years she’d thought he’d appear just to check on her. The fact he didn’t told her more than she wanted to admit about the man who raised her.

She knew so little about Jefferson James. Nothing about her mother. It was like she’d found a hole in her mind and had nothing to fill it with. His journal had noted this zip code in one of the margins. Maybe there was something or someone he’d cared about here.

Connor nodded a silent goodbye and she did the same. But she turned when she reached the shadows of the porch and watched him until he disappeared into the night.

An interesting man, this Connor Larady. Cold at times, like he had a heavy load to carry. Formal, almost, at other times. Yet Gram loved him dearly. Jillian suspected he was a man with a great deal on his mind, and she didn’t plan to know him well enough to ever find out what that entailed.

They were polite strangers. Nothing more. Maybe he was too shy to get closer. Maybe she was too afraid of being hurt. It didn’t matter. She’d be on her way in three months.

His wrinkled raincoat had flapped in the wind, almost like wings. Then, as he’d turned the corner, he’d vanished. Or flew away. She grinned, letting her imagination run. For as long as she could remember, she’d longed to see a real hero, or even a villain, but people were just people. Interesting, but not worth getting too close to.

Strange, she thought. She had no one who’d claim her body if she died tonight. Yet she’d just met a man who probably knew the whole town, and she had a feeling he was more alone than she was.

The next morning, when Jillian ventured into the sunroom that doubled as guest dining, Mrs. Kelly had Jillian’s place set. In summer this room, with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, would be an oven, but on this cloudy, winter day, it seemed to draw bits of light without bringing any warmth along.

Dozens of crystals hung in circles like wind chimes. Now and then, one caught a ray that escaped from the clouds and splashed rainbows along the one pale yellow wall.

A dusty old piano stood in the corner of the room, out of place and looking abandoned. Mrs. Kelly must have tried to camouflage the eyesore with a huge arrangement of plastic sunflowers.

Jillian almost giggled aloud. Staying in the bed-and-breakfast was almost like being in a real house. Of course it was just a business, but she could pretend. Even the banging coming from the kitchen added atmosphere.

For her father, old trailers or two-bedroom apartments furnished with the bare bones for living had been enough. But she liked having pictures on the walls, rugs on the floors and curtains on the windows. The two semesters she’d lived in a dorm she’d spent more than she should have at the dollar store buying all kinds of decorations for her room. Then, she realized she couldn’t take any of them.

Only necessities travel.

As she sat down, she winked at the old upright piano in the far corner. If she could take anything extra packed away in the trunk of her car, it would be a piano. Impractical. Far too big. Impossible.

“Oh, my goodness!” Mrs. Kelly’s words came so fast as she stepped into the room, they almost sounded like a hiccup. “Look at the beams of light coming in. If a crystal beam shines on your face, you’re blessed by the angels today. I just saw two on your cheek, dear.”

Jillian rubbed her face. “I don’t believe in crystals or angels, but it’s a nice thought.”

“Don’t worry, they believe in you.”

Papa’s rule: Stay away from the crazies. Insanity spreads like the plague.

Mrs. Kelly laughed as if she’d only been kidding, and Jillian relaxed as breakfast was delivered on a silver tray.

A Dallas Cowboys football player couldn’t have finished all the meal. Pecan pancakes, sage sausage, fresh fruit, and a cinnamon roll for dessert. Who has dessert for breakfast?