Old Maid's Puzzle by Terri Thayer Read Free Book Online

then the iron and the Giants game."
    "Wild man."
    "You could come home and distract me," he said, his voice getting softer and deeper. "Only you can save me from a night of washing and ironing."
    "I promise to be there at a quarter after nine," I said, hanging up and laughing.
    I glanced at the clock. I was almost late for Ina's class. I rushed across the hall.
    Within the first few minutes, I was in trouble. Ina'd started out by giving us an overview of the class, telling us we would learn to rotary cut accurately, and piece complex blocks. She'd asked for questions, and I'd obliged. One too many times.
    Ina stood in the front of the room, behind the wooden podium that nearly dwarfed her. She'd changed into a flowing jacket she'd made herself from the rayon batiks Mom had brought back from Indonesia. The violet hues brightened her steel-gray hair. Ina packed a lot of authority in her compact figure. She had been a high school math teacher before taking up quilting.

    "There are no stupid questions, Dewey," Ina said. Her expression said something else: How about shutting up and getting to work, Dewey.
    I'd asked her a series of questions about quilting. But I wasn't finished. "Why don't we just use templates?"
    "Rotary cutting is quicker and more accurate," Ina said with a finality meant to put an end to my stalling. "You can learn to cut any shape. Tonight we will be doing diamonds for our eightpointed star."
    Every table was filled except for one right in front of Ina. Eleven students, twelve if all showed up. I recognized some of them from the Beginning class. Mom had contended that the beginning class was the most important one, gaining the store new customers, but more importantly, to her, teaching a skill that could change lives. To her, quilting was more than a hobby. It was an art, and had the same healing powers that painting or sculpting did. Her mission had been to teach people to quilt.
    I was trying to keep that mission going. In order to do that, I had to learn to quilt myself.
    I was sitting at a table in the back of the room under the windows, farthest away from the door. My tablemate was shuffling her fabrics around, hands fluttering. Our instructions had been to bring two fabrics that coordinated. She'd paired a bright green polka dot on pink with a multicolored stripe. My eyes went out of focus looking at them. She'd confessed earlier that she was pretty sure she would never make anything as beautiful as the class samples hanging over Ina's head. I tried to reassure her, but I knew how she felt.

    Ina asked the students to introduce themselves. The final introduction was interrupted when the door flew open. A man with a shock of red hair burst in. He looked myopically around the room, and then headed for the empty table. He was carrying a QP bag, a backpack, and a metal toolbox. We all watched in silence as he took out a folding carpenter's rule and a Swiss army knife. He squared the edge of a metal T-ruler on his table.
    I perked up. This was my kind of quilter. He had tools I knew. A sewing machine had a cord and a motor but I didn't have the same affinity for it that I had for my router or band saw.
    Women's work. The phrase passed through my brain as I looked at the female heads in front of me. Gray curls directly in front of me, middle-of-the-back, thin chestnut hair to the right, an expensively streaked-blonde bob to my left.
    A man in the class changed the atmosphere. Some of the women sat up straighter. A few smoothed their outfits, and one grandmother took out a jewel-encrusted mirror and re-applied her lipstick.
    Ina was not daunted. She looked expectantly at Kym, who'd escorted the man in.
    "This is Tim Shore," Kym said. "He's just decided to take the class tonight." She smiled at him, totally enamored. "I'm off now," she said, unnecessarily. The class bade her goodbye as a group. I wondered how much Kevin would say to her about our talk.
    "Welcome," Ina said. She let him introduce himself.
    "I