Читать книгу Ties That Bind - Marie Bostwick - Страница 12

We went in the side door. Abigail snapped on a light and we walked through an orderly anteroom with winter coats and hats hung on pegs and boots—garden boots, hiking boots, riding boots, snow boots—standing at the ready in tidy pairs on grooved trays designed to catch mud or melting snow. Three open cupboards on the opposite wall held an assortment of sports equipment—tennis rackets, golf clubs, and cross-country skis. Abigail is very athletic.

The kitchen was just as well organized, with gleaming copper pots hung on a rack over the stove, a long wall of cream-colored cabinets with dishes lined up like museum collectibles behind doors of beveled glass. Of course, Abigail has much more storage space than I do, and a full-time housekeeper, but I couldn’t help but feel a little twinge of self-reproach when I compared Abigail’s tidy kitchen to mine.

I’ve got to reorganize my kitchen. Soon. Maybe tonight. The last thing I need this Christmas is for my mother to come into my house and start throwing out little hints about me being messy or, worse yet, putting on an apron and starting to clean. The minute she walks into my house and starts picking up things, or pulls my vacuum out of the closet, I feel like I’m nine years old again.

I leaned against the counter, tapping my foot while Abigail opened a kitchen drawer and looked through a blue-flowered file folder for my card.

“It’s not here,” she said, frowning. “Hilda must have moved it. I’ve told her a million times … Never mind. I’m sure it’s on my desk.” She walked to the hallway.

“Abigail, it’s all right. Really. Why not wait and give it to me later?”

“No. It’s a birthday card and I want to give it to you on your birthday. Come on.”

I followed her down the hallway and into the dark living room, completely unsuspecting until Abigail turned on a table lamp and everyone I know and care about in New Bern—Evelyn, Charlie, Garrett, Franklin, Ivy, Virginia, Tessa and Lee, Madelyn and Jake, Dana, Wendy Perkins—jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!”

I stood frozen, utterly shocked. Evelyn came over to give me a hug. “Don’t be mad. I told you that we weren’t planning on giving you a surprise party at the shop. You didn’t say anything about a party off-site.” She laughed and everyone joined in.

My plan for celebrating this birthday was not to. But when I saw my friends popping up from behind the furniture like jacks-in-the-box, complete with silly grins and funny paper hats, I reconsidered.

After the shouts and the hugs, the kisses and congratulations, Evelyn and Madelyn brought out a beautiful cake, shaped like a bed and draped with a fondant icing quilt in pink, green, and white patchwork squares with four tall pink and white twisted candles, like four carved bedposts on each corner of the cake.

“Oh my!” I exclaimed, leaning over and gently poking the fondant with my finger to confirm that it truly was a cake. It looked so real, like a quilt on a doll’s bed. “Who thought this up?”

Virginia, who, in her eighties, is more on the ball than most women half her age, waved her hand over her head. “Guilty!” she called out. “Though it wasn’t exactly my idea. I saw something similar on the Internet.” That’s what I mean about Virginia; though her specialty is meticulously and exquisitely handmade quilts using heritage techniques, she is always willing to try new things. Virginia has more Facebook friends than I do.

“And Madelyn baked it,” Tessa added, beaming as proudly over her best friend’s accomplishment as if it had been her own. “Isn’t it amazing? You know, if Madelyn hadn’t decided to become an innkeeper, she could have made her living as a baker.”

I looked up at Madelyn, who was shooting a look at Tessa. When Madelyn, widow of an infamous Wall Street financier, was living a glamorous life in New York, the paparazzi followed her everywhere. But now I’ve noticed that she doesn’t really like being the center of attention.

“It’s beautiful, Madelyn. Too beautiful to eat.”

“It better not be!” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I spent all morning baking it. Go on, Margot. Blow out the candles before the bedposts burn down.”

“Yeah,” Garrett, Evelyn’s son and the Cobbled Court Quilt Shop’s official “web dude,” agreed. “Get on with it, Margot. I’m starving!”

I leaned over and pursed my lips, ready to blow, but was stopped by Ivy, who cried, “Wait a minute! Don’t forget to make a wish.”

I paused for a moment, wondering what to wish for. It seemed I already had so much. But then I remembered what Abigail had said about Reverend Clarkson in the car and what I’d said back: “You can never have too many friends.”

Closing my eyes, I made a silent wish about myself and friendship and Reverend Clarkson. When I was done, I leaned down again and blew out all four candles in one breath, never supposing anything would come of it.