Wickedness, of course, thrived there as anywhere.
The building that was to become The Patchworks stood on Main Street on a corner — or what would have been a corner except that it was really a curve. It was where the road had bent to trail off in a westerly direction once, long ago. Cows being driven to outlying pastures after the morning milking had perhaps preferred it that way. And because it was on a curve, the shop’s front stoop was rounded, as were its stone steps.
“I could be happy there,” Dorcas said the moment she saw it. Richard, holding her hand, looking at her, knew she was telling the truth; knew too that he would be happy if Dorcas was.
“It’s not a long drive into the city,” he said reasonably.
“And the station’s close, in case you don’t want to drive.”
“We’ll have to see what sort of shape it’s in.”
“But it looks just right for my shop. And we could live up overhead.”
“Sort of run down, isn’t it?”
“We can fix it up.”
“Oh sure. Anything can be fixed.”
Thus, trying to sound reasonable and pragmatic, but with their minds already made up, they approached the corner, mounted the rounded steps, and pushed the door open. The sign over the door said smokes — NEWSPAPERS — SOFT DRINKS. A bell jangled as they entered.
“We could keep the bell,” Richard said hesitantly as he looked around.
They kept the bell, but that was all. By the time Dorcas’s shop opened for business in September, all else had been swept, hauled, or carted away. Splintery counters, cracked mirrors mended with electrician’s tape, scarred shelves that had held Fritos and potato chips, shabby racks that had held newspapers. Cork ceiling tiles were removed to reveal foot-thick beams; mullioned front windows were re-glazed and puttied.
SMOKES — NEWSPAPERS — SOFT DRINKS came down. In its place, gently swaying, hung Dorcas’s new sign: THE PATCHWORKS. QUILTING SUPPLIES. SUNDRIES.
“Don’t you love Sundries?” she asked Richard, and Richard, who loved Dorcas, said he did.
It was a time everywhere of restoration, rediscovery, revival. And timing, it has often been noted, is all. Dorcas’s shop opened on a tide of nostalgia, of appreciation for things past. While antique shops sold washboards for twenty-five dollars, Depression milk bottles for ten, Dorcas sold quilts she had made, quilts she had collected, and on the other side of the shop sold, yard by colorful yard, the materials with which to make quilts. However, many of her customers had more will than skill.
“I don’t get it,” one woman frowned. “I mean — how do you put all those little pieces together? I’d love to do it. It would be — I don’t know — a statement of my own. Made to the world, you know? Only I don’t know how.”
Dorcas, who thought that in itself something of a statement, wisely did not say so. “I’m sure you could learn,” she said kindly.
“But how did you learn?”
Dorcas sought back in memory and knew that she had taught herself. Her own fingers and feeling had taught her. There had never been a time when she had not felt comfortable with a needle in her hand and scraps littered around her.
“I suppose I just picked it up,” she said. Then an idea came to her. “Perhaps I could teach you — and some of the others who’d like to learn.”
“A class.”
“Yes, a class.” Trying it out in her mind, Dorcas decided she liked the idea. But she and Richard were property owners now. They had a Mortgage.
“There would be a fee, of course,” she added primly.
The classes were a great success and good for business. Dorcas held them in the late afternoons in one corner of the shop, keeping an eye on the counter and taking care of occasional customers at the same time. But many women — and one man who inquired rather shyly — worked at their jobs by day and wanted to attend an evening class. Would she consider it?
“Well, possibly,” Dorcas said, but she was thinking of Richard and their time together in the low-ceilinged rooms upstairs. “I’ll think about it.”
Then one day before she had made up her mind, a woman came into the shop carrying an armful of folded quilts. Dorcas thought she was not yet forty, yet she had a gaunt, weary look. Something older than forty was in her eyes. Some wisdom, it seemed to Dorcas, or perhaps only knowledge, which is of course useful, but less than wisdom. The two of them looked at each other and seemed, in that first moment, to see something, each in the other. The thing had a name, but neither of them called it anything as yet. The name was understanding. They understood each other but did not know that they did.
“I have been noticing your sign,” the woman said.
Dorcas’s eyes flickered toward what the woman was carrying. “You make quilts?” she asked.
“It’s something I’ve always done,” the woman said, minimizing it.
“And you’d like to sell them?” Now Dorcas was filled with dread, for she had met a number of these earnest needlewomen since opening her shop. For the most part their creations were dreadful shiny affairs, with a great deal of polyester in shades of orange, lime green, fuschia. Skillful fingers but no eye for color, design, balance, proportion. Once or twice she had, spinelessly, agreed to take them on consignment, and had felt wretched over her lack of backbone. I will not take these if they’re ugly, she told herself. I will not.
“I would like to sell them, yes, ma’am,” the woman said.
Dorcas, feeling serious and mature at being called ma’am, cleared a space on the counter. “Well. Let’s have a look.” The feeling — still with no name — was working in her, and stronger now. She began to think the things might not be ugly after all.
The woman placed them on the counter and unfolded the top one for Dorcas to see.
It was in the pattern called Bear Paw and was made in shades of soft rose and beige, with dark red at the center of each block. Neither of them said anything. The woman put it aside and unfolded the next one. This was done in dozens of colors but so skillfully assembled that not a single piece clashed with any other. The blocks were separated by strips of midnight blue that made the quilt look like a stained-glass window. Dorcas recognized the pattern.
“That’s the Monkey Wrench, isn’t it?”
“Yes ma’am. I always thought it a poor name. No real sound to it. But when you set this pattern kitterin’, you call it the Anchor. I like that better.”
“Kitterin’?” Dorcas echoed.
“On the slant, like.”
“Oh yes, diagonally—”
The woman unfolded the next one. Stars in shades of blue set against white. “This here they call the Lemon Star.”
Dorcas recognized the LeMoyne Star, but she rather liked the sound of Lemon. She studied the tiny stitches, the smooth seams, the corners that met without a pucker.
“Your work is very good, Mrs.—”
“Lillian Shaw.”
“Mrs. Shaw. It’s very good indeed. I’ll be happy to take them on consignment. How much do you want to ask for them?”
“You decide, ma’am. Anything you get is all right with me.”
Dorcas saw Lillian Shaw’s look move to the bolts of cloth standing upright in rows on the shelves behind the counter.