CHAPTER 7
Archers Rest, like a lot of towns on New York's Hudson River, was first established in the 1600s by Dutch settlers. The head of the group was man named James Archer, who died the first winter. He was buried in a small field on the edge of a town that in the nearly four hundred years since grew into a large a cemetery, with almost seven thousand graves. Since Archers Rest had only five thousand living residents, there were more dead than alive in the little town.
I thought it was a delightfully morbid fact about the town, but my grandmother dismissed me. "It's big enough that you don't know everyone but small enough that even strangers have friends in common," she had told me once. And everyone had friends in the cemetery.
Archers Rest runs along the river, so we followed the river's edge from my grandmother's house to Main Street. We turned down the street past the hardware store, a pharmacy, and the post office.
As we got to the end of the street I saw Someday Quilts just ahead. Inside lights were on and Nancy was in the doorway changing the sign from CLOSED to OPEN.
"Why doesn't Nancy come to your quilt club?" I asked.
"She does when she can," Eleanor said tiredly, as though this were old territory for her. "Her husband isn't well and it's difficult for her." She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "Sometimesshe likes to leave a little early on Friday. She closed the shop an hour early yesterday."
"She just wanted to get home?" I asked.
"Perhaps." Eleanor looked at me. "I believe you said you were hungry. So I expect you to eat plenty."
My stomach was making quiet rumbling sounds that were about to get a whole lot louder. But in a typical bit of grandmother irony, we arrived at the one restaurant in town that made me nearly lose my appetite-the diner next to her shop.
The place seemed old and tired. At the front were four small Formica tables with two chairs each, and every one was taken. Past them were booths on either side. The seats were reddish-brown leatherette, but small rips at the seams revealed hints of the bright red they must have been thirty years before. There was a sign on the wall that announced the special of the day, meatloaf. It looked as if that had been the special since the diner's opening. There was no decoration anywhere, unless you counted what was obviously a thin layer of dust covering everything. I didn't care, though. I just wanted food.
"I can't believe this place still exists," I said. "Has the food improved?"
"It's not about the food. It's about the people," my grandmother said as we walked in. "The owner was good to me when I opened the shop, and I like to support her."
Natalie and Susanne were at a table near the back, with Natalie's ten-month-old son, Jeremy, in a high chair. They waved us over and handed us menus, which I immediately began studying.
"It's a shame this place is closing," my grandmother said.
"Carrie was talking about opening up a coffee shop. This would be a good space," Natalie offered.
"Oh, she's just talking," Susanne disagreed, and then as if explaining to me, she continued. "Carrie sometimes misses being a high-powered businesswoman."
"Who wouldn't?" interrupted Natalie. "It must be so exciting to live in New York City and have a cool job and go out to fancy restaurants all the time."
"Yeah, it must be," I laughed. "Most of the time I eat a salad in my cubicle."
"What are you talking about? Eleanor said you work at a news magazine. I don't read it, but it sounds glamorous. My husband and I are pretty simple high school graduates." She laughed. "A hairdresser and a mechanic. Nothing glamorous, like your life."
"That's nonsense. There's nothing simple about either of you," her mother interrupted. "Anyway, where does glamour get you? Carrie gets ideas in her head all the time about opening a business. Last year it was an antique shop, this year it's a coffee shop."
"Last year it was a child care business. The antique shop was the year before," Natalie corrected her.
"Regardless," said Susanne, "she never follows through."
It was like being at a tennis match, going back and forth between mother and daughter while my grandmother silently drank her coffee.
"She doesn't go through with it," Susanne continued, looking just at me, "because as your own grandmother can tell you, owning your own business is a twenty-four-seven job."
Then they switched topics, talking about a favorite quilt show they all watched. My food had arrived, so I kept busy wolfing down pancakes and bacon. Only baby Jeremy had less concern for etiquette.
"How do you stay so thin?" marveled Natalie, watching me.
"Depression eating." I laughed, but I put down my fork.
"You're allowed," Susanne reassured me.
Both Susanne and Natalie gave me that "poor thing" look that I had seen last night at the shop.
"Yes. This weekend." My grandmother suddenly sounded stern. "After this weekend you have to get on with your life. He made a big mistake, and gaining twenty pounds won't change that."
She was right, of course, but rather than admit it, I changed the subject. "What will happen to this place if Carrie doesn't buy it?"
"She won't," said Susanne, a little too sure. "Probably someone from New York will take it. Someone coming up in search of a nice quiet life."
"Turn it into a hip little restaurant like they must have in your neighborhood," said a suddenly excited Natalie. "Put in WiFi and serve chai tea."
"Are you speaking English?" Susanne looked at her completely perplexed.
Natalie just rolled her eyes. "They'll make it like a city place, is what I'm saying."
I looked around. It wasn't impressive. Even though it was a diner, it would still have to be stripped to the joists to turn it into the kind of trendy place the women thought it would become. I had a better idea.
"Why don't you take it?" I asked my grandmother.
"Me? What do I need with a diner?"
"Expand the shop." I looked around again. Since it needed a major remodeling, it could be anything. "You could knock down the wall between your place and this and double your selling space."
"Someday is packed to the rafters, El," agreed Susanne. "You could put in a classroom. You've always wanted a classroom."
Eleanor looked around the diner. "Needs work," she said.
We all nodded. It was impossible to ignore that it was a big job. "Well, maybe it is too much for you," I started to agree.
She looked at me. Even Natalie and Susanne recognized that I had challenged my grandmother, and she would find it irresistible.
"Could be done," Eleanor finally admitted. "Where's the bill? I need to go to work."
Susanne, Natalie, and Jeremy had already said good-bye and left, and I walked to the door, but my grandmother hesitated. I could see that she was quietly examining the diner. I knew what I saw- torn leatherette booths and soda machines-but I could tell by the look in her eyes that in her mind the place was already filled floor to ceiling with fabric.
CHAPTER 8
We walked next door to the shop my grandmother had owned for more than thirty years. And looking at it, it might seem as if she hadn't gotten rid of anything the entire time.
The quilt shop had a treasure hunt quality to it. While there were organized shelves with bolts of fabric lined up by color, there were just as many bolts leaning up against the wall. Fabrics of colorful flowers, cute baby animals, and Christmas prints were piled on top of one another near the cash register at the front.
To get to the rest of the shop, you had to make a semicircle around a dangerously overloaded rack of books and down an aisle that was one person deep.