Apart at the Seams (4 page)

“But he didn't send it. He says he changed his mind.”

“Gayla,” she said in a wearily patient tone. “Don't be so naïve. He only said that because now he knows that you
know
. He knows that's what you want to believe, so he's using that to buy himself some time, so he can outflank you. It's the same line that Simon fed me. . . .”

Simon was Lanie's second husband, the personal trainer she met at her gym, the one she was married to for less than two years. The one she still paid alimony to.

“Brian's not like that.”

There was a pause, a tinkle of ice, and a sigh.

“Gayla. Darling. I don't mean to sound cruel, but given the situation, I think it's safe to say that you don't know
what
Brian is like.”

I winced, cut by the accuracy of her statement. If I knew my husband as well as I thought I did, or even a little bit, shouldn't I have seen this coming? But I still didn't believe that Brian was trying to trick me. No matter what Lanie said, he wouldn't do something so underhanded, and I told her so.

“Okay, fine. For the moment, let's assume you're right. Let's assume he wanted a divorce but then he changed his mind. Gayla,” she said as quietly as she could while still making herself heard over the tinkle and hum of happy hour, “what's to say that tomorrow he won't change it again? Do you want to spend the rest of your life waiting for the other shoe to drop?”

My stomach lurched, responding to Lanie's gift for summing up my most secret fears and saying them aloud. Fortunately, I'd already lost my lunch back at the apartment, so instead of throwing up again, I swallowed back the taste of bile and repeated my position. “I need time to think.”

“Fine,” she said, obviously irritated. “Take all you want. But don't blame me if you wind up bankrupt and living in a fifth-floor walk-up.”

“I won't,” I said, knowing that in spite of her heavy-handed approach, she really was concerned about me. “Thanks, Lanie.”

“Thanks yourself, Stubborn,” she said, her irritation abating slightly. “You're just saying that because you know I'd never let that happen to you. No friend of mine is going to have to climb more than one flight of stairs to her front door. Worst case, you can always move into our guest room.”

I smiled. “You think Roger would be all right with that?”

“Who cares what Roger thinks? It's my name on the mortgage. Learn from my example, lovey. Prenups. The avenue to lasting marital harmony. Speaking of Roger, I'm supposed to meet him for dinner. Are you going to be all right? I'll call first thing tomorrow to see how you're doing.”

“Oh,” I said doubtfully, “you don't have to do that. I'm fine. And the reception is so bad at the cottage.”

“Stop trying to be so brave. You need a friend right now, Gayla. You really do.”

True enough. But was Lanie the friend I needed?

For years that had stretched into decades, the answer to that question had always been yes. Now I wasn't so sure.

N
othing went right that day.

Cleaning up the flood in the bathroom made me late for work. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but Evelyn and Margot are off at a trade show, so it was my job to open the shop. Though I was only ten minutes late, three scowling women were already pacing in front of the door when I arrived.

I apologized, but it didn't seem to make any difference. They were really snippy about it, especially after I told them that we were out of the interfacing they wanted. When I informed them that the 25 percent off coupon they wanted to use had expired two months before, the scales tipped from snippy to snotty.

All three had gray hair and pinched lips and looked so much alike that I thought they must be sisters. The tallest one did the talking.

“What? We drove all the way from Hartford because we'd heard that this shop had such good customer service! I can't
believe
you're not going to honor your coupon. I want to speak to the owner. We drove two
hours
to get here!”

Unless they were driving golf carts, no way did it take them that long to get to New Bern from Hartford. Maybe they came by broomstick? I was tempted to ask but instead I just said, “I'm sorry, but Evelyn's not here right now.”

“Well, this is ridiculous!” Tall Sister snapped, flinging the expired coupon down on the counter. “We are
never
coming to this shop again. Never! We're going to tell everyone in our guild about how you've treated us. And it's a big guild. Very big! I don't know why Carol raved about this place. Terrible shop. Tired fabrics, tiny selection, and
rude
clerks,” she said, pinching her lips together even more tightly and glaring at me before turning to her companions.

“Come on, girls. Let's get out of here.”

And that was that. They stormed off—and without paying for the fabric that they'd asked me to cut for them. Can you believe it? I put the yardage under the counter on the off chance that somebody else would come in wanting those particular fabrics in those particular lengths. More than likely, I'll end up having to put them on the remnant table, marked with a 25 percent discount. Maybe it would have been smarter to just honor the coupon, but I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction, not after they'd been so nasty.

When Virginia, Evelyn's mother, who is well into her eighties but still as sharp as a tack and continues to teach quilting and work in the shop several afternoons a week, arrived to take over for me at around eleven, I told her what had happened. By then I was starting to worry about whether or not I'd done the right thing.

“Tosh!” she said, dismissing my concerns as she picked up Petunia, the enormous tomcat who goes everywhere with her, and deposited him in his accustomed spot in the front window. “I bet they don't even belong to a guild. And if they do, I bet everyone in the guild has their number. Most quilters are kind as can be, but every barrel is bound to have a few crab apples.”

I went to the workroom to cut and package Internet orders, happy to leave Virginia downstairs to deal with the crab apples. We were way behind on fulfillment. Judith, our intern, was supposed to come in at noon and help me, but she didn't show. When I called the Stanton Center, they told me she'd gone back to her boyfriend, the man responsible for her broken nose and dislocated shoulder.

I called the elementary school and asked them to let Bethany know that I wouldn't be able to make it to the spelling bee. I was disappointed, but not one-tenth as disappointed as I was about Judith. I really thought she was going to make it.

Being financially independent and having job skills makes it a lot easier for victims of domestic violence to escape that cycle. That's why we started the community internship program, a program I coordinate. Our interns are much less likely to return to their abusers than those who don't get job training, but still, it happens.

People who've never been in that situation find this hard to fathom, but I get it. Time after time, Hodge would beat me and then beg my forgiveness, promise me it would never happen again. Time after time, I believed him. Until the next time.

The day he hit Bethany was the day I knew I had to get out. If not for my kids, I'd probably never have found the courage to run or to keep from going back. It just breaks my heart that Judith is gone. I feel like I've failed her.

Working at Cobbled Court Quilts is fun. I love the people I work with. Margot is the kindest person I've ever met. Virginia is like the grandma I never had. And Evelyn . . . well, Evelyn is just amazing. How many small business owners would let me spend 25 percent of my time coordinating the internship program, a program that involves eight different businesses in New Bern, not just her quilt shop, and still pay my full salary? Nobody I can think of. But what I really love about working here is working with the interns. I can never repay those who helped me escape the cycle, but I can help others who are still trapped, cheer them on, let them stand on my shoulders, give them a boost over the wall to freedom and safety.

That's why I decided to get my GED and start taking classes at the community college, because someday I want to help run a women's shelter, maybe even be the director. Not for the money, though more money would be nice, but because that's where my heart is—with the women.

 

Even though I skipped lunch, I spent the rest of the day playing catch-up—and losing. I was late leaving work and late picking up the kids from after-school care. Bethany never got my message about why I couldn't make it to the spelling bee. I felt terrible. Even after I explained what happened, said we were going out for pizza to celebrate her victory (also because I hadn't had time to get to the market), and solemnly promised I'd be there for the regional competition, she was still sulky and refused to talk to me. Bobby filled the silence, jabbering about school and some group called Boys' Brigade that his friends had joined, and begging me to let him join too. Though I was only half listening, I said he could as long as it didn't cost anything. It sounded like it'd be good for him, a way to spend more time with other boys. When it comes to raising Bobby, I sometimes feel like I'm flying blind. Bethany is easier; I know what to do with a girl. Well, some of the time. As she sat there, barely eating, refusing to look at me or speak to me while Bobby babbled happily about camping trips and bowling tournaments, I couldn't help but wonder how I was ever going to survive the teen years.

After feeding the kids and picking up the sitter, I drove to the community college as fast as I could. I took a seat in the back of the room, hoping my tardiness would go unnoticed. No such luck. Dr. Verstandig stopped the lecture to tell me that Dr. Streeter wanted me to drop by his office after class.

He did? Why would the head of the humanities department want to see me?

As soon as class was over, I went to Dr. Streeter's office and knocked on the door, clutching my textbook to my chest as if that might stop my heart from pounding.

When I'm in the presence of a male authority figure—a policeman, a judge, or even Reverend Tucker, who has to be the nicest man on the face of the earth—I feel anxious, like I've been caught doing something wrong and am about to be punished for it.

The psychology class that I took last term helped me understand why. It's all mixed up with how I was raised, the guilt I still feel over my father's death when I was little, and, of course, the years of abuse I endured from my husband, who used to fly into a rage over even the tiniest infraction of rules that I sometimes wasn't even aware of. I could write a ten-page, footnoted, A-plus paper on the causes and effects of my particular brand of anxiety. But being able to explain it isn't the same as being able to control it.

I knocked again, a little louder. Dr. Streeter's deep voice came from the other side of the door. “It's unlocked!”

Dr. Streeter, dressed in the shapeless brown sweater-vest he wears no matter the season, sat bent over his desk with the end of a pencil wedged between his teeth, chewing on the eraser and reading an essay. He held his hand up when I entered, so I stood still and silent, waiting for him to finish. He shook his white head and scribbled a note in the margin of the paper before looking up, first with a frown and then with a delighted smile, which made me feel much better.

“Ivy!” he boomed, throwing out his arms as if he expected me to run into them.

Dr. Streeter acts in plays at the local theater. He talks as if he's trying to make sure they hear him in the cheap seats and uses a lot of sweeping hand gestures.

“Sit! Sit! Sit! Just clear those papers off the chair—move them anywhere. That's right. What can I do for you?”

“Dr. Verstandig said you wanted to see me?”

“I did? Oh, yes!” he exclaimed, his face brightening. “I did! I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Dr. Streeter is probably pushing seventy-five, but I don't think his forgetfulness has anything to do with age. I'm sure he was as much the absentminded academic at thirty as he is now, his office littered with papers, probably wearing that same ugly sweater-vest, and perfectly content with his life.

He turned to face me, and his ancient leather and wood swivel chair squeaked in protest. “How are your classes going?”

“Class,” I corrected. “I can only take one per semester, remember? So far, I've got a ninety-two average in Dr. Verstandig's class.”

“Good. Very good. Not that I'm surprised,” he said, snatching a piece of paper from under a glass paperweight and holding it at arm's length so he could read it without his glasses. “I was looking over your transcript. Algebra was a bit of a bumpy road, but you've earned high marks in every other course. Well done, Ivy. Very well done.”

He was such a nice man. Why had I been so worried about meeting with him? One of these days I simply had to grow up and get over it.

“Thanks. As of next semester, I'll be a sophomore. Only took three years. I'll probably be a grandmother before I'm a graduate, but I'll get there eventually.”

He made his hands into a chapel and rested his chin on the steeple of his fingers. “What if you were able to graduate in two years? Or even a little sooner?”

“How could I do that?”

He began patting his pockets, then burrowing through the papers on his desk until he located a bright blue brochure with a picture on the front of a man and a woman dressed in business suits and carrying textbooks under their arms.

“This appeared in my in-box last week. Carrillon College is starting a new accelerated degree program in nonprofit management and leadership. It's designed for people like you, adults who have spent some time in the workforce but have not yet finished their undergraduate work. The head of the program happens to be an old friend; she assured me that all your credits would transfer. They would also award you credit for your work experience, an entire semester's worth.”

A whole semester of college credit for work I'd already done? No books, no tests, no tuition? And best of all, no time? At my current rate, it would take me a year and a half to complete one semester's worth of classes. There had to be a catch.

I took the brochure from the professor's outstretched hand. “How does that work? Do they award more credits per class than other colleges? Is it an online program?”

Dr. Streeter shook his head. “No, no. They will give credit for work experience, but you'll have to take the rest of the classes on campus, three credits a class, and accumulate one hundred and twenty credits to graduate.

“Look,” he said, grabbing an old envelope and scribbling his calculations on the back. “You've already got thirty credits from us. Carrillon will grant you fifteen more for work experience, which means you only need seventy-five more. If you take six classes for three semesters and seven classes for one, you graduate in two years—sooner if you do the summer term. Carrillon assumes that adult students will be utterly focused on work and capable of taking more than five classes a term. Which is true. Unlike my younger students, you're not spending your time watching videos of cats running into screen doors on YouTube or posting pictures of food to your Facebook page.”

“No. I'm too busy working full-time and taking care of my two small children for that. Or anything else! Do you know how long it's been since I was on a date, Professor? Neither do I.”

This unexpected mention of my personal life made the old man blush, and my snappish tone brought a wounded expression to his face, making me regret my outburst. Why had I jumped on him like that? He meant no harm.

And why embarrass both of us by bringing up the vast wasteland that was my dating life? Or lack thereof? Actually, I've never been on a date, not once. After I ran away from home, I ended up living on the street, then working in a strip club—sort of. I thought I was being hired as a coat-check girl in a restaurant, only later finding out what kind of place it was and that they expected me to do a lot more than hang up coats. Sounds crazy, I know, but I fell for it. Stupid of me. Anyway, Hodge scooped me up from the gutter and took me home with him. I was as grateful as a rescued puppy and just as willing to please. Before long I was pregnant, married, and trapped, entirely dependent upon him for everything. And he never even had to buy me dinner. How stupid can you get?

So, no. I've never been on a date. But it isn't like I spend my Saturday nights downing quarts of ice cream, sighing over movies on Lifetime, and moaning for a man. I'm too busy for that. Too busy for everything aside from working, studying, and caring for my kids. The only thing I do for me is go to the weekly meeting of my quilt circle. Some weeks I'm too swamped even for that, let alone a boyfriend.

Okay, I do have occasional fantasies about Ryan Reynolds showing up on my doorstep with roses and a swooningly sultry expression on his gorgeous face. I'm human, after all. But it's never going to happen. And that's probably a good thing, because even though Ryan Reynolds
seems
like the most perfectly perfect man possible, if I actually were able to have a relationship with him, I'm sure he'd turn out to be a jerk or worse. I have some sort of invisible magnetic pull that draws jerks to me. So sure, yes. It
might
be nice to have a man in my life, but I don't see it happening.