Needle and Thread (5 page)

Olivia caught Flora's eye and mouthed, “Get Mr. Willet,” which Flora did as quickly as she could. A minute later, he was hurrying toward his wife.

“Mrs. Willet,” Robby said as he watched Mr. Willet approach, “you have to wear
clothes
and
shoes
when you go outside. That's the rule.
Clothes
and
shoes
. Mr. Willet, Mrs. Willet wasn't following the rule.”

“It's okay, Robby,” said Flora.

Mr. Willet put his arm around his wife's waist. “Let's take a look at what you've got here. Ah. A letter to … your mother. Okay. Well, Robby's right. You have to get dressed before you can go to the post office. So let's go back inside.”

Ten minutes later, Min returned from work. As soon as the kids saw her, they ran to greet her. Then Nikki cried, “Oh, my gosh! What time is it?”

“Five-fifteen,” said Olivia.

“I have to go!” Nikki jumped onto her bicycle and pedaled down Aiken Avenue, shouting over her shoulder, “See you at school tomorrow!”

“Bye!” called Olivia and Ruby and Flora.

“My school got changed,” Robby said to Min, scowling again.

“I'm in preschool,” announced Alyssa.

“Goodness me, there's a lot of news,” said Min, lowering herself onto the porch step. “Tell me everything while I unwind from my day.”

For Flora Marie Northrop, the first two weeks of school at Camden Falls Elementary were a mix of the unfamiliar and the familiar, and Flora found the familiar more unsettling than the unfamiliar. How could anything, she wondered, feel familiar when nothing about her life was as it should be? At the beginning of the year, she had been living with her parents and Ruby in their old house in their old town. And she had been going to her old school with Annika and Liza. Now here she was living with Min and Ruby in Min's house in Camden Falls, going to a new school and making new friends. Sometimes as Flora sat in Mrs. Mandel's room, she would catch herself turning to a page in a book or watching her teacher write on the board, and the moment would feel as familiar and comfortable as all the moments of her life up until the moment of the car accident. And this was what frightened Flora. Why should this new life already feel familiar? How could it feel familiar without her parents in it? And yet sometimes it did. And then Flora felt guilty.

September marched along, and the first day of autumn approached. The trees on Main Street took on a faded appearance, as though they had been through the wash once too often. Sometimes when Flora walked to school with her friends, she could smell wood smoke in the air. Overhead, Canada geese, flying in sloppy V-formation, honked shrilly.

One Friday evening, when supper was finished and the table had been cleared and the dishes loaded into the dishwasher, Min said, “My, it's chilly. I believe we need a fire tonight. We'll make the first fire of the season.”

“Sweet!” exclaimed Ruby. “King Comma loves fires.” She glanced at the black-and-white cat dozing in an armchair. “Min, does Daisy Dear like fires, too?”

Daisy Dear was Min's galumphing golden retriever who, despite her size, had many fears. She was afraid of the vacuum cleaner, afraid of thunder, and at first had also been afraid of King Comma.

“Well,” said Min, “I think she sort of likes being with me when I sit in front of the fire, but if the fire pops or crackles, she leaves.”

Ruby smiled. “Daisy is a 'fraidy dog.”

“She certainly is,” agreed Min.

Min made tea and Flora made hot chocolate for herself and Ruby. Soon they were settled in front of the fire in their cozy Row House. King moved so close to the fire that Flora wouldn't have been surprised if he'd started to melt. Daisy cautiously sat beside Min's chair and turned her back on the fireplace.

“Well, this is nice,” said Min, looking at her granddaughters.

“And I don't even have any weekend homework,” said Ruby.

“I have some,” said Flora, “but only a little, and it's French, so that's fun.”

Min smiled. “I remember when your mother and Olivia's mother started taking French in school. They would walk down Main Street, yabbering away a mile a minute, mostly saying nonsense words that sounded vaguely French. They hoped people would think they were actually foreign, even though everyone in town knew who they were.”

Flora smiled and Ruby giggled.

“How old were they?” asked Ruby.

“About ten, I think.”

The girls lay on the floor, first on their backs, then on their stomachs, gazing into the fire.

“Min?” said Ruby dreamily. “Will you help us with our Halloween costumes?”

“My word,” said Min. “I know the store is already decorated for Halloween, but I still can't believe it'll be here so soon.”

“And after that, Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then New Year's Eve,” said Ruby.

A silence fell over the room. After a long moment, Min said, “I know what you're thinking, girls, and believe me, I've been thinking the same things.”

“Okay, what are we thinking?” Flora challenged her, sounding testy and regretting it.

Min leaned over and tweaked the toe of one of Flora's slippered feet. “You're thinking about the holidays and wondering what they're going to be like this year, the first ones without your parents. And you're wondering how we're going to celebrate. Maybe you're even wondering if we should celebrate at all. Is that right?”

Flora lowered her chin onto her arms. “Yup. That's exactly what I was thinking. How did you know?”

“Because that's what I've been thinking. Things are going to be different for me, too. After your grandfather died, I stopped spending the holidays at home — partly because it was too sad, and partly so I could be with my family. I've been going to your house for Thanksgiving for so long that I've forgotten how to prepare a turkey. I haven't had Thanksgiving at home in ages. I haven't had Christmas here, either, since I usually spend it with your aunt.”

“Aunt Allie?” asked Ruby. Aunt Allie was the younger sister of Flora and Ruby's mother.

“Mm-hmm,” said Min.

“Where does she live?” asked Ruby. “I forget.”

“In New York City. She's a writer.”

“Did she and Mom not get along?” asked Flora. “We've only met Aunt Allie, like, twice.”

“They weren't close,” said Min carefully. “They're very different people.”

“Is Aunt Allie the person who would take care of Ruby and me if anything ever happened to you?” asked Flora.

“Maybe,” said Min. “But, Flora, please don't start worrying about that again. I promise I will work things out so that you girls will always be taken care of.”

Flora scowled, then said, “So you always go to New York for Christmas? Does that mean we have to go there, too? I don't want to spend Christmas in New York City.”

“Let's not think that far ahead,” replied Min. “Let's just get through Halloween. Halloween is fun here. You haven't experienced Halloween in Camden Falls. You can go trick-or-treating on Main Street.”

“On Main Street?” Ruby repeated in dismay. “You mean we don't go trick-or-treating at people's houses here?”

“You can do that, too. But you can also go in town. All the stores stay open, and the store owners dress up in costumes and hand out candy. Gigi and I usually have to get fifty bags of candy to make sure we have enough for everyone who comes into town.”

“You mean
you
wear a costume on Halloween?” said Ruby.

“I most certainly do. So does Gigi. We made the costumes ourselves. I'm the Wicked Witch of the West from
The Wizard of Oz
and Gigi is Glinda, the Good Witch.”

Flora rolled over and faced Ruby. “Maybe
we
should be characters from
The Wizard of Oz
. Nikki and Olivia, too. We could be Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion.”

“Cool!” said Ruby.

The fire popped loudly then, and Daisy fled from the living room in terror.

“Speaking of events that are coming up,” said Min, her eyes following Daisy, “I know someone who has a birthday right around the corner.”

“Olivia,” said Flora.

“The big one-oh,” added Ruby.

“Is that what she calls it?” asked Min, laughing.

“Yup. She's really excited about her birthday. She wants a big party for the big one-oh.”

“Min, do you think her parents will be able to have a big party for her?” asked Flora. “I mean, since Mr. Walter lost his job?”

“Well, I don't know.”

“Maybe we could give Olivia a
surprise
party!” exclaimed Flora.

“Yes!” cried Ruby. “A surprise party! That would be so much fun. Nikki could help us.”

“We could invite our friends from school and from the Row Houses,” added Flora.

“And everybody could jump out and yell ‘Surprise!' like on TV,” said Ruby. “That would be so cool. Maybe Olivia would faint.”

“Good gracious me,” said Min. “I'm not sure we want that. But a surprise party is a lovely idea.”

Ruby stood up and said, “I'm going to go to my room and write down some surprise-party ideas.” She clumped up the stairs.

Flora gazed into the fire again, and her thoughts twisted and turned all by themselves. Suddenly, she found herself thinking about Scary Mary Woolsey. “Min,” said Flora, “wait right here. There's something I want to show you. It's in my room. I'll be back in just a minute.”

When Flora returned to the living room and Min's bright fire, she was carrying the photo she had shown Olivia, the photo of her mother posing with Mary Woolsey. Flora perched on the arm of Min's chair and held out the picture.

“What's this?” asked Min as she put on her reading glasses.

“I found it,” said Flora. “In the attic. I was just looking around up there one day.…” Her voice trailed off and she turned the photo over so Min could see the writing on the back.

“‘Frannie and Mary — nineteen seventy,'” read Min.

“At first I thought ‘Mary' meant your sister,” said Flora. “Mary Elizabeth. But then I realized this is a picture of Mary Woolsey. See the necklace she's wearing?”

“Well, I'll be,” said Min. “It
is
Mary Woolsey.”

“I didn't know you knew her that long ago. Do you remember when this picture was taken? I mean, why was she posing with Mom? Mary didn't work for you then, did she?”

“No. There was no Needle and Thread back then.”

“That's what I thought. So what
did
Mary Woolsey do? Didn't she … didn't she just live by herself in that little house and never come out? It seems weird that she would pose with Mom.”

Min frowned, staring at the picture, and Flora was relieved that her grandmother hadn't asked her why she'd been hunting around in the attic. “Frannie was four,” murmured Min. “That must have been … land sakes, I wonder if this was taken on the day … yes, I believe it was.”

“What? Taken on what day?”

“The day Mary showed up at our house to say thank you for what my father had done to help her. She didn't know how to reach my parents, but she knew I was still living in our old house, so she came here. In fact, my parents had moved to Florida, and my father had died several years earlier.”

“She wanted to thank your father? Lyman Davis?” Flora thought back to the letters she had also found in the box of papers. Lyman Davis, she had read, had made something of a bad name for himself after the stock market crash in 1929, which was several years before Min was born. He had been a wealthy stockbroker in Camden Falls, and from what Flora could piece together, had made investments that had lost money for his clients. In fact, many of them lost their entire fortunes, plunging them into poverty during the Depression. Min's father had left his job, a move his former friends (and some of his relatives) viewed as cowardly, and the family then lived mainly on a large inheritance that had come to Min's mother. “What did your father do for Sca — for Mary?” asked Flora.

“You know, I don't remember. This was decades ago, honey,” said Min. “My father was always doing nice things for people, though, and lots of times he never said anything about it. He just went ahead and lent people money or quietly did favors.”

“Lent people money?” repeated Flora. “I thought he lost all his money in nineteen twenty-nine.”

“Now, where did you hear about that?”

“In some letters I found in the attic,” Flora admitted.

“Oh,” said Min. “There's an awful lot of old stuff up there, that's for sure. Well, let me see. Yes, Dad did have a bad time for a while. Of course, that was before I was born. But our family got back on its feet. Dad never worked again but Mother had money, and Dad still had some of his own. I think my parents felt guilty that their lives didn't change much after the crash, even though the lives of so many of Dad's clients changed dramatically. For the worse. But as the years went by, things settled down. Anyway, maybe that's why Dad did so much for other people — because he felt bad about what had happened after the crash. So when Mary showed up at our door wanting to thank my father, I wasn't surprised, even though I didn't know he had helped her out.”