The Third Grace (5 page)

Under duress, Eb had already offered severance packages to two older members of the team. It was Aglaia he was most concerned for.

“I wonder how her Shakespearian designs were received by the audience tonight,” Eb mused aloud. But Iona was already sleeping, he judged by the even breathing from her side of the bed. He kept his next thoughts to himself as he repositioned his legs to warm Iona's feet more completely.

Aglaia was almost like a daughter to him. He saw a divine spark of creativity in her love of costume making—there was something spiritual about her—but she was restless, too, just like Ian. Perhaps Eb could have prevented the rift in his own family; perhaps even now there was something he could do to at least bring solace to the lass.

Eb was a man who believed in prayer, especially when he had heavy thoughts.
Bless these children of yours
, he appealed simply and silently into the dome of the firmament beyond his window
. There's naught that I can do to change them—and if I tried, I'd only bungle it anyway. And while you're about it, Father, change me, too.
Then like a child himself, Eb slipped from meditation into sleep.

L
ate afternoon light streamed in through the workroom window of Incognito. Aglaia had tossed and turned all last night after Lou left, her alarm finally startling her out of fitfulness and into a day of intense activity, now abating as she sat alone. She was still manually occupied but free to ruminate.

Aglaia suspected she cried when she slept because her lashes were crystallized when she awakened some mornings and because her pillow had stains. And she knew she dreamed because she came up through them sometimes, resurfacing into consciousness, her eyes scraping open as she reached into the bedside drawer for her bottle of drops.

She used to love to recount her dreams at the breakfast table before the country school bus flashed its lights at the end of their driveway, Joel offering far-flung interpretations and her father shaking his head and muttering, “Vain imaginings.” They were hilarious, cheerful dreams of cherubs flying backwards through a rain forest or choirs singing hymns to conjoined twins—uncomplicated dreams that made her laugh at the silliness.

But when François came with his stories of far-away and long-ago Greece, her slumber absorbed the distorted character of Morpheus (god of dreams), who was son of Hypnos (god of sleep), who was son of Nyx (goddess of night). Her dreams became jumbled nightmares of Scripture and myth, of creation by Uranus and resurrection by Adonis and salvation by endless appeasement of the gods. It was then Aglaia stopped sharing dream details with her family, though throughout the day she treasured the inky residue of feelings they left behind.

These days, though Aglaia was still subject to the tyranny of Morpheus whenever she forgot her herbal sleep aid, there was no occasion for morning analysis. In the first place, although her job was creative, it wasn't always conducive to woolgathering, especially the past weeks with her international project demanding such close attention. Besides, she refused to ponder remnants of nightmares any longer, and she could call up full-blown daydreams whenever she wanted a little romance—reminiscences
she
picked and chose. During waking hours she managed her imagination intentionally, or tried to, categorizing her memories as neatly as she arranged the color-coded thread rack at work, with pleasurable thoughts as close at hand as her buttonhole twist.

This morning at work, her head aching from too much wine in her apartment with Lou, Aglaia had finished the paperwork necessary for smooth importation procedures at the French border. So she was free to complete the remaining stitches in solitude, as everyone but her boss had left for the weekend. She heard him in the next room, his bass voice chanting out a low-key refrain, and she caught a few words: “My soul doth thirst… deep unto deep doth call.” Likely they were from the Scottish Psalter, the out-of-print hymnal he was fond of paging through, with its worn fabric cover, its lyrics written in crabbed lettering.

Ebenezer MacAdam was a gnome of a man with a brogue as thick as the butter on his lunch scones, a generous man with nothing of the Scrooge about him despite his unwieldy name. Aglaia calculated that Eb must be past retirement age, but his energy was steadfast. He closed the shop by himself every evening, and, by the time she arrived the next morning, he was paging through bills or oiling the machines, teacup at his elbow, a measuring tape around his collar like a loosened necktie. Eb drove to work in a classic tartan-red MGB that he'd restored and continued to maintain himself, usually with the top down and at the mercy of the elements until the frost was too sharp. He pushed his luck well into the winter and came in some mornings with ice coating his whiskers.

On Aglaia's worktable, a stray beam of sunlight played on metallic threads in the garment rumpled in a heap before her. She plugged the buds of her iPod into her ears to listen to the muted crooning of a male vocalist with a guitar rather than Eb's sentiments, and lifted the heavy gown onto her lap to pick at the bodice.

The rest of the costume was completed—petticoat and stays and beaver-trimmed cape. Representative of relations between Europe and North America, it was a replica of an outfit worn by a minor historical figure—a Parisian lady in the entourage of a governor visiting New France in the eighteenth century. Researchers at Incognito's headquarters authenticated the particulars of its style and sent Eb's office both a small oil portrait of the lady and documentation in the form of a letter home to her daughter—endorsements the Paris museum required, of course. This was the most advanced dressmaking commission Aglaia had yet undertaken and she was given some latitude in executing it.

Aglaia stroked the bisque brocade embossed with
fleurs de lys
, which she'd specially ordered from France a year ago for the ensemble. She alone designed and cut and stitched the creation from the beginning, ignoring offers of help from the teen volunteering at Incognito as part of his student work program. Aglaia owned the project from the beginning, and even now the texture and the weight of the cloth in her hand brought a deep tranquility.

From the time she was a child playing with colorful scraps that fell to the floor, listening to the drone and punch of Mom's antiquated Singer machine, she'd hankered to sew. She learned the smell of the flax beneath linen, savored the variance between silk and wool. She had a habit still of chewing a strand each time she laid out a length of yard goods, ready for the shears. She made a sacrament of touching and sniffing and tasting—a sensual adulation.

Aglaia recalled the first dress she made for herself from start to finish, using a size eight Vogue pattern and indigo challis speckled with wildflowers.

The spell of the cloth binds her, winds itself through her imagination as she determines the straight of grain and matches up the print and struts in her mind in front of the panel of 4-H adjudicators. But today she has a different critic in view. She is engrossed when Joel enters the basement laundry room.

“You'd rather sit at the sewing machine than eat?” he asks. “Mom called you twice.” But the sundress is completed so she tries it on for the family—for François—after supper.

“When in heaven's name will you ever wear that?” her father asks. His idea of high fashion is a sturdy twill shirt for the cattle sale at the auction ring. But his eyes sparkle at her.

“Henry, don't discourage her,” Mom says. “It's lovely, Mary Grace. Maybe you'll wear it to the church picnic next week.”

Her mind fast-forwarded to the picnic where, in the shade of an apple tree, she unfastened the top button when everyone but François crowded around the potluck table.

“You are beautiful
, mon enchanteresse,”
he says, and then spins for her the tale of a great weaving competition called by Athena, the goddess of household arts and crafts, against Arachne, the mortal daughter of a famous dyer of purple wool.

“I image you there at that contest, my little Mary Grace.” His mouth is close to her ear and she hears him over the noisy picnickers loading their plates and calling out to them to get something to eat before it's all gone. And she imagines, with his coaxing, being at that contest, imagines being one of the assisting Graces fixing the warp threads onto the loom before the great virgin goddess, passing the weft shuttle back and forth in a frenzy through the tapestry, tying off the ends in a race against time. When Arachne won, François says, the vengeful Athena turned her into a spider to spin a cobweb for eternity.

François touches her hand but she pulls away, fearful someone might see—and maybe Joel has, for he's the closest to them and he's glowering over his potato salad now. François winks at her. Has he been teasing, just playing with her all along? No one winks nowadays, she thinks, at least not the local boys who know nothing about flirting.

But her spoonful of jelly salad tastes like ambrosia.

Aglaia chose her needle from the stash of gold-plated “betweens” Eb supplied; she knotted the thread, then caught a loose edge within a fine seam allowance threatening to fray. Only a mannequin would ever wear this costume. Even so, the idea of unfinished seams vexed Aglaia. The piece must be perfect when she handed it over to the curator of the world-renowned collection at the Musée de l'Histoire du Costume. As Lou said, this was her chance to promote herself on an international scale.
Le Parisien
had already printed an advertisement of the upcoming exhibition.

Aglaia didn't turn her nose up at public acknowledgement here at home, either. She glanced at the line of frames that hung on her wall—occupational qualifications and certifications, competition placements, a merit award. Granted, no postsecondary diploma hung in the lineup. But Lou's unveiling last night of her recommendation of Aglaia for a position in theater costuming at the university took some of the sting out of her lack of academic credentials. The job would give her standing within the arts community—proof to herself that she'd broken free from the straitjacket of her agricultural past. If she could up her profile as a seasoned urban artist, maybe she'd finally feel like one. She was tired of living on the run—running from emotions and definitions she never asked for. Running from the farm.

But Aglaia didn't want to think about what a job offer might mean to her current situation—her employment at Incognito and Eb's selfless provision towards her professional reputation. She wouldn't think about that just yet.

Aglaia readjusted the halogen lamp and looked at her reflection bent over the mass of creamy skirts piling up about her like cumulous clouds. She recalled the time she spent in front of her vanity mirror when she first moved to the city, practicing an air of aloof detachment. She'd tell herself stories full of scandal or comedy or pathos to see if she could maintain the reserve. But here in the cloister of her sewing room, the contentment was almost real.

This hour of creation gratified Aglaia most, when conception had grown from sketch into near fruition and she could allow her mind to meander as her hands manufactured. Lately she'd become adept at conjuring scenarios of lingering with François at outdoor cafés, strolling with him along the Champs Élysées, or window-shopping in the Marais. The girls at work had more than once commented on her other-worldly abstraction, and last week she missed a lunch break entirely, shut up in her studio with a new bolt of charmeuse.

They called that fabric her latest fling—not that she ever talked to them about her real social life, which was in fact devoid of men. No, all her romance was relegated to the vault of her thoughts, where she could keep a close eye on it and steer clear of further pain. She knew her lack of confidence with men stemmed from confusion about what she had to offer—about who she was. She'd lost a piece of herself when François left.

So Aglaia was grateful for a career that rewarded imagination and gave her definition. It was no one else's concern, least of all her coworkers', what actually occupied her mind, whether designs for a new costume or amorous cogitations. But the truth was that she'd been undergoing a decrease in control over the ebb and flow of her thoughts lately, hounded by unbidden—forbidden—memories, as though her emotional seams were coming undone. Maybe it was the stress of the Paris deadline. The danger had less to do with the time she wasted immersed in daydreaming than with the choice of the dream—that is, with the dream that chose her. Her repertoire was vast but certain doors should be kept shut, she believed. Everyone had recollections they locked up. It was called forgetting, wasn't it? Removing from sight, putting away as far as east was from west.

That bloody Bible, then, became a problem. She avoided reading it last night after Lou left, in spite of her curiosity over François's notations. She was just too tired. It held a summer's worth of memories but she wasn't yet up to the task of unraveling them. In fact, she was slightly peeved at the opportunity.

Aglaia took a sip from her Evian bottle and turned up the volume of the CD—she'd always been partial to the guitar—so that Eb's voice was totally blocked out.

She didn't hum, but she pierced her needle in and out, keeping time with the musical beat. Marking rhythm was as close as she got to singing these days, after years of painful discord, although she sensed deep within her heart a melody, as though someone were sweeping across the broken strings to stir the dormant chords again.

“
Chantez
—sing!” François calls out to the youth group as he strums some generic tune that somehow fits the evangelical chorus he couldn't have learned in France
.
Tousled hair falls over his forehead in waves and his eyes are closed as he feels his way into the song, his thick lashes fluttering slightly. Will he suddenly open those eyes and catch all the girls gaping?

At last the church teens have someone who can play a guitar. The off-tune piano's been rolled back under the stairs but Naomi says she doesn't mind giving up the job as accompanist. Now, because of François, even the guys join in on the refrain.

“I don't know how he does it,” Joel says later when the two of them walk out to the truck ahead of the others. Joel's riding boots kick up dust that hangs in the hot evening air before it sifts back onto the brome and kosha weed growing on the side of the parking lot.

“Does what?” Mary Grace hasn't spent much time alone with her brother lately and doesn't like the absence, though she's instigated some of it. But she misses the after-hours chats in his bedroom or hers, long after their parents are asleep. Summers are busier for him now that he's graduated and is expected to do a grown man's work in the fields, but for the first summer in a couple of years she wishes they were kids again. More to the point, with François around she and Joel aren't sole companions anymore and, truth be told, she wouldn't mind a hike with her brother out to the poplar bluff in the hills like old times, carrying a bag of peanut butter sandwiches and a jar of creamy milk.