Staying Together

  “Not usually,” Nikki replied. She ran to the bathroom, found a box of tissues, returned to the kitchen, and set it on the table. “Um, Mae, could you go help Mom for a few minutes?”

  “Help her with what?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever she needs help with.”

  “But this is more interesting.”

  “Mae!”

  “Okay, okay.”

  Mae stomped upstairs, keeping her eyes on the kitchen until the last possible moment.

  “I’m sorry I was mad for so long!” Flora said, pulling three tissues from the box and wadding them up in her fist.

  “I’m sorry about snooping,” replied Ruby, wiping her eyes. “And for calling you a judgmental hag.”

  “You called her that?” said Olivia.

  “In my head I did.”

  “Now that everything is over,” said Nikki, “could you tell us what happened?”

  “It is over, isn’t it?” asked Olivia in a small voice.

  “It’s over.” Flora glanced at her sister. “Is it okay to tell them?”

  Ruby nodded. “I guess so. You can tell them everything except …” She thought for a moment and then leaned over and whispered in Flora’s ear.

  “All right,” agreed Flora. And she told Olivia and Nikki all that had happened up until the moment Min had handed the replacement owl back to Ruby and told her she didn’t want to keep it. Everything from that point on was private, not to be shared even with their best friends.

  “Boy,” said Nikki when Flora finally finished speaking. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then let’s not talk about it anymore,” replied Flora. “We’re here to have fun.”

  “All four of us,” said Olivia.

  “All four of us,” agreed Flora. “Together.”

  “Girls?” called Mrs. Sherman from upstairs. “Is it okay if we come down now?”

  “Yes!” chorused Flora, Ruby, Nikki, and Olivia.

  “Good, because if we’re going to have hot dogs and s’mores, then I should start the grill.” Mrs. Sherman headed down the stairs, followed by Mae, who was dragging a sleeping bag behind her.

  “Mom!” wailed Nikki, and Mrs. Sherman turned around, saw the sleeping bag, and shook her head.

  “Toads!” Mae exclaimed, and threw the sleeping bag back upstairs. “Fudgesicles!”

  “But you can eat supper with us, Mae,” said Nikki generously. “You, too, Mom.”

  The sun hadn’t set yet, but it was edging toward the horizon by the time the outdoor feast was ready.

  “Spread this on the ground, honey,” Mrs. Sherman said to Mae, handing her an ancient tablecloth.

  “Oh, a real picnic!” said Mae joyfully. “Eating right on the ground, just like in a movie.”

  Flora and Ruby and their friends carried dish after dish outside — corn on the cob, potato salad, pickles, cornbread, slices of watermelon. Mrs. Sherman disappeared into the house and returned with a pitcher of iced tea and another of lemonade.

  “This is the perfect picnic,” said Flora. “Thank you so much.”

  “I’m happy we can do this,” said Nikki shyly.

  And Flora knew exactly what her friend meant, since two years earlier nothing like this could have taken place at the Shermans’ house.

  “Ah,” said Ruby as she sank onto a corner of the tablecloth and surveyed the food.

  The air was growing cooler. Flora heard first one peeper and then another. A mourning dove twittered as it whooshed into the air.

  “We saw an owl last night,” remarked Mae as her mother handed around plates, and Ruby dipped her head.

  Flora helped herself to a hot dog and a slice of watermelon. “I can’t believe summer is here.”

  “Technically it isn’t here until school is out,” said Ruby.

  “Well, technically it isn’t here until June twenty-second,” commented Olivia. “But who cares?”

  Flora ate and laughed and talked and filled her plate again and eventually declared, “I’m stuffed!”

  “Save room for s’mores,” said Mrs. Sherman.

  They waited until darkness had fallen and then stood around the grill, toasting marshmallows in the glowing coals.

  “This is the messiest sandwich I ever ate,” commented Mae, wiping chocolate from her face with fingers that were coated with marshmallow and crumbs. “Oh, well. It’s a good thing I’m going to be sleeping outside tonight. It won’t matter if I’m messy.”

  “Mom!” cried Nikki.

  “Mae,” said her mother.

  “Toads!”

  The night was blacker than Flora had imagined it would be. By the time Mrs. Sherman had doused the flames in the grill and taken Mae inside to bed, and Flora and her friends had arranged their sleeping bags in a tight circle in the grass beneath an oak tree, it was after ten o’clock. And very, very dark.

  “Isn’t there supposed to be moonlight or something?” asked Ruby.

  “What would the ‘or something’ be?” Olivia wanted to know.

  “Big, giant streetlights?” ventured Ruby.

  “Out here?” said Nikki.

  Flora wriggled farther down in her sleeping bag. “If an animal came along,” she said, “would we be able to see it?”

  Next to her, Ruby shot out of her own sleeping bag and rose to her feet. “What kind of animal?”

  “Does it matter?” asked Nikki, giggling.

  “I don’t think this is funny,” said Ruby, but she sat down.

  “It’s a little funny,” said Olivia.

  “What kind of wild animals do you have out here, Nikki?” asked Ruby.

  “Oh, you know. Bears and pumas. Rattlesnakes. Things like that.”

  Ruby was on her feet again in an instant. “What, are you kidding me?”

  “Yes,” said Nikki. “Well, actually, I have seen bears a couple of times, but I really don’t think we have to worry.”

  Ruby moaned. “I hope we make it through the night,” she muttered.

  “Well, I’m having a good time,” said Nikki.

  “Me, too,” agreed Olivia. “But, um, Nikki? I have to use the bathroom.”

  “Okay. I’ll go in with you.”

  Flora was tempted to say, “And leave Ruby and me out here all defenseless?” But she simply slid her sleeping bag nearer to her sister’s and listened as her friends’ footsteps trailed off in the darkness. “Ruby?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m right here if you need me.”

  “I know.”

  “I really am sorry about our fight.”

  “I know that, too. And I really am sorry about all the things I did.”

  “You know what Margaret Malone told me the other day?”

  “No.”

  “She said that she and Lydia used to be close — as close as you and me — but that they’ve grown apart. And they just keep growing further and further apart.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Yeah. And I don’t want it to happen to us.”

  “It won’t. Why would you think that?”

  “Why would I think that?! Because of our fight. And because, I don’t know, you and I aren’t the same people who moved here two years ago. Remember when we first came to Camden Falls, how we spent all our time together? Well, most of it, anyway. And I felt like you needed me to take care of you.”

  Ruby sat up. “I did need you to take care of me.”

  “Don’t you need me now?”

  “Of course! You’re my sister. But we’re older, and lots of things have changed. We go to different schools, and I’m friends with Lacey and Hilary, and I have my classes and the Children’s Chorus, and you have … you have, um …”

  “Sewing and baby-sitting and volunteering at Three Oaks.”

  “Right.”

  “Actually,” said Flora slowly, “I guess we wouldn’t want things to be exactly the way they were when we first moved here. We were so sad then. And we hardly knew anyone.”

  ?
??We kind of clung to each other,” said Ruby.

  “Now we’re part of the Row Houses and part of Main Street.”

  “But we do still have each other. We always will, you know.”

  “Even if our lives go off in different directions,” said Flora. “I just really, really don’t want to end up like Margaret and Lydia.”

  “We won’t.” Ruby paused. “Uh-oh. Now I have to go to the bathroom. And I am not walking through the dark alone.”

  Flora reached for her sister’s hand. “You don’t have to. I’ll come with you.”

  Twenty minutes later Flora, Ruby, Nikki, and Olivia were settled in their sleeping bags again. They tried very hard to fall asleep. After fifteen minutes they gave up. They talked, they sang, and finally they told ghost stories, which turned out to be a bad idea.

  “So then,” said Flora, coming to the end of an eerie story that Annika had once told her, “the old woman said to the traveling stranger, ‘But you couldn’t have spoken with my daughter out there on that lonesome, deserted highway. My daughter died ten years ago.’”

  “Aughhh!” shrieked Olivia. “You just gave me the shivers!”

  “Me, too,” said Nikki in a whisper, and Flora noted that Nikki had covered her head with a T-shirt.

  “Hey, you guys,” said Ruby, peering at the glowing dial of her watch. “Guess what.”

  “What?” said Olivia.

  “It’s midnight.”

  “Ooh,” moaned Flora, Olivia, and Nikki.

  There was silence for a few moments, and then Ruby said, “What was that?”

  “What was what?” asked Olivia in a voice so tiny that Flora could barely hear her.

  “That sound,” whispered Ruby. “I thought I heard footsteps.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” said Nikki.

  “Shh! Just listen.” Ruby sat up. “Hear that? It’s a sort of crunching sound. Like feet walking through dead leaves.”

  “Okay, that’s it!” Flora slithered out of her sleeping bag and got to her feet. Immediately, she felt a hand on her shoulder. “Aughhh! Someone’s got me!”

  “It’s me!” cried Olivia.

  “I can’t take this anymore!” yelped Ruby.

  Nikki gathered her sleeping bag under her arm in an untidy bundle. “Everybody inside!”

  In an instant, Flora, Nikki, Olivia, and Ruby were running across the Shermans’ yard. Nikki yanked open her front door. She dropped her sleeping bag on the living room floor. “We can finish our sleepover here,” she said.

  “Yeah, here is good,” agreed Olivia.

  “Maybe I’ll just leave this light on,” added Nikki.

  “Is the door locked?” asked Flora.

  “Yes, but we should probably shove that table in front of it.”

  At last, Flora and Ruby and their friends were settled on the floor, lights blazing, unable to fall asleep.

  “We should do this again,” said Ruby.

  Coffee cup in hand, Min Read stood at the counter in Needle and Thread and admired the two quilts that were hanging, one on each side of the store. There was Lacey Morris’s square on which she had painted Camden Falls Elementary School. There was Mary Woolsey’s square, the flowers in her own gardens blooming in brilliantly colored ribbons. There was Gigi’s square showing the front of Needle and Thread. And there were squares depicting the Row Houses, the mayor, Main Street, and people and events in Camden Falls history.

  “Amazing,” murmured Min out loud. She walked to the front of the store and stood at the door, sipping her coffee and watching Main Street come to life on a bright June morning. She cherished these few moments alone, when town was quiet and she could gather her thoughts.

  The quilts, she decided, were, if not quite masterpieces, then surely fabulous enough to bring in quite a bit of money for the community center. She and Gigi and Flora had spent hours stitching and piecing until every last square had been fitted into just the right spot. A true community effort.

  And this Saturday was the big day. In less than an hour, Needle and Thread would open its door (literally, thought Min, since the weather was fine and the door to the store could stand open all day long), and by noon an auctioneer would arrive and the festivities would begin.

  Min closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, she saw before her the Main Street of her childhood — the Woolworth’s, where she could buy a hair ribbon for a penny, and Jugtown, where she could buy candy for a penny. She could buy lots of things for a penny in those days. Nowadays, people didn’t think much of pennies. Last week a customer had dropped the change that Min had handed her. When a penny had rolled under the counter, she’d waved her hand and said, “Oh, never mind. It’s just a penny.” Thinking of penny candy and penny hair ribbons, Min hadn’t replied.

  Min blinked her eyes again, and now she saw Main Street as it had looked when she was a young mother raising two daughters. There was Piccadilly, the clothing store where she had bought tiny knee socks and nighties and the red sandals the girls wore in the summer. There was Buxton’s, the restaurant that had eventually become the T-shirt Emporium.

  Min blinked, and there were her daughters all grown up and working together at Dutch Haus one summer. Blink, and her daughters had moved away. Blink, and Frannie was visiting Camden Falls with her own daughters. Min remembered watching Flora explore Needle and Thread when she was four years old and asking for a piece of fabric so she could make a dress for her cat. Which cat was that? Min wondered now. The one that was named Pampered Princess, as if it were a racehorse? On that visit, Min recalled, she had had a long talk with Frannie, telling her that she planned to retire in ten years.

  “But why?” her daughter had asked. “I thought you loved the store.”

  “I do. But I’m getting older. I wouldn’t mind if my days slowed down a bit. Do you know how many books I haven’t read?”

  “Well, probably thousands,” Frannie had replied. “Millions.”

  “I mean, how many classics. I haven’t read The Mayor of Casterbridge or The Brothers Karamazov or Penrod. I haven’t even read Wuthering Heights.”

  “Well —” Frannie had started to say.

  “And I want time for sewing. I mean, my own sewing. It’s been years since I made a blouse for myself just because I wanted one, not because we needed to display it in the window. And there are boxes in the attic that I need to sort through, and drawers that need to be cleaned out. When I die, I don’t want you —”

  “Mother!” Frannie had exclaimed. “No one is going to die. Stop talking like that.”

  “All right. But I’d still like to retire. I can afford to.”

  Blink, and six years had gone by, and Frannie had died, her husband, too, and Flora and Ruby were living with Min, and Min could no longer afford to retire after all.

  “Hi, Min! We’re here!”

  Min smiled and set her coffee cup on the table at the front of the store. “Hi, girls.”

  Flora, Ruby, and Olivia ran through the door of Needle and Thread, giggling and shouting. Sometimes, thought Min, the very sight of them eased the pain in her aching joints, and she instantly turned her thoughts to dance recitals and homework and summer vacation.

  “Is everything ready?” asked Flora at the same time that Olivia exclaimed, “Oh, there are the quilts. They look great!”

  “Every last thing is ready,” replied Min. “Olivia, your grandmother will be here in a few minutes. You girls can help us set out the food. People should start arriving around eleven-thirty, and the auction will take place at noon.”

  “Is the auctioneer coming?” asked Ruby.

  Min nodded. A professional auctioneer had volunteered to help out at the event.

  “That would be a cool job,” said Ruby. “I’d like to be an auctioneer. ‘Bid now! Bid now! Fifty! Fifty! Do I hear fifty? Fifty from the bald man in front! Now how about sixty! Sixty! How about seventy-five? SOLD to the rich lady who won’t stop waving her hand around.’ Except you have to talk so fast that people ca
n hardly understand you.”

  “Well, I don’t think our auctioneer will speak quite that fast,” said Min. “But I do hope he’ll help us get a good price for the quilts.”

  “And for the community center,” said Olivia.

  “Exactly.”

  Everyone was helping out. Up and down Main Street, sidewalk sales were being set up and a portion of the day’s proceeds from almost every store and restaurant in town would be donated to the community center.

  “There’s the balloon guy!” called Ruby, looking out the window. “Oh, and I see the ice cream truck!”

  At eleven-thirty, just a few minutes after Min and Gigi had temporarily closed the register and placed a sign in the window that said AUCTION STARTS AT NOON, Aunt Allie and Mr. Barnes wheeled Janie through the door. They were immediately followed by Mary Woolsey and then by Mr. Pennington, who was walking Variety.

  “Hi, girls,” said Mr. Barnes.

  “Hi,” replied Flora and Olivia, blushing furiously.

  “Help yourselves to refreshments,” added Gigi.

  Min watched as the store filled up with friends and neighbors and customers and quite a few people she had never seen before. Robby Edwards marched in with his parents and a girl wearing a striped sundress.

  “This is Sarah. She’s my girlfriend,” Robby announced proudly. “Would you like a cupcake, Sarah?”

  Just before noon, Nikki arrived with her mother and Mae and Tobias. She waved to Min and Gigi and then joined Olivia, Ruby, and Flora, who were sitting on a couch at the front of the store, passing Janie from lap to lap.

  Presently, Min checked her watch. “It’s noon,” she said to Gigi. “Do you want to do the honors?”

  Gigi rang a bell, then cupped her hands around her mouth and called, “Hello, hello!” until the store grew quiet. “Thank you all for coming,” she said. “I hope you’re enjoying the refreshments. They were provided free of charge by Sincerely Yours, Dutch Haus, and College Pizza. I hope you’ve also had a chance to view the quilts you helped create,” she continued. “Each square represents some aspect of our town or its history. The quilts are examples of your handiwork, and because they were a community effort they’re also an example of what we can accomplish when we work together. So now, without further ado — I’ve always wanted to say that — I will turn you over to Billy Wonder, our auctioneer.”