Lauren was taking pictures of the block layout they’d agreed on when Aunt Beth arrived.
“Looks like great minds think alike,” she announced when she saw the arrangement of blocks on the cutting table.
Harriet joined her aunt and studied the layout.
“Is your group at this point, too?”
“We didn’t finish all our nine-patch blocks, but we went ahead and cut what we had into fourths. We only need five or six more parent blocks. Connie is going to do them tonight, and she can catch up to the rest of us in sewing them together. DeAnn’s had a few family obligations with her sister being home.”
“Are you busy Monday?” Harriet asked.
“I have to get my tire fixed first thing, then I’m going to be sorting clothes in the church clothes closet for the rest of the day.”
“Can I borrow your car while you’re working? Mine needs to go in for a brake job. They said they have the parts on hand and can finish it in one day if I bring it in early.”
Mavis gathered the blocks into four stacks after Lauren had finished taking a reference picture. She stopped and looked at her friend.
“What’s wrong with your tire?”
“It appears someone slashed it.”
“What?” Harriet said, louder than she’d intended. “When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lauren put her phone in her pocket and bumped Harriet with her elbow.
“We might find out if you’d stop asking questions and let the woman speak.”
Beth glanced at Lauren and then back to Harriet. She sighed.
“We better sit down for this.”
Harriet turned and led the way to the kitchen.
“How about iced tea this time?”
“Works for me,” Lauren said. She went to the cupboard and dug around until she found a box of ginger snaps.
Carla glanced at her watch.
“I have to go pick Wendy up in about twenty minutes.”
“This won’t take that long,” Beth assured her.
“The situation is complicated,” Aunt Beth began when everyone was seated around the table with a glass of tea and a cookie. “Jorge has a customer who has had a major crush on him for a lot of years. He has done nothing to encourage it, but she comes into the restaurant almost every day.”
Lauren leaned forward. “Is she that lady who always wears a fluorescent pink tube top that’s about three sizes too small, even in the dead of winter?”
“Now, honey,” Beth scolded. “We shouldn’t make fun of those less fortunate than us.”
“I’m not making fun, I’m stating fact. I don’t know how she doesn’t end up with frostbite in the winter.”
“Her name is Juana. Juana Lopez-Montoya,” Beth continued. “She has an imaginary romance with Jorge. She tells people in the restaurant that she’s his fiancée, and they’re getting married in the spring. Most people understand the situation, so no one pays her any mind. The problem is, she apparently sees me as a romantic rival and has been telling everyone who will listen that I’m trying to steal ‘her man’.
“Jorge has gone to talk to the people at the group home she lives in, but they haven’t made any headway. They can’t stop her from going out, and they can’t convince her that she’s not marrying Jorge.”
“That’s pretty awful.” Harriet said and sipped her tea.
Beth took a bite of cookie.
“She stepped her game up today. This morning, I found my front tire was slashed. Bernice across the street saw her by my car when she went out to get her paper. She went over to see what was going on. Juana took off on her tricycle, but the damage was already done.”
“Did you call the police?” Carla asked.
“Bernice called before she called me. They said they’d have an officer go have a talk with her and her social worker. They suggested I park my car in the garage instead of the driveway.”
Lauren laughed. “Well, that would have been more helpful advice before she slashed your tire.”
Mavis wrapped her napkin around the base of her glass before she picked it up.
“It’s a tough situation. No one wants to see Juana put in jail or the state mental hospital. She doesn’t fit the profile for either place, and most of the time she does well enough. Her mother’s in hospice with lung cancer. I’ve seen her a few times with Pastor Hafer. There don’t seem to be any other relatives. Juana was working at the shelter workshop, but they lost one of their bigger contracts so she’s been laid off until they can get more work in.”
“That’s awful,” Harriet said. “I feel for her, but that doesn’t make it okay for her to go after my aunt.” She clenched her teeth for a second. “What if she’d decided to slash you instead of the tires?”
“Beth can get a restraining order, if she hasn’t already.” Lauren drank a swallow of tea.
“Yeah, look how well that worked out for Molly,” Harriet shot back.
“I did fill out the paper work for a restraining order, but I doubt a piece of paper is going to make a difference to a lovesick woman.”
Carla took her glass to the sink.
“We probably should ask Robin. Maybe she can do something legal with Juana’s social worker, so they have to take more responsibility for her.”
Mavis smiled at her with approval.
“That’s a good idea.”
“In the meantime, to answer the original question…” Aunt Beth turned her attention to Harriet. “If you’ll meet me at the tire place first thing Monday morning, they can put my new tire on, and I can follow you to your car place. We can drop your car, and you can drive me to the church. Then, my car is all yours until four o’clock.”
“Works for me.”
Mavis stood up.
“I’ll divide the fabric up for the third quilt tonight, and then I can pass it out to everyone after church. Everybody going to be there?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lauren said, and the rest of the group agreed.
Sunday morning was blue-sky beautiful in Foggy Point. The temperature was mild enough the Loose Threads had left their customary fleece and rain jackets at home and were able to gather outside the main doors to the church.
Mavis opened a large flowered bag and started pulling gallon plastic zipper bags from its interior and handing them to each of her group members.
“I divided the fabric evenly so each of us will be making four parent nine-patch blocks. I’ll make the extra one. I was thinking, if everyone agrees, we can cut them and then sew the daughter blocks in the same setting we used on the other quilts. That way we’ll only need to do a couple more seams when we get them back together.”
Carla looked at her bag and then back up at Mavis.
“Are we going to put a border on any of them?”
“Good question,” Lauren said, causing Carla’s cheeks to redden. “I looked on the Internet and there’s no clear precedent. Some people do, some don’t.”
“Maybe we should wait until we have the tops together,” Harriet suggested. “Do we have enough of any of the fabrics we’re already using for the blocks?”
“We have plenty of the green left on this last one,” Mavis said.
“I think that’s true for all three of them, but I agree, we need to see how they look when the tops are together,” Beth suggested. “Green may not look best. Unless there was a run on our lavender or creme choices, we should be in good shape. The bolts were new or nearly so when we bought the fabric.”
Robin tucked her fabric into her shoulder bag.
“If that’s settled, I’ve given some thought to Beth’s predicament.”
The Threads who knew about the tire slashing interrupted her for a moment to explain the situation to those who didn’t.
“Okay to continue?” she asked finally, and everyone stopped talking. “I think I’d like to talk to Juana’s social worker tomorrow. First of all, she needs to attempt to counsel the woman about her behavior. But second, I’d like to suggest that they find her something to do at the shelter workshop as an alternative to us pressing criminal charges against her. I know they lost a contract, but I think they’ll make an exception.”
Aunt Beth sighed.
“Oh, honey, that’s a brilliant solution. I don’t want them to take her to jail, but she can’t be left to do who-knows-what else if they don’t do something.”
“While I’m talking to the social worker, I’ll ask if they can put any sort of tracker on Juana. I know that sort of device is available for dementia patients. Maybe they could put something in her purse so they can tell if she’s headed out your way.”
Harriet nudged her aunt.
“I’d still park in the garage,” she said in a quiet tone.
“I would, but my door clicker doesn’t work anymore,” Beth replied.
Lauren leaned in from Beth’s other side.
“I’ll come over and check it out. You might just need a new battery. Will you be home later?”
Beth agreed she would as the rest of the group went back to debating the border vs. no border issue then eventually left to begin the rest of their Sunday.