A Catered Quilting Bee by Isis Crawford

Author:Isis Crawford [Crawford, Isis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2023-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

Three days later, on Saturday afternoon, Gail Gibson greeted Bernie and Libby at the door of her fifties Cape Cod. She was wearing a pioneer dress with a high neck and puffed sleeves, something a settler out West in the early eighteen hundreds might wear. It was not a good look, in Bernie’s opinion, not on anyone, but especially not on Gail.

“Sorry about the clutter,” Gail told Bernie and Libby as they stepped inside and looked around. “I didn’t have a chance to clean up.”

“Not a problem,” Bernie assured her, because that was the kind of thing you said to a client even when there was a problem.

“Here, let me show you where everything is,” Gail said, walking them through the house into the kitchen. “I guess we should invest and do a full reno in here, but I don’t really cook, and neither does Dwayne,” she said.

One look and Libby wanted to say, “I can tell,” but she restrained herself. Over the years, she’d learned that discretion and customer service went hand in hand. Instead, she smiled politely as she studied the small space in front of her, a space that reminded her of the kitchen in her cousin’s New York City apartment on the Lower East Side. Galley style, with minimum counter space, the kitchen contained a small scratched white enamel sink, a twenty-year-old refrigerator, and an electric range that Libby was willing to bet had been there since the house was built.

“And I should tell you, the oven doesn’t work,” Gail continued. “There’s something wrong with the thermostat.” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I keep on meaning to get it fixed, but I keep forgetting. I hope that’s not going to be a problem.”

“Not at all,” Libby assured her, thinking as she did that it was lucky they didn’t need to use it to heat anything up.

“Good,” Gail said as she led Bernie and her sister into the dining and living rooms.

The rooms were small and dark, crowded with a mishmash of too-large furniture. The only bright note was a ninety-gallon fish tank sitting on a cabinet that butted up against the wall connecting the dining and living rooms.

“Nice tank. Salt water?” Bernie said, pointing to it.

Gail nodded.

“I heard they can be tricky to keep going if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Libby noted.

“Yes, they can be,” Gail agreed.

“Is that a sea anemone?” Bernie asked, pointing to a small red flower-looking creature waving its tentacles in the air.

“No, it’s a jelly,” Gail replied. Then she changed the topic to the ad hoc exhibit of Ellen’s quilts that she’d created. “Too much?” she asked, indicating them. “Dwayne said it is, but he never likes anything I do, anyway.”

“No, not at all. They look great,” Libby lied. In her humble opinion, the quilts made the rooms look even more cluttered than they already were. One or two or even three quilts would have jazzed things up, but Libby counted at least twenty quilts in the two rooms.

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