“Jealous?”
“Very.”
They laughed together, and Maggie, curious, paused by their table. “You two are making excellent progress,” she praised, smiling. “In fact, you’re so far ahead that I’m going to ask you to make another Nine-Patch block together.”
“Will we get extra credit?” Julia asked.
“Oh, absolutely. You’ll each receive an automatic A-plus.”
From the row in front of them, Paige turned around in her seat, eyes wide. “We’re not seriously being graded for this, are we?”
“No, not at all,” Maggie quickly assured her, and Paige turned back around, relieved. “But I really would like you to make another block,” Maggie told Julia and Edna, lowering her voice. “We’ll need twenty to complete our quilt top, but even with my sample block, we’re one block short.”
“We’re on it,” Edna said. Maggie thanked them and brought them another two fat quarters.
The afternoon passed pleasantly as the Patchwork Players finished their Nine-Patch blocks. After everyone finished sewing their top and center rows together, Maggie demonstrated how to attach the bottom row. Even though she had urged them to make sure they were sewing the rows together in the proper order, several students had topick out stitches, move the bottom row to the correct orientation, and try again. The last step was to press their blocks and hold them up for the rest of the class to admire.
Maggie encouraged them to work at their own pace and to take breaks whenever they wished, whether to stretch their legs with a walk on the verandah or to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea in the banquet hall. Conversation filled the classroom—industry gossip, fond reminiscences about favorite moments from past seasons ofA Patchwork Life, and wildly exaggerated descriptions of the hazards of filming on location in wintery rural Kansas, for the benefit of the cast and crew who had never enjoyed that dubious pleasure. It was all so convivial and entertaining that nearly everyone lingered until the very last aspiring quilter finished their last seam, and all twenty Nine-Patch blocks were neatly pressed and ready to be sewn into a quilt.
“But not tonight,” Gretchen said, smiling. “Tomorrow morning will be soon enough, especially since I’ve been told that Anna is about to serve dinner.”
The company happily returned to the banquet hall, where the conversation and camaraderie proved to be as delightful and satisfying as Anna’s delectable cuisine. Afterward, a few left the gathering to spend time on their own, but most returned to the ballroom, where someone had built a fire and the kitchen staff had set up the evening’s carafes of coffee, tea, and mulled apple cider and plates of autumn desserts—mini apple tarts, pumpkin cookies, sweet potato petit fours. Paige asked Louis to play the piano for them, so sweetly and persistently that he downed an apple tart in a single bite, brushed off his hands, and took the stage. After entertaining them for twenty minutes with music from classic film scores, he played a dramatic glissando. “Enough of the solo act,” he called to his audience. “I need a vocalist.” He shaded his eyes with his hand. “Is that you, Paige, raising your hand? Fantastic, thanks for volunteering.”
“It wasn’t me,” Paige called back, shaking her head. “I think it was Miss Julia.”
“It definitely wasn’t me,” Julia said. “Go on, kid. Take the stage.”
Lindsay began chanting her name, and as everyone else joined in, Paige blushed furiously and stepped onto the dais to cheers and applause. She and Louis conferred briefly, and as he played the opening measures of “Someone to Watch Over Me,” Paige drew a deep, steadying breath and took center stage. She had a sweet, pure, enchanting voice, and as the young pair moved from one jazz standard to another, Julia could not miss the smiles and swift glances they exchanged.
“Is it just me,” Nigel murmured to Julia as the delighted audience applauded between songs, “or are there sparks lighting up that stage?”
“It isn’t just you,” Julia replied thoughtfully. Showmances could be a messy business. Julia had seen more than one successful series go down in flames after a rancorous breakup destroyed the stars’ on-screen chemistry, but Louis wasn’t an actor soPatchworkwas in no danger of that. If nothing else, at least Paige wasn’t pining over the unavailable Noah anymore.
After Louis and Paige took their bows, Julia herself was cheerfully ordered to take over at the piano. She willingly went, but she dragged Nigel onstage with her, he feigning reluctance so comically that everyone laughed until tears came to their eyes. Nigel would have sung his entire repertoire of baritone show tunes except Julia’s hands were tired by the time he finished his fifth piece. As they bowed and left the stage, Louis was persuaded to return to the piano, his audience’s cheers and applause so loud that Julia wondered whether Sarah and Matt were struggling to put their toddler twins to bed with all that racket.
But her fleeting concern really was quickly forgotten as she gazed fondly around the room at her friends and colleagues, their faces aglow with happiness and firelight. They were the found family she had always wanted. How could anyone expect her to give up, bow out, and watch them go their separate ways?
13
On Wednesday morning, Julia caught up with Nigel as the company was making their leisurely way from the banquet hall to the ballroom. “You cornered Ellen at dinner last night and again this morning at breakfast,” she remarked. “You must be trying to discover the secrets of her scripts in progress, or to influence how she shapes the season’s narrative arc, or both.”
“Obviously,” he replied, casting her a sidelong look.
She nudged him with her shoulder. “Don’t leave me in suspense. Have you had any luck? What have you learned?”
“More than I reasonably could have hoped for.” He slowed his pace as they approached the classroom so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Ellen didn’t divulge any major plot twists, but she did promise to give me some Emmy-worthy monologues and a very satisfying character resolution in the finale.”
“Really?” Julia gasped, impressed. “Is she giving you a dramatic death scene?”
“She wouldn’t say, but hope springs eternal.”
“Well, if you do get a death scene, I hope Ben perishes in Sadie’s arms.” Julia could envision the moment perfectly—Sadie sitting on the prairie grasses, her skirt spread out around her, illuminated by a brilliant sunset in the wide Kansas sky, embracing Ben, who lay onher lap, eyelids fluttering as his life slowly slipped away, both of them exchanging at long last the confessions of love they had withheld until the very end. “That would be glorious for both of us.”
“Indeed it would. A finale for the ages.”
She almost laughed—but her breath caught in her throat. What was she thinking? She didn’t want a finale, glorious or otherwise, in season six. Ellen should file away any such ideas and revisit them in a few years, but it was certainly premature to kill off Ben now. “Did Ellen say anything about her plans for Sadie?”
“Sorry, darling. Not to me, she didn’t. But she may divulge something this evening. She finished writing a scene last night and I believe she hopes to workshop it.”
