fourteen
Five days later, Tucker and I walked through the grass, our shoes quickly covered in dew. The sun had just arched over the eastern fields. Shimmering light caught the droplets on the ground and on the leaves of a sprawling bur oak that reached for wispy clouds overhead. We passed the farmhouse in progress, and I glimpsed a finished porch floor, new since the time Tucker showed me the site a few weeks before. He nodded at a path ahead of us and led me farther onto the property.
Tucker reached the barn first and heaved open the two mammoth doors. When the creaking stopped, we stood side by side, watching the sunlight cut into the darkness. Tucker walked to one side and flipped a switch, causing the room to flood with light, and I inhaled sharply.
“Tuck,” I said, my eyes greedily taking in the scene. “This is perfect.”
The Sewing Club ladies were set to arrive within the hour for our first day of work, and a beautiful work space would be here to greet them. Tucker had told me not to worry, advice I had completely ignored, but he turned out to be utterly trustworthy. Over the weekend he’d tweaked the space inside this barn to be a perfect spot for dressmaking. Long tables stood in rows, each already set up with the sewing machines I’d gathered from the ladies over the last few days. Each workstation had ample overhead and desk light, rolling drawers for supplies, and clean, weathered plank flooring underneath comfortable office chairs. A lump formed in my throat when I saw each station had a Ball jar filled with a small bouquet of farm flowers.
Without pausing to think, I reached for him and buried my face in his chest. The good, clean smell of him was familiar and warm and I felt a lump form in my throat. “You got them flowers,” I said.
I could feel him shrug slightly as he hugged me back. “Girls like pretty stuff,” he said, sounding embarrassed.
“Thank you,” I said, my face still in his chest. “I am in your debt. Huge. Really big. Scary big.”
He laughed softly. “Well, if all it takes is a few extension cords and picking some flowers for you to feel like that, I think I’m the winner here.”
Gigi knocked on the big white door leading into the room and we moved away from each other quickly, dropping our arms to our sides and jumping back a step as if burned. But Gigi only had eyes for the barn and its facelift.
“Tucker Van Es, you have outdone yourself.” She shook her head as she entered the room, her eyes traveling upward to the high beams of the ceiling. She seemed lost in a memory, and after a moment she smiled at Tuck. “Your uncle ever tell you what used to happen in this barn?”
He nodded. I was likely the only one who would ever notice, but his cheeks were a bit pinker than normal. His face was somber, and he studiously avoided looking in my direction, training his eyes instead on the room. “Miss Gigi, he certainly did. Those stories were a big part of why I took on this property in the first place.”
“What stories?” I asked. I walked to one of the tables and set down my bag and a folder of design instructions. “I want the stories.”
Gigi walked slowly to the perimeter of the room, her hand running lightly on the whitewashed walls. “This is the old Morrison barn. The Morrisons were a lively family, six kids and all the happy chaos that suggests. When I was a girl, they were famous for hosting dances and parties in this barn.”
I’m sure my eyes lit up with this information, because Gigi frowned at me. “Now, don’t start asking about the level of scandal. There wasn’t any.”
Tucker raised his eyebrows, a grin playing on his lips.
“Okay, fine,” she conceded. “There was a little scandal. But mostly dancing and laughing and more dancing till the wee hours.” She pointed at me. “Your grandfather and I had some lovely times in this barn.”
“In or out of the hayloft?” Tucker asked, and she swatted him as she walked by, her gait back to business and firmly off memory lane.
“I will not be dignifying that with a response,” she said, chin up.
“So in the loft,” he said, loudly enough that I could hear. I giggled and we glanced at each other. I let my gaze linger and swallowed hard when he did the same.
We heard the chatter before we could see them.
“They’re here,” Gigi said, and led us to the source of the noise. Walking three astride to the entrance of the barn, we saw The Ladies. They made their way toward us, arms linked.
“Morning,” Tucker called out as he strode toward them. “I know none of you needs a hand, but a gentleman always offers.”
I smiled as they clucked over him, clearly charmed with a boy they’d known who was now a handsome man. They stopped in front of the barn, facing me with open faces and warm smiles. I started at the right and went down the line, hugging each of them in turn.
Goldie was first, and she finished our embrace with a slap on my tush. The twins were there, wearing matching embroidered sweatshirts, one that rooted for the Iowa Hawkeyes and one for the Iowa State Cyclones. Myrna Hopkins was next, and I recognized her as a front door greeter from church, every Sunday growing up. She held out the hand I’d shaken many times before but pulled me into a quick, efficient embrace right away. “You look just like your sweet mom,” she whispered into my ear before letting me go. Edna Kuiken had worked as an English teacher in our high school for years, even while raising five children on a farm. I remembered her as a ruthless grader, but she took both my hands in hers and said, “I’m so glad to be here, honey. Sometimes a crossword puzzle just doesn’t do it for me.” She stepped back and shook her head, gathering a full image of me, head to toe. “I helped potty train you in the church nursery, Grace Kleren. And now look! A fancy New York designer!”
Tucker bit a cheek to halt a grin but the orneriness in his expression was firmly planted in seventh grade. “That Grace Kleren,” he said with appreciation. “She always was a quick study.”
The women were tsking in disapproval of his uncouth talk, with the exception of Goldie, who was egging him on.
“To that end, ladies,” he continued, still working the smile downward. He pointed to a door in a corner of the room. “We do have a restroom and it’s not even a porta potty.”
The women murmured in appreciation and Myrna Hopkins called out, “Tucker Van Es, a restroom is the least you owe us. Several of the women here were the ones who held you down while your aunt Jane, God rest her, pulled three wasp stingers out of your rear end when you were a little, screaming terror. So, yes. I’d say you owe us a beautiful, clean restroom.” She winked at me. “Grace, honey, don’t you worry. There are lots more stories where that one came from.”
The ladies nodded, and several started in on their favorite Tucker Van Es stories. He clapped his hands before raising them in defense. “Right. So that’s my cue to leave here, probably for good.” He turned to go, tipping his ball cap at the ladies and smiling sheepishly at me, but Goldie stopped him with a rhinestone-heavy hand. She looked up at him, tugged him closer to her.
“Before you go, Tucker, I think I speak for all of us when we say thank you to you both.” She reached for my hand and stood between us, patting our arms affectionately. “Tucker, you made this place so pretty, just the kind of spot where we want to come and work. And, Grace.” She paused, her dark blue eyes shining. “Thank you for involving us in this dream of yours. We’re honored to be here, and we will give you our best.” She squeezed my arm and said, quietly enough that only Tucker and I heard, “It feels good for us old ladies to be called into action. You see us, Gracie.”
I felt my eyes sting, and when I glanced up at Tucker’s face, I saw him looking at me in a way that made my heart jump.
“To the youngsters!” Goldie said, and though we held nothing to toast, no other moment in my life had held such a resounding ring of celebration.
The women took turns hugging me and giving me a peck on the cheek. I laughed and allowed myself to be kissed and hugged but stopped, suddenly thrown together with Tucker in the center of the circle. He cleared his throat, eyes on mine, and said, “To work, then.”
I nodded, trying to find my voice but discovering the way he was looking at me a distinct impediment to productivity. “To work.”
“Where do you want us, Grace?” Myrna sounded like she was ready to be unleashed.
Tucker smiled a small smile, the spell broken, and he turned toward the open barn doors and soft light of morning.
I shook my head and smoothed my hair as Tucker walked away, the look on his face still with me and a complete and total distraction to the huge day that lay before me, before all of us. Not exactly the most professional way to begin a business venture, but I had to admit it was a lot more interesting than my cubicle at Milano.
“All right, brave women of Silver Creek,” I said, standing straight and steeling myself to the real task at hand. I turned toward them, finding their eager smiles contagious. “Shall we begin?”
Two hours later, I took a break. Leaning against a support beam, a cold bottle of water just plucked from a stocked cooler Tucker had left at the back of the room, I took it all in and shook my head, not for the first time. The women had scooted all the tables closer to each other, meeting at the center in a beehive of activity. They knew each other well, including individual strengths and weaknesses, so they’d quickly determined who would be best at which tasks. By unanimous vote, Myrna was given the job of cutter. She was the most particular, the most organized, the most experienced, and irrespective of her fondness for spray cheese, the ladies all agreed she would be the best person for the most high-stakes of the jobs. Edna would be the serger, finishing all the edges, Bev would be setting in sleeves, her twin would be next to her doing side seams, and Goldie would be putting in zippers. Gigi, also unanimously elected, would be the director of operations and would keep the entire production line working under her watchful and exacting supervision. I’d known Gigi as the director of operations for many years, so I felt giddy at the idea of her manning this part of the ship.
The women quickly settled into a rhythm of their own, and I largely stayed out of the way after giving a tutorial on three garments. Myrna clucked regularly about the inappropriately low neckline on two of the three designs, and Goldie responded every time with her feelings that the neckline should be lower. Gigi had to interrupt every now and then with a bark to stop yapping and get back to business, but in general, I’d never seen a production line hum along with such efficiency.
I listened to their chatter as Goldie finished a humdinger of a story about her husband, Frank, and his ongoing trouble with a particular telemarketer. The twins hunched over their sewing machines at exactly the same angle, their shoulders shaking in the same way as they laughed at Goldie’s theatrics. Myrna frowned, absorbed in her cutting, but Edna had to stop sewing for a minute to dab her eyes, the laughter getting to be too much.
Gigi saw me staring and she put down a spool of thread and came to stand next to me. After a beat she nudged me.
“This just might work.”
I shook my head again. “It really might. Who knew?”
Myrna looked up and frowned at us. “I’m assuming you two are on your way back here to help us out? Lunch break isn’t until noon, as I recall.”
Gigi sniffed and I grinned. “Sorry, Miss Myrna,” I said as I walked back to my table, practically bouncing as I stepped. “I was just taking in the view.”
Myrna snorted. “I can’t imagine a bunch of old ladies sitting in a barn is anything compared to where you’ve been living.”
I threaded a new spool into my machine. “Don’t underestimate just how stunning you are, Miss Myrna,” I said, and out of my periphery I saw her lift her head and look around, trying to see what I saw.