Read Online Elm Creek Quilts [06] The Master Quilter by Jennifer Chiaverini - Free Book Online

several more opportunities to mention the move to her mother or give notice at Grandma’s Attic. She had even begun to forget her anxieties enough to feel at home in Jeremy’s apartment until one evening during supper when three hang-up calls on the answering machine convinced her that Gwen had figured out the truth. Summer waited a reasonable interval before calling her mother on some camp-related pretext only to find her engrossed in her new research project.
    Relieved, she hung up and wondered aloud who had called, but Jeremy was annoyed that Summer had not gone ahead and unburdened her obviously troubled conscience. That led to their first fight as roommates. They made up that same night, but not before Jeremy told her that if she was so ashamed to live with him she ought to move out, and Summer retorted that she had considered it.
    The next morning they lingered in bed and shared a leisurely breakfast, still apologetic and careful, wanting reassurances that everything was fine between them before they parted for the day. Despite her late start, Summer managed to get to work on time since Jeremy’s apartment was only a five-minute walk from Grandma’s Attic. She arrived to find the quilt shop dark, the sign in the front door still turned to CLOSED . Bonnie should have unlocked the door an hour earlier. Summer fumbled in her backpack for her key and let herself in.
    “Bonnie?” she called, flipping the sign. She turned on the lights and the music system, taking advantage of the opportunity to slip in one of her favorite CDs instead of Bonnie’s usual hammered dulcimer and flute. She restocked the empty shelves with what little was left in the storage room, but when another half hour passed with no sign of Bonnie, she phoned upstairs. The answering machine picked up; Bonnie’s husband’s voice announced that she had reached the home of Craig Markham and that he would return her call later. Summer hung up without leaving a message.
    At that moment, the door burst open and Diane came in. “Oh, hi,” she said, taking off her coat. “I thought no one else was working today.”
    “I work every Friday when camp isn’t in session,” said Summer, puzzled. Diane knew that. “Bonnie should be here, too, but she didn’t show up this morning. I’m worried. No one answered the phone upstairs, either.”
    “She’s not coming in today.” Diane hung up her coat on a peg on the back wall and stored her purse under the cutting table. “Agnes called and asked me to open the store. I guess she didn’t know you would be here.”
    “Agnes? Why would Agnes have called?”
    Diane shrugged. “I have no idea. I imagine Bonnie asked her to.”
    “But Bonnie knew I was working and she would have called you directly.”
    “Well …” Diane paused. “I don’t know. But I’m here, so I’m going to work. I need the hours. Todd is still holding out for Princeton. Do you have any idea how expensive that is? Thank goodness Michael decided to go to Waterford College so we could take advantage of the family tuition waiver.”
    Summer nodded. Michael had been something of a troublemaker since the fifth grade, but as his former and favorite babysitter, Summer tended to see harmless mischief where others saw an inmate-in-training. When Michael enrolled at Waterford College, Diane had been so relieved that she would have paid any amount of tuition without complaint. Now completing his sophomore year, Michael seemed to be thriving as a Computer Sciences major. When the time came, Summer hoped he would find a job outside of Waterford so that, unlike herself, he would be accepted as the adult he had become instead of perpetually seen as the child he had been.
    The morning passed with no word from Bonnie. When a call to Agnes went unanswered, Summer considered phoning Bonnie’s husband at work, but she had carried on only a handful of strained conversations with Craig in all the years she had known the Markhams. She didn’t want to