Make Quilts Not War

chapter 17



Harriet got up early the next morning and went straight to her studio. Connie had found a box of granny-style dresses made with small print floral cotton fabrics stored in her attic. She’d distributed them among her friends; but since she was shorter than anyone else in the Loose Threads, the dresses didn’t reach the ankle length they were intended to be but ended mid-calf.

Harriet dug through her stash and found a similar piece of fabric in a coordinating print. She pulled out the hem on the dress and used her fabric to make a border, covering the seam with a piece of flat lace that was left over from another project. She held it up when she’d finished.

“Well, boys,” she said to her two pets, “it’ll have to do.”

Scooter wagged his tail, but Fred had no opinion.

An hour later, she was showered, had eaten and was wearing her handiwork. She’d put gel in her short dark hair and blown it dry, fluffing it into her facsimile of an afro. She’d pulled on a pair of running tights under the dress and added hiking boots to finish the look.

“You boys behave yourselves,” she said to the dog and cat. “I’m going to be a little late, but Uncle Rod is going to come by twice just to be sure you’re okay.”

With that, she picked up her purse, stitching bag and coat and headed for the garage.



Jenny was standing by her quilt when Harriet came into the exhibit hall; she had done a more extensive makeover on her granny dress. In addition to adding wine-colored velveteen around the bottom, she’d sewn a velveteen panel up the front of both the skirt and bodice, trimming it with strips of small flat lace.

“Far out,” Harriet said.

“Groovy, isn’t it?” she said dryly.

Harriet smiled.

“Thank you for last night,” Jenny said. “I don’t know what I was thinking, not calling nine-one-one right away.”

“I’m sure you were in shock,” Harriet said. “I hope it isn’t too much of a hassle.”

“Actually, I’ve got my car back already. The tire store opens up at six am. They put on new tires and even delivered it before eight o’clock.”

“At least that was nice, I just wish we knew who did it.”

“It has to have been my brother. It’s the sort of thing he’d do.”

It definitely wasn’t her brother, but Harriet couldn’t tell her that without confessing that Lauren’s friends were following him.

“Are you going to the prom tonight?” she asked.

“No. Since it’s Friday, the committee decided we should keep the quilt show open until the dance is over. My group is already down a person, and Sharon really wanted to go to the prom. She’s dating again for the first time since her husband died, so she needs to go. How about you? Have you and Aiden patched things up yet?”

“You say that like it’s a foregone conclusion.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure. His sister is a powerful influence. We talked about it again last night, but we never get anywhere. She doesn’t like me—or any other female, really—and she’s making him choose between us, with lots of dramatic gestures thrown in. He doesn’t want to have to decide, so here we are. I’ve suggested he talk to a professional about it, but so far he’s been resistant to that idea.”

“What about Tom?”

“It doesn’t seem fair to get more involved with him while things are still up in the air with Aiden. He’s so easy to be with I don’t want to take advantage of him.”

“If you like him, and he’s easy to be with, maybe there’s a message there.” Jenny smiled at her. “He’s good-looking enough.”

“Maybe,” Harriet said.

“So, if you’re not going to the prom, what are you doing?”

“I’ll be helping Lauren protest the war in front of the entrance.”

“Really? Aren’t you going to freeze to death in that dress?”

“I have a Vietnam-era army coat I found at the surplus store. But since the event is sanctioned by the festival committee, we will be inside the main entry doors in the foyer.”

“Is there any chance you could swing by and give me a potty break partway through? I hate to ask, but I think the rest of the Threads are all going to the prom. It doesn’t seem right to take them from the dance, and the committee volunteers are stretched thin because they have so many events going on tonight.”

“I’d be happy to help. I’m sure I’ll need a break from sitting down myself. We may be indoors, but it’ll still be a hard tile floor we’re sitting on.”

“I’ve got a pillow I use for my back in the car. I can bring it in when I go to lunch. You’re welcome to sit on it for your protest.”

“Thanks, that’ll be great. I better get on to my booth. I’ll talk to you later.”

“I’ll be right here,” Jenny said.

Harriet kept busy all morning with potential customers and even took two orders to stitch queen-sized tops. She was just finishing with a woman who had made her lay out every stitch sample she’d brought and then looked through both of her photo albums of past projects before announcing that she’d have to think about it before making a decision.

“You have my permission to send Diane Frank packing if she comes back,” Aunt Beth said. “She pulls that nonsense every time we have a booth at any sort of show.”

“And never once has it resulted in an order,” Mavis added.

Harriet hadn’t seen the two women come into the opposite end of the booth while she was tending to Diane.

“What are you two up to?”

Mavis held up a brown paper bag.

“Jorge made taco salads for today’s special. I hope you don’t mind, but we got three of them and thought we’d have lunch with you,” she said.

“That’s great,” Harriet said. “Let me make a space on the table here.” She spent a moment packing her samples into plastic storage boxes and stowing them under one of her tables.

“Have you heard anything more from Lauren?” Aunt Beth asked.

“I haven’t seen her.”

“Beth told me what Lauren found out last night,” Mavis said around a bite of salad, but she was interrupted before she could add her own thoughts on the matter by the wiry little man they had assumed was Colm Byrne’s manager.

“I brought you ladies the extra backstage passes we talked about,” he said with an expression that landed halfway between a charming smile and a lecherous leer. “These are good for the dance tonight and the big concert on Saturday night.” He handed four large yellow cards and their lanyards to Aunt Beth and Mavis.

“By the way, we haven’t been formally introduced,” he said to Harriet, “but they call me Skeeter. Your aunt and her friend helped us out when the refrigerator in our food truck went belly-up yesterday. Will four be enough?” he asked. “Colm wants you to be able to bring all your friends after you saved our bacon, literally,”

“Don’t forget you already gave us three, the other day.”

He smiled, and Harriet saw he was missing two bottom teeth. Apparently, only the onstage talent had to look beautiful.

“Four should be plenty,” Harriet said. “Our friend missed the impromptu concert, but I’m sure she’d love to come.”

Skeeter separated two more passes and began untangling their lanyards.

“Yes,” Mavis said. “She’ll be the one in the Afro wig.”

Skeeter dropped the passes and their lanyards. Harriet looked at her aunt as he bent down to pick them up. He yanked a pass out of the mess, thrust it into Mavis’s hand and turned abruptly and walked away.

“Well, that was bit strange,” Harriet commented.

“I’m sure a lot is strange in that little man’s life,” Aunt Beth said and turned back to her salad.

“Did you notice that he has the same tattoo Jenny’s brother has?” Harriet asked. “That stylized peace symbol. They both have them as part of other images, but it’s the same tattoo.”

“Oh, honey, everyone had peace symbols on everything back in those days. And that elongated variation was quite common,” Mavis said. “It’s a sign of the times, you might say.”

“We better get going,” Aunt Beth said when everyone had finished their lunch. “We promised Marjory we’d help with the prom decorations.”

“See you later,” Harriet said. “I’ll be the one with the ‘Make Love Not War’ sign.”

Aunt Beth glared at her over the top of her glasses but didn’t say anything.

“Love you, too,” Harriet said as they walked away.



Lauren came by as Harriet was closing up for the day. The nature of her business meant she didn’t have to deal with a cashbox at the show, so shutting her booth down for the day consisted of putting her samples under the table and getting her purse and coat out. This time, she pulled her army jacket from a bag and put it on and picked up the pillow Jenny had brought during her lunch break.

“I’m as ready as I’m going to be,” she announced.

Lauren was dressed in hip-hugging wide bell bottoms that had been embroidered with antiwar slogans, and an embroidered Mexican peasant blouse over a fitted navy blue long-sleeved T-shirt. She wore round-lensed granny-style eyeglasses to complete the look.

“Where did you get the pants?” Harriet asked.

“I hate to admit it, but I found them two years ago at a thrift store in Seattle. They were too classic to pass up. What’s with the pillow?”

“Jenny had it in her car. She thought I might need it, especially if we have to sit the whole time. Will we be getting up to march, or will this be more of a sit-in?”

“I think we’ll mostly sit there. Marjory wants us to get up and march when the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce president arrive. We do have to chant off and on, though.”

“So, what are our chants?”

“Most of them aren’t anything that can be said in polite company, so we’ll use ‘Hey-Hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today,’ ‘Hell, no, we won’t go,’ and ‘Draft beer not boys.’”

“Those are the tame ones? What happened to ‘make love not war,’ and ‘give peace a chance?’”

“The first one is a slogan for a sign, not a chant, and the second is a song by John Lennon—again, not a chant.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” Harriet said. “Lead the way.”

Lauren’s group looked more like computer geeks from the two thousands than protesters from the nineteen-sixties, but to their credit, there were a lot of them, and they all carried signs with appropriate slogans.

“You sit on this side,” Lauren directed Harriet when they’d all gathered in the foyer of the exhibit hall. “I’ll sit on the other side. When I get up, you make sure everyone between us does the same. Marjory will call on my cell when the mayor and the president are about to arrive.”

“Sounds easy enough,” Harriet said, and it was. The march went off without a hitch an hour later. The mayor and his faux-police escort had clearly been prepped ahead of time. Both Harriet and Lauren were “arrested” and restrained with toy handcuffs.

“They didn’t tell me we were going to be arrested,” Lauren said when they’d been freed and were returning to their floor space inside the entrance.

“At least it gave us a chance to get up and move around a little,” Harriet said and returned to her spot on the other side of the group.

“Can I talk to you a minute?” said a soft male voice from over her left shoulder. “Outside,” the man added.

Harriet turned and was surprised to see Bobby Cosgrove crouched behind her. He stood up and went outside.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to Lauren and followed him. “What do you want?” she asked when the door had closed.

Bobby glanced around nervously before speaking.

“I need you to take a message to Jenny.”

“If you’re asking her for more money, I’m not helping you.”

“You think you know everything, but you don’t know anything. This was never about money. Not like you think, anyway.”

“I saw you in the parking lot.”

“You saw Jenny trying to push money on me. I tried to tell her I wasn’t there to ask for money but she wouldn’t listen. I was there to warn her. She’s in danger.”

“You haven’t seen her in years. Why all the concern now?”

“I’ve stayed away from her for her own good. I been laying low, but they found her anyway.”

“So, you’re not homeless because of your habit?” Harriet said and turned as if to go back inside.

“I’m clean. I haven’t used for over a year,” Bobby said, straining to see into the shadows as he spoke.

“You reeked of marijuana at the coffeehouse the other day.”

“That don’t mean I was using. I had to talk to some guys who were smoking, but not me. Not anymore.”

“If Jenny’s in trouble, why can’t you talk to her or, better yet, talk to the police?”

“You saw what happened when I tried to talk to her. She won’t listen. I can’t say I blame her. I wouldn’t believe me. I’ve let her down more times than I can count.”

“So, how do I know you’re being straight with me now? Maybe you’re still lying, trying a more sophisticated con on her.”

Bobby stopped his nervous searching of the shadows and put his hands out in front of him.

“Sophisticated con. Me? Really?”

“I guess not. How about this? I’ll go talk to Jenny. She’s working late. I told her I’d give her a break. Let me go do that, and when she comes back, I’ll see if she’s willing to give you another chance to talk. You can stay across the aisle. I’ll signal you if it’s okay to approach her.”

“What if she says no?”

“Have a little faith. I can be pretty persuasive. If she doesn’t agree, we’ll go to plan B.”

“Plan B?”

“I’ll call the Loose Threads.”

“What the heck are the Loose Threads?”

“It’s our quilting group. They’re her best friends. If she’s in danger, they’ll make sure she’ll talk to you. Let me go tell my friend what’s going on. Meet me at the back of the exhibit hall in the aisle to the right in about five minutes.”

Bobby agreed and disappeared into the night.

“What was that all about?” Lauren asked when Harriet had returned.

“That was Jenny’s brother. It was weird. He said I’d misinterpreted what I saw in the parking lot. He claims he was trying to warn Jenny that she was in danger, but she wouldn’t listen to him. He wants me to make her to talk to him.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“He was pretty convincing.”

“He’s a drug user,” Lauren countered.

“He claims he’s clean. He says he met with some guys who were smoking, but that he wasn’t.”

“This ought to be good. Jenny’s gonna go ballistic. I’ll be waiting here with bated breath to hear what happens.”

Harriet got up and went through the second set of doors and into the exhibit hall. A few people wandered the aisles, looking at the quilts and other exhibits. She noticed one woman wearing a well-cut navy blue wool suit with a large leather hobo bag slung over her shoulder pacing back and forth an aisle away from Jenny’s stage. She must have just gotten off work, Harriet mused. You didn’t see many expensive business suits at quilt shows, or even in Foggy Point in general.

“Hey, Jenny,” she called when she reached her friend’s display. “Ready for a break?” She tried to force a cheerful tone into her voice. If Jenny noticed, she didn’t say anything.

“Boy, am I,” she said. “I thought it was hard standing and answering questions all day, but it’s excruciating standing here with almost no one in the hall. I’m going to run out to the restroom and then dash by the food court, if that’s okay. It shouldn’t take more than five or ten minutes.”

“No problem, I’ll be right here.”

Harriet looked around. She didn’t see suit lady or anyone else. She studied Jenny’s quilt and was glad her friend had chosen the blue and mauve tones that were also used in the sixties rather than the more popular gold, orange and green.

It seemed like an eternity before Bobby came to the stage.

“Did you talk to her?” he asked.

“No, she’s still on her break. She should be back any minute. She’ll probably come back down the main aisle. Wait over there.” She pointed to her left. “If you stand one booth in and watch through that display, you can see me wave at you without being noticed.”

Fifteen minutes had passed when Harriet finally saw Jenny coming down the main aisle toward her. What occurred next happened so fast, she wasn’t sure afterward what the actual sequence was.

She saw the woman in the suit looking at something in a booth, her back to Jenny’s stage, saw her glance to the side as Jenny approached. One row over, Bobby apparently saw Jenny and decided to jump the gun, stepping out into the main aisle.

“I’m going to put my purse away,” Jenny had said, and ducked behind the black curtain on the stage. At the same time, a stout gray-haired women accompanied by a younger version of herself approached the stage and asked Harriet to show them the back of Jenny’s quilt.

Harriet pulled a white cotton glove from her pocket, put it on and picked up the edge of the quilt. As she folded it back, stepping behind it so the women could see the careful stitches, she saw blue-suit woman whirl and, at the same time, pull a large plastic bottle from her bag. She ripped off the top then flung the contents toward Harriet. Bobby turned and tackled the woman pulling the bottle from her hand and throwing it away down the aisle.

Harriet screamed as burning liquid splashed over her arm; her lower body was protected by the edge of Jenny’s quilt. The fabric around her hand turned brown and began to disintegrate.

“Harriet, what happened?” Jenny cried as she appeared through the curtains.

The pain was so intense Harriet couldn’t answer. She dropped the quilt edge and waved her arm back and forth, trying to escape the searing burn.

“Do you have any water?” the older woman who had been looking at Jenny’s quilt asked.

Jenny disappeared through the curtains briefly and returned with two plastic bottles of water.

“I’m a nurse,” the woman said and uncapped the first bottle, pouring the water over Harriet’s arm. “We need more,” she ordered. “and a first-aid kit.”

“Pour some on the quilt,” Harriet said in a strained voice.

Jenny went behind the curtains again. The vendor across the aisle brought two more bottles and set them down beside the nurse, who was pouring the second bottle over Harriet’s arm. Jenny returned with more, uncapping one and pouring water over the brown spot on her quilt then pulling it down from its hanger. She folded it up and stuffed it behind the curtain then returned to Harriet’s side.

“I’m Dorothy,” the nurse said. “This is my daughter Jessica.” She looked at her daughter. “Honey, call nine-one-one.”

“Is that necessary?” Harriet gasped through clenched teeth.

“I’m afraid so,” Dorothy said as she continued flushing Harriet’s arm with bottled water. “We don’t know what was in that liquid. It clearly included an acid, but who knows what else was with it. You need to be checked out. And someone will want to analyze the remains in the bottle to be sure there aren’t any surprises.”

To avoid seeing her arm, Harriet scanned the area around her. The woman in the blue suit was being held by two men she didn’t recognize. Bobby was nowhere to be seen.

“Who is she?” she asked.

“Who knows?” Jenny replied frantically, her cell phone held to her ear. “I’m trying to call your aunt, but she’s not answering.

“She probably doesn’t have her phone with her.”

Jenny turned as if to go.

“Don’t go get her. Leave the ladies to their dance. Lauren is at the protest in the foyer to the dance hall. Tell her to bring her car out front. She can drive me to the hospital after the paramedics look at my arm.”

“They’re going to want to transport you,” Jenny protested.

“And I’m not paying for an ambulance ride when I don’t need to.”

Jenny looked at Dorothy for help. The nurse shrugged.

“Her arm is burned, but if there was something really nasty in the mix she’d be reacting by now, and it’s true—they can’t force her.”

The same team of paramedics that had responded to the shooting came up, ending the discussion. The quilter-nurse identified herself and gave a concise description of the event as one EMT began taking Harriet’s vitals and the other opened a bottle of Milk of Magnesia, dumping it into a long-armed latex glove before slipping the glove over Harriet’s burned hand and arm. When the injury was covered, he taped the glove in place.

“What’s the white stuff for?” Harriet asked.

“Milk of Magnesia will neutralize hydrofluoric acid, if that’s what she used,” the paramedic said with a nod at blue-suit-woman. “She’s incoherent, but my partner heard her say something about rotting bones, so we figured we’d better be safe than sorry.

“Hydrofluoric acid is used in the electronics industry, so it’s pretty readily available here in the Northwest. It’s nasty stuff. You don’t feel the burn immediately, but it penetrates to the bone and destroys everything along the way. Clearly, it was mixed with something else that burned immediately—maybe sulfuric or hydrochloric acid, or even both.”

Harriet felt the blood leave her face as she listened to the description. The second paramedic inserted a needle into her unaffected hand and began a saline drip.

“I think you’d better reconsider taking that ambulance ride,” he said when he’d finished.

“Why am I not surprised to see you?” Office Nguyen said as he approached.

Harriet started to protest, but Dorothy shushed her.

“I saw the whole thing,” she said. “She was standing there on the stage, showing the quilt to me and my daughter, and that woman came up and threw a bottle of acid on her. Without provocation, I might add.”

Officer Nguyen raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

“That woman in the blue suit is who you need to be talking to,” Dorothy continued, pointing at the her. She was sitting quietly, talking to herself in a continuous litany that made sense to no one but her.

Nguyen walked over to where two men still held the acid thrower. He said something into the radio on his shoulder then went behind the woman and handcuffed her.

“What have you gotten yourself into now?” Lauren demanded as she pushed through the growing crowd, kneeling beside Harriet when she arrived. “Are you okay? What happened?” She was more rattled than Harriet had ever seen her.

“That woman over there threw acid on my arm,” she said. “Luckily, I had just turned the edge up on the quilt and stepped behind it as she threw, so she only got my arm.”

“Where’s your aunt?”

“She’s at the prom still, and I told Jenny not to bother her or the rest of the Threads. Will you come with me to the hospital?”

“Your aunt is going to flip—you do know that, right?”

“She’s going to be upset in any case, so she might as well enjoy the dance. Before you come to the hospital, go look at Jenny’s quilt where the acid burned it.” Jenny was now talking to Officer Nguyen. “It’s behind the curtain. Hurry, before she gets done.”

“Aren’t you just the bossy one?” Lauren said, but she got up and went behind the curtain. She hadn’t returned before the paramedics loaded Harriet onto a gurney and pushed her out to the waiting ambulance.