"I'll put your quilt on the machine first thing,” she said.

She gathered the sample squares up, carefully organizing them by stitch type. She fumbled and dropped the stack.

"Let me help you,” Avanell said and smiled. “Are you nervous with your aunt being out of the country?"

"Does it show?” Harriet asked, knowing that it wasn't Aunt Beth's absence as much as her aunt's preemptive strike on her future that had her distracted. If she dropped anything else, Avanell was likely to gather her quilt up and run for the nearest exit.

"Only a little,” Avanell replied. “Listen,” she said “The Vitamin Factory is just down the hill. It wouldn't be out of my way to drop back by when I go to lunch to see how you're doing."

"That would be great,” Harriet said. She couldn't believe she was acting like such a nervous fool. She was confident in her quilting ability; and when she'd moved to California, she'd made unique home furnishing accent pieces for an upscale furniture shop, so it wasn't like she hadn't ever had her work scrutinized by a paying customer.

Somehow, though, being in Foggy Point, where she would have to see those customers every time she went into the grocery store or picked up her mail at the post office was intimidating. And in spite of everything, she did want to do a good job, and Aunt Beth would be a hard act to follow.

It seemed like only moments had passed, but she had loaded the pieced top and its backing and batting onto the long-arm machine's frame and had stitched the first square area. She straightened and was rubbing the small of her back when the doorbell rang and signaled Avanell's return.

"I just finished the first part,” Harriet said. “Come see."

Avanell didn't need an invitation; she came over and inspected the work. Harriet held her breath as Avanell rubbed her fingertips lightly over the closely spaced rows of parallel stitching.