The Fortune Quilt Read Online Free PDF Page A

onto the porch, letting the screen door slam behind her as she holds out her hand to me.
    “You must be Carly,” she says.
    I pause. I’d been expecting flowing crepe dresses, long straggly Woodstock hair, eau de patchouli and costume jewelry. Instead, with a light touch of makeup and graying blonde hair pulled back in a thick braid, Brandywine Seaver looks very much like a bank teller on Casual Friday.
    “Hi, Ms. Seaver. Thanks for having us.”
    She takes my hand in both of hers and smiles. “I’m glad you could make it. And, please, call me Brandy.”
    “This is my videographer, Christopher Evans,” I say as Christopher steps up behind me. He puts the light kit down and holds his hand out to Brandy.
    “Good to meet you, Christopher,” Brandy says as she shakes his hand. She holds eye contact with him for a second, exuding warmth, then looks at me. “My client will be here at about one o’clock, so you’re in plenty of time. Shall we get started?”
    We follow Brandy into the cabin, which smells of wood, oranges and cinnamon. The ground level is a big expanse of space. Against one wall is a sofa, chair, coffee table, and a bookcase; crawling up the opposite wall is a stairwell leading to a loft, which I assume serves as Brandywine Seaver’s bedroom. There’s a large stone fireplace that goes all the way up into the ceiling; behind it are the kitchen and dining areas. But mostly, the space is about the quilts. An L-shaped workstation takes over one corner, harboring three mis-matched sewing machines and what looks like a half a dozen different quilts-in-progress. Everywhere you look, there’s fabric, batting, finished quilts folded in piles and hanging on stands. It looks like a Jo-Ann Fabrics in desperate need of a clearance sale.
    “Forgive the mess,” she says with an easy smile. “The quilts are an entity all their own, and they tend to take over.”
    Brandy motions for me to sit on the couch as she eases comfortably into an overstuffed chair. Christopher floats around us setting up lights, framing his shot, hooking Brandy up with a wireless lav mic, doing his camera guy thing. I flip through my notes and scan my questions so we can wrap quickly and get out, which is my producer thing. The locations and the stories change, but the routine never does. Producing for television is just another widget-making job, no matter how you slice it.
    “This should be fairly painless,” I say, launching into the standard spiel I perform for interview subjects unused to being on television. “Just a few basic questions. Answer naturally, like we’re just two people having a conversation.”
    Her smile widens. “Which is exactly what we are.”
    I take a moment. “Right. Try to look at me and forget the camera. Christopher won’t be offended.”
    She nods and winks at Christopher. Christopher tucks himself behind the camera and gives me a quick wave. “Ready. Rolling. Shake your groove thang.”
    I look at Brandy and reference my notebook, starting off with the standard softballs to put her at ease. Where is she from, how did she end up in Arizona, how did she get started quilting, blah blah blah. She answers all the questions affably, naturally comfortable in front of the camera. I lean forward.
    “So, how does the whole thing work, exactly?”
    “Well,” she says, hesitating as she constructs her answer. “I make the quilts without knowing who they’re for. Sometimes a quilt will only have been done for an hour when the client who owns it calls. Sometimes I’ll have a quilt for years before the owner shows up.”
    I nod and keep quiet. Brandy pauses, and then jumps in to fill the empty conversational space, the way they all do if you wait long enough.
    “See, I get the images, a sense of the fabrics and stitches, but I have no idea what it all means. I finish the quilt, and put it away. When a client calls, I go through the quilts until I find the one that belongs to that client.”
    “And how do you