"Well,” Sarah said. “Come on, spill."

For her part, Carla was beyond red-faced-she looked at her feet and stammered out, “Terry."

"What?” Sarah demanded.

"Let her be,” Connie ordered. She'd come in during the inquisition and had used her best grade-school-teacher voice-something even Sarah wasn't immune to. “Carla will tell us about her new friend when she's good and ready, and if that's never then you just leave her be."

Everyone around the table suddenly became very involved with their hand work, digging in bags, threading needles and otherwise avoiding looking at Sarah, Carla or anyone else.

"How is everyone doing with their costumes?” Connie asked after a few minutes. In her years of putting on plays at the grade school, she had learned a number of useful costuming tricks, such as making bloomers from two pillowcases in under an hour, and she'd shared her know-how with the group.

The discussion went around the table, each person reporting on the status of their Civil War outfit. The Threads had planned their costumes in advanced to insure that, as merchants, they would be appropriately dressed. Everyone had chosen accordingly, with the exception of Sarah. Even Lauren would look similar to the rest of the group. She had added some fine embroidery to her collars, but Harriet couldn't find fault with that.

Sarah, on the other hand, had made her dress out of black silk-like synthetic, complete with black collar and black apron. With her pale skin, all she needed was black eye shadow and red lipstick and she would blend right in with the goth kids who congregated around the corner from the high school on week days.

Harriet chuckled to herself.

"Okay,” Robin whispered to Harriet. “What was so funny?"

"Oh, just imagining Bebe and Sarah side-by-side."

Robin started laughing and had to go to the kitchen before anyone could ask her to say it out loud.

"Excuse me, chiquita,” Connie said as she squeezed past Harriet's chair and headed toward the door. “I've got to find some thread to match Carlton 's vest."

She was barely out the door when Sarah spoke in a quiet voice.

"So, Carla, who was the hunk?” she asked again, and glanced nervously toward the door.

"His name is Terry,” Carla repeated without looking up.

"I got that the first time. I'm asking who is he?"

"Who he is, is none of your business,” Harriet said. “I thought Connie made that clear. Since you obviously didn't understand, let me say it in simple terms-back off. Who Carla sees is her business. And she certainly is under no obligation to tell you anything about it."

"Well, excuse me,” Sarah said. She broke eye contact and busied herself with her stitching. “I'm not sure who crowned you queen,” she muttered.

Harriet knew enough to not press the issue.

"Diós mio, that was delicious,” Connie said and pushed her chair back from the table. Robin had picked up sandwiches from The Sandwich Board, a deli a few blocks from the quilt store. To keep things simple, the restaurant had prepared three options: a Reuben-style sandwich made with turkey pastrami, Swiss cheese and homemade sauerkraut, a vegetarian option on seven-grain bread with herb cream cheese, avocado, tomato and cucumbers and a smoked turkey on sourdough with thin sliced gouda and baby lettuce.

"Stop hogging the cookies,” Lauren demanded. The Sandwich Board had sent along a tray of oatmeal raisin cookies that were still warm from the oven.

DeAnn pulled the plastic wrap from the tray and shoved it across the table. “Help yourself."

"Our visitors are due to arrive any minute,” Jenny said. “Everyone here has worked very hard to make this re-enactment a success. I know we're all stressed by all the last-minute preparations. We're in the home stretch. In a few days, this will all be a happy memory. Until then, could we please just hold it together?"

"Hello?” said an unfamiliar voice. “The lady out front told us to come in here."

"Hi, I'm Harriet,” Harriet got up and made her way to the door. She held her hand out to the woman who had spoken.

"Hi, I'm Sharon Davis,” The woman shook Harriet's hand. “This is Ellen and behind her is Inez. I spoke to you on the phone."

The three women were dressed in identical gray T-shirts with a handmade logo identifying them as the Confederate Quilter's Club and denim capri pants. Harriet introduced them to the Loose Threads.

"Welcome to Foggy Point,” Connie said. “Can we get you coffee, or tea?"

Inez held up a bottle of water. “No, thanks, we picked up waters on our way here."

Sharon and Inez, with their long gray hair wound into buns at the napes of their necks, appeared to be in their fifties. Harriet guessed Ellen was closer to her own age.

Jenny directed the women to the empty chairs she had pulled up to the table.

"I can't tell you how thankful we are to have you come early and check us out. None of us here has experience putting on a re-enactment of any kind. We've tried to follow all the rules the council forwarded to us, but we'll all feel better when someone who has actually been to one looks things over."

"We're happy to come help,” Inez said. “The fact that you're putting us up in a nice B-and-B tonight definitely sweetened the deal, but we would have come even without that.” She smiled warmly.

"I think you'll find re-enactors are like any other group of people you gather in one place,” Sharon said. “Most are really friendly and just want to have a good time. They're interested in history and the Civil War, but mainly they like having fun with their friends. And no matter what you do there will be critics-nothing you do will please them, and they're unlikely to help in any way other than making suggestions about how you can do something differently, usually a way requiring more effort. Unfortunately, there is also a third group, the troublemakers. They aren't around all the time, but they do show up among us every now and then."

"We've had a little trouble at the last few re-enactments we've participated in,” Ellen said. “Most recently it's been theft. Things have been stolen from tents during the major battles and quilts have been stolen-from tents, from the sutler's booth, even from unlocked cars."

"We mentioned that in one of our e-mails, so hopefully you've had time to address the security,” Sharon added.

"We hired a private security company to patrol all the populated areas. We asked for two in the sutler's area and one each in the two tent areas. In addition, we'll have someone in the parking lot,” Harriet said.

"That should help,” Sharon said. “We all try to look out for each other, but a determined thief is hard to stop."

Harriet sighed.

"Don't worry,” Inez said. “All you can do is take reasonable precautions and then whatever happens, happens."

"On a lighter note,” Sharon said. “We brought our quilting along with us.” Her lips curved in an impish smile. “I'll show you mine if you show me yours.” She pulled a piece of quilting from her bag. It was about a foot square with a pieced top, batting and backing held together with pins.” I'm doing a quilt-as-you-go project,” she explained. “I hand-pieced the top in block-sized pieces, and now I'm hand quilting it block by block. When the blocks are finished, I'll hook them together with sashing pieces. This way my quilting is not only more portable, but I can change the outcome right up until the last block is finished.” She held up the square she was working on. She had made four six-inch LeMoyne Star blocks from brown, red and beige Civil war reproduction fabrics, and had sewn them together to form the twelve-inch square.

Harriet pulled out her piecework. Mavis was trying to convince her of the joys of hand-piecing a quilt top; she was still playing with her stars-and-bars design. She didn't plan on hand-piecing the whole quilt, but she was going to at least make a few of the star blocks by hand just to try it out.