She did not inherit her fashion smarts from me. Must be all those style blogs and glossy magazines she loves to read. When she teams up with a salesgirl named Darcy, there is no stopping the two of them. I surrender to their superior savvy and wait in a big double dressing room in a bra and panties that have seen better days, bare feet in need of a pedicure.

The glaring fluorescent lights and full-length, three-way mirror have no mercy. I stare at myself in triplicate, the images growing smaller and smaller into infinity. Molly and Darcy bring in tops, slacks and jeans, silky cardigans and jackets nipped in at the waist, belts and low-heeled pumps. They can’t resist accessorizing with statement jewelry, bright scarves, slender hoop earrings. The attention feels good—and the clothes look good on me.

Molly hands me a cream leather hobo bag. “You are so pretty, Mom. Wait until Dad sees you. Wait until everyone sees you.”

In the end, I buy about half of what she wants me to get. Even that seems excessive to me, but with all the nice things to choose from, it was hard to narrow them down. We walk out of the store with a parcel as big as the quilt bag. It’s filled with new jeans and shoes, a top and sweater and skirt, a wrap dress and hoop earrings, and a melon-colored paisley scarf I couldn’t bear to leave behind. Molly and Darcy made me keep the new undergarments on, leaving my elastic-less ones in the trash. “When you start with a good foundation,” Darcy pointed out, “everything looks better.”

“Well,” I say, setting the shopping bag on the back seat next to the quilt. “That was unexpected.”

“That was fun,” Molly said. “Way more fun than a fabric shop.”

“A different kind of fun than the fabric shop.”

She’s not done, and her enthusiasm is infectious. On Darcy’s recommendation, we go to a nearby salon for a shampoo and style. We have our toenails polished candy pink and emerge from the salon flipping our hair around and giggling.

“Look at us,” Molly says, primping in the Suburban’s visor mirror. “We’re new women.”

Eight

The next day, the sheen is off our hair. Molly urges me to wear something new but I decline, not wanting to wrinkle the clothes, sitting in the car all day. The bag with the beautiful new things stays on the back seat. The outfits are too nice for a car trip. I want to save them for something special.

According to the peeling roadside billboards, we have two choices for lunch—a Stuckey’s that has ninety-nine-cent burgers, or Bubba’s Beach Shack, on the scenic shores of Lake Ontario.

“It’s a lake,” Molly says. “How can it have a beach?”

“It’s one of the Great Lakes.” I am nearly cross-eyed from sewing. The end of our journey looms closer, an outcome I can see and practically touch. I stayed up late last night, working on the quilt. Working is, of course, an elastic concept. I can be staring out at the night sky and call it “working” if I’m planning the next quilt.