Anna and Jeremy's wedding could have been equally fraught with tension, but if anyone adamantly believed they shouldn't marry, they kept their objections to themselves. Anna was Catholic and Jeremy was Jewish, and both of their families preferred for them to marry within their own faiths. But concerns about religious differences fell into a surprisingly distant second place behind their families' misgivings about the apparent haste with which the couple had decided to marry. Sarah, too, had been astonished when they announced their engagement a mere handful of months after they had begun dating, but of course, they had been friends for years before their relationship developed into something deeper and richer.
Anna had liked her neighbor across the hall from the start, from the first brief greetings they exchanged when they happened to leave their apartments at the same time to the numerous occasions he had held the outside door for her when she returned with her arms full of grocery bags. She learned his name when a few misdirected letters ended up in her mailbox, and a quick trip across the hallway to deliver them to him turned into a twenty-minute conversation. Over time, she discovered more about Jeremy in quick, casual exchanges whenever they crossed paths in the hallway or the lobby: He had written his master's thesis on the battle of Gettysburg, he taught two undergraduate classes at Waterford College each semester, and he had recently passed the candidacy exam to be accepted as a Ph.D. student in the Department of History. She considered asking him over for coffee some evening, but she lost her courage and settled for accidental meetings in and around their apartment building.
One night in mid-November, Jeremy knocked on her door bearing a large cardboard box and a hopeful expression. The Waterford College Key Club was collecting nonperishable food items to make Thanksgiving baskets for needy families in the Elm Creek Valley, but the carton they had left in their building's lobby held only a few boxes of pasta, a canister of raisins, and a package of granola bars. Anna was impressed that Jeremy had taken it upon himself to solicit donations door-to-door, so not only did she contribute a few items from her pantry to the carton, she also accompanied him on the rest of his rounds. The evening ended with them back in her apartment baking wholewheat chocolate cappuccino brownies from ingredients Jeremy had spotted on her pantry shelves. They enjoyed the decadent dessert warm right from the pan as they watched the
Peanuts
Thanksgiving special on television, sitting cross-legged on her sofa, licking chocolate from their fingertips, as comfortable as if they had been friends for years.
From then on, their accidental meetings in the hall usually turned into lengthy conversations unless one of them was running late, and at least once every two weeks Jeremy came over for dinner or dessert, testing new recipes Anna invented for the restaurant she hoped to open someday. They met less frequently after Anna began dating GordonâJeremy thought Gordon was a pompous blowhard, and Gordon didn't like Anna to pay attention to anyone but himâbut they still talked almost every day.
Anna had been involved with Gordon for more than a year when Jeremy mentioned meeting a beautiful girl at the library, so the sharp sting of jealousy she felt at the news caught her completely by surprise. A few months later, when the stunning auburn-haired beauty moved in with him and turned out to be as friendly, kind, and interesting as she was gorgeous, Anna silently berated herself for not being more delighted for Jeremy, who was, after all, supposed to be her friend. Summer had always been thoughtful and friendly to her, helping her land the chef's job with Elm Creek Quilts and encouraging Jeremy to drive her back and forth to the manor on days the bus ride would be too inconvenient. Two months later, when Summer suddenly moved out of Jeremy's apartment and into Elm Creek Manor, Anna naturally assumed they had broken up, but apparently they remained a couple even after Summer's departure for graduate school in the fall. By that time Anna had broken up with the pompous Gordon, and she was secretly delighted when Summer's absence gave Jeremy more free timeâwhich he seemed very glad to spend with her. Their old companionship resumed, stronger than ever, and Anna began to think of Jeremy as her best friend, although she realized Summer probably occupied that place of honor in his life.
Anna was content being just friends for a long time, but eventually she realized she felt much more than friendship for Jeremy, and she suspected he felt the same about her. She tried to conceal her feelings, because if her crush became public knowledge, things could become awkward for her around the manor. Summer and Jeremy remained a couple, at least officially. To Anna, however, it seemed Summer had been pulling away from Jeremy for months, beginning with the day she had moved out of his apartment and into the manor. Moving to Chicago and discouraging him from visiting too often seemed, to Anna at least, another way to distance herself. But Jeremy was determined to make it work, and Anna was determined not to interfere, no matter how much it hurt.
On one stormy Friday after Thanksgiving, Anna brooded over her unhappy circumstances as Jeremy drove west through an early winter storm to spend the weekend with Summer. Although they never acknowledged any deepening of their friendship, Anna and Jeremy had become very close, closer than mere friends. The day didn't truly begin until they'd greeted each other with a text across the hallway that separated their two apartments, and the day didn't feel properly concluded until that last late-night good-night phone call. Jeremy had to be aware that he spent more of his time and attention upon the friend who happened to be a girl than he did upon his girlfriend, but Anna didn't know whether he had ever asked himself what that meant. Was he really unaware of what Anna felt for him? Had he not figured out that she repeatedly turned down Sylvia's invitations to move into a comfortable suite in the manor, with no rent to pay and easy access to the kitchen of her dreams, because she would miss him if he weren't living right across the hall? Did he not suspect, as she did, that he had begun describing them as “good friends” so often and so emphatically because he was afraid that he had begun to feel more for her than that?
She realized she had fallen in love with him, and she knew she couldn't go back to pretending she was content to be no more than a friend. When he called her en route to Chicago, she blurted out that she could no longer be his fallback girlâthe lonely girl he called and texted and spent time with because he couldn't be with his girlfriend, the loyal best friend he ditched when the woman he preferred finally paid attention to him. Completely blindsided, Jeremy protested that he had never intended to treat her that way, and as the conversation escalated into an argument, Anna confessed that she was in love with him. Mortified, she hung up the phone, assuming their friendship was over.
But Jeremy had other plans. He turned the car around and drove back through the snowstorm to Elm Creek Manor. Anna was stunned to see him. Everyone else at the manor, including Sarah and Gwen, Summer's mother, assumed he had turned back because of the storm, and of course he could not explain the real reason. Even Anna could only guessâguess, and hope. She prepared herself to bear it if he had come home only because he valued their friendship and wanted to salvage it if they could. That would be better than nothing, if not all that she wanted.
In those first early days when everyone was snowbound at the manor, they left everything unsaid and treated each other carefully, tentatively. Only after the roads were plowed and they departed for their downtown apartment building in his dilapidated old car were they able to talk. “There's something I need you to know,” Jeremy began, keeping his gaze fixed on the road straight ahead. “What happened between me and Summer, the way things endedâyou are not the cause. I don't want you to think you split us up. We've been headed in that direction for a long time. I don't want you to feel any guilt about that.”
Anna told him she wouldn't, and he took her hand.
Back at his apartment, they sat on the sofa with their arms around each other, laughing, a little tearful, overwhelmed by the relief and joy that came from finally admitting what they truly felt for each other. “I think I've been in love with you for three years,” Jeremy said before he kissed her.
Only later did Jeremy tell Anna that after she had hung up on him, he had called Summer and told her he was halfway to Chicago and was having second thoughts about his surprise visit.
Summer, who had sounded shocked and not at all pleased to hear that he was on his way, asked, “Second thoughts about the surprise or the visit?”
“The visit. The surprise is already spoiled, obviously, and was probably a bad idea from the beginning.” Jeremy braced himself. “How would you feel if I called it off and went home?”
“I think that would be a good idea,” said Summer, sounding relieved that it had been his idea and not hers.
“Okay,” he said. “Good-bye, Summer.”
“Good-bye, Jeremy. Waitâ”
He had been about to hang up. “I'm here. What is it?”
“When you say, âCall it off,' you don't mean just the trip, do you?”
Jeremy hesitated. “No. No, I don't. I'm sorry.”
“Don't be,” she said quickly. “Really. Don't. I think that would be a very good idea too.”
He had expected as much. What surprised him most was what a relief it was to finally have it over. They bade each other good-bye without any promises that they would talk soon or remain friends. They both simply hung up the phone and went back to the lives they had already begun living separately.
And Jeremy raced home to Elm Creek Manor and Anna as fast as the storm allowed.
For a while, they told none of the Elm Creek Quilters about the transformation of their relationship, and later, Sarah reflected that she had not noticed any change. Jeremy had always driven Anna to work, they had always texted and called throughout the day, and he had always come by to drive her home afterward. They had always laughed and had long, earnest conversations and teased and joked. Gretchen remarked, once, that Jeremy and Anna certainly did seem very happy in each other's company. On another occasion, Gwen asked Jeremy if he would let her know when he planned to make another trip to Chicago, because she had some books to give to Summer if he wouldn't mind taking them. Jeremy had stammered out that he wasn't planning to go to Chicago anytime in the foreseeable future. Only in hindsight did Sarah understand, and she was disconcerted that she had missed the romance blossoming right in front of her. She reassured herself that she would have noticed the signs if she had not been so distracted by Matt's absence and the long-awaited birth of the twins.
But at last the twins came, and when Sarah was still recovering from surgery, Summer called her at the hospital to congratulate her. “A boy and a girl,” she exclaimed, utterly delighted. “I'm sure they're perfectly beautiful.”
Sarah assured her Matt would e-mail photos as soon as he had a chance. Summer promised to try to be patient, and she lamented and apologized that she couldn't be there, and hadn't been around all winter to help.
“Don't feel bad about that; neither was their father,” Sarah reminded her. She had poured out her heart to Summer often throughout those lonely months.
“All the more reason I wish I had been,” said Summer. “I wish I could get away, but I don't have any time off until the end of the quarter. As soon as I finish my last exam, I'm coming home for spring break.”
“It'll be so good to see you.” Sarah had missed her friend, the only one of the founding Elm Creek Quilters near her own age. “I'll get your old room ready.”
“No! You need your rest. Have someone else do it. Tell Matt to do it. Better yet”âher voice took on an edgeâ“let me tell him.”
Perhaps Sarah had shared too much about her recent disappointment in Matt. “One way or another, your room will be ready. Unless”âshe remembered the visit spoiled by the unexpected winter storm the previous Novemberâ“unless you're planning to stay at Jeremy's place?”
“No, definitely not,” replied Summer. “I assumed he'd told you. We broke up.”
“What? When?”
“After Thanksgiving, when he was going to visit me. He called from the road to tell me he was on his way, and we sort of agreed that he should turn around and go home.”
“I can't believe you never mentioned it.”
“I thought
he
would, since he's there. It's not like we had a huge fight or anything. Things just . . . ran their course. Mentioning that we had broken up would have been almost anticlimactic.”
Sarah felt like the worst friend in the world. “I can't believe I was so wrapped up in my own concerns that I didn't realize you'd broken up.”
“Sarah, give yourself a break. Your concerns included a stressful pregnancy and giving birth to twins. It's really no big deal. If ending things with Jeremy had broken my heart, you would have been the first person I would've turned to for a shoulder to cry on.” She laughed dryly. “Trust me, I didn't do any crying over Jeremy. I was trying to extricate myself from that relationship for months, long before I left for Chicago. I mean, I like him, and I care about him, but I can't imagine spending the rest of my life with him, you know?”
“But he's so nice, and you're so niceâ”
“That doesn't mean we're meant for each other.”
“I guess, butâyou're still friends, right?”
“I don't know if one could call us friends, considering that we haven't spoken since November, but there's no animosity, at least not on my side.”
“So . . . you'll be okay seeing him when you come home for spring break?”