A Midsummer Night's Scream

hotel and offered to pick her up and take her to the needlepoint class.
    “It’s sweet of you to ask, but I have some shopping to do first, so I’ll just take a cab. I have the owner’s card with the address in my needlepoint bag. I’ll see you then.“
    Ms. Bunting was only a few moments late. She had a bag from a toy store. “For my grandchildren,“ she said. As she set the bag down, soft baby toys tumbled out. Jane bent over to pick them up and put them back.
    Martha introduced Ms. Bunting to the others, explaining that she, Martha, had bent the rules because Ms. Bunting was a famous actress who had known Sylvia Sidney, who was not only an actress but had written a very good needlepoint book.
    Tazz said, “Ms. Bunting and I have met before. I’m providing her costumes for the play she’s going to be in in another week, right here in Chicago.“
    Both Jane and Martha had brought along their copies of Sylvia Sidney’s book. Everyone, even those who had never heard of Sylvia Sidney, passed it around and asked questions about her.
    Then they all pulled out their needlepoint work to show how they were coming along so far. Tazz’s was the most complex. She’d done half of an American flag in the center, which would be surrounded by borders of stars and stripes in different stitches. They were all marked out on the canvas, and she had the kinds of stitches she was using on grid paper.
    Ms. Bunting had barely started, but she’d used the upper left corner to do a section of bargello stitches in the darkest shades of each of her three colors and said she intended to do the same stitch in the opposite corner with the lightest shades of the same three colors.
    Sam’s consisted of fairly boring colors, and he’d stitched a little too tight, but he’d tackled some very complex stitches. “Don’t worry,“ he assured the rest of them. “I know the first ones I did need to be ripped out.“
    Shelley had tried to catch up with Jane and had done an elongated cashmere stitch with her medium colors.
    What most surprised Jane was that Elizabeth’s looked the best, in spite of the muddy oranges, greens, and reds. She was way ahead of everyone else. She’d completed nearly a quarter of her project and used what looked like the most difficult stitches in the pattern book. There was an impressive Scotch plaid rectangle, which adjoined a long thin triangle of French knots.
    Jane smiled at Elizabeth, who was, in this case at least, every bit as competitive as Shelley.

Seven

    Elizabeth turned out to be rather tactless, in spite of her seemingly upper-crust façade.
    After everyone had oohed and aahed over one another’s work, Elizabeth said to Ms. Bunting, “Those cute toys must be for your great-grandchildren.“
    “No. They’re for my daughter’s children.“
    “My goodness. She must have had them quite late in life.“
    Ignoring the obvious suggestion that Ms. Bunting must be at least in her nineties, Ms. Bunting said, “No, it was I who had my daughter late in life. I’d always wanted children, but suffered three miscarriages early in our marriage. I’d given up ever having children. Then, when I was forty-two, and doing a very silly movie in England, I found myself pregnant again. It was the worst movie I was ever in, but I was taking such good care of myself that I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around me.“
    She continued, “John, of course, was deeply embarrassed at becoming a father at forty-three. I don’t think, frankly, that he’d have enjoyed the role at any age.“
    “So, was your daughter born in England?“ Elizabeth persisted.
    “Unfortunately not. She was born on the ship on the way home. I was afraid to fly. By the time the terrible, endless film was done, I was seven and a half months along.“
    “It must have been hard, raising a baby at that age. Did you keep acting?“ Elizabeth asked.
    “I had to. It was the only skill I had,“ Ms. Bunting said, picking out colors for her next sampler block. “Besides, John and I earned our living acting together. I took along a day nanny and a night nanny, then later both nannies and a teacher. It was very expensive and we had to work even harder to afford the help. I came as close as this,“ she said, holding her forefinger and her thumb a half inch apart, “to having a nervous breakdown once.“
    Ms. Bunting abruptly changed the subject. “I think these colors will go well together. Do you agree?“ She was holding up