Sewing bee

“Some natural historian you’ve turned out to be, Maxine. Your invitation was really fitting.” She'd been charmed by the insect collection on the cover of the card that Maxine had sent out, inviting them, a group of old classmates to a potluck sewing bee. “Quite a source of inspiration for visionaries like us. So neat and tidy, and what a chorus line with so many fine legs in perfect alignment, not to mention those fuzzy coats, fragile wings and compound eyes.”

Maxine widens her big black tea, flying saucer eyes as she helps Sara off with her yellow jacket, wrapping it neatly on a hanger. Taking Sara’s hands into her own, she pecks her lightly on both cheeks.

“I like it when it’s obvious that you’ve been doing some serious scientific thinking about us, replete with family names and collection dates. I could identify right away with pinup number 20 of the bombus family. Has it really been 10 years since we first met? Jeeessus how time flies.”

“You know, after her death they put Frida’s diary in a plexiglass box too, and someone kept turning the pages every day for the whole world to see: heavy brows, drawn together into one bird, and tiny wings attached to dismembered feet, a piedestal at the bottom of the page with the caption: Pies para que los quiero si tengo alas pa' volar! Why do I want feet when I have wings?"

“They all fit right into that plexiglass box, all those specimens. Tupperware may be good for a lot, but just isn’t transparent, nor rigid enough. Remember nothing we say is to leave this room, must remain behind our ironing curtain.”

“We’re not spring chicks any more are we?”

“No, but a little metamorphosis has done wonders for you Max. I like your antennae. Suits you, those hat pins, though the pinheads somehow dwarf your collection.”

“St Mary’s intensive care has its benefits, but they force the interns to work long hours. Before the day is over you actually need those perks.”

Before either of them has a chance to say more, the doorbell rings again, and again, and again. “OK I’m no longer an intern on call now, but accepting regular duty.”

“Remember how Monique always recommended that we tell patients with a loose screw to go back wherever they came from. Maybe that was her appeal, to us? Maybe it’s better late than never to take her advice, huh Maxine?”

“I didn’t hear that Sara.”

When all the girls had arrived, a warm buzz filled Maxine’s bright yellow pad on the 17 floor, with a bay view.

“I can’t imagine a better housewarming cohort, so make yourselves at home,” Maxine announces. “Bees have to travel 50,000 miles, more than twice around the earth, for every pound of honey. Of course, no single honeybee ever made a pound of honey by herself. We need each other, working women with potluck.”

They all have so much to talk about, cosmos, nasturtiums, pistils and stamens, sweet blue peas, red currants, black forests, yellow trees, rivers, lakes and mushrooms.

Then Liz happens to mention Monique again…