The Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches

by Janet Tronstad

  “My dad won’t be coming with us,” I say just so I get it said up front. I don’t say he’s sick.

  “Oh,” Quinn says. “I was hoping to talk to him about the performance.”

  “I’m going to call some more places,” I say.

  I remember the Pasadena City Hall. If they have finished the remodeling on their building, I think we could hold a performance there after business hours. They have a very small rental fee, and the floors in the courtyard are marble.

  I notice out of the corner of my eye that Uncle Lou heads back into the kitchen. We don’t have any customers in The Pews, which is unusual, but maybe Uncle Lou needs to stir the soup or something.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll think of a place,” I say.

  Usually, the sun would be pouring in the windows facing Colorado Boulevard. But I had closed some of the blinds when I first got here, so there’s a very mellow light here now—sort of a twilight feeling with enough light to see the shine on the brass rack over the counter and the gleam of the wood all around. The Pews always seems to have atmosphere and it’s not letting me down now. “It’s too bad this place isn’t bigger.”

  “I’m not worried about finding a place,” Quinn says as his eyes crinkle up. I barely have time to register that The Old Mother Hen isn’t worried before he continues. “And you look very nice.”

  Well, I hadn’t seen that coming. It’s nice to get a compliment.

  “I thought I should dress up for church,” I say. I’m not going to pretend with Quinn that I’ve been to church often—only those few times with my mom before dad left—but I don’t want him to think I’m a complete heathen who doesn’t know that going to church is different than hunting for a runaway cat. “By the way, you look good, too.”

  I don’t know how long we stand there and look at each other until Quinn takes a step closer to me and reaches up to touch my hair. “I like this.”

  “I decided not to wear a cap.” I’m not sure I can breathe right.

  Quinn takes his hand and cups my face. “I can see that.”

  I could say that I didn’t see the kiss coming either, but I would be lying. I wanted it to come enough to see it coming even if it wasn’t—if that makes any sense. It probably doesn’t. I can’t think straight enough to make sense.

  Quinn’s lips are soft, but there is nothing soft about his kiss. I swear my heart is beating so fast Uncle Lou must be able to hear it in the kitchen.

  And then, the kiss is over. Quinn still has his arms around me, though, which is nice.

  “Is that—I mean should we do that before we go to church?” I say. Maybe heaven won’t be the only question I have when I go to church this morning.

  Quinn chuckles. “I think God’s good with it.”

  I hear the phone ringing in the kitchen and Uncle Lou answering it. Quinn is still holding me in the circle of his arms and I think I’ve forgotten how to move.

  “Marilee—phone,” Uncle Lou calls from the kitchen.

  I’m tempted to tell Uncle Lou to have them call me back, but it might be Carly. Or Lizabett. Or Becca. I guess I need to move whether I want to or not. “Sorry.”

  Quinn steps back a little so I’m not inside his arms any longer. “We need to be going pretty soon anyway.”

  I nod. I guess we can’t stand in The Pews all day and kiss even if there are no customers around.

  I manage to walk into the kitchen and even register the fact that Uncle Lou is making his famous chili.

  “Hello,” I say into the phone.

  “Marilee?” a guy’s voice asks.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Randy—Randy Parker.”

  I’m expecting one of the Sisters, so I’m surprised and don’t answer right away.

  “You know, the guy who’s going to do the grill for your uncle?”

  “Of course, I know. Hi, Randy.”

  I stop myself from asking if Carly is okay. I can’t think of any other reason for the grill guy to call me.

  “Did you find Carly’s cat?”

  Randy grunts. “That cat doesn’t have sense enough to come down out of that tree no matter what.”

  Randy doesn’t sound too happy with the cat.

  “Oh. Well, I hope for Carly’s sake it does.”

  Randy grunts again.

  Randy doesn’t sound too happy about anything this morning, but I don’t know what it has to do with me.

  “Say, I was wondering if you’d like to grab a cup of coffee with me tonight,” Randy finally says.

  “Oh. Sure.” He has caught me by surprise.

  “There’s that coffee place in De Lacey Alley.”

  “I know the one.”

  “It’s a good place to talk,” Randy says. “How does eight o’clock work?”

  “Fine. It works fine.”

  I hang up the phone before I can ask myself if I’ve just agreed to go on a date with the grill guy. I always thought if I ever had another chance to go out with the grill guy, my life would burst into celebratory fireworks. I’d finally be able to meet my destiny. I’d be ecstatic. Time would swirl around me and I wouldn’t notice it.

  What I notice now is that my feet hurt. I guess my destiny isn’t as much fun as I always thought it would be. My only consolation is that a date is rather hard to define these days.

  “It’s not really a date,” I find myself telling Quinn when I go back out into the main room of The Pews and tell him about the conversation. I wouldn’t have even told him about the conversation if I hadn’t been so rattled and he wasn’t so easy to talk to.

  “Not a date?” Quinn grunts. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  “He probably just wants to talk about Carly’s cat,” I say. I don’t know which one of us—me or Quinn—that I am reassuring.

  Quinn grunts even louder at this one. “That guy doesn’t care about some cat in a tree.”

  “But the cat’s lost,” I say. I notice The Pews isn’t as warm and cozy as it was a few minutes ago. Quinn isn’t as friendly, either.

  “And she’s having the time of her life now that she’s getting four cans of tuna delivered to her doorstep every night.”

  Quinn isn’t even smiling at me now.

  “Well, maybe he wants to talk about the cat’s diet then. I’m not sure a cat should eat that much tuna. It’s not tuna in water, either—it’s the oil kind. The poor thing will get fat.”

  I can see Quinn starting to smile. He moves his lips, but his eyes don’t warm up and crinkle as they did earlier. “Well, in that case, maybe it is the cat’s diet he wants to talk about. We wouldn’t want ‘the poor thing’ falling out of a tree because of her weight.”

  I nod my head. I suddenly hope I am right and that Randy does want to talk about the cat. “Besides, I’m sure he’ll leave his cell phone on. He wouldn’t want to miss any calls.”

  Quinn shrugs. “Eight o’clock, you say? Maybe I should call him around then.”

  I smile at that. “That’d be okay if you did. You won’t be interrupting anything but a talk about tuna.”

  Now I see Quinn’s real smile. “Maybe I’ll remind him that it’s supposed to be colder tonight and that the cat should be inside. Maybe he’ll leave early to go get it down out of that tree once and for all.”

  We drive to church in Quinn’s car. I saw his car the other day when he came to Carly’s house and the policeman was writing us tickets for littering. Quinn has a nice sound system in his car and a classical CD plays for us.

  I’ll admit I am a little nervous about going to church, but I am comfortable with Quinn beside me. He greets a few people in front of the church and then we go inside.

  I don’t know what to expect, but the church is nice.

  It doesn’t have any of those fancy stained-glass windows, and I’m a little disappointed about that, but there is a beautiful wooden cross in the front of the church and the windows along the side of the church are made out of a coated glass so that light shines through but no one can see thr
ough the window. There are long pews made out of wood and a maroon carpet that covers the entire floor even the area up by the pulpit and where the organ is.

  I only have a minute to take it all in before people come over to where Quinn and I are standing. Quinn introduces me to everyone. I won’t remember half of their names, but I will remember how friendly everyone is.

  The church service starts with a hymn, and I am surprised that I can follow along pretty well because they have a screen up front with all of the words to the song. Quinn has a nice bass voice, and it’s kind of fun to sing. The song we sing has the word Hallelujah in it a lot and so it has a happy sound to it.

  Actually, the whole service is happy. The minister talks about the faith that led Moses to cross the Red Sea and I have to admit I am impressed. I’m not sure I would have the nerve to cross the wet ground where the sea used to be, especially when the sea walls were high above my head, but I’ve got to admire Moses for doing it. It would be kind of like doing Splash Mountain at Disneyland, only without the cart. Moses was some man.

  I’m disappointed because there is no mention of heaven, but all in all, it wasn’t bad. I wonder if my mother’s church is as happy as this one is and I hope it is. It’s been so long since I’ve been there that I can’t remember. I’d like to picture her in a place like this when she goes off on Sunday.

  The closing prayer is happening before I know it and it suddenly occurs to me that I’ve been almost as brave as Moses today because I’ve gone to church. I mean, it’s not doing Splash Mountain without a cart, but the walls didn’t collapse on me and no one pointed a finger at me and asked me what I was daring to do here. No, it was okay.

  Quinn is taking me up to meet the minister before I can stop him.

  “Oh, you’ve brought a guest today,” the minister says to Quinn and then he turns to me. The minister is a man of about sixty. “We’re happy to have you with us, Miss…?”

  “Davidson,” I say. “Marilee Davidson.”

  “If there’s anything the church can do for you, don’t hesitate to let me know.” The minister shakes my hand. “My name’s Pastor Engstrom, by the way.”

  Wow. That’s a pretty big offer. “Do many people ask for help?”

  “Some,” the minister says. He keeps talking to me while he shakes Quinn’s hand. “And sometimes people just have questions. I never mind trying to answer a question.”

  I don’t know when I will go to a church next so I figure now is my chance. “Are any of the questions about heaven?”

  The minister nods. He’s focused completely on me now. “Some people just wonder what it will be like.”

  “Do you think there will be trees?”

  The minister smiles. His eyes don’t waver from mine even though a line of handshakers is forming behind Quinn and me. “I think we’ll have all of the good things we love down here up there—it’s just that things will be bigger and better.”

  That sounded okay to me.

  “I tell people it’s going to be like switching from black-and-white to full-color television,” the minister adds. “It’s not so much that everything will be unfamiliar, it will just be more wonderful than anything we’ve seen before.”

  Well, that’s even better. I watched enough daytime television when I was sick to know what black-and-white looked like. There were enough old reruns to give me a real good idea of how people must have felt when they saw their first color television program.

  “If you have more questions, I have a group of people who come to my office early Thursday mornings to learn about the Bible. You’re welcome to join us.”

  “I’m not a Christian,” I say.

  The minister shrugs. “Neither are half of them. They’re just curious.”

  That doesn’t sound so bad. “Well, I’m certainly curious.”

  The minister smiles. “See you Thursday at eight o’clock. My office is to the side of the main part of the church. Can’t miss it.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  The minister shakes my hand again and, before you know it, Quinn and I are outside in the open air.

  I must admit I am pleased with how this whole going-to-church thing went.

  “Church was easy,” I say to Quinn as we walk to the parking lot.

  Quinn looks over at me. “I’m not sure it’s meant to be easy.”

  “Well, if you want people to come and join you, it should be easy.”

  We are standing beside Quinn’s car and he opens the passenger door for me. “Take that Bible course with the pastor for a month or so and you’ll know why it isn’t so easy.”

  “I don’t think you should be discouraging me.”

  Quinn grins. “I’m not discouraging you—I’m trying to make it sound intriguing. I’m afraid you might be bored if it sounds easy.”

  You know, Quinn is right. I’m a little surprised to realize it. Being easy was one of my problems all along with heaven. It just sounded too boring and easy. I much prefer a little Splash Mountain thrown in. I’m kind of glad church isn’t really as easy as I thought.

  Quinn takes me to a place that has Chinese food and we have egg rolls and shrimp in black bean sauce for lunch.

  “What’s your fortune cookie say?” Quinn asks.

  I read the white paper. “I will find new insights if I look closely.”

  I look across the table at Quinn, wondering if I will find new insights about him. It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and I’m not sure I want new insights. I’m still pondering the old ones—well, the ones from this morning at any rate.

  Insight number one is that Quinn is a good kisser. Insight number two is that I’m not so very happy to be going out with the grill guy tonight.

  Isn’t that just how life is? When you get the guy you’ve wanted forever, you want someone new—even if that someone new might not be interested in you now that the guy you wanted forever has asked you out for coffee.

  It takes me a moment to notice that Quinn is holding his fortune, too.

  “How about yours? What does it say?”

  Quinn chuckles. “It says a friend will give me great riches.”

  “I think that was supposed to be my fortune cookie,” I say.

  “There’s nothing wrong with insights.”

  I wonder if Quinn would still say that if he knew I was looking at him, hoping for those insights. I am very aware that Quinn is not the usual kind of a guy. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a man like him.

  I suddenly hope the friend who’s going to give him great riches isn’t some other woman.

  Chapter Eleven

  If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sakes rather than for our own.

  —Charlotte Bronte

  The odd thing about the Sisterhood is that we never talked much about the bond between us. We talked about everything else—our cancer, our fears, our hopes. But we never talked about our growing friendship, not even on the night when Rose brought this quote to us.

  At first, I thought it was because we worried that, if we talked about it, the bond growing between us would dissolve and blow away like dust. Finally, I realized it wasn’t that at all. We didn’t talk about our friendship because it was the one sure rock in our shifting landscape. We didn’t need to talk about it; we didn’t need to question it or applaud it. It was just there. We were the Sisterhood. That’s all we needed to know.

  Don’t ask me why I’m thinking about friendship tonight while I’m in my office getting ready to meet the grill guy, but I am—big-time. Maybe it’s because I’m looking at this journal. You know, the one you’re reading. It’s just a notebook kind of a journal with a cardboard aqua cover like something you would use in school.

  The thing I’m noticing about the notebook now, though, is how many pages have been folded down or clipped shut so that no one else can read them. Those are all secret pages and we’ve never had secrets in the Sisterhood before.

  I’m as guilty as anyone. I folded down so
me pages I didn’t want Carly to read. Plus a few for Lizabett, as well. And it was all because I was writing about men, first Randy and then Quinn.

  I never thought any man would mess up the Sisterhood. But I’m beginning to wonder if it’s happening now. What other reason would there be for so many secrets?

  To make it even worse, I can’t decide what to do about my date tonight with Randy. I wish I hadn’t agreed to meet him for coffee. I wish I could keep this date a secret, but—despite all those folded pages—the Sisterhood has never been about secrets.

  I’m tempted to find some excuse to cancel the date and not even tell anyone it was ever an option, but the Sisterhood has never been about cowardice, either.

  I would call off my date tonight if Carly liked the grill guy. That would be a good, acceptable reason to cancel it—at least in my mind—I would tell Randy I couldn’t get away from the diner.

  But, from her remarks yesterday at the ball game, I don’t think Carly likes him. Not in that way. She wouldn’t complain the way she did about a man she liked. Even if she was angry at him, she would be silently loyal. That’s the way Carly has been as long as I have known her.

  Becca, now—well, Becca is a different story, and if she had spent any time at all with Randy, I would worry about her feelings. But she’s so caught up in that internship, I don’t think she’s given the grill guy a second thought.

  And Lizabett—well, no, I can’t see Lizabett worrying about the grill guy.

  Which pretty much means the only one who will be troubled if I go out with the grill guy is me. And I guess there’s no point in keeping a secret from myself.

  So in the spirit of openness, I am going to e-mail the Sisterhood and tell them about my date. I spent months whining about the grill guy when we first started knitting, and they deserve to know I’m finally having my date.

  The earth should be shifting on its axis. But it’s not.