Knit in Comfort

by Isabel Sharpe

  “Oh Megan! That sounds gorgeous! I was thinking little patches all over, like daisies in a field. But your idea is better.” She swung the bags of knit squares, bumping them against her knees as she walked. “Wait, what about Sally’s shoulders, though? They still wouldn’t be covered.”

  “I have something she can use.”

  “Ooh, what? Something you made already?”

  “A Shetland wedding shawl.”

  “From your wedding?”

  “No.” All these questions. How much farther to Dorene’s? They should have waited for Vera. “It was just a project.”

  “Have you ever been to Shetland?”

  “No.” Megan transferred the shortbread to her other hand and walked faster in spite of the heat. “It’s too expensive to get there.”

  “Oh, that’s such a shame!”

  Megan still couldn’t understand Elizabeth’s emotional intensity; she reacted as if everything she heard about was happening to her. “It is what it is.”

  “Sally’s dress will be gorgeous. Did you ever study design?”

  “With my mother.”

  “Did she have a degree?”

  “No.” They were turning up Dorene’s front walk. Not a moment too soon.

  “What did she die of?”

  “Sweet Jesus, Elizabeth.” At the bottom of Dorene’s front steps, a second away from entering and safety, Megan lost it.

  “Do you ever stop asking questions?”

  Elizabeth’s mouth dropped; her eyebrows rose, then she surprised Megan by giggling. “I know. I’m sorry. I drive Dominique crazy too. Ignore me.”

  Her grace in the face of Megan’s rudeness made tears of shame rise. “I’m sorry for snapping. Elizabeth. I don’t know what came over me. It’s the heat or something.”

  She dug in her shorts pocket, came up empty, crossed hands and tried the other pocket, sniffling. Damn it. This was not a good time to fall apart.

  Elizabeth slipped a tissue into her hand, grabbed the shortbread as Dorene opened the screen. “Hey, Dorene, good to see you again. Thank you so much for including me tonight. Here are Megan and Vera’s rows for the blanket, and Megan baked this incredible shortbread, which you need to take now because otherwise I’m eating it all on the spot. Doesn’t it smell incredible?”

  Dorene took the shortbread, looking slightly stunned at the full conversational attack. But Megan, able to sneak in a careful eye-wipe and silent nose blow, was grateful. And even more ashamed of losing her temper.

  “It’s beautiful. Come on in, Elizabeth, welcome to the Purls. Megan hey, c’mon in. Leave the bugs outside, though.” Dorene laughed heartily and led the way into her living room, hodgepodge and angular as she was, upholstered here, modern metal there. Black and white rug, dark red walls in the living room, burnt yellow in the dining room, no pictures on three walls, then on the fourth a huge print of the Seurat painting of people enjoying the banks of the Seine. Ella and Sally were already seated, Ella on a blue couch, Sally on a black leather chair.

  “Here they come.” Sally beamed. “We’re ready for your rows. Look in the dining room.”

  Megan peeked and couldn’t help smiling. Laid out on Dorene’s dining-room table, the blanket was pure, cheerful fun, missing only the blue and indigo above the violet to weight it at the bottom.

  “It’s gorgeous!” Elizabeth stepped into the room and drew her hand over the arranged rows. “You guys should totally win.”

  “Not in this town.” Ella snorted. “Unless you want to spread for Roy. Dorene, you need help opening the wine?”

  “Thanks.” Dorene stopped tugging on the corkscrew and handed the bottle to Ella.

  “What do winners get?”

  “Cheesy plaque.” Ella popped the cork with ease and started pouring red table wine into the mismatched stemware on the coffee table. “And five thousand dollars.”

  “Wow.” Elizabeth accepted a silver-rimmed glass. “That is pretty nice.”

  “Megan, I have juice for you.” Dorene started for the kitchen.

  “Actually.” Megan cleared her throat, startled by her immediate objection. She hadn’t planned this. “I think I’ll have wine tonight.”

  “Well, well.” Ella poured her a generous glass and lifted it in salute before she passed it to Megan. “Welcome to the dark side.”

  “Let’s get started.” Dorene crunched a handful of peanuts from a wobbly clay dish her nephew, Clara’s son, had made.

  “We should be able to finish tonight.”

  “Then we’ll want to get started on Sally’s dress!” Elizabeth said. “Oh, Dorene, Vera’s coming. I thought we could use an extra pair of hands.”

  “Perfect.” Dorene led the way into the dining room. “Seven colors, six seams, one for each of us. You know how to crochet, Elizabeth?”

  “Yup. My grandmother taught me that, too.”

  “Before she died?” Ella asked archly.

  “Ha ha.” Elizabeth grinned. Apparently she wasn’t letting Ella get to her tonight. Maybe they’d bonded over martinis at David’s. Megan sipped her wine, found it biting and rich. Stanley didn’t drink because of his father’s overindulgence, and she’d gradually given it up when pregnancies and kids came along. Not that she ever drank much, except the summer she dated David. They’d get together at nighttime, sneak out to sit in the woods, tie one on and talk and talk and talk. He’d rant about how small Comfort was, how frozen—congealed was the word he’d used—how he’d bust out and make a name for himself somewhere, somehow, with his writing or with his passion for education. She’d talk about her lonely roaming life, about her lace, about her mother and about Shetland. They’d make love, then talk some more and finally sneak home in the middle of the night.

  “I thought we could sit opposite, on alternating rows so we don’t tug the material away from each other.” Dorene hovered nervously.

  “Good thinking.” Megan opened the shopping bags and laid blue and indigo in their proper places.

  “I bought black yarn to join the rows as we agreed. Everyone brought a crochet hook?”

  “Ye-e-s, Dorene.” Ella rolled her eyes. “Drink your wine and calm down.”

  “Hey, anyone heard from Cara and Jocelyn?” Sally asked.

  “I got an e-mail from Cara.” Dorene fussed with the blue and indigo rows. “She said they have slept an average of three hours a night.”

  “Why does that not surprise me?” Ella moved into place by her red row. “Any sugar-daddy cosmetic surgeons or what-stays-in-Vegas encounters with bodybuilders?”

  “If there was, they’re not telling me. Ella, you join red and orange on this side. Elizabeth, you join orange and yellow over there.”

  “Knock, knock, I’m coming in.” Vera came into view in the living room and ambled over to join them. “Megan, the kids have strict instructions to stay in the house.”

  “Thanks, Vera.” Megan had the absurd impulse to hide her wine; her hand actually darted to cover up.

  “Welcome, Vera, nice to see you.” Sally stood by her green row as instructed.

  “It’s nice to be here. Elizabeth wouldn’t let me stay home.” A glance at Megan implying she should have been the one to invite her. Another glance, taking in her wineglass. “Well.”

  Megan sighed. So shoot her.

  “Megan green to blue over there. Vera blue to indigo on this side and I’ll do violet over there. Everyone know the stitches?”

  “Ye-e-es, Dorene.”

  “Remind me,” Elizabeth said.

  “Pick up one loop from each side, slide the hook through, wrap with yarn, bring back and pull one loop inside the other.”

  “Got it.”

  “She’s very good.” Vera walked toward her row, giving Megan’s wineglass another measuring glance. “I’m already teaching her lace knitting.”

  “You must be a fast learner, Elizabeth!” Sally beamed. “My dress already thanks you.”

  “Vera’s a good teacher.”

  “Nonsense.” Ver
a put her authoritative stamp on the conversation. “Anyone could have put the chart in front of you and you would have picked it right up. You have knitting in your blood, going back generations. Like Megan.”

  Dorene chortled. “So when you cut yourselves, wool comes out?”

  “Vera?” Ella pointed to the last glass on the coffee table.

  “Glass of wine?”

  “Well…” Vera shifted in her chair.

  “Come on, Vera, live a little,” Elizabeth said.

  “I suppose one glass couldn’t hurt.”

  Megan nearly dropped hers. Vera hadn’t touched a drop in years. At least not in front of Megan. Who knew what she did on her card-playing afternoons?

  “Woohoo!” Ella set her glass down and pumped her fist.

  “The dark one is converting them in droves tonight.”

  “Really, Ella.” Vera shook her head, scowling, but reached eagerly for her glass.

  “Okay, battle stations.” Dorene made sure the women were armed with crochet hooks and the small balls of black yarn she’d wound for each of them. Megan made sure Elizabeth was started off properly before she made her way back to her blue row.

  “What about the cookies?” Sally asked. “Or will our hands get greasy?”

  “Who cares?” Ella stood and brought the bag of ghastly frosted-pink cookies Dorene loved, and the tin of Megan’s shortbread, then went back for the peanuts, plunking all three in the center of the blanket, on Sally’s green row. “Helps absorb the wine.”

  Five arms shot out for shortbread, one for the frosted atrocities. Cookies were munched, wine sipped. Megan tuned out the chatter automatically, as she nearly always did, and concentrated on the project. Pick up two loops, yarn-over, pull through, pull through again, pick up two loops, yarn-over, pull through, pull through again, the rhythm was hypnotic.

  “I know a great party game for this type of gathering.”

  “Oh, God.” Ella glared at Elizabeth, who blinked back sweetly.

  “It’s fun. Everyone takes a turn, and has to tell the others something they don’t already know about her.”

  “Ooh, what fun. I’ll go first. Here’s mine: I hate party games.”

  Dorene snorted. “We knew that already, Ella, it doesn’t count.”

  “Who’s first?” Elizabeth looked around speculatively.

  Uncomfortable silence.

  “Sally?”

  Vera glanced up over her red half-glasses. “Elizabeth, maybe you should ask first, if people want to play the—”

  “No, no, it’s okay.” Sweet Sally, always trying to please everyone. “I’m just thinking, that’s all. Y’all know most of my life already.”

  “If you don’t have any secrets, Sally, you can disqualify yourself.” Vera looked severely at Elizabeth, who was bent over her part of the blanket and missed it.

  Sally laughed nervously. “I don’t think I’ve told anyone the truth about the accident.”

  “Sally, you don’t have to—”

  “I know, but it doesn’t matter now with my parents gone. Mom was an alcoholic. In public she was fine, but things were bad at home. That day she was about at her worst. Our dog, Godfrey, had died, and Mom had another fight with her brother. She drank to feel better, which then made her feel worse, so she drank to feel better and on and on. We’d gone late to the mall in Hendersonville for new ballet slippers for me, and stayed for dinner and more drinks. On the way home she passed out for just a second and drove off the road. I think we told people there was a deer.” Sally’s voice thickened; she kept her eyes on her green row, black yarn twisting and looping. “I’ll never forget her face when she turned around in the front seat and realized I was injured badly, and that it was her fault.”

  Shocked murmurs.

  Megan gripped her crochet hook, imagining being responsible for hurting Lolly or Deena. “Sally, I’m so sorry.”

  Sally shrugged and brightened. “The good news is that Mom didn’t drink after that day. So I’m almost glad it happened. I’m sure she lived years longer because she stopped.”

  “Wow, that is so intense.” Elizabeth gulped more wine. “Your poor mom. And poor you, Sally. That would leave more than just physical scars.”

  Megan went back to work on her row, hurting for Sally’s suffering, embarrassed for Elizabeth, hoping she’d see now how some things were best left to lie undisturbed in people’s pasts.

  “As I said, good things came out of it.” Sally gestured to the women gathered around the blanket. “And now partly because of those scars, you got the idea for making my dress work, Elizabeth.”

  “True! It’s going to be gorgeous. Megan told me some of her ideas.”

  Sally’s gaze zoomed in on Megan like a giant spotlight.

  “I’m…I haven’t finalized them yet.” She took a nervous sip of wine, already feeling it warming her body and interfering in her head. “I’ll do a sketch for you by the next meeting.”

  “Oh my gosh, I can’t wait! And I’m so grateful, Megan.”

  Megan nodded, emotions mixed—still guilty for not having thought of the idea herself, still anxious about starting lace again.

  “Okay, ladies, back to my game. Dorene, you’re next.”

  “Elizabeth.” Megan couldn’t bear the mortification any longer. “I’m not sure this—”

  “Well.” Dorene made the rounds of the table with triumphant eyes. “In high school I slept with Jess Banks.”

  “Jess Banks?” Ella gaped in exaggerated astonishment.

  Megan stared, along with the rest of the women. Jess was the class heartthrob, swarmed by girls wherever he went, honey to their bees, dating only the perkiest, blondest and boobiest among them.

  “My word, Dorene,” Vera said. “What would your mother say?”

  “She’d say, ‘Jess Banks? What would a boy like that ever see in a flat-chested big-mouth like you?’”

  Elizabeth winced. “Ouch. That would hurt.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Ella burst out laughing. “You slept with Jess Banks?”

  “Just once.” She grinned at Elizabeth. “He was the male god of our class. Hell, of the whole school. Not in my league. Not even close.”

  “Oh my Lord!” Sally finally appeared recovered. “Cara and Jocelyn are going to have a fit when they find out they missed this.”

  “How did it happen?”

  Megan opened her mouth to tell Elizabeth that Dorene’s sex life was none of her business, when she realized she really wanted to know too.

  “Well.” Dorene stopped crocheting and clasped her hands, clearly adoring this moment in the spotlight. “I was crazy about him. I guess you knew that.”

  “You might have mentioned it,” Ella said drily. “Maybe three or four thousand times.”

  “The Bankses lived next door to us, Elizabeth. I knew his parents were out of town one weekend, and I just decided to see if I had a chance. So I went over there.”

  “You seduced him?” Ella shook her head as if she were trying to put her version of the universe back into focus. “Dorene! You’ve put me in the chair of shame. I tried once and he said brunettes weren’t his thing.”

  “Well this brunette was. I told him I wanted to lose my virginity, and that if he didn’t do it, I was going to ask Ted Sparrow.”

  “Oh, Dorene.” Megan shuddered, and started giggling. “Not Ted.”

  “No, no.” Dorene cheerfully fluttered Ted away with her long knobby fingers. “That was just a threat because they were so competitive.”

  “Why you little manipulator.” Vera drank more wine, cheeks flushing. Megan couldn’t tell if she was condemning or admiring Dorene and had the oddest feeling it was the latter. Maybe she and Vera should drink wine more often.

  “Who’s Ted?”

  “Ted Sparrow. Bad boy, punk rocker, generally scary in a totally sexy way.” Ella smirked. “I did him a few times.”

  “Good God, Ella.” Vera turned on her. “What about Stanley?”

  “Oh, don’
t worry, I did him too.”

  Raucous laughter, even from Megan, because Vera’s face was priceless.

  “I wasn’t with him then, Vera.” Ella touched the old woman’s arm affectionately. “I would never have cheated on Stanley.”

  “I can’t believe you girls. In my day women picked one man and married him.”

  “Oh come on, Vera, not all women. Human nature hasn’t changed that much in the last…” Elizabeth started looking panicked. “Years.”

  “Wow, Jess Banks.” Sally shook her head admiringly. “I was too shy even to talk to him.”

  “I was too. Until that night.” Dorene’s face softened wistfully. “For a few hours I was dating the hottest guy in school.”

  “And it’s been all downhill ever since.” Ella ducked when Dorene mimed throwing her ball of black wool.

  “Nonsense.” Elizabeth brandished her wine. “The best is yet to come, Dorene. Ella, for that comment you’re next.”

  “Umm…No thanks.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Ella,” Dorene said. “I did it. So did Sally.”

  “Sorry, not my thing.”

  “Okay, Ella, you tremendous wimp. Then…” Elizabeth pointed to Vera. “Your turn.”

  Vera gave her a sour look. “What about you?”

  “I’ll go after you. Come on, something none of us knows about you.”

  Vera concentrated on her row so long Megan began to worry she was furious and that Megan should jump in and make excuses for her.

  “Well. Since we’re telling private things, there is something I’m sure none of you knows.”

  Irrational dread began turning over in Megan’s stomach. Irrational because, even if Vera knew about Stanley, she’d never admit it to anyone. But the fear was always there that someone might find out, the fallout of carrying a shameful secret.

  “No fair telling how your grandmother knew the Vanderbilts,” Dorene said. “We know that one.”

  “I lost seven babies before I had Stanley.” She kept her gaze on the wool in her hands, seemingly peaceful except that the crochet hook was shaking a little. “Rocky wouldn’t let me stop trying even though I begged him. Even though Dr. Hanson told him to. I lost them all, two in the seventh month.”