Knit the Season

by Kate Jacobs

  These knitters who came by the shop were eager to see the outline of that Blossom dress, the variations on The Phoenix, Catherine’s favorite gown designed by Georgia, or simply to look at the imaginings of a fellow knitter, her boundless creativity and interplay of color and texture. Dakota spent hours, Peri knew, imagining how best to highlight her mother’s ideas.

  She paused, wishing this woman was a friend so she could just try on those killer boots, and then asked again if she could help her pick out something from the shop.

  “I’d like . . .” said the woman, scanning the shop. “That blue Peri Pocketbook clutch, please.”

  “Oh,” said Peri, delighted. “I haven’t even put it on my Web site yet.”

  “I know,” said the woman, handing over a credit card. “I know all of your bags, and I want them.”

  Peri laughed, “All at once?”

  “Absolutely. And I’d like you to make more, just for me.”

  Peri stopped laughing. Was this woman a bit off? she wondered. Buying her entire collection was definitely pricey.

  “I officially came to the city for Thanksgiving with my elderly aunt,” explained the woman as Peri swiped her card. “Though I had other motivations: I also wanted to come to this shop. Maybe see you.” The woman offered Peri an oversized business card but held on as Peri went to take it.

  “Peri,” said the woman, the business card between them. “I can make Peri Pocketbook huge. All you have to do is come work for my label in Paris. Let me explain who I am: My name is Lydia Jackson.”

  “Oh my God,” said Peri, recognizing the woman’s name immediately. She was the chief designer for a cutting-edge French fashion house. “But you don’t do knits.”

  Lydia Jackson let go of the card. “But I want to,” she said, lightly tapping the Peri Pocketbook she’d just purchased. “And that’s the key detail. I can make you a household name in the world of fashion. Bigger than when your bags were in Italian Vogue.”

  “You saw that? It was a huge boost,” admitted Peri, her fingers tingling as they clung to the business card.

  “And working with me will be like clinging to a rocket ship.” Lydia Jackson spoke with absolute confidence. “The dress on the Vogue cover got fashionistas talking. But we’re going to put our money where our mouth is—and our plan is to start whenever you call me at that number.”

  So, there it was. A most tempting offer. Two years ago, she would have accepted that card and walked right out the door. Well, maybe not.

  But she would have wanted to.

  Now she felt a stronger connection. She was very near having her own boutique, once the knitting café was completed following Dakota’s graduation. A few years away. But getting closer.

  Not to mention that it was Dakota who’d arranged for the Vogue photo shoot to come together. There was that little detail as well.

  “Peri,” said Dakota now, as she also struggled to keep up with the Black Friday rush. “Can you ring up Mrs. Jones?”

  “Sure,” Peri replied, remembering to smile. “Did you find everything today?”

  The shop was busy enough that it felt warm inside, and Peri had opened the windows earlier, even on this cold November day, to let in some fresh air and lower the temperature. There were more folks popping in than usual: Business had been down in recent months and, clearly, knitters were waiting to stock up.

  Part of the mini-boom, she thought, was due to Dakota’s idea to offer casual lessons. She put a sign on the shop door earlier in the week, and then all during the afternoon of Black Friday she demonstrated how to cast on at the top of the hour and how to knit on the half-hour. She and her best friend from NYU, Olivia, were alternating “classes” with Anita. Which left Peri to run the till all day. Punch in the SKUs, deduct the discount, and hit the total button. Cha and ching. She knew she should be encouraged, especially as several customers were looking carefully at some of the marked-down Peri Pocketbooks. But the lack of sleep, guilt for even considering the job offer, and her general sense of frustration left Peri confused. She didn’t want to have to make hard choices. Not now. What she wanted was to feel magically in love and whistle while she worked, like some storybook princess. (Who was probably not in her thirties, overworked, and crammed in a tiny apartment. But not everyone starts out in a castle, right?)

  Instead, she felt as though her love-life ambitions were being thwarted. She’d dried out the turkey the night before. What a rookie mistake! Dakota had left such detailed instructions, but Peri figured turning up the heat might speed along the meal. Not so. And Roger’s mother had made quite a show of spreading cranberry sauce all over her bird.

  Then she chewed and chewed and chewed.

  Peri wished she’d never bothered making the effort at all, hadn’t fallen into the hope that displaying a bit of domestic talent would make Roger decide if he was in or out. She feared she’d grown desperate, that her near decade of living in the city, of passing thirty, had forced her hand. Should she wait for someone just right or someone who would do nicely? She liked Roger well enough. He was attractive and successful. Had a fun way about him. But clearly he danced to his mother’s tune: He’d barely eaten, and when he praised the pie—Dakota’s delicious maple-sugar pie that Peri was pretending was her own—he backtracked upon seeing the narrowing of his mother’s eyes.

  KC ate two slices, staring down Roger’s mother bite for bite.

  “Think of it this way,” KC had said as they did the dishes last night. (Dakota had ensured that Peri didn’t have only yarn on which to serve.) “Better to find out now than to marry the beast—and have to live with her son all the same.”

  “You’re just anti-settling down,” said Peri.

  “No, I’m just anti-settling,” said KC. “Don’t do it, hon. Divorce sucks, even if you don’t love the guy anymore. Better not to make a wrong choice.”

  Peri cringed at the word “choice.” She hadn’t told anyone about meeting Lydia Jackson.

  “I just figured that this would be the year,” admitted Peri. “I made a New Year’s resolution that I’d find love and marriage . . .”

  “And push a baby carriage,” interjected KC, piling up the dry plates by the sink. “I know the rhyme. But what’s with the artificial agenda? So, you decided. What puts you in control?”

  “I don’t believe in letting life just happen, and you know that.”

  “Sometimes the right thing just comes along,” said KC. “If it makes sense, you just gotta do it.”

  “He’s the one?”

  “Oh, hon, that’s not real,” said KC. “There’s about one hundred guys out there just perfect for you. Depends on timing and if you’re both in the same place mentally and—let’s be honest—if you ever cross paths.”

  “So, it could be anyone, then?”

  “Not anyone,” said KC, munching on a few odd green beans in the bottom of a dish. “An anyone that’s right for you in your life as it is. Not what you want it to be. But who you are. Because you don’t know how you’re going to change, and, hopefully, the guy can change right along with you.”

  “Your life experience would indicate I shouldn’t pay attention to you,” teased Peri.

  “On the contrary,” said KC. “My advice is because I tried to do it your way. It’s taken me to my fifties to accept that I’m not the marrying kind.”

  “Sure you are,” said Peri. “You just married a company.”

  KC tossed a damp dish towel in Peri’s direction. “So, okay, somehow I’ve worked my entire career at Churchill Publishing,” she admitted. “It’s outlasted both marriages—and I even reconciled after it had layoffs and dumped me.”

  Peri rolled her eyes. “They love you there.”

  “Love. Roger. Connection?” asked KC.

  “Roger’s okay,” said Peri, wavering. “He’s a nice guy.”

  “There’s a ringing endorsement,” said KC. “Look, is the sex fantastic?”

  “KC! Come on, now,” said Peri. “I’m not spilling d
etails.”

  “I’m serious. If you’re going to marry a so-so guy, he better blow your freakin’ mind,” said KC. “That’s all I have to say.”

  “And now we know why you’re single.”

  “Damn straight,” said KC. “I don’t care if it takes until I’m ninety; I’m going to find my G-spot.”

  As much as KC was fun to have around, Peri knew they were fundamentally different. They could shop, share books, talk about work, try out new restaurants. But KC seemed never to have had a biological clock, while all Peri could hear was her own, keeping her agitated late at night when the distractions of the day had faded and she lay quietly in her bed, hoping for sleep. What if it didn’t happen? What then? Could she pull a Lucie and do it on her own? And if not, what would it mean to redefine her life after spending most of it under the assumption that for all the adventures of her career, she’d eventually acquire the traditional trappings of a house and family? Sometimes she felt as though she were choking on her own disappointment. And whenever she tried to tell KC, she heard in reply that she was young and not to worry. But potential isn’t always realized, she knew. Peri might simply not find what she was looking for personally or professionally. And that’s what left her frightened. That’s what left her sneaking looks at Lydia Jackson’s business card.

  She knew that not every woman felt this way. But she did—and that made it difficult, sometimes, to smile at the customers and bag up the yarn and just be content with what she did have. Because she still wanted more.

  “No school today!” shouted Lucie, using a hand on Ginger’s oversized backpack to steer her in the door of Walker and Daughter. Thankfully, the rush of shoppers had calmed somewhat by the afternoon: The hardcore knitters knew that the best buys were always when the shop opened and had likely returned to their homes to gloat over the latest additions to their stash. Lucie had avoided the frenzy because she knew she’d be right in the thick of it, fighting over the cashmere bargains.

  “Hey, I didn’t think I’d see you guys,” said Dakota, as Ginger squeezed her around the middle.

  “Well, we have played video games, and drawn pictures, and chased Grandma around the house for tag, and then Cady and Stanton had to go down for a nap. So we decided to trek into the city.”

  “Auntie Darwin suggested it,” offered Ginger. “Her homework is late. So she’s grumpy.”

  “And she’s in a funk that the twins’ second Thanksgiving has passed and it will never come back,” whispered Lucie.

  “That’s the weird part,” announced Ginger. “She took pictures all during dinner.”

  “Oh, I remember feeling that way,” said Anita. “Babies grow up so fast. You feel as though you can barely capture the moment, let alone relax and savor all your feelings.”

  “Did you make any cookies?” asked Ginger.

  “No, we’re teaching knitting today,” Dakota explained to Ginger. “But all the customers have gone home now. Maybe more will come soon.”

  “Well, I’ll be the teacher, then,” said Ginger, clambering into a chair.

  “And what will we learn from you today?” said Dakota, playing along.

  “Reminds me of you,” mouthed Anita, standing behind Ginger but looking at Dakota. She’d known Dakota all of her life and, on occasion, found herself surprised to see a twenty-year-old where her senses told her a toddler should be. She didn’t blame Darwin one bit.

  “I’ll show how to knit a bookmark,” Ginger announced matter-of-factly. “My mother gave me a pattern, and I know it by heart. Almost.” She struggled to lift her backpack onto the table, then unzipped the main compartment and began rooting around. Within seconds, she had dumped out a turkey sandwich, a bag of baby carrots, a hairbrush, two mismatched socks, her stuffie Sweetness in a doll-sized multi-striped knit poncho with matching hat that was clearly made by Lucie, and a chapter book with a bookmark sticking out of its pages.

  “Here,” she said, opening the carrots and popping one into her mouth.

  “A carrot?”

  “No, the book,” crunched Ginger. “Inside.” She turned to a page in the middle and dangled a pink ribbed rectangle with a fringe. There were several holes where stitches ought to have been.

  “Pretty, right?” asked Ginger.

  “Gorgeous,” Dakota replied.

  “It’s something to keep her busy,” said Lucie. “And you’re getting really good, honey.”

  “I know,” said Ginger, rifling through her backpack again and coming up with a square pair of needles and some inexpensive yarn. “You wanna see me?”

  “Sure,” said Dakota. “I even remember making my very first bookmark. I think I was five.”

  “You were four, in fact,” said Anita. “If I recall correctly, you found it most frustrating.”

  Dakota tilted her head, looking in the distance, thinking. “I kinda remember selling them or something? In the shop, I guess. Do you ever have those can’t-quite-recall thoughts? It’s as though they press on your mind but it’s hard to put together all the details.”

  “Well,” said Anita, settling into a chair to watch Ginger counting off her stitches. “You were far younger than four when you went with your mother to sell her knitting. At the flea market.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Before there was a Walker and Daughter, there was a committed young mother raising money to bring up her daughter through knitting commissions and street-market sales,” reminded Anita.

  “And the bookmarks were sold for three bucks,” said Lucie. “I know because when I was pregnant with our knitting wiz over here, I asked Georgia for advice. I was afraid about making ends meet. She told me what she did to raise funds and assured me that anything is what you’ll do to provide. Absolutely anything.”

  Some days Georgia didn’t even bother to get the mail. After all, she’d have to bundle up the baby, schlep down several flights, and who knew what she’d discover in the mailbox after all that bother?

  “Bills, bills, bills,” she muttered to herself, purposefully glancing away from the large pile of white envelopes practically multiplying on her coffee table whenever she left the room. She’d hidden the bills that were past due underneath the bathroom sink, where she could pretend to herself they’d gotten lost in the mail. Some nights, after finally getting eighteen-week-old Dakota to sleep, she’d wash that same bathroom floor and take tiny peeks in the door of the vanity cupboard, hoping the bills really had gotten lost. After all, winter was starting. Surely bad weather led to delays with the mail? Even with items sent in October?

  Georgia simply hadn’t realized just how much the hospital bills would be. Her health insurance was the cheapest plan and therefore had all sorts of loopholes, leaving her on the hook for much more than what was in her savings account. Oh, she’d anticipated a whopper or two, but she assumed her income would be rather more robust by her baby’s arrival. Not so. Although Mrs. Lowenstein—she couldn’t imagine ever getting used to calling her Anita, even though the older woman insisted—bought several sweaters after Georgia made her the first, it was obviously going to be impossible to make a living on knitting commissions. Even though she didn’t waste, using the odds and ends to fashion bookmarks she could sell at the uptown flea market on Saturdays, the baby in a Snugli. Still. She could make all the bookmarks possible, eat all the ramen noodles in the world, and it still wouldn’t leave her enough left over. At this rate, the baby—gorgeous little Dakota, all crinkly nose and soft skin—was going to have to live on breast milk for the rest of her life. It was the only thing around here that was free.

  There was a lot to be angry about, she thought, as she unwrapped a cold turkey sandwich she’d purchased from Marty’s Deli the night before. The editorial job she’d quit, the apartment she could barely afford to heat, the Thanksgiving she didn’t really have. Every second a choice between difficult options presented itself. And only in the future would she be able to look back and know whether she’d made the right decisions. For now, all was risk.<
br />
  “I wonder what James ate in Paris tonight,” she growled, taking a huge bite out of her sandwich, and then another. She was tired and afraid and frequently woke up in a panic at three a.m., but still she knew she had the better deal. She had Dakota, who smelled kinda good, even when she smelled really, really bad.

  It was obvious that she needed to revise her strategy to make a life for the two of them, Georgia Walker and her daughter. That’s what we are, she thought, Walker and Daughter.

  She peered hopefully into the paper bag that had held the sandwich. Sure enough, hidden under a jumble of napkins, was an oversized black-and-white cookie tossed in the bottom. He was nice, that guy from the deli, in an old-uncle-you-see-once-in-a-while kind of way. He offered Georgia extra food for free, and when she protested, he’d find a way to sneak it in somewhere.

  Earlier, she’d taken a breath to soothe the butterflies in her stomach and told him, straight out, that she was knitting on commission. Without hesitation, he’d ordered two sweaters and another for his brother Sam, offering a deposit.

  “Already getting cold,” he said. “I might even need more soon. Do you think you could add a Yankees logo, or is that too hard?”

  “Of course,” she told him. “Though it might cost a little more.”

  “Naturally,” he’d replied. And that’s when she’d sprung another idea on him.

  “I see you get awfully busy here in the mornings, and I’m close by . . .” She faltered, lapsing into silence.

  “Sure, I could always use a little help around here in the mornings,” Marty’d said easily. “The bagel crowd can get rowdy. How’s Monday? We can probably find a drawer around here for the baby.” He grinned to let her know he was joking about Dakota, then handed her the bag with her turkey inside.

  Georgia smiled into her sandwich. She was still nervous—Would that go away anytime soon?—but it was a good Thanksgiving, after all. Because if spreading a little cream cheese on bagels meant her baby had a chance, then she was more than ready to pick up a knife. The knitting? She’d just have to work that in somewhere else.