Kate Jacobs (13 page)

* * *

"Order! Order!" Dakota was banging
the end of her needles on the table in the center of the shop. Darwin was
scribbling furiously in a notebook as K.C. was chatting animatedly to anyone
who would listen about the
fab
skirt—black, very
chic—that she'd picked up at a DKNY sample sale the previous day.
"I said 'Order!' I now call this meeting of the Friday Night Knitting Club
in session," shouted Dakota.
Georgia looked up from canceling the register. Clearly her daughter had mixed
up what she'd learned from her classroom's mock trial of James Booth and
Georgia's speech about time management the night she didn't leave enough time
to finish her math homework. It looked like she just might have to go over
there…
"Our first motion of the day will be for everyone to show what they've
worked on since last week," said Dakota. "Okay, I'll go first."
So that was what it was all about: Dakota wanted to show off the green felted
purse that
Peri
had helped her to make, complete with
handle and buttonholes, last Sunday afternoon. And, of course, a few sequins
were sewn on to the finished product—Dakota showed no signs of moving out of
her sparkle phase. It had been nice to have a little project to help her
with—lately Georgia was so tired from working on Cat's ever-changing dress
design and struggling with James's increasing requests (why could he never call
more than a few hours ahead?) to take her girl out on shopping trips and movies
and dinners at Ellen's Stardust Diner in midtown. Dakota just loved those
annoying singing waiters; Georgia got indigestion every time she tried to eat a
bite, conscious that her server might suddenly burst into an Elvis number. It
drove her absolutely nuts that James was willing to go there week after week in
his bid to win gold at the Good Dad Olympics; she knew he hated shtick. (Who
knows? Maybe he kept busy talking to Frenchwomen on the cell phone while Dakota
sat there, entranced by yet another rendition of "Rock Around the
Clock.")
Still, it had been gratifying to know that, even without a stop at Marsha D.D.
for Paul Frank monkey-face tees or the big-ticket bike that still sat in the
stair landing, her baby
muffingirl
had been just
happy enough to chill out on the couch and have foot fights and cuddles and
then work on their own stuff, side by side. That's 'cause we're Walker
and
Daughter, mused Georgia.
Though at the moment the Daughter needed a little reining in. Pronto. She must
be getting this bad attitude from spending all that time with her father,
thought Georgia.
"So why are you here if you didn't make anything?" Dakota was
confronting Darwin, who, while plenty bitchy when she did her so-called
interviews of the women in the group, seemed completely flustered to be the
recipient of investigative questioning by a twelve-year-old. "Don't you
think it's a little weird to come to a knitting group if you don't knit? Hmmm?"
"Hold on there, little friend." It was Anita to the rescue, her arm
on Dakota's shoulders. "Our group isn't about having to show or not show.
It's about helping each other, sweetie, sharing a love of craft. We look after
each other's knitting—or not knitting, as the case may be." Anita flashed
a grin at Darwin and winked; Georgia was surprised the way Darwin's face broke
into a rare smile. Even Ms. Chiu, it seemed, was not immune to the Anita
Effect.
"All right, feel free to use this time to work on your own projects. But a
word to our new drop-ins—several of us are sharing a sweater pattern. Though,
as always, we're happy here to help you with anything that's particularly
challenging," said Anita, catching the eye of some recent customers who'd
come by the shop and decided to stay for the meeting. They waved her off and
smiled.
"Yeah, I have a problem—everything takes too long!" K.C. had been
making a big effort lately; she'd purchased some merino wool for the sweater
but hadn't even started the front. So far that month she had quit on a cotton
scarf and declared it was going to be a dishtowel and then downgraded that
project to the much smaller dishrag. And now, after four weeks, she still
wasn't finished. "I don't know that I'll ever get to this sweater."
Georgia could accept that K.C. had a unique knitting style: her rows were
filled with dropped stitches and she was often asking Anita to "show her
some shortcuts" so she didn't have to go back.
"I don't do backward, Anita, it's not on my path to enlightenment,"
she would insist, half-joking. She only knit on Fridays during club and then
maybe only for fifteen minutes total—she was too busy talking or adding to-dos
into her PDA. If K.C. had been six years old (instead of forty-six) she would
have been labeled ADHD; by virtue of maturity, she had lucked into the
opportunity to describe herself as a
multitasker
. Now
people just put up with her energy and mile-a-minute mouth. By the same token,
her liveliness had rescued Georgia from a one-person pity party many times over
the years. So if K.C. wanted to come and just be with the group, her old friend
let her know she was always welcome.
Reassured that Dakota wasn't getting out of hand, Georgia went back to closing
out the till and then planned to do more paperwork in the back; some new
customers were demanding some very high-end yarns and she was thinking of
trying a new supplier. She was just getting ready to do some Internet research
when a bedraggled Lucie made her way in the door, struggling heavily with
several plastic bags and her winter coat over her arm. Georgia was really taken
aback:
Lucie's
roots were showing in her sandy hair
and her clothes looked rumpled and, frankly, too damn tight. Her overcoat
looked like it had a streak of grease or mud on the hem. Lucie had a funky
style, sure, but Georgia had never seen her look anything but professional.
"Hey, hey, you missed my description—" Dakota's voice petered out;
even she could see that Lucie was not her usual self—"of felting a
purse."
Georgia looked to Anita, expecting her to walk across the room and do her
comforting thing. Instead, Anita raised one eyebrow and tilted her head ever so
slightly to Georgia, communicating the silent message: Go to her. Hesitating,
Georgia stepped out from behind the counter and walked over to the door.
"Hey, Lucie, how are you?"
"Oh, I'm good. Good." Lucie was nodding, her head bobbing as she
spoke. "Just, you know, good. I worked up the entire front of the sweater
in that purple angora. Looks good. I'm good." She tried to follow up with
a smile, but her lips began to tremble. "Or maybe just okay. I'm okay,
Georgia. Tough week. Trying to decide if I should take a job that doesn't pay
so much. You know."
"Yeah, we've all been there." Georgia didn't think she was doing very
well at this comforting thing; she looked to Anita for guidance, but Anita was
pointedly staring out the window. Georgia inhaled quickly.
"Hey, why don't we all slurp back some coffee and try out Dakota's latest
concoctions? Tonight is a departure from muffins and cookies—we're trying a
loaf cake."
"Sure, I loved those
peanutty
cookies. But no
coffee for me," said Lucie. "Just water."
"Water it is then—Dakota, grab the Tupperware and napkins. Darwin, could
you hand those out, thanks." Georgia busied herself with the details. She
was surprised at how much she enjoyed seeing everyone gathered around the
table. These women like to come to my shop, she thought, and they like to visit
with my daughter and savor her culinary experiments. This is our place, and
it's a good place to be. And kudos for us that we all come together every week,
no matter how difficult the days have been…
"Hear
hear
!" It was Anita. Oh, God, Georgia
had been talking aloud. Why did she always do that? Her face flushed.
"And here's to us, the best damn group of girls I've ever had the pleasure
to hang with in an after-hours knitting shop!" said K.C. "Well,
actually you're the only knitting group I've ever been invited to join and
that's only 'cause I've known Georgia since forever."
Even Darwin had stopped writing long enough to join in the talk; Dakota was
comparing her purse to a hobo bag Anita had knit and put on display long ago;
Lucie seemed to be relaxing ever so slightly and helped Dakota slice up the
cake. "I christen this dessert to be calorie-free," K.C. told anyone
who asked for a smaller piece.
It was all just a bit too loud as the cream and sugar and cake were passed
around, and everyone laughed when Dakota realized she'd forgotten to bring
forks.
"It's fingers, girls, fingers," K.C. piped up.
Her shop was crazy busy messy, Georgia realized, and it was wonderful. She felt
Anita's hand rubbing her back lightly. The store was more alive than it had
ever been.
"Oh!" All eyes turned as Lucie let out a cry of surprise. "It's
iced lemon cake. Iced lemon cake." Her expression was impenetrable as she
stared at the dessert on her napkin. And then she looked up and smiled at
Dakota. "It's my favorite," she told her. "It just hasn't tasted
right in a very long time."
Dakota, so pleased to be the bearer of such delight, impulsively ran over to
Lucie and kissed her cheek. Georgia was surprised, but fine with it.
"This is my favorite," repeated Lucie, looking around at the women.
"And one of my very favorite places."

six

Lucie arrived at the shop shortly after noon.
It was a few
weeks since her cake outburst and, instead of feeling embarrassed every time
she walked into the shop, she actually felt more comfortable. Like she didn't
have to wear the armor of her professional Lucie persona all the time.
"Hey guys," she called out, and Anita waved back excitedly.
Peri
sat at the counter, ringing up a customer with one
hand while trying to hold one of her fashion merchandising textbooks with the
other.
"Hey handbag lady," Georgia said, her tone both joking and warning.
Peri
dropped the book, mouthed "Sorry" in her
direction, and refocused on the customer.
Motioning to Anita to join her at the table, Lucie pulled out a large binder.
"We're going to go over our game plan," Anita announced to Georgia.
"Come on over. I want you to look at these scripts Lucie has
prepared."
So far Anita had been completely gung-ho on the idea of knitting videos—even
though Georgia wasn't sure if the costs made sense. She suspected Lucie had
only been half-serious when she'd mentioned the idea.
But then Anita continued to bring it up and insisted she wanted figures and
projections, and Lucie, who was really growing desperate, decided she needed
this video gig to supplement her public television gig or she was going to be
short on the rent again. Every time she went to the ATM, she said a little
prayer that the machine would spit out any money, having long ago stopped
looking at her ever-declining balance.
"I don't know about being on-camera," Anita was saying, "I don't
want to project an old lady–type image of knitting. Even though I'm not. Old,
that is."
"Don't worry—have you seen my hair?" Georgia said. "And I've
never even been on a home camcorder before."
Lucie was feeling anxious—if she saved this project, she saved herself.
"Okay, let's tape the knitting club," she blurted, launching into her
director's spiel, thinking back to her days at SUNY Purchase when her dream had
been to make avant-garde films.
"Real women, real questions, real-life knitting," she continued.
"Are you in? 'Cause I think this could be a blockbuster."

* * *

Just as she did on the first of every month
(even when it was April Fool's Day), Georgia reviewed the books with Anita; the
previous weeks had been great for business. They were even this close to giving
Lucie the cash to get going on her knitting-club videos. And a large part of
the business boom was because Cat was willing to pay for fast delivery.
On Anita's advice, Georgia had delivered her first set of drawings and tossed
out an amount for the gown—from fitting to final—that she thought was just this
side of astronomical. She had never asked so much. But she gave her quote while
looking Cat straight in the eye and without blushing. Believe you're worth it
and you'll get it, Anita had advised her, passing along a lesson learned from
her late husband. Hesitate and you'll have a hard time getting even a low
price.
People may love a bargain, Anita said, but they love to feel they're getting
the very best even more. Anita was right, as usual. Cat hadn't blanched at the
high price. "Complete the gown in half the time and I'll pay you
double," she countered, without smiling.

* * *

They set up regular appointments at the loft.
Working with Cat had been awkward for the first hour or so, and then, as they
were busy taking measurements and going over Georgia's initial vision of a
figure-skimming full-length A-line with a shrug, the work took center stage and
the tension became more of a hum in the background, less of a jackhammer. Cat
took her to a back bedroom to look at expensive accessories, entered a massive
walk-in closet, and opened the doors of an intricately carved Chippendale-style
armoire within. She pulled open a drawer and removed several velvet jewelry
cases. Georgia inwardly wondered about the price tags of the chunky ruby
earrings, the jeweled dragonfly brooch, the solid diamond tennis bracelet that
demanded its own wrist workout.
"That's just in your closet?" she asked.
"Yes, Adam won't have it out. He has no use for old furniture," said
Cat.
"I meant the jewelry. Shouldn't you lock it up?"
"Oh, that." Cat shrugged. "Whatever. Let's see what I could wear
with the dress."
And they went back to the dining room table to return to work. Sketching,
laughing, disagreeing, ripping out pages from magazines, over time the two
women began to experience a feeling of déjà vu: they liked working together.
Even if Cat kept changing her mind about what she wanted! Georgia went home
many times wanting to pull the curls out of her head. Cat was still a
perfectionist, annoyingly so.
"In some ways, you haven't changed a bit," Georgia told her.
"How so?"
"I remember you and I going out for sales calls for the school
newspaper—and I was out the door while you were still adjusting your shoulder
pads in the bathroom!"
Cat laughed, more at the thought of her 1980s attire than anything else.
"Well, a woman always has to look her best if she wants someone to invest
in her," she said. "But you were always the one to close the deal.
I'll give you that. Even if you did insist on wearing a Members Only
jacket."
"Touché." Georgia crumpled up a sheet from her design pad, made as if
to throw it at Cat, before remembering. They were all grown up now. And she was
working for Cat.
And yet the frustrations of dealing with the fussy socialite were outweighed by
the sense of excitement Georgia felt at designing her own gown. She had long
been fascinated by fashion and watched
Peri's
handbag
business grow while feeling a combination of pride and envy. If she hadn't had
to look after Dakota, she might take a chance that she couldn't risk right now,
might plunge all her savings and the college fund into a line of gowns and
wraps. For too long, people had looked at knits as something casual—chunky ski sweaters
and spinster cardigans. Georgia wanted to shake off the cobwebs and reinvent
knitting style, wanted it to say something other than warmth and comfort. She
wanted to see delicate stitches and silk threads. And Cat's project—she was
going to wear the gown to a private gala being held at the Guggenheim—was the
first, she hoped, of many commissions in this new direction. Sure, she enjoyed
all the baby blankets and cozy sweaters she knit for customers too busy to do
it themselves—and Georgia guessed that more than a few of them had passed off
her handiwork as their own. (One client, in particular, paid her to make
several baby booties and caps every year, and Georgia envisioned the
oohing
and
aahing
at shower after
shower, the recipients none the wiser that the guest in question had never
picked up a knitting needle, let alone a ball of yarn.) But those were the
types of items she could make in her sleep, and her desire was to experiment
with textures and colors and push people to view knitwear as so much more. When
she wasn't planning her country life in Scotland, she fantasized about buying
Marty's deli and turning it into a boutique selling her knitwear creations, the
yarn store still above. Maybe she'd buy the entire building and create a duplex
apartment—or maybe she'd rent out the apartments and build a penthouse with an
entire wall of glass overlooking the brownstones on the side street and all the
way to the park.
First, though, she had to make Cat sparkle. This hadn't seemed all that
difficult when she'd been hired. The truth was that Cat was absolutely
striking—the sleek bob, the smooth skin, the just-so arches of her eyebrows—and
her body was toned and taut in places that Georgia didn't even think you could
exercise. But though her shoulders were straight, somehow she seemed
increasingly brittle. Being a mom had turned Georgia into a quiet observer and
she frequently noticed Cat biting her lip or rubbing her fingers together.
Georgia really needed Cat to sell this gown and to walk with the same type of
sexy, obnoxious swagger as when she'd entered the shop that first day, and she
fretted as Cat kept changing her ideas. One day she was bold—"I'm not even
going to wear a bra!"—and the next session she thought the dress should
sway more over the hips and bust. Throughout the last week of March, Cat had
started to seem preoccupied and less certain.
"Georgia, please tell me what you think about me in this dress," Cat
said very quietly one afternoon—remarkable, because she had spent the previous
meeting telling Georgia exactly what to change and nixing any suggestions.
"I just don't know anymore. I just don't know anything anymore."
And then she'd walked to her bedroom and shut the door. Georgia waited a good
twenty minutes before quietly letting herself out.
But then they'd get together again and the energy would be back; Cat would be
witty and bitchy and ready to hold up a front piece and sashay in front of the
mirror.
"Why did we pick gold yarn? I'm going to look like a life-size
Oscar!" she said, before cackling, "or like an expensive piece of
quality ass—am I right?"
When each afternoon planning session was over, Georgia invariably headed back
to work while Cat consulted her ever-ready PDA and went to Pilates or an
acupuncture appointment, a quick workout or an even quicker stop at the
dermatologist for her regular collagen. There wasn't any sort of gabbing on the
phone in between their meetings—and the two always conducted themselves
professionally—but slowly a quiet feeling began to build. A sense of reunion.
Georgia looked forward to seeing "C @ 2 P.M." scribbled on the
calendar taped up over her computer, and Cat found herself clearing the decks
on Wednesday afternoons in case the meeting went long; she'd rather skip
spinning than her design meeting with Georgia.
"I think I'm having fun," she told the couples counselor who had
transitioned to becoming her personal confessor after her husband, Adam,
declared he wouldn't waste time dithering about their relationship. "This
woman—Georgia—is a complete stranger. And then she's not and we both talk at
once about an idea. When she's around, I feel different. Better."
Better had been something Cat had wanted to feel for a long time.
Only twenty-two when she married Adam, she had never been fully embraced by his
family. Oh, Adam's mother and father had always been welcoming when she was
still a student at Dartmouth, and they asked questions about her studies and
her plans, often including her in dinners out when they came to school to visit
Adam. She joined them on ski trips and summer weekends to Nantucket and even
spent one Thanksgiving with the family. But she hadn't realized there was an
implicit understanding between Adam and his parents: Small-town Cathy may have
been a looker, but she certainly wasn't in the same league as the
Phillipses
, all Mayflower and DAR. Date her, but don't
marry her.
She knew they suspected a pregnancy or else they would have
kiboshed
the whole plan for the garden-party wedding. Under that assumption, they put on
brave smiles and raised their Champagne flutes and set up Adam and his new wife
in a large Tudor-style home in Westchester while he started at an investment
firm on Wall Street.
"Cathy sounds like the name of a truck-stop waitress," she overheard
her father-in-law tell Adam after they returned from their honeymoon.
"Tell her to call herself Cat and, for Christ's sake, get her to stop
biting her lip all the time."
Her in-laws' unexpected visit a few months after the wedding—and the apparent
shock upon seeing no sign of a swelling belly—led to a series of closed-door
conversations to which Cathy had not been invited. She sat silently at the
table during meals, pecking nervously at her food, as the family stared,
assessing her potential; she went out in the yard, conscious of her
mother-in-law watching from the window.
"My father says we can get this thing annulled," Adam panted as he
moved inside of her that night. "But I told him 'Hell, no!'"
"Because you love me," Cat prompted him.
"Sure thing," he said. "Let me focus, babe."
It was only at that moment—after two years of dating and five months of
marriage—that it occurred to her: Adam had never actually told her he loved
her. He'd always responded to her pleading little questions—"Do you love
me?"—with a "Sure thing" or a "Yup" or an "Of
course."
She lay there that night as Adam finished, feeling numb. "When I knew how
much my father disapproved, I just had to have you," he whispered in her
ear as she lay there, unable to move. "Besides,
Pudge
,
you'll never find anyone better than me. And I just couldn't deprive you of
that pleasure."
Cathy turned to face the wall as Adam sauntered out of bed to go have a shower,
flooded with a moment of total clarity: there was no special love between them.
Adam treated her with the same disdain as he treated everyone else. She was
just another one of his pretty playthings. Not for the first time did Cathy
feel an intense wave of regret, and once more she felt powerless to do anything
about the situation. She couldn't stand up to Adam, as she lay, naked and
vulnerable, just as she couldn't stand up to her father when he insisted she
take that place at Dartmouth and leave Georgia behind. "Chances like this
make or break your life, Cathy," he'd yelled. "Why would you want to
disappoint us?" Her mother insisted that high school friends grow apart
anyway, so no point wasting a precious opportunity because you made a silly
promise to a girl you won't remember in five years. The daily harangue wore her
down and she accepted the offer, struggled with a college world that was a
lifetime away from good old Harrisburg. She met Adam at a party, invited as the
date of his best friend, Chip. Adam was intrigued when she didn't respond to
his come-ons.
"We expect great things of you, Cathy," her father had said to her
when she received her college acceptance. "Don't let us down."
So she let herself down instead.
Her marriage had pleased them—Adam Phillips was quite a catch. "You've
done well," said her mother, admiring the megawatt ring as Cathy grinned,
flushed with pride to make her mother so happy. If she left then, she'd have
had nothing. No marriage, no approval, no something akin to love.
And that's when it started: the obsessive dieting. ("If I eat only three
bites, Adam will learn to love my self-control and tight ass.") The
intense exercising. The experimental sex—all her new moves captivated Adam for
a while, but it didn't stop him from sampling other women when he felt the
desire. ("It's what men do,
Pudge
. Get over
it.") The name change. ("Call me Cat," she'd purr, her face
never betraying the sick feeling inside. "It's an absolute pleasure to
meet you.")
Fifteen years later, the reinvention was complete. Cathy had been replaced by a
smooth tiger Cat, the kind of hard woman whose physical attractiveness and
veneer of bitchiness made her fascinatingly attractive to men who wanted to
tame her.
Adam, however, wasn't interested. He only saw her when she was reflected in
another man's gaze; he only wanted her when it was time to prove she belonged
to him.
That's why she couldn't wait to wear Georgia's knockout knitted dress, to walk
into the foyer at the Guggenheim and feel the eyes of all of Adam's friends and
family and colleagues watch her slink into the room.
And then, in front of everyone, she was going to dump the bastard.