Tight Knit Page 2

  Paige was going to hang up? No. She didn’t get to decide when this conversation ended. She didn’t deserve the luxury of backing out at her own convenience when she was the one who had made the mistake of calling Lara in the first place. If she wanted this story so badly, Lara was going to make her suffer for it.

  “Was it nice, Paige? Was it—”

  The click on the other end of the line cut her off. Just like that, Lara was right back where she’d started.

  Actually, no. She was worse off.

  Mozart Cafe had the perfect name. It was outdated but classic. The coffee shop had always been the hangout spot in Perry. Even before Lara was old enough to appreciate coffee, even after the corporate monsters of Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts had wormed their way into the hearts of Perry’s residents, Mozart Cafe was still the place to meet for a Saturday morning brew with friends. She had almost missed it these last couple of years she’d been living in Oklahoma City—as much as she could miss something from Perry.

  When Lara walked in, April was already seated at a small corner table just big enough for the two of them. Lara waved at her, stood in line with a fairly sizable crowd of other zombies looking for their morning caffeine boost, and ordered a cup of joe before joining April in the seat opposite her.

  She was just starting to feel settled when she noticed the name written on her cup. Instantly, the good mood she was nearing was wiped away. “Really?” She scrubbed at the marking with her thumbs, but the marker refused to come off. “I told them my name was Lara.”

  “What’d they write?”

  Frustrated, Lara spun the cup around for April to read. The fact that she couldn’t do anything about it bugged her more than what was written.

  “Spellmeyer?” April asked. “Well, it is your name.”

  “But it’s not the name I told them to write. I hate my name. I hate that everyone knows my name. I hate being nothing but another Spellmeyer to this town. I’ve been gone for four years, but only a couple weeks of being back, and it’s like I never left.”

  “You having a bad day?” April asked.

  “Try bad week.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You’re a super mom with a penchant for community engagement. How do you have a bad week?” Lara grumbled, feeling sorry for herself.

  “Are you kidding? I’m a single mom of two kids and I work in my son’s high school. Trust me, I have my share of bad weeks.”

  “Okay, fair enough. I might have been exaggerating out of self-pity.” Lara had definitely heard about April’s bad weeks before. April liked to talk her head off to someone who would actually listen to her, unlike her ex-husband. It was the reason, Lara was convinced, that April liked her so much. Lara liked April because she was the only person in town who didn’t judge Lara by the rumors she’d heard or by the stories about the Spellmeyer family.

  They’d met in the yarn aisle of the craft store, each reaching for the last ball in a specific shade of blue. After laughing over the coincidence and swapping stories of what project they needed the yarn for, April had let Lara have both the yarn and her phone number so they could get together and talk about knitting sometime. Lara had known right then and there that if she needed something, April would always be there for her, and Lara had vowed to be there for April, too. Even when Lara had moved away, they’d still regularly kept in touch. Saturday morning coffee dates with April were one of the few good parts of being home. If April wasn’t straight, Lara would probably be in love with her.

  “A few days ago, I had this interview, and I totally bombed it,” Lara said, relishing the chance to vent. “All of my customers have been complaining since the article came out, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve never lost this many orders before. I was already stressed out because I had too much on my plate, but now I’m stressed out because I’m scared I don’t have enough. This could ruin my business. All because of one bad interview. My life is a total joke.”

  “Don’t say that, Lara. You’re being too harsh on yourself. I’m sure the situation isn’t as bad as you think it is.”

  Lara wished she could believe in April’s optimism. “That’s not even the end of it. It was so bad that a couple days later, Paige called me. As if national humiliation wasn’t enough, my ex-girlfriend decided that my hometown needed to hear about the situation in depth.”

  “What did she write?”

  “I don’t know. She said the article would be in today’s paper, but I can’t bring myself to read it. I don’t want the entire town of Perry reading this story. They already hate me enough. You’re the only person here that likes me.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Name one other friend I have,” Lara said.

  “The dozens of friends we’re both going to make when Tight Knit starts.”

  Right—their idea for a weekly knitting circle that anyone in the community could join. Lara had grown up going to her grandmother’s knitting club, and the nostalgia of simpler times made her desperate to bring the tradition back. April was hosting the first meeting, and Lara had promised to do whatever she could to help.

  “You know what you need?” April asked.

  A miracle? A fresh start? A sense of accomplishment and fulfillment?

  “A girlfriend.”

  April wasn’t wrong, but Lara had so many other concerns closer to the top of her worry list that needing a girlfriend didn’t have time to be on her radar. Usually.

  “Yeah, right.” Lara rolled her eyes. “The last woman I dated was Paige Daley. I think it’s safe to say that my taste in women is horrible, and I can’t be trusted to properly manage my own romantic life ever again.”

  “Then let me manage it.”

  Lara raised an eyebrow. Her confusion fueled April’s smile, as mischievous as Lara had ever seen it. April leaned forward on the edge of her seat.

  “I have a friend.”

  “Oh no. No, no, no.”

  “You’ll love her.”

  “Let me guess,” Lara said. “She’s the only other lesbian you know.”

  “Yes! You two would be perfect for each other.”

  Lara was pretty sure she knew every lesbian in Perry, which was to say she knew herself and the one other out couple who had been together for about fifteen years. As touched as she was by April’s gesture, Lara didn’t know how she felt about being set up with an older woman or ruining a perfectly happy marriage. “I don’t know, April. I’ve got too much on my plate to worry about dating right now.”

  “Nonsense. Love waits for no right time. I’ll introduce you two at Tight Knit.”

  Lara had a feeling that her definition of love was very different from April’s. It wouldn’t hurt to meet the woman, though. The whole point of starting Tight Knit with April was to get to know more people. This woman probably already knew who Lara was, though. Lara couldn’t imagine what type of person would be okay with being set up on a blind date with a Spellmeyer.

  “You sure this woman doesn’t hate me? She’s probably sitting at home drinking her morning coffee and reading whatever slander Paige wrote about me right now.”

  “This article can’t be that bad.”

  “You don’t know Paige.”

  April took that as a challenge. “Here. Let me go get the paper.”

  “No, April!” Before Lara could stop her, April was out of her seat and at the front of the store, browsing through the news rack. She found what she was looking for and came back to the table. Lara thought about spilling her coffee on the paper so that no one in the store could read it ever again, but the rack held what felt like an endless supply of copies; she couldn’t spill coffee on them all. Besides, April held tightly onto the pages, flipping through until she found Lara’s segment featured somewhere in the middle.

  “‘Local Business Receives National Attention—And Critique,’” she began.

  “No! Don’t read it out loud!” Lara’s voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “There’s people here!�
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  April didn’t listen. “‘Lara Spellmeyer is well-known throughout Perry for her successful online business.’ Looking good so far.”

  “Great. Stop reading now while I’m ahead.”

  “‘But recently her firm Festive Feline Fashion has fallen under fire.’ Holy alliteration. I don’t know if I can read this out loud.”

  “Awesome. Please stop.”

  “I’ll just skip down. Get to the good parts.”

  Lara buried her face in her hands. If she couldn’t see anyone in Mozart, then they couldn’t see her either.

  “Feldman assures his audience that he remains an unbiased reporter whose primary goal is to provide a platform where all sides of any story can be told. However, Feldman admits that he can relate to Mrs. Rushmore’s negative account of Lara’s business. He too claimed to feel viciously attacked by Ms. Spellmeyer’s cold-hearted attitude.”

  “Viciously attacked?” Lara resisted the urge to slam her head into the table. The public embarrassment was already great enough without her making a scene. “They make me sound like some kind of guard dog. I don’t even like dogs. I run a business for cats.”

  “Wait, hold on. It gets better. ‘Spellmeyer, however, contests Feldman’s integrity, insisting that her words were bent out of context and that the situation was blown out of proportion. She says that her seemingly poor attitude was merely the result of a particularly bad day. She also contends that all issues with her products mentioned in The Trend Bender had been resolved long before the article’s publication. While Spellmeyer also had some choice words for Feldman that cannot be legally transcribed in print, her upset is a clear indication that her passion is still very much alive, voiding Feldman’s claims that she no longer cares about her business.’ See, that’s not so bad.”

  “Paige wrote that I cussed him out so obscenely that she couldn’t repeat what I said. In what world is that ‘not so bad’?”

  “She also used the quotes that you gave her to defend yourself.”

  “You weren’t there, April. I didn’t say that stuff to defend myself. I said it to hurt Paige. I blew up at her. The article doesn’t sound bad, but I was there, and the whole conversation was awful. I can’t remember the last time I lost control like that.”

  “Yeah, well, love makes us do things we’re not proud of.”

  Lara’s name had received plenty of slander in the past week, but this was by far the worst. “I do not love her.”

  “Someone’s being defensive,” April teased. “No wonder you didn’t want me to set you up on a date.”

  “I’m not being defensive!”

  April gave Lara a pointed look.

  “Fine, I am defending myself, but can you blame me? I do not love Paige Daley. I can’t believe I ever did. Thinking about it makes me nauseous. Who was I?”

  “All I’m saying is that if you truly didn’t care about her, you wouldn’t be so torn up about this article. An article that is not that bad, I repeat.”

  “I do care. I care greatly,” Lara said. “But that care is fueled by hatred, betrayal, a need for justice and revenge. I feel a lot of things towards Paige Daley, but none of those things are love.”

  “Whatever you say.” April snapped the newspaper pages in front of her face like a dad avoiding a conversation. “Here, let me read some more.”

  “Please put the paper away,” Lara pleaded. “I can’t bear it anymore.”

  “Fine. Just let me check one more thing.”

  “Is it the obituaries?” Lara asked. “I might be in there: Lara Spellmeyer: murdered by Roger Feldman and Paige Daley, who were acquitted of the crime they obviously committed by a heavily biased jury of Lara’s peers. She accomplished nothing and is survived by everyone. No one will miss her.”

  “Hush.” April set the paper on the table and sifted through it, her frown drooping lower and lower as she neared the back page. “Of course. It’s not in here again.”

  “What isn’t in there?”

  “Do you remember how I said I was going to put out an ad for Tight Knit so that plenty of people came to the first meeting?”

  “Yeah.” Lara was too petty to read The Daily Page, but no one else in town held the same grudge against Paige Daley that Lara did. Everyone would have seen the ad by now. It was one of April’s many great ideas.

  “The ad was supposed to run a few days ago, but it never did. I’ve been checking the paper every day, and it’s still not in here.”

  Classic Paige. Screwing over Lara was one thing, but screwing over the nicest woman in Perry was another. “Did you call them?”

  “Only about a hundred times. I need to talk to Paige, apparently, but I can’t get ahold of her.”

  “Sounds like Paige.”

  “I’ll have to take a day off and go down there sometime next week.” April sighed and rubbed her temples. “Maybe you can call her again and butter her up enough to give me a civil conversation.”

  Lara felt bad for April—she could sympathize with her fruitless plight—and the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I could help you. Maybe.”

  April perked up. “Really? You’ll call her?”

  Lara shook her head. “No, I’ll…” Lara’s eyes closed in a feeble attempt to shield herself from her own stupidity. “I could go down there for you.”

  “Lara, that would be wonderful! Are you sure you’re not too busy?”

  After that Trend Bender article? “Definitely not.”

  “Oh, thank you so much.” Not even April’s smile could make Lara feel great about what she’d just agreed to do, but it did help a little. “You could use this to your advantage, too,” April added. “Doesn’t she owe you a favor after what she did to you? Make her feel guilty. Get her to apologize and run the ad as penance.”

  “It’s not penance. It’s a business transaction. You paid her. She should run the ad no matter what.” But it would be nice to get something in return for all the things that Lara had done for Paige over the years. Still, would one last opportunity to be vindictive make up for having to see Paige’s face again?

  It would have to be. Lara couldn’t let April down.

  “I’m so excited!” April gave a small squeal. “This knitting circle will be great for the town.”

  It would be. Everything April did was great for this town. If everyone were like her, Perry wouldn’t be such an awful place to live, and Lara never would have moved away. April was the only person who had always been on her side. And if the press was so hell-bent on making her life worse, then Lara had better keep her only friend around to help her get through it.

  CHAPTER 3

  People like Roger Feldman and Paige Daley were the reason Lara’s phone screen was cracked.

  Okay, that wasn’t true. Rocket had punted her iPhone off the kitchen table last week, like her grandmother chucking pucks down a shuffleboard table on her annual cruise. Staring at her screen’s GPS, Lara tapped the fractured glass like a challenge. If she pressed just a little harder, the screen would burst and fade to black. No more bad reviews, no more anger, and no more excuses for putting off buying a new phone. She could tell April that she hadn’t been able to find Paige’s office.

  She couldn’t do that, though. Lara had been dreading this meeting all weekend, but if she put it off, the ad would never be published before Tight Knit started. She had to do this.

  Lara’s eyes shifted from the fractured glass of her phone screen to the smooth pane of glass on the storefront in front of her. The frosted gold letters of the sign glittered in the sunlight. Home of Perry, Oklahoma’s Only Newspaper: The Daily Page.

  God, she really hated that name.

  When Lara stepped into the office, she let herself see the building for the first time. For a small-town newspaper, The Daily Page was an impressive operation that seemed out of place in the historic downtown district otherwise populated by rustic buildings and ancient local landmarks. The open glass architecture of the building was reminiscent
of some of the nicest places in Oklahoma City, and the main floor had a sleek, minimalist layout. The ringing of phones accompanied the din of lively conversation, and the way the floor was swamped with employees—running from station to station, chatting with others, and carrying stacks of papers and folders—gave the place an urgent feel, as if this quiet little town had real news to report on, as if everyone here was convinced they had come across the next big scoop that was going to launch their name into journalistic stardom.

  Lara located the receptionist, an older woman almost out of place among the young staff, and approached the desk, her head bowed lest someone recognize her. “I have an appointment with Paige Daley.”

  “I’ll let her know. You can wait over there.” Lara’s eyes followed the receptionist’s guiding hand to the waiting area.

  “Um.” Lara bit her lip, ashamed of what she was about to say. “Do you have a copy of Saturday’s paper?”

  “Probably. You’re Lara Spellmeyer, right?”

  Fuck. Was there a picture of her in the article? God, this was a mistake. Lara wanted to say the woman had confused her for someone else and walk away to forget this ever happened, but the woman worked here. She obviously recognized Lara. There was no point in denying it.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “How’s your grandmother doing?”

  Oh. Right. She recognized Lara because everyone in Perry recognized Lara. “Better. Not great, but better.”

  “I’m praying for her. Tell her we miss her at Bridge.” She ducked beneath her desk and rummaged around. Moments later, she reappeared with the newspaper in hand. “Here, you go. Saturday’s paper.”

  “Thanks.”

  Lara took it quickly. At least her embarrassment wasn’t on the front page. Still, she tucked the paper beneath her own folder and carried it discreetly to the waiting area. No one else was there, and Lara claimed the best seat in the house, the one in the corner farthest away from the receptionist, a.k.a. the only person in the world who knew that Lara Spellmeyer was about to read an issue of The Daily Page. Lara took a deep breath, made sure no one was watching her, and dove in.