Tight Knit Page 5

  “Need some help with that?”

  Lara was so anxious to get back into the living room to see what the turnout was like that she would have accepted help from anyone.

  Except for Paige.

  Lara didn’t bother to turn around at the sound of her voice in the kitchen doorway. “No, thanks. I’m good.”

  Instead of hearing feet shuffle away onto the living room carpet, Lara heard them squeak closer to her on the kitchen tile. Paige started laying out cups beside her like she was preparing for a stacking contest.

  Lara couldn’t decide if it was best to pick a fight or completely ignore her.

  Paige decided for her. “You didn’t call me.”

  “You didn’t tell me you were planning on writing an article about the meeting,” Lara snapped.

  Paige shrugged. “I would have if you’d called me.”

  “Not in a million years, Paige.”

  If Paige wanted to help set out drinks so badly, fine. She could do it. Lara set off for the living room, leaving Paige to finish the job without her.

  April’s living room wasn’t big, but it felt significantly smaller when it was packed full of people. It wasn’t the biggest crowd that had ever gathered in Perry, but at least a dozen people had shown up. It was calming to see such a turnout: A couple of elderly women that no doubt Betty had called, accompanied by younger women Lara guessed were either their daughters or caretakers. A few women Lara recognized as either working in the craft store or spending so much time there that they might as well be getting paid for it. A couple of April’s friends. Even a couple of kids, though most of them were closer to April’s son Tommy’s age than Cynthia’s. They were all women except for one younger boy, but Lara had expected that. This was Perry, after all. Men would only work with yarn if they were doing it on one of the factory lines.

  Several people had brought their own half-finished projects. Hats and sweaters and strange pieces of loosely woven together fabric that Lara couldn’t yet see the finished projects in. The scene took her right back in time. All of a sudden she was sitting at the foot of a rocking chair in her grandmother’s house, clumsily mashing together knitting needles half the length of her body while all the women around her talked about their husbands and their kids and the new recipe books they had ordered out of a catalogue. Five minutes in, and Tight Knit was everything that Lara had hoped it would be.

  Lara took a seat on the couch next to April, where she had set up her supplies earlier. “April, this is great! Look how many people showed up!”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Well, yeah, I guess I am.” The realization hit Lara as she said the words. “It’s one thing to have an idea to do something, but it’s another to actually pull it off.”

  “It’s all thanks to you,” April said. “This was your idea anyway. Frankly, I initially assumed that knitting circles were a bit outdated and that no one would be interested, but you were right! This was something Perry needed.”

  Lara blushed. “You’re the one who offered to host and organize everything.”

  “Don’t be so humble. This wouldn’t have happened without you either.”

  April was right. Lara had helped, at least a little bit. She deserved to enjoy the day that she’d helped create. Even if Paige was here too.

  Instinctively, Lara surveyed the room for the threat. Paige was chatting with a woman whose infant child sat at their feet, tugging on Paige’s shoestrings. She was ignoring the baby in favor of her notepad. Good. As long as Paige was busy getting interviews from everyone else, Lara would be free to enjoy herself. And she would enjoy herself that much more if Paige happened to trip on her untied laces when she stood up. She kept her fingers crossed.

  “Oh.” April stood from the couch. “I’m going to find my friend Kerry. I told her you’d show her how to do a rib stitch. I would have taught her myself, but you’re way better than me, and she should learn from someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”

  April was gone before Lara could say anything. Normally Lara wouldn’t be too enthusiastic about being asked for knitting advice—she got messages every day from people wondering how she’d pulled off a specific pattern or fitting. But in this context, she was happy to do it. This circle was all about meeting new people and sharing techniques and life stories.

  April wasn’t slick, though. Lara knew exactly what she was doing. Kerry was the woman April wanted to set her up with, and apparently, she wasn’t taking Lara’s no for an answer.

  April returned with a lanky woman in a tight red cardigan by her side. In her hands was a ball of fabric and needles too small for the type of yarn she was working with. She settled in next to Lara on the couch, and the first thing Lara noticed was the scent of cheap candles and potpourri. It reminded Lara of an antique store. It was a nostalgic feeling, and not an unpleasant one.

  “Kerry, this is Lara, the woman I was telling you about the other day. I’m leaving you in good hands, I promise.”

  Lara rolled her eyes. Of course April had talked to Kerry about Lara too.

  “I know this is a mess.” Kerry gestured to the ball of yarn in her hands. It wasn’t all wound together. She had turned the end into the start of something, but that something was definitely not a proper rib stitch. “I’m more of a sewer than a knitter,” Kerry admitted. “I’m trying to ‘expand my skill set and improve my marketability.’” Kerry accented the words and made air quotes around them as if she was reading from a template.

  Lara chuckled. “You said that so clinically.”

  “My boss has been on me about my ‘professionalism’ and ‘productivity.’ I’m a tailor down at Taylor Made. Not as glamorous as cat sweaters, I’m sure, but fitting suits pays the bills. I’m Kerry, by the way.”

  Kerry already knew her, of course. This was basically Lara’s worst nightmare. “I’m Lara,” she said with slight unease.

  “I know.”

  “So, uh, did April tell you what I do, or have you seen the BuzzFeed video?”

  “Who hasn’t seen the video?” Kerry asked. “I don’t know you from either of those, though.” She paused, as if waiting for something. Lara silently prayed she wasn’t about to bring up the Daily Page article. “We went to school together,” she finally supplied.

  Oh! Lara’s eyes wandered as she scoured her memories, scrambling to recall something familiar about the woman in front of her.

  “It’s okay,” Kerry said with a cheeky grin. “I didn’t really expect you to remember me. I was a couple years under you.”

  Then suddenly Lara found what she was looking for in those unmistakable dimples. “Kerry Redshaw?”

  “The one and only.”

  “I do remember you! You were the cute girl who sat in the back of the music room so Mr. Reed wouldn’t see that you weren’t actually playing your flute. I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you. You look really different.”

  Kerry had cut her hair. Once upon a time it had been my-parents-are-freakishly-religious long, and Kerry had worn nothing but beige skirts that went down to her ankles. Now her hair was cropped short at the back with bangs that stylishly swooped just above her eyes, and she was wearing clothes from this century that actually fit her.

  “I was definitely not cute in high school,” Kerry said, “but I will take that ‘different’ comment as a proper compliment. ‘Different’ is very much what I was going for. Not all of us had the guts to come out in high school and break our parents’ hearts. Some of us had to wait years before we built up the courage.”

  It was a bit stunning to hear Kerry out herself so openly. This was Kerry Redshaw, the goody-two-shoes religious girl. She never would have been this vulnerable back in high school.

  “You know, I always did peg you for a lesbian,” Lara said, feeling a bit brave herself. “Around here, though, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between a bull dyke and a farmer’s wife, so I’m never totally sure.”

  Kerry let out a hearty chuckle.
It was a nice laugh. Lara couldn’t help but ride its contagious wave. Her chest bubbled, and it was the best she had felt in days.

  “Well, you weren’t wrong. I always thought you were cool for being out. And now I think you’re cool because you get to knit cat sweaters for a living.” She paused. “And I’d think you were even cooler if you taught me how to do this damn rib stitch.”

  “Oh, right, sure.” Lara had forgotten all about the knitting. Clearing her throat, she got her thoughts back on track and fell into teacher mode. “Well, first of all, you’re using the wrong needles. Here.” Lara rummaged through one of the bins surrounding the coffee table. She found a pair of larger point needles for Kerry to use. “These will help quite a bit.”

  Kerry accepted the gift with reverence. “Thank you. Again, no idea what I’m doing.”

  “It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it. The first step is always the hardest part.”

  Lara picked up her own set of needles and tried to show Kerry the starting stitch. She took it slow, because it was harder to focus once she noticed Kerry’s blue eyes boring into her. Lara’s cheeks burned with the start of a blush, and she felt the hair on her neck prick up slightly. She wasn’t used to being watched this closely or this intimately.

  She made a mess of the stitch, if she was being honest with herself, but Kerry was clueless enough that she still seemed genuinely impressed. Kerry tried to mimic her movements on her own project, and Lara was relieved to be the one doing the watching for a few moments.

  “Like this?” Kerry asked.

  “Close. More like…” Lara tried to mime the proper motion with her hands, but Kerry was still having trouble repeating it.

  “Help me?”

  Tentatively Lara placed her hands over Kerry’s, trying to guide the needles through Kerry’s fingers rather than her own. Within a few strokes, Kerry got the hang of it, and Lara gradually lifted her hands away and back into her own lap.

  “Awesome! Thank you.”

  Kerry’s excitement made Lara smile, but Lara couldn’t ignore the bubbling in her stomach. Why she felt so nervous, she didn’t know.

  Yes, she did. April had been right. Again. Kerry was awesome, and if this was who April wanted to set her up with, maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to judge.

  “April actually told me a bit about you,” Lara said.

  “Oh yeah?” Kerry asked. “Only good things, I hope.”

  “Actually, all she said was that we would be good together and I should ask you out.”

  Kerry looked just as surprised as Lara felt when the words came out of her mouth. Lara was impressed with how quickly the woman pulled herself together.

  “Yeah? Are you assuming I’m single?”

  Heat crawled up Lara’s neck. She was assuming. April knew most things, but it was possible that she didn’t know Kerry was already seeing someone. Lara thought the two of them were hitting it off, but if she’d been misreading Kerry’s advances, she’d like to know it before she made a complete ass out of herself. Lara didn’t want to ruin her prospects of them becoming friends by being too forward. “Sorry. Are you single?”

  “Well, I’ve got a wife back home, but she doesn’t like my knitting, so I’m here looking for a steamy affair. She’ll never suspect I’m cheating on her at a knitting circle, and she’ll never bother to come check on me here herself.”

  Lara snorted. Was Kerry this funny in high school? They would have gotten along great. Lara should have given her more of a chance, freaky Jesus-girl or not.

  “You’ve committed the perfect crime.”

  “I don’t think cheating on your wife is a crime, necessarily. Just a really good grounds for divorce.”

  “I’d sure dump you for that.”

  “Oh no. Have I ruined our relationship before we agreed on that first date?”

  “If we haven’t been on a first date, then we don’t have a relationship, do we? We better go through with the date. Then I can decide whether you’re a home-wrecker I should dump.”

  Kerry’s eyes lit up, and she pulled out her phone. “You should give me your number. I could get it from April, of course, but then she’d ask why I wanted it and she’d try to plan our entire date.”

  A laugh ejected out of her. Kerry wasn’t wrong. “April is pretty good at that. Maybe we should let her.”

  “She’d probably be more than happy to.”

  That warmth in Lara’s chest turned to heat as she typed her number into Kerry’s phone. Kerry’s laughter was so nice. As bad as things were lately, nothing could ruin this moment.

  Except the sound of a third voice interrupting their conversation.

  “Mind if I steal her for a moment?”

  Lara looked up to see her least favorite person hovering over them, looking out of place with a pen and pad of paper instead of yarn and knitting needles. It wasn’t Lara she was talking to. Paige eyed Kerry, waiting expectantly, and Kerry glanced back and forth between her and Lara, seeming more confused and startled than anything.

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” Kerry collected her things and turned to Lara. “I’m gonna go show this to April and prove to her I’m not completely useless. Thank you again.” She put a hand on Lara’s thigh, then pulled it away almost as quickly.

  Awkwardly, she stood and tried to shuffle out of the way. Paige blocked her exit and refused to move, forcing Kerry to sidestep through the narrow opening between Paige’s body and the couch. Lara couldn’t tell if she was being rude on purpose or if she was so caught up in her own quest that she couldn’t bother to think about anyone else’s well-being. As soon as Kerry was gone, Paige plopped down in her seat with an excitement that Lara did not mirror.

  “Paige, I was busy.”

  Scouring the room to where Kerry was now sitting with April and a few other women in a small group in the corner, Paige scowled slightly. Was she actually jealous?

  “What do you want?”

  “I just want to ask a few questions.” She clicked the end of her pen and poised it at the face of the paper, waiting to tear into the page and make it bleed with ink.

  “Paige, you are not interviewing me.”

  “Come on, just a couple of questions.”

  “No. This is April’s thing. Talk to her about it.”

  “I did talk to her. She says the knitting circle was your idea.”

  Lara sighed. “Semantics.”

  “You really aren’t going to talk to me?”

  “No.”

  Paige sighed again. She tapped her pen against the page. It reminded Lara of late-night study sessions before exams. Back then, Paige’s nervous ticks had been cute. Now they were annoying, and they were more annoying because Lara’s natural instinct was still to find them cute. Paige tapped out the rhythm to some imaginary song, and Lara tried her hardest not to guess what tune was stuck in her head.

  “Come on, you’ve given interviews before!”

  “Exactly! I’m tired of talking to journalists. I feel like I’m constantly repeating myself just so every stupid news site can get its daily dose of content. I’m done.”

  “It’ll only take a few minutes.” Paige was practically begging. It helped Lara’s confidence.

  “No, I mean it,” Lara said. “It’s draining. I started a business about knitting because it was supposed to be something I enjoyed, but all the interviews and news coverage just suck the life out of me. That’s exactly why I started Tight Knit. I want this to be something fun for me again. Knitting used to be how I relaxed, and now it’s so stressful I barely want to do it anymore. I don’t want to talk to you about this, Paige. Talk to April. Talk to any of the other women here. I’m sure all of them would be more than happy to give you whatever you need. Now, can you leave me alone and let me have this?”

  A tense moment of silence hung in the air.

  She had already pushed it this far. She might as well cut deeper. Paige had no power over her now. “I was talking to that girl, by the way. It was rude of you to
run her off like that.”

  Paige’s scowl was back full force. “You can talk to your friends any old time. I’m only going to be here for today. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “I have no obligation to talk to you, and I’m not going to. So kindly fuck off.”

  Lara stood to leave, but Paige grabbed her arm.

  “Don’t touch me.” Lara yanked her arm away, and Paige didn’t try to grab her again. “Why are you so hung up on this story? It’s a knitting circle. I promise no one cares. I know Perry is boring, but I’m sure you can find something more interesting to cover.”

  Paige thought for a moment, then sighed. “Fine, you want the truth? I’m not just here for the knitting circle. I’m here for you.”

  For the briefest of moments, something in Paige’s eyes made Lara reminisce about a time when she’d said things like that and meant them.

  “There’s this contest,” Paige continued. “All the local papers in Oklahoma are set to write columns on their hometown hero. Winning that award could be great for The Daily Page. And for Perry. We’re such a small town. Something like this could show that we have valuable people and resources to offer the world. I know I can write a killer article, and you’re one of the people who’s been nominated for it. Your grandmother submitted your name.”

  Unbelievable. For the second time in only a few short days, Paige was trying to profit off from Lara’s story. Had she felt no remorse the first time?

  “You think I’m a hometown hero?” It was cute that her grandma had nominated her, but Paige doing it made it real, and Lara was not about to accept the title.

  “Yes. After I saw the way Lorraine treated you, I looked you up. She wasn’t kidding. You really did take Festive Feline Fashion way further than I thought you would. You turned it into a great, successful business. You’re exactly the kind of person I want for this contest to show what Perry has to offer. You’re out there achieving the success and recognition that the great people of Perry deserve. You’re a role model for the rest of us. Some might say a hero, even. Betty isn’t the only one who nominated you.”