Tight Knit Page 6

  Her delivery was so stiff. She was treating this like some kind of job interview.

  “That’s too bad,” Lara said. “I’m not doing it, so I guess you’ll have to find a new subject.”

  “Is this because of the other day?” Paige asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you only turning me down because I was mean to you at the office? Because I didn’t want to help you with your ad and I ran that article you didn’t want me to?”

  “Those are two of the many reasons I wouldn’t work with you, yes, but they’re far from the only ones.”

  “Look, I’m sorry.” Paige took a deep breath, and for a second Lara thought she might actually be genuinely apologetic. “I shouldn’t have been rude to you.” Lara opened her mouth to speak, but Paige said the words for her. “And I’m not just saying that because I want you to do something for me now. I thought about it, and it’s stupid to keep holding a grudge against you after all this time.”

  Another thing they disagreed on. Lara was more than happy to hold onto her grudge forever. Her spite knew no expiration date.

  Paige continued, “It’s been four years, and we’re both adults. I was petty and in the wrong the other day. I want to move forward. I think this project could be a good way to do that.”

  “And if I have no interest in moving forward?”

  Paige sighed and stared down at the notepad, seemingly incapable of looking Lara in the eye. “Then I guess I can’t really blame you, can I?”

  Really? She was going to make it that easy? It was a surprisingly hollow victory to see Paige so despondent. Lara was still geared up with adrenaline pumping through her system. It told her to keep fighting, and the fact that she couldn’t—or rather that Paige would no longer engage her—felt unfair and bittersweet.

  Without a reason to throw more ammunition at an already-fallen Paige, Lara didn’t know what to say. So she didn’t say anything.

  “This was stupid,” Paige filled in the silence matter-of-factly. Her demeanor had shifted. She tried to brace her shoulders and regain some air of confidence, but it only made her look slightly less pathetic. “Sorry to bother you. I’ll do a piece on April and Tight Knit, and I’ll leave you out of it if that’s what you really want. Forget I mentioned the contest.”

  Before Lara could process the words, Paige was up from her chair and halfway across the room.

  Great. Now she felt out of place at her own get-together. Thanks, Paige.

  But then someone called her name from across the room. Not April or Kerry, but an elderly woman in a rocking chair, about Betty’s age. Lara didn’t know the woman well, couldn’t place her name, but there was something familiar about her. She cradled a giant purse in her lap like a newborn, the size of it making her look even smaller and frailer than she already did. The woman was dressed nicely, a wide-brimmed hat adorning her head and a floral print dress folding around her legs. Lara walked over to meet her.

  “You’re Hank’s daughter,” she said. “Lara, right? Betty talks about you all the time. She has ever since you were born. We used to work together at Harrison’s old law office, and I’m pretty sure she showed me every one of your baby pictures at least a dozen times.”

  Sometimes it amazed Lara how old ladies were capable of remembering not only every face they had ever seen but every person that face was related to as well. They had trouble remembering their own children’s names, but they never forgot a kind stranger.

  It was incredible how hearing someone speak and looking into their eyes as she now looked into these eyes could trigger a memory long forgotten. “Glenda.” The name came out with a small smile. Lara still couldn’t recall exactly who she was or any specific interactions she’d had with the woman, but the name felt right. She was someone in her grandmother’s circle, and all of those women had a fond place in Lara’s heart.

  “Have you seen your grandmother recently?” Glenda asked. She gestured to the women seated around her. “The girls and I like to make a couple trips a week down to Cherry Oaks to make sure she has company.”

  Lara nodded. “I try to go every day.”

  “You’re a good kid for coming back here to help her.”

  The comment would have been patronizing from someone closer to her own age, but being around elderly women made Lara feel like a kid again. She was happy to please.

  “Are you having fun?”

  “I’m having a blast.” Glenda’s brown eyes flashed. She meant it. “We haven’t had a group like this for a while in Perry. Your grandmother would love it, too.”

  “She would. She wanted to come, but the doctors wouldn’t let her.”

  Lara’s chest ached, and she felt like she might start to choke up further if she kept talking about it. She let the moment pass, bracing herself to make her excuses and gracefully exit, but Glenda intervened before she could open her mouth again.

  “Some of the girls and I were brainstorming. We can’t imagine how awful it is to be cramped up in that room all the time. When Betty gets back home, we want to do something nice for her. Throw her a surprise party. Give her a few gifts. Something to let her know that we’re all here for her and thinking about her.” The women surrounding Glenda nodded and smiled at Lara expectantly.

  A welcome-home party was a fantastic idea. Everything about Betty, every mention of her name, every visitation with her had been tainted in a layer of sadness. Nothing could prevent what was happening to her or make anyone entirely forget about the reality of the situation. Betty was getting frailer, and she wasn’t going to live forever, as much as Lara would like her to. But something like a party was exactly what everyone needed to lighten the mood and make the best of a bad situation. It would be great for Lara and Glenda and anyone else involved, but, most importantly, it was exactly the kind of thing her grandmother would love.

  “That’s a great idea,” Lara said. “She’ll love it, and I’ll definitely be there. If you need me to help plan anything, just let me know.”

  Glenda waved the hand that wasn’t trapped in her purse dismissively. “We can take care of the mechanics. You just worry about showing up and keeping the secret. And making sure you find a good gift.”

  Glenda’s other hand finally emerged from her purse. Gripped proudly in her grasp like an artifact retrieved by an explorer, a tube of blood-red lipstick appeared with it. Glenda unscrewed the lid, applied a generous coating, and tossed the tube back into the purse to be lost and found again later. “Well, I better get home and make supper for the Mister.” She stood, rising slowly but surely to her feet. “It was nice seeing you, Lara.”

  “You too, Glenda. You’ll be here next time?”

  “Oh, you can be sure about that.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Where is everything?” Denise repeated for the fiftieth time since she’d entered the house. Lara was already a pro at tuning her out. An entire childhood of ignoring her mother’s nitpicking made for good practice.

  To be fair, Lara had expected the criticism. Her living room looked like a sweatshop, but that was better than the alternative. Without the knitting supplies everywhere, the room was threadbare. It hosted no more than a couch, a clock, and a television on the floor that she hadn’t bothered to hang up on its wall mount. Lara had hoped the clutter would distract from the fact that everything else in the room was, well, nonexistent. No pictures. No coffee table books. No DVD collection. After weeks of living like this, Lara was starting to forget what her living room back in Oklahoma City had once looked like.

  The kitchen was no different. Lara was cooking out of a cardboard box of loose pans and skillets. The few items she had in the cupboards were things like oatmeal and an ancient bottle of barbecue sauce that had come with the house when she rented it. She’d been living off of Saltines and canned goods, trying to avoid the fact that she’d have to go to the grocery store and stock back up on actual sustenance. She’d finally caved for the dinner party with her parents, splurging on steak and fr
esh asparagus.

  Denise rifled through the cabinets, scoffing at their emptiness. “No, I’m serious, Lara. How do you live like this? Are we really going to have to eat steak off of paper plates?”

  “It’s not that big of a deal,” Hank said from the dining room. Denise had instructed him thirty years ago to stay as far away from the kitchen as possible, and he contributed now as usual: by setting out Styrofoam cups and cutlery on the dining table.

  A frown highlighted Denise’s wrinkles. “It’s just not classy.” She opened a few more cabinets, her motions growing more frantic as she crossed the kitchen. Lara was afraid she’d rip one of the doors off its hinges.

  “I don’t know what you’re looking for,” Lara teased. “The cabinets haven’t grown china since you looked last.”

  “We need something to make the table look nice. Do you have any candles?”

  “Not in my kitchen cabinets.”

  “Well can you get them, wherever they are?”

  Lara groaned. They didn’t need candles, but if it got her away from her mother’s griping, then so be it. The meat sizzled in the pan, and Lara gave it one last prod. “Fine. Watch dinner for me.”

  Lara left for the bedroom so fast that it didn’t give either of her parents time to follow her. If Denise thought the living room was messy, she hadn’t seen anything yet. Lara’s entire life was crammed into her bedroom. Boxes of office supplies, knickknacks, and all the miscellaneous things Lara had collected over the years were stacked from floor to ceiling. Her clothes were folded neatly into her suitcases. Even her toothbrush was packed in a toiletry bag she kept by the bed, which held only a single pillow and a comforter on top of a bare mattress. The room itself was claustrophobic, holding onto a breath it couldn’t release as it waited for Lara to give it space. All of her things were ready to be unpacked, but Lara wasn’t ready to unpack them.

  After a bit of digging, she found a candle in a box labeled Why Do I Have These? Also buried in the box was a small lighter with the image of a hot blonde in a bikini suggestively straddling a motorcycle. It was in the wrong box. Lara knew exactly why she had it. It wasn’t hers. She checked her impulse to throw it away. It was the only lighter she could find in this chaos on such short notice.

  As Lara closed the box and rose to her feet, she realized that the only noise around her was the creaking of the floorboards beneath her as she moved. It was blissfully quiet, something it hadn’t been since Denise and Hank had set foot in the house that afternoon. Lara was so thankful for the two seconds of peace that she couldn’t resist sitting down on the bed. She pulled her laptop off the nightstand, intending to double check the instructions on the asparagus recipe, but mindlessly her fingers opened a new tab, and Instagram reared its ugly head.

  She had posted a new photo earlier, an orange and black calico wearing a pumpkin sweater stretched out lazily atop a pile of leaves. Most of the comments were simply things like Cute!!! or wishes for Halloween to come sooner, but a few less-innocent ones stuck out: Cute photo. Sad to hear the owner’s a bitch. And: Almost bought one of these from the store, but I’d rather my money go to a creator who actually cares about animals. I’ll find something cuter on Etsy. A few people had also posted the link to Roger Feldman’s article. Some were directed at Lara by concerned fans. (Have you seen this?) Some were replies to other commenters who still had the audacity to be supportive. (I love this!! How did you get so creative, Lara? Followed by: She’s not. Look at this.)

  Lara’s fingers hovered over her trackpad. She could delete the rude comments, but that didn’t feel right. Erasing the hate meant she was actually threatened by the article. She couldn’t give Roger any more fuel or attention. All she could do was ignore it. Boy, did that make her feel helpless.

  “Lara? Did you find the candles?” Denise’s voice echoed from the hallway, her words becoming much clearer as she stepped into the room. “Jesus. If I had known your place was going to be this much of a mess, I would have asked you to come to our house.”

  “You’re the one who insisted on coming over here.”

  “Well, I thought you were taking better care of yourself. Honestly, Lara, it looks like you moved in yesterday, not a month ago.”

  A month already. A month of being stuck here. A month of Betty being in the nursing home.

  Lara tried not to think about it. She held up the candle for her mom to see, but Denise’s interest quickly faded.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, pointing to the laptop at Lara’s thighs.

  “Oh. Uh.” Lara shut the computer and laid it on the pillow beside her. “Nothing.”

  “Hey.” Denise’s voice softened, and she floated onto the bedspread like a fallen angel. “Are you alright, honey? You seem…” she gestured to the mess around them, “out of it.”

  “I’ve just been stressed,” Lara said, knowing full well her issues with Roger and twelve-year-olds on Instagram had nothing to do with why she hadn’t unpacked. “Work problems.”

  “You should have told me.” Denise wrapped Lara in a hug. She pulled Lara’s head into her chest. “You could’ve come home. Let Mama make you dinner.”

  Lara leaned into the hug, comforted even if all of her problems remained the same. “Thanks.”

  “I could come over sometime and help you get settled,” Denise offered.

  That was not going to happen, but Lara appreciated the concern when it wasn’t hiding between Denise’s usual nagging. She let her mother rub the small of her back. “We’ll see,” she said.

  Footsteps trampled down the hall, diverting their attention. Hank poked his head in the doorway, the few tufts of hair left around the crown of his scalp a bit more frizzy than normal. His eyes bounced wildly between the two of them. “Sorry to interrupt. I think dinner might be burning.”

  Had she been in here that long? “Shit.”

  The blaring of the smoke alarm filled the house as Lara rushed to the kitchen, bringing the candle and lighter with her and setting them quickly down on the counter. She pulled the asparagus out of the belly of the oven like a body out of a cremator. A wave of smoke choked her, forcing her to cough in a way that she hadn’t since she’d been around Paige’s smoking on a daily basis. With both hands, she used her oven mitts to fan the tray as her father opened the smoke alarm to take out its batteries and silence its distress signal. Her ears pulsed as her heart rate returned to normal, but that was the least of Lara’s problems.

  As the smoke cleared, she surveyed the food like a crime scene. The asparagus was definitely overdone, but not burnt to a crisp. It was salvageable. Mostly. At least her mom had taken the steaks off the stove before coming to look for her.

  Leaving the food to cool, Lara lit the candle as a centerpiece. A light lavender scent filled the space surrounding the table, but Lara wasn’t convinced that it would be enough to mask the smoky smell.

  Despite everything, Lara expertly played the role of host. Her mother seemed pleased enough, slicing into her steak and taking several hearty bites. Her father, however, did little but stare at the candle.

  “Is the food too burnt, Dad?”

  “No, dear, just thinking.” Hank made a show of picking up his fork and knife and toying with a spear of asparagus, but none of the food actually made its way to his mouth. After a moment, he asked, “Have you seen your grandma lately?”

  Lara hummed around a mouthful of meat. “Of course. I go every day.”

  “How is she?”

  Lara shrugged. “About as good as a woman stuck in a nursing home can be, I suppose.”

  Her father let out a sigh of relief so big he finally had room in his body for food. He took a bite of steak. A small one, but still a bite.

  “Why haven’t you been to see her?” Lara asked.

  “It’s…hard.”

  Lara scrunched her brow. “I imagine it’s hard for her too,” she said reproachfully.

  Hank grimaced. “It’s one thing when your grandmother is in the hospital. It’s another
when it’s your mother.” Another bite. “God, I hope you never have to see me in one of those beds.”

  A knot clogged Lara’s stomach. Now she wasn’t feeling so hungry either. She reached across the table to take her father’s hand in her own. “Hey, it’ll be alright. You’re fine, and Gam Gam will be too. I said she was doing good, remember?”

  Hank gave a small smile, but it was thin and disingenuous. “She’s not, though, honey.”

  The fork stopped halfway to Lara’s mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “The doctors say she hasn’t regained the lung function they expected. Even after the surgery.”

  Lara’s heart pounded in her ears. It made Hank’s words that much harder to hear. “Could they go back in?”

  “They could, but they don’t expect it will help much more.” Lara had taken Hank’s hand to comfort him, but now she was the one being comforted. Her dad gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Remember how they gave her a year? Maybe two?”

  Lara nodded. Of course she did. She’d moved back to Perry as soon as she’d heard.

  “They changed it to six months. Maybe a little more. Maybe a little less.”

  “But I was with her yesterday. She was doing fine.”

  Denise laid her hand on top of both of theirs in silent support.

  “Then maybe we’ll get those few months,” her father said. “But we do need to start preparing ourselves.”

  “Does she know?” Lara asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “She’s a fighter. And she didn’t want you to worry, honey. She loves you. You’ve always been her favorite grandkid.”

  Lara chuckled through the tears. “I’m her only grandkid. I didn’t get to see her today. I should have gone, but I caught up on work instead.” Lara shook her head. It didn’t rid her of the guilt.

  Denise cleared her throat, her subtle way of butting in without intruding. “Maybe we can go after dinner?” She checked her watch. “Visiting hours aren’t over, are they?”