Knitting Under the Influence

  He smiled, unashamed. “Let's just say didn't.”

  “It was fun. Free food, too.”

  “Did they make a lot of money?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “Do you care?”

  “If it's money that would otherwise have gone to research, possibly.”

  She got a bowl out, cracked four eggs into it, tossed the shells into the sink. “David came, you know.”

  “To the walk?” He shrugged. “I’m not surprised. Probably didn't have anything better to do.”

  “Don't be so sure. He's got a girlfriend now.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded, whisking the eggs. “He said he was going out with a girl tonight.”

  James laughed. “That's a date, not a girlfriend. And after she spends an evening enduring the famous David Lee sense of humor, she'll be running for the hills.” He shifted against the wall, then reached into his pocket and started rattling his change.

  Bored already, Lucy guessed. “You want to watch TV while I finish this up?” she asked, as she turned back to the refrigerator for the margarine.

  “Sure.” He was gone.

  By the time the eggs were done, he had already moved on from watching TV to checking his e-mail on her computer.

  “Anything interesting?” she asked, putting the plate down at his elbow and resting her hand on his shoulder.

  “Just the usual hate mail about how I’m some kind of crazy serial killer.”

  “I think it's sweet your mother keeps in touch.”

  “Seriously, look at this.” He gestured at the screen. “Apparently I’m going to hell because I don't know that animals have souls.”

  “That's only one of the reasons you're going to hell,” Lucy said.

  “Do you think they'd feel differently if I told them I don't think humans have souls, either?”

  “Probably not.”

  He signed off and turned toward her. “I keep changing my screen name, but they find me every time. It's got to be someone with university access. I’m sending this to the police, see if they can trace it.”

  “Is it really worth all that?” she said. “It's just a stupid e-mail.”

  “It's a hate crime. Punishable by law.”

  “Poor baby,” she said, ruffling his hair. “The object of hatred wherever he goes. What is it about you that makes people hate you so much?”

  He trapped her hand in his, and pressed it against his cheek. “I don't know. I think I’m pretty lovable. How about you? Do you think I’m lovable?” He pulled her down onto his lap. “Give me a kiss, Luce. I need someone to be nice to me.”

  She struggled to sit up. “Eat your eggs before they get cold.”

  “Yeah, all right, I’ll eat the eggs. But after that…”

  She slid off his lap. “After that, what?”

  And there was that grin again, the grin that made her face turn hot and her hands cold.

  Fortunately, he was a fast eater.

  VII

  What, no wedding band?” Lucy said when Kathleen finally swept in the next morning, over an hour late, to Sari's apartment. “When you didn't show up, I figured you were off in Vegas sealing the deal.”

  “I sealed the deal,” Kathleen said. “It just depends on how you define the deal.”

  “There was sealing?” Sari said, looking up from her knitting.

  “Lots of sealing,” Kathleen said. “We had a blissful night of nonstop sealing.”

  “You guys are too cute for words,” Lucy said.

  “Clearly, someone here needs a good sealing,” Kathleen said to Sari, who laughed.

  “If you're referring to sex,” Lucy said, “I’ve been there, done that. Very recently, in fact.”

  “Just rub it in, why don't you both?” Sari said.

  “Sorry, Sar,” Kathleen said. “So what is there to eat? I’m starved.” She pounced on the dining room table. “Oh, good— muffins. Are these banana? I love banana.” She bit directly into the top of the muffin without even peeling off the paper. “Yum. Sealing makes me hungry. So how is everyone? What'd I miss?”

  “Do you talk with your mouth full when you're with your millionaire?” Lucy asked.

  “Sure,” Kathleen said. “But not when it's full of food.”

  It took a moment and then Sari dropped her knitting so she could throw a sofa cushion at Kathleen. “You're disgusting.”

  Kathleen blocked the pillow with her right arm. “She asked.”

  “There's something seriously wrong with her,” Lucy said. “Hey, Sari, can you help here? I’m finally starting on the front of the sweater, but the pattern's not coming out right.”

  “Let me see.” Sari put her own knitting down on the sofa and went over to squat by Lucy. Kathleen wandered over, unwrapping her muffin, and looked at the knitting Sari had just put down. “I love this,” she said. “This shade of blue. That's going to be one lucky baby.” She stuck another piece of muffin in her mouth.

  “Don't get crumbs on it,” Sari said, looking over her shoulder. “Where's your knitting?”

  “I don't have it with me. I came straight from … not home.”

  “You should keep it in the car so you always have it,” Lucy said. “That's what I do. You never know when you're going to have to waste time waiting for someone at a restaurant or something.”

  “Kevin drove,” Kathleen said. “He dropped me off here, so I don't have my car, anyway. But, you know, you're right—I should have just brought it to dinner last night and knitted all through dinner and then taken it with me to Kevin's house. I could have kept it right there on the night table when we were having sex. That way, if I got bored while he was, you know, pounding away—”

  “You don't think Kevin might have taken offense?” Lucy said.

  “Probably wouldn't even have noticed. He's a guy, isn't he?”

  Sari was still looking back and forth between the instructions and Lucy's knitting, trying to figure out what was going on. “You know, Luce, as far as I can tell, you are doing this right.”

  “It looks weird.”

  “Yeah, but maybe it will look right after a few more rows. Sometimes it takes a while for the pattern to make sense.”

  “Or to see that you've been doing it all wrong from the start,” Kathleen said.

  “Right,” Lucy said. “That's what I’m afraid of.”

  “Have faith,” Sari said. She sat back down and picked up her own knitting. “Sometimes you just have to keep going and hope it's all going to come out right.”

  “Sounds like a philosophy for life,” Lucy said.

  “Nah,” Sari said. “In knitting, you know someone made the pattern, so a little faith is justified. In life”—she shrugged—“not so much.”

  VIII

  You ever wonder what it would be like to have that much money?” Kathleen asked. She let the Sunday New York Times Magazine slide from her hands to the floor and stretched out full-length on the sofa.

  Sam peered over the top of the Business Section at her and said, “I know where you're going with this and you might as well stop right there.”

  “Why? Nothing wrong with a little harmless daydreaming, is there?”

  “There's nothing harmless in what you're doing. You're thinking maybe you really could snag Kevin Porter and his bank account, and I don't see any good coming out of that train of thought.”

  “I am not,” Kathleen said. She reached down and picked up the magazine again but only flipped through it idly, looking at the pictures. Sam's sofas were exceptionally comfortable, and Sunday afternoons, after the knitting circle, she often made her way up to his den, where she could leaf through the Times and doze comfortably on some real furniture. Sometimes she even brought her knitting with her and settled in for a good long stay. Sam had a large flat screen TV and a satellite feed. “A nice guy with a lot of money is not a bad thing,” she said after a moment.

  “They should stop telling little girls the story of Cinderella,” Sam said. He turned a
page. “It ruins them for life.”

  “My mother married for love,” Kathleen said. “It was a disaster. I’m not going to make the same mistake she did. If I ever get married, it'll be for the right reasons.”

  Sam lowered his paper. ‘”The right reasons’? You mean like because he's loaded? Oh, that's noble.” He rolled his eyes. “Kathleen, just because your mother was too stupid or too young to realize that Lloyd Winters was an ass doesn't justify your chasing after men for their money.”

  “I’m not chasing after anyone,” Kathleen said. “I’m sitting here—”

  “Lying here, with your filthy feet on my sofa—”

  “Sitting here, very relaxed, having a conversation with my upstairs neighbor. All I’m saying is that it's good to be practical about these things.”

  Sam folded the Business Section neatly in half. “Have you ever met Kevin's sisters-in-law?”

  “Briefly,” she said. “They come by the office sometimes.”

  “And? What are they like?”

  “Pretty awful. They boss people around and always look like they just ate something bad and can't get the taste out of their mouths.”

  “Do they seem happy?”

  “God, no.”

  “Doesn't that tell you anything?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Cinderella's got built-in evil stepsisters.”

  “Maybe they weren't always evil,” Sam said. “Maybe they're just so miserable, they've forgotten how to be pleasant.”

  Kathleen considered that. And rejected it. “Nah, I think they were probably miserable to begin with.”

  “I see. So you would be different if you married into that family?”

  “Of course I would. For one thing, I wouldn't spend all my time shopping. From what I’ve seen, that's all they ever do. And even I know there's more to life than that. I mean, it's important, but there's more to life.”

  “You think that's why they're unhappy? Because they shop too much? You think it has nothing to do with the men they married?”

  “Kevin is nicer than his brothers. Everyone says so.”

  “Sure, he is,” Sam said. “Nothing like them at all. Why would he be like those guys just because he shares their genes and was raised in the same household and works with them on a daily basis? So … You're not shopping all day long. What are you doing with the Porter fortune and all your free time?”

  “I don't know,” Kathleen said. “Maybe using it to help people somehow.” She wasn't sure she believed that, but Sam had a way of getting her to say things in self-defense that she wouldn't normally say.

  “Kathleen Winters, philanthropist? Patron of the arts?”

  “I wouldn't use those exact words, but, sure, I’d be interested in supporting stuff. Why not?”

  “Well, the fact that I’ve never known you to set foot in a museum or concert hall, for one thing. You're like every other kid in your generation—you think because you've seen a couple of independent films, you're the artsy type. But you're really a philistine. You have no genuine interest in ‘stuff.’”

  “I never claimed to be artsy,” Kathleen said. “Or classy, or anything like that.”

  “Good,” he said. “Because classy and gold-digging don't go together.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Kathleen said, wedging a pillow under her neck and closing her eyes. “Gold-digging. It sounds so twenties. Speaking of which, weren't you in college right around then?”

  “Grade school,” he said. “If you're going to fall asleep, Kathleen, go back to your place. Last week, you drooled all over the sofa and the cleaning lady couldn't get the stain out.”

  “No, I didn't.”

  “See for yourself—it's still there. Get out before you do it again.”

  She sat up and swung her bare feet around, which were admittedly—as Sam had pointed out—not as clean as they might have been. “You keep throwing me out of here and I’m going to think you don't want me around.”

  “Gee, that would be a real shame.” He picked up another section of the newspaper and unfolded it with a snap. He didn't even glance up when Kathleen said goodbye. Then again, he never did.

  But this time she stopped in the hallway that led to the kitchen, turned around, and came back toward him. “For your information,” she said, “I really like Kevin Porter. I wouldn't be going out with him if I didn't. I’m not like that.”

  “You keep telling yourself that,” Sam said and turned another page of his newspaper.

  4

  Increases

  I

  The following week, whenever Jason Smith brought Zack to the clinic to see her, Sari did her best to ignore him without being unprofessional about it. Whenever they arrived, she looked only at Zack, waving Jason off into the corner of the room. Before they left, when she had to go over with him what they had worked on, she spoke quickly and didn't let him pull her into any small talk.

  She could tell Jason was hurt by her behavior—but then he had walked in already hurting on Monday because she, Kathleen, and Lucy had all but frozen him out at the post-walk picnic lunch, wouldn't look at, acknowledge, or talk to him, until he had finally excused himself and set off toward the parking lot, struggling to push the stroller over the uneven grass. Which kind of broke Sari's heart when she thought about it. So she didn't think about it, because she didn't want to soften toward him.

  There was one moment, on Tuesday, when Zack said, “Look, Sari! Jumping!” and pointed to a picture of a leaping frog in a pop-up book, and she was so excited that she turned to grin at Jason in triumph before the quickening in his eyes made her regret it. She turned back to Zack and said quietly, “Way to go, buddy. The frog is jumping.”

  That Friday afternoon, when Jason opened the front door to let her in, she barely greeted him before asking for Zack.

  “He's out back,” Jason said. “I was trying to get him to play basketball with me.”

  “That's good,” Sari said. “The more regular boy stuff like that he does, the better.”

  “Yeah, only he won't do it. He's terrified of the ball. Every time I try to show him how to hold it and shoot, he hides his face and cries.”

  “Maybe it's too hard,” she said. “The ball, I mean. Basketballs can really wallop you. You should try something softer, like a Nerf ball.”

  “I have. It doesn't help. He's still scared.”

  “Let me work with him on it. It would be good for him to play a sport.”

  “You really are a full-service establishment,” Jason said. “Language, behavior, leisure activities … Is there anything you don't do?”

  She just shrugged and moved toward the back of the house. Jason followed her. “You know I coach basketball, right? At the rec center?”

  Sari nodded and kept walking.

  He sped up to be by her side. “Well, there's this kid who comes on Saturday mornings. He's not even five yet, but he totally gets the game. Totally gets it. He can pass and dribble and consistently make baskets—he's the only kid his age I’ve ever met who can do all that. He's amazing.” They had reached the back door. Jason tugged it open and held it for her.

  Sari walked through and looked around. Zack was spinning slowly in circles on the driveway at the side of the yard. There was a basketball hoop over the garage door.

  Jason was next to her again. “Anyway, I thought Zack would be like that. I thought he'd be great at sports. Denise and I both played a lot in high school and college. So I figured a kid of ours—” He stopped.

  “He'll learn,” Sari said.

  “I don't even know why I care so much about whether or not he can play sports,” Jason said. “It's stupid. I mean, the kid can't even talk or look people in the eye. What difference does it make if he can throw a ball or not?”

  “Different things matter to different families,” Sari said. It was disturbingly easy to talk to Jason when she didn't have to look at him. “I was working with a kid once and he couldn't talk, wasn't toilet-trained, spat at people—wa
s just a mess. And his mother said to me, ‘Please, please can you teach him to sit through a movie’? She had always pictured herself taking her kid to Disney movies, only he was scared of sitting in the dark. She wanted that before anything else. It just mattered to her. It's okay if basketball matters to you.”

  “Everything matters to me,” Jason said. “I want him to play basketball and I want him to play soccer and I want him to talk like other kids and I want him to go with me to Disney movies. And about fifty million other things. I’m greedy, I guess.”

  “Be greedy,” Sari said. “Want things for him. It's the greedy parents whose kids progress the most.”

  “Look at him,” Jason said. “Balls and games all around him, and he just wants to turn in circles. I’ve tried taking him to some of my classes, but he always pulls shit like that, and the other kids think he's weird. And I end up mad at him. That's pretty awful, isn't it? I get mad at my own kid for being autistic. Like it's his fault.”

  Sari wished she didn't know what he meant, but she used to get furious with Charlie because she couldn't make him understand that if he just acted normal, other kids would leave him alone.

  “Give him time,” she said to Jason. “He'll learn to play just like the other kids.”

  “It's funny—” There was a red playground ball on the ground near Jason, and he rested his heel lightly on it. “Here I am, desperate for him to be like other kids. But if you'd asked me before he was born, I’d have said I wanted my son to be different from everyone else, to stand out in a crowd.” He rolled the ball under the arch of his foot. “Be careful what you wish for, I guess.”

  He suddenly kicked the ball as hard as he could. It flew over the grass of the backyard and hit a tree, which shook from the impact.

  The sudden violence of the kick startled Sari, but she tried not to show it. “I’ll see if I can get him interested in making a basket,” she said.

  “Can I help?” Jason said.