“Tonight and tomorrow this time around. I fly out in the late afternoon. Any chance we can get together? Not necessarily this trip, if that doesn’t work for you, but soon.”
Carol immediately checked the calendar. “I’d love to.” His invitations were few and far between, and she’d make whatever adjustments were necessary to accommodate her brother. “What about breakfast?”
“You know I’m not much of a morning person.”
Carol did remember the trouble her brother had always had getting up for school. “That’s true,” she said.
“What are you doing these days?” he asked conversationally.
“Not much. Doug and I go to the gym three mornings a week and tomorrow afternoon I’m starting a knitting class.”
“Knitting? You?”
“Yes, and if you treat me right, once I learn I’ll knit you a sweater.”
“One of those Irish ones with all the intricate cables?”
“Ah…I was thinking more along the lines of a simple cardigan with raglan sleeves.”
Her brother chuckled. “I can’t imagine my sister, who managed two-hundred-million dollars’ worth of mutual funds, with a pair of knitting needles in her hands.”
“Well, imagine it, because it’s happening.” She wondered whether he had something on his mind. “Any particular reason you want to see me?”
Rick didn’t answer right away. “It’s been a while since we talked,” he said. “I was hoping we’d get a chance to catch up. That’s all.”
“That would be great. It doesn’t sound as if tomorrow’s going to work out. When are you in town next?” She heard pages flipping in the background as Rick checked his work schedule. “Why don’t you come here for dinner?” she suggested.
“I’ll be back next week. Does that suit you and Doug?” He gave her the date and Carol wrote it on the wall calendar. With the pencil still in her hand, she paused. While it wasn’t unusual for her brother to call, he didn’t often pursue the issue of their getting together.
“Is everything okay, Rick?” He’d been divorced for more than a year now and although he spoke about it matter-of-factly, even dismissively, Carol suspected the breakup had caused him a lot of pain. She didn’t know the exact reasons Ellie had filed for divorce, but Carol figured it had to do with Rick’s career. It couldn’t be easy to maintain a relationship with a husband who was away from home so much. At one time Ellie had hinted he was unfaithful, but Carol refused to believe it. Her brother wouldn’t cheat on his wife. He just wouldn’t.
“Well…sort of okay, but I don’t want to go into it now. There’s nothing for you to worry about,” he added, clearing his throat. “We’ll have dinner next week and talk then.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Carol told him. “Have you seen Mom and Dad lately?” she asked.
“I was in Portland last weekend and they’re fit as ever.”
“Great.”
Carol and her brother made polite conversation for a few more minutes. She frowned as she replaced the receiver, curious about Rick’s problem, whatever it was.
“That was Rick?” Doug asked from the living room.
“We’re having dinner with him next week.”
“We haven’t seen him in a while, have we?”
Carol wandered into the other room and sat on the arm of Doug’s chair.
He glanced up at her. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head. “I wish I knew, but something’s going on with my brother.” Resting her arm along the back of the chair, Carol leaned down and kissed the top of Doug’s head. “Promise you’ll always love me,” she whispered.
“I already did,” he said and raised his left hand to show her his wedding ring. “I’m yours, whether you want me or not.”
Carol relaxed against her husband’s shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever loved you more than I do at this moment.”
“Those are words a husband likes to hear,” he said, sliding his arm around her waist and pulling Carol into his lap. She nestled in his arms, grateful to her brother who’d introduced her to Doug, and to her husband for his love. Still, Rick’s call bothered her and she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong. He might tell her not to worry, but how could she help it?
CHAPTER 8
ALIX TOWNSEND
Alix regretted signing up for the knitting class, but it was too late now. As soon as she’d received her weekly paycheck, she’d returned to A Good Yarn and paid for the class. She’d acted impulsively; it was stupid to throw away good money on a useless knitting class. The more she thought about it, the more annoyed she felt. She’d gotten suckered by some childhood fantasy of the perfect mother. Well, Alix had a mother and she was far from perfect.
“John’s here,” Laurel whispered, stepping up behind Alix at the counter. Her roommate had been seeing one of their regular patrons for about six months now, but as far as Alix was concerned, the guy was a sleaze. He might be good-looking and wear suits, but she saw what kind of movies he rented and they all began with X. His favorites were the kinkiest of the lot.
Early on, John had let Alix know he was interested in her, but she didn’t encourage him. Laurel, however, had been keen on him from the first and seemed to think the world revolved around him. Laurel was welcome to John Murray, used-car salesman, but Alix wanted to tell her friend she could do better. The problem, Alix suspected, was Laurel’s weight. Because she weighed well over two hundred pounds, Laurel seemed to believe no guy would want to be with her. It didn’t help that she wore her thin, stringy blond hair long and straight and didn’t wash it often. Her entire wardrobe consisted of jeans, T-shirts—most of them with either dumb or offensive slogans—and the occasional blouse. All of Alix’s efforts to get her into leather and black pants had failed. Still, no matter how much she weighed or how she dressed, Laurel deserved better treatment than John gave her.
Even if John had been a different kind of guy, Alix wouldn’t have been interested. She had her eye on someone else. She’d made a point of being at the counter when he came in recently and learned his name was Jordan Turner. In the looks department, he wasn’t anything special. Just a regular guy, clean-cut but with a nice smile and warm brown eyes. His rental history told her he didn’t go for kinky stuff the way Laurel’s sick puppy did. Jordan didn’t watch over-the-top violent movies, either. His last visit, he’d checked out True Lies and Dumb and Dumber, pretty tame compared to what Lover Boy chose. She’d once known a guy named Jordan Turner, but that was in sixth grade. She’d really liked him. His dad was a minister and she’d gone to church a few times because Jordan had asked her to. So, in a way, her first “date” had been at a church. Now, that was a laugh!
“Cover for me,” Laurel said from behind her.
“Laurel,” Alix protested, biting off a warning. She hated this because she knew exactly what happened when Laurel and John slipped inside the back office and locked the door.
John watched his sicko sex videos, then returned to the video store all hot and bothered and gave Laurel ten minutes of his time. He left full of promises to take her out, which he had on rare occasions, paying her just enough attention to keep her dangling. The guy was a loser, but if Laurel didn’t see that, she wasn’t going to listen to anything Alix had to say.
“I won’t be long,” her friend promised, giggling as she hurried toward the back of the store, leading John by the hand.
At least it wasn’t busy. By nine in the evening, most people who were going to rent movies had already done so. There were only four or five customers browsing among the shelves.
Involved in her thoughts, Alix was surprised when she glanced up to find the very guy who’d been on her mind. Jordan Turner was standing at the counter.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Caught off guard, Alix needed a moment to control her reaction. She shrugged, then asked in as casual a voice as she could manage, “Can I help you?”
“Would
you please check to see if The Matrix is available?”
“Yeah, sure.” Alix turned to the computer keyboard and typed in the movie title. Although no one would guess—she hoped—her heart was hammering wildly. She hadn’t expected Jordan on a Thursday night. He almost always came in on Tuesdays.
“I looked on the shelf, but there doesn’t seem to be a copy.”
“They’re all rented,” Alix told him, staring at the computer screen. “Would you like me to recommend another movie along the same lines?”
He considered her offer, then shook his head. “No, thanks.” He put Catch Me If You Can on the counter and paid for the rental. Before she could think of anything to delay him, he was gone.
Laurel reappeared at the counter, John in tow. She had a hickey on her neck and her blouse was misbuttoned. Alix glared at John who glared back, and whispered something to Laurel. Alix couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could guess. Laurel shook her head adamantly.
John was out of the store a minute later but not soon enough to suit Alix.
“I’m meeting him after work,” Laurel informed her in a righteous tone. “He’s taking me to dinner.” Her eyes challenged Alix to say anything negative about John now, but Alix wasn’t taking the bait.
“He certainly seems to be in a good mood,” she muttered sarcastically.
“He is,” Laurel said. “He sold a car today and we’re going out to celebrate.”
“You might want to fix your blouse before you leave the store.”
“Oh,” Laurel said, looking down. Her fingers immediately went to work righting the last three buttons. “Thanks.”
Alix shook her head, and lifted a tray of videos to return to the shelf.
“I probably won’t come back to the apartment tonight,” Laurel said, “so don’t wait up for me.”
As if Alix would. “I’m not your mother. Don’t worry about it.”
“My mother wouldn’t care anyway. She dumped me with my uncle when I was ten. My nasty uncle, if that tells you anything.”
Laurel’s home life hadn’t been any better than Alix’s. They’d met a year earlier when they were both living day to day, mostly in hotel rooms, and not the kind that came with small bottles of shampoo, either. When you’re pulling down minimum wage, you can’t afford first and last month’s rent. It’d taken Laurel and Alix six months to get into their current place. You’d have thought they’d moved into a castle when they found the apartment. Between them they could manage the rent, but with all the neighborhood renovation, Alix was afraid they’d soon be out on the street. Rumor had it the apartment complex had been sold to the same company that bought the old bank.
The apartment was a dump, with sagging floors, a permanently stained bathtub and cracks in the ceiling. But it was the first home Alix had ever considered truly hers. All the furniture was stuff even Goodwill wouldn’t take. She and Laurel had collected it piece by piece over the past few months, through word of mouth and a couple of times right off the street.
Neither girl was in contact with her parents. The last Alix had heard, her dad was living somewhere in California but she hadn’t seen him in ten years and frankly she didn’t feel she was missing much. He hadn’t made any effort to find her and she had no desire to seek him out. Her mother was doing time for forging checks. No one knew that, other than Laurel, whom she’d told in a moment of weakness. Alix had sent her mother several letters but when she wrote back, all she wanted was for Alix to send her money—or even worse, get her stuff she shouldn’t be asking for.
Alix’s only other family was her older brother, but Tom had gotten mixed up with a rough crowd and ended up dead of a drug overdose five years ago. His death had hit her hard. It still did. Tom was all she’d had and then he’d gone and…given up. When she first heard, she’d been angry, so angry that she’d wanted to kill him for doing this to her. The next thing she knew, she was huddled on the floor, wishing she was eight years old again and could hide in a closet and pretend her world was safe and secure.
Without Tom, she’d faltered, become reckless and got into trouble. It took her a while to find her way, but she had. These days Alix was determined not to make the same mistakes her brother had. She’d looked after herself from the age of sixteen. In her own opinion, she’d done a fairly good job of staying sober and sane. Sure, she’d butted heads with the boys in blue a few times and been assigned a social worker, but she was proud that she’d stayed out of serious trouble—and off welfare.
“You got a call this afternoon,” Laurel informed her just before closing. “I meant to tell you but it slipped my mind.”
They could afford an apartment but not a phone, so all contacts were made at the video store, which annoyed the manager. “Who’d be calling me?”
“Someone named Ms. O’Dell.”
The social worker had started coming around after the bogus drug bust. Alix had been caught with Laurel’s stash of marijuana. She still hadn’t forgiven Laurel for wasting money on it in the first place and, even worse, hiding it in Alix’s purse. She wasn’t the one using, but no one was willing to listen to her protests of innocence, so she’d shut up and accepted the black mark against her record.
“What did she want?” Alix asked, although Mrs. O’Dell was actually returning her call. Before Alix invested all that time, energy and money in knitting the baby blanket, she wanted to be sure the effort would count toward her community-service hours.
“She said it was fine and it might help you with anger management, whatever that means.”
“Oh.” At least the woman hadn’t actually mentioned the knitting class, which saved Alix from having to tell Laurel what she’d done.
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
Alix narrowed her lips. “No.”
“We’re roommates, Alix. You can trust me.”
“Sure I can,” she snarled. “Just like I could trust you to tell the truth to the cops.” She wasn’t letting Laurel forget that she’d taken the fall for her.
“All right,” Laurel snapped and held up both hands. “Have it your way.”
That was exactly what Alix intended.
CHAPTER 9
“We are all knitted together. Knitting keeps me connected to all the women who have made my life so rich.”
—Ann Norling, designer
LYDIA HOFFMAN
Although I’d taught knitting for a number of years, I’d never worked with such an eclectic group as the women in my small beginners’ class. They had absolutely nothing in common. The three of them sat stiffly at the table in the back of the store, not exchanging a word.
“Perhaps we should begin by introducing ourselves. Explain why you decided to join this class,” I said and motioned for Jacqueline to start. She was the one I worried about the most. Jacqueline was clearly part of the country-club set, and her initial reaction to Alix had been poorly disguised shock. From the look she cast me, I was afraid she was ready to make an excuse and bolt for the door. I’m not sure what prompted her to stay, but I’m grateful she did.
“Hello,” Jacqueline said in a well-modulated voice, nodding at the other two women who sat across from her. “My name is Jacqueline Donovan. My husband’s architectural firm is responsible for the Blossom Street renovation. I wanted to learn how to knit because I’m about to become a grandmother for the first time.”
Immediately Alix jerked her head up and stared at the older woman. “Your husband’s the one behind this whole mess? You tell him to keep his hands off my apartment, understand?”
“How dare you speak to me in that tone of voice!”
The two women glared at one another. Alix was halfway out of her chair, and I had to admire Jacqueline, who didn’t so much as flinch. I quickly turned to Carol. “Would you mind going next?” I asked and my voice must have betrayed my nervousness.
I’d come to know Carol a little; she’d been in the shop twice already and had bought yarn. I knew why she’d joined the class an
d hoped we could be friends.
“Yes, hi,” Carol said, sounding as unsettled as I felt.
Alix continued to glare at Jacqueline but the older woman did a masterful job of ignoring her. I should have known something like this would happen, but felt powerless to stop it. Alix and Jacqueline were about as different as any two women could be.
“My name is Carol Girard and my husband and I are hoping for a child. I’m currently undergoing fertility treatments. I’m having an IVF attempt in July. The reason I’m in this class is that I want to knit a blanket for my yet-to-be-conceived baby.”
I could see from Alix’s face that she didn’t understand the term.
“IVF refers to in vitro fertilization,” Carol explained.
“I read a wonderful article about that in a recent issue of Newsweek magazine,” Jacqueline said. “It’s amazing what doctors can do these days.”
“Yes, there are quite a few miracle drugs available now, but thus far Doug and I haven’t received our miracle.”
The look of longing on Carol’s face was so intense, I yearned to put my hand on her shoulder.
“July is our last chance at the IVF process,” she added. Carol bit down on her lower lip and I wondered if she knew how much of her anxiety she revealed.
“What do they do to you with this in vitro stuff?” Alix asked, leaning forward. She seemed genuinely interested.
“It’s a rather long, drawn-out process,” Carol said. “I’m not sure you want me to take class time to go though it all.”
“Would you mind?” Alix asked, surprising me with her curiosity.
“By all means,” Jacqueline chimed in, but I doubted that her interest was as sincere as Alix’s seemed to be.
“Well,” Carol said, clasping her hands on the table, “it all starts with drugs.”
“Doesn’t everything?” Alix laughed at her own joke, but no one else joined in.
“I was on this drug that stimulates the ovaries to produce eggs, and once the eggs appeared, they had to be harvested.”