AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“How about next Sunday?” She didn’t want to meet with him before his next date with Jinny, because he wasn’t going to like her notes, and she didn’t want it affecting his attitude while he was on the date. “We’ll get together to go over it, and we can post-game your second date.” She pointed a finger at him. “Because you’re going to call Jinny today to tell her what a nice time you had and ask her out for next weekend, right?”
Jonathan rolled his eyes like a kid who’d just been told to clean his room. “Yeah. Sheesh.”
Chapter Seven
Every Monday night, Esther and Jinny met up with a knitting group at a coffee shop in Culver City called Antidote. When Esther got there that week, Vilma was already holding their usual table in the back corner. She was the oldest member of the group in both age and seniority, a teacher in her late forties with a husband and two teenaged sons.
As Esther walked in, Vilma looked up from the bundle of yarn in her lap and waved. Esther waved back and got in line at the counter.
One of the first things she had done two years ago, when she relocated to Los Angeles for the job at Sauer Hewson, was look for a local knitting group. She’d taken up knitting in college, when her roommate gave her a copy of Stitch & Bitch and a pair of Clover bamboo needles for her birthday. Esther had never considered herself a crafty or artistic person before, but she’d been pleased to discover that knitting was more like math than art. The order and repetition of it appealed to her, and since she didn’t go in for the touchy-feely-ness of meditation and yoga, it was a stress reliever she could actually enjoy.
Knitting was how Esther and Jinny had first become friends. Her second month at Sauer Hewson, Esther had been sitting by herself in the lunchroom knitting, and Jinny had sat down next to her and started asking questions about it. It turned out she’d been wanting to learn for a while, but didn’t know anyone who could show her how.
The next day, Esther brought an extra pair of needles and started teaching her on their lunch breaks. After Jinny had gotten the basics of casting on and the knit stitch down, Esther had introduced her to the knitting group, and she’d been a regular ever since.
Esther paid for her beer—one of the best things about Antidote was that they sold beer and wine in addition to coffee—and took it over to the low, round coffee table in the far back corner, flanked by an orange couch and a few old office armchairs.
“Congratulations on surviving another Monday,” Vilma said as Esther settled into a chair across from her.
“Same to you,” Esther offered, raising her beer bottle. She set her drink on the table and dug out her current knitting project. “Is that another chemo hat?” she asked Vilma.
“Mmm hmm.” Vilma held up the lavender hat she was knitting. She’d been doing a lot of charity knitting since her family had informed her they already had more handmade knitwear than they could possibly wear in Southern California, and could she please find someone else to knit for. “It’s a Berocco nylon and acrylic blend.”
“I like it. How’s it feel?”
“Very soft. You have to choose from a list of approved yarns, so it’s not itchy on bald heads. I’ve never used this one before, but it’s easy on the hands.” Vilma waved as Cynthia and Olivia, two more members of the group, walked in and got in line. She raised an eyebrow at the sock Esther was working on. “Another pair of socks?”
“Yep.” Esther was obsessed with self-striping sock yarn. She loved not having to make color decisions or weave in yarn ends at every color change.
Vilma pursed her lips. “You know, there is a whole wide world of things out there for you to knit that are not socks.”
“I am aware. I just happen to like socks.”
Esther loved socks. Aside from the fact that they were soft and comfy and kept your feet toasty warm, they were fast and simple to knit. She’d already knit as many scarves and hats as she could possibly wear, blankets were boring, and she could never seem to finish sweaters. But socks…socks were perfect. You could never have too many socks.
“Ladies,” Cynthia greeted, setting her glass of white wine on the table and taking the seat next to Esther. She was a tall, willowy black woman who favored long skirts in bright patterns, didn’t bother with makeup, and wore her hair cut short with shaved sides.
Olivia flopped down on the couch next to Vilma and dropped her messenger bag on the floor with a thunk. She was Cynthia’s opposite in almost every way: a short, ghostly pale blonde who favored heavy black eyeliner and dark-colored lipstick and was dressed in black dress slacks and a plain gray button-down for work.
“Good evening.” Vilma peered over the top of her reading glasses at the extra-large iced coffee Olivia was clutching. “No libations tonight?”
“I’m on call,” Olivia said, nudging her messenger bag under the couch with her foot. She rattled the ice in her cup. “Hence the quadruple-shot of caffeine.”
Olivia was a systems analyst for a power company. When she was on call, she had to be ready to log in if any of her systems went offline, or else millions of people would lose electricity—and her company would lose millions of dollars. Which meant she had to keep her laptop with her and she had to stay sober enough to write code at a moment’s notice.
Jinny pushed through the door of the shop and waved to everyone as she got in line.
“How’s the scarf coming?” Esther asked Olivia as she unpacked her knitting.
Olivia was the newest member of the group. She’d only started knitting a few months ago, in order to make herself an old school Doctor Who scarf.
“Slowly. I haven’t even taken it out since last Monday. Work’s been a real bitch and a half.” She smoothed the striped scarf out across her lap. It measured about two feet already, but the Doctor’s iconic scarf was twelve feet long. “I’m never going to finish this stupid thing.”
“You’ve got until September though, right?” Cynthia leaned forward for her wine. “That’s almost four months. And you’ll get faster.”
Olivia was a cosplayer, and every year she made herself an elaborate costume to wear to Dragon Con. The scarf was for this year’s costume: a Victorian-inspired lady Fourth Doctor. She was repurposing a Victorian suit dress from a previous lady Sherlock Holmes costume, but she wanted the scarf to be authentic and of her own making, so she’d taken up knitting.
“Nothing nimbles the fingers like a hard deadline,” Vilma observed.
