‘You do have a gorgeous selection here.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Where’s it all from?’ Kaisha reached out and touched the super bulky aqua Cleo had replenished yesterday.
‘I get stock from all over the world and use a few different suppliers. This one here, for example,’ she moved to the yarn next to the aqua, ‘came from Italy. It’s worsted weight, seventy per cent Merino wool, thirty per cent cashmere.’
‘It’s gorgeous.’ Kaisha ran her fingers across the yarn stashed in the square section of the wall unit.
Cleo watched the enthusiasm Kaisha had in spades compared to her assistant last Christmas, or the season before that. Lucy, the girl from last year, had been a real asset at the time and Cleo had simply accepted nobody else would share the same passion as her. It was more about having someone to ring up orders, keep an eye on the store if she was out back or dealing with deliveries or working away on the laptop she’d brought in from home. This girl seemed to not only know her yarns, but exuded the passion Cleo saw in her regular customers all the time.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kaisha. ‘I’ve completely put you on the spot and I apologise.’ She rummaged in her multicoloured patchwork carpet bag and pulled out a résumé. ‘How about I leave this with you and if you have any positions vacant in future, my cell number is on there.’
Cleo took the résumé and skimmed over it. She hadn’t had time to look for a new assistant for this season but she definitely needed the help. She could handle the store; it was all the admin and the knitting groups she struggled with in the holiday season, neither of which she wanted to neglect. But even now she was getting home later and later with barely enough energy to empty the contents of a tin of soup into a pan, she was so tired. Other days she’d have no choice but to stay awake late doing all the tasks a store owner was required to see to. She’d often find herself up until midnight loading photographs to the Facebook page and Twitter, answering customer queries that came in via those social media outlets, paying bills, reordering stock.
‘I’m not sure that’s going to be possible.’ Cleo was desperate for the help but with the uncertainty of the future of the Little Knitting Box, she wasn’t sure her finances could stretch that far.
‘I’m a hard worker, honest.’
‘It’s not that.’ Cleo sighed and explained how she was at a crossroads and wasn’t sure what would happen to the store. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to you. I don’t want to employ you, then have to let you go.’
Kaisha looked around the store, hazel eyes wide and her cropped, wavy hair allowing movement as she did so. ‘This place is like heaven to me.’
‘You knit?’ Cleo carried on hanging the hanks of yarn: robin egg blue, sunflower, peony pink, and evergreen colours.
‘Knit, crochet, embroider… I love it all,’ Kaisha declared.
Cleo scooped up the packaging for the yarn from the floor and took it out back before returning to talk to Kaisha. ‘What are you studying?’
‘Art History.’
‘I bet that’s interesting.’
‘It is. I didn’t think I’d go to university, I thought I was too creative to be studying anything, but this is my dream.’
‘Excuse me a moment,’ said Cleo. ‘I’ll just grab another package to restock the shelves but I’ll be back.’
‘No problem. I could spend all day looking around in here.’ And with a smile, Kaisha did just that as Cleo noticed her fingerless gloves that matched the multicoloured mid-length scarf. She wondered whether Kaisha had made them herself.
Out back, Cleo grabbed some scissors and sliced open the top of another box, this time filled with a variety of colours of a hundred per cent wool yarn. With Thanksgiving fast approaching, they were inevitably busy as people raced to knit gifts for loved ones and restocking the shelves was busier now than it was during the slower summer months. It certainly kept her fit, being on her feet so much.
Cleo lifted up the box and took it out to the store where she could hear Kaisha chatting. Perhaps a friend had joined her. But when Cleo positioned the ladder and climbed up to hang hanks of this yarn from hooks on the ceiling, she saw Kaisha lead an older lady around to the shelves on the same wall as where she was. Cleo continued hanging the hanks when she realised they were heavily engrossed in knitting-talk. The woman was showing Kaisha a pattern and Kaisha was offering her opinion on the type of yarn to use. Learning about yarns had taken Cleo forever as there were so many, but she knew the stock in the store well now and rarely had to look up information to check her recommendations were correct. Kaisha, on the other hand, seemed to know plenty and Cleo decided to listen, ready to leap in if she needed to.
‘This yarn,’ said Kaisha checking the label Cleo had put on the shelf, ‘is ninety per cent alpaca and really soft. It’ll make a beautiful warm knit for you.’ She went on to discuss the pattern with the lady: the tension required, needles she should use, colours she had to choose from, and before long the woman had a shopping basket filled with amethyst yarn and Cleo climbed down the steps to take the woman to the cash register.
When she left, Cleo looked at Kaisha and said, ‘When can you start?’
‘I wasn’t doing it to prove a point.’ Kaisha blushed almost as red as one of the patches on her bag. ‘It was just that she asked me and I wanted to help. I totally understand your predicament with the lease and everything.’
‘I can only offer you work until the end of January,’ Cleo explained. Her shoulders relaxed at the very thought of help over the Christmas period. Perhaps it would even give her some headspace to consider her options following the end of the lease. With Kaisha’s help they could even keep the store open later, increase profits to cover the additional expense of an extra part-time wage.
‘That suits me just fine. Wow, I thought I’d take the chance at working in my dream store but I never thought it’d happen.’
Cleo extended a hand. ‘Welcome to the Little Knitting Box. It’s good to have you on board, Kaisha.’
Cleo served a couple more customers and as soon as there was a lull, she discussed the rate of pay with Kaisha and did the necessary paperwork for a new employee. They agreed Kaisha could start tomorrow when she would come in and run a workshop. Many of Cleo’s customers were far more experienced than she was and so Cleo only ever ran basic groups, but this would be a godsend for some of them who had more complex projects. Kaisha was set to talk about large diameter circular knitting, something one of her regulars had mentioned a while ago, and Cleo was looking forward to learning something more herself.
Cleo breezed through a busy day in the store, motivated with the knowledge she’d soon have an extra pair of hands. She thought about Dylan. He still hadn’t texted her back but she was glad she’d contacted him. After their date, she’d wanted to run a mile but something in her brain had shifted and clicked into place and she’d realised she was destroying a chance of happiness by overthinking the situation. Aaron had once said to her, ‘You go out of your way to not be happy,’ and maybe he’d been right in his summation of her. She had ended up pushing Aaron away for reasons he had never understood. But maybe she didn’t need to do the same to every man.
