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“Sit here.” She patted the empty seat Rory had just left, which coincidentally was beside Mandy.
“I just—”
“Now,” Miss Marla said in her schoolteacher voice. Ted had been out of school some time, but he still knew the power behind that tone. He sat.
“Tea or coffee, Ted?” Rory popped her head out the kitchen. “Right, coffee,” she said, seeing his face. Ted wondered if it was panic she’d read there.
“Have you ever knitted, Ted?”
“No.”
“But you want to try?”
“No.”
“Sure you do.” Jack wandered in. Presumably he’d been in the kitchen with his girl. “It’d be good for a business mogul like you to unwind.”
Ted gave him his best “are you shitting me” look. Jack ignored it and took a seat beside the Chief of Police’s wife, Gail Blake, and picked up his knitting.
“How’s your knee rug going?” Ted needled him.
“Good. I’m actually making Benjamin a few sweaters.” Jack’s look was pure innocence as around him the others all said how wonderful he was.
“Loser,” Ted mouthed, but Jack’s smile just grew more pious.
Shooting Mandy a look, Ted thought he wouldn’t mind some time in the kitchen with her. She wore a dress today, the hem sitting about midthigh. Fitted, with small sleeves, it was pale, mint green, and looked pretty spectacular on her.
“Put your hands up, Ted.”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t want to shoot you, dear, just use them to wind some wool. You have nice big hands,” Miss Sarah said.
He gave up and did as she asked.
“Bob and Nancy got another package yesterday.”
Ted looked at Mrs. Perkins after she spoke. Was this how they talked, running through boring stuff like parcels arriving in the post? Not that he wanted to learn to knit, but that would be enough to put him off.
Miss Marla was winding black wool around his hands. Ted tried not to think about the amount of work he had waiting for him back at the lodge. He gave Mr. Goldhirsh another look that suggested he knew he’d been played. The man coughed, but it wasn’t convincing.
“According to Jed from the Post Office, it was bigger than the last one. He thinks it may have had some kind of sex furniture,” Dorothy Perkins added.
“I beg your pardon?” Ted shot the elderly woman a look. She appeared harmless in her floral dress that came to her ankles. She wore navy flat sandals that had lots of support straps. She could be anyone’s grandmother.
“They get at it, Ted,” Miss Marla said patiently, as if she was explaining arithmetic to him. “They buy a great deal of stuff… sex toys, I believe they call them.”
“You believe,” Miss Sarah scoffed. “Don’t play coy with us, Marla Robbins. You know full well about these things.”
Dear God, make it stop.
Ted looked at Mandy; she was concentrating on her knitting. Jack was laughing silently, and Rory looked bored.
“What is sex furniture?” the oldest person in the room, Miss Taft, said.
“Welllll.” Dorothy drew it out for effect. “Bob may have opened one corner, but only to check on damage, you understand.”
Everyone nodded. Ted thought about bolting. The door was only a few feet away. Okay, Rory had pulled her chair in front of it, but he could probably hurdle her, she wasn’t tall.
