Knit in Comfort (14 page)

“What about the cookies?” Sally asked. “Or will our hands get greasy?”

“Who cares?” Ella stood and brought the bag of ghastly frosted-pink cookies Dorene loved, and the tin of Megan's shortbread, then went back for the peanuts, plunking all three in the center of the blanket, on Sally's green row. “Helps absorb the wine.”

Five arms shot out for shortbread, one for the frosted atrocities. Cookies were munched, wine sipped. Megan tuned out the chatter automatically, as she nearly always did, and concentrated on the project. Pick up two loops, yarn-over, pull through, pull through again, pick up two loops, yarn-over, pull through, pull through again, the rhythm was hypnotic.

“I know a great party game for this type of gathering.”

“Oh, God.” Ella glared at Elizabeth, who blinked back sweetly.

“It's fun. Everyone takes a turn, and has to tell the others something they don't already know about her.”

“Ooh, what fun. I'll go first. Here's mine: I hate party games.”

Dorene snorted. “We knew that already, Ella, it doesn't count.”

“Who's first?” Elizabeth looked around speculatively.

Uncomfortable silence.

“Sally?”

Vera glanced up over her red half-glasses. “Elizabeth, maybe you should
ask
first, if people
want
to play the—”

“No, no, it's okay.” Sweet Sally, always trying to please everyone. “I'm just thinking, that's all. Y'all know most of my life already.”

“If you don't have any secrets, Sally, you can disqualify yourself.” Vera looked severely at Elizabeth, who was bent over her part of the blanket and missed it.

Sally laughed nervously. “I don't think I've told anyone the truth about the accident.”

“Sally, you don't have to—”

“I know, but it doesn't matter now with my parents gone. Mom was an alcoholic. In public she was fine, but things were bad at home. That day she was about at her worst. Our dog, Godfrey, had died, and Mom had another fight with her brother. She drank to feel better, which then made her feel worse, so she drank to feel better and on and on. We'd gone late to the mall in Hendersonville for new ballet slippers for me, and stayed for dinner and more drinks. On the way home she passed out for just a second and drove off the road. I think we told people there was a deer.” Sally's voice thickened; she kept
her eyes on her green row, black yarn twisting and looping. “I'll never forget her face when she turned around in the front seat and realized I was injured badly, and that it was her fault.”

Shocked murmurs.

Megan gripped her crochet hook, imagining being responsible for hurting Lolly or Deena. “Sally, I'm so sorry.”

Sally shrugged and brightened. “The good news is that Mom didn't drink after that day. So I'm almost glad it happened. I'm sure she lived years longer because she stopped.”

“Wow, that is
so
intense.” Elizabeth gulped more wine. “Your poor mom. And poor you, Sally. That would leave more than just physical scars.”

Megan went back to work on her row, hurting for Sally's suffering, embarrassed for Elizabeth, hoping she'd see now how some things were best left to lie undisturbed in people's pasts.

“As I said, good things came out of it.” Sally gestured to the women gathered around the blanket. “And now partly because of those scars, you got the idea for making my dress work, Elizabeth.”

“True! It's going to be gorgeous. Megan told me some of her ideas.”

Sally's gaze zoomed in on Megan like a giant spotlight.

“I'm…I haven't finalized them yet.” She took a nervous sip of wine, already feeling it warming her body and interfering in her head. “I'll do a sketch for you by the next meeting.”

“Oh my gosh, I can't wait! And I'm so grateful, Megan.”

Megan nodded, emotions mixed—still guilty for not having thought of the idea herself, still anxious about starting lace again.

“Okay, ladies, back to my game. Dorene, you're next.”

“Elizabeth.” Megan couldn't bear the mortification any longer. “I'm not sure this—”

“
Well
.” Dorene made the rounds of the table with triumphant eyes. “In high school I slept with Jess Banks.”

“Jess
Banks
?” Ella gaped in exaggerated astonishment.

Megan stared, along with the rest of the women. Jess was the class heartthrob, swarmed by girls wherever he went, honey to their bees, dating only the perkiest, blondest and boobiest among them.

“My word, Dorene,” Vera said. “What would your mother say?”

“She'd say, ‘Jess Banks? What would a boy like that ever see in a flat-chested big-mouth like
you
?'”

Elizabeth winced. “Ouch. That would hurt.”

“Are you kidding me?” Ella burst out laughing. “You slept with
Jess Banks
?”

“Just once.” She grinned at Elizabeth. “He was the male god of our class. Hell, of the whole school. Not in my league. Not even close.”

“Oh my Lord!” Sally finally appeared recovered. “Cara and Jocelyn are going to have a
fit
when they find out they missed this.”

“How did it happen?”

Megan opened her mouth to tell Elizabeth that Dorene's sex life was none of her business, when she realized she really wanted to know too.

“Well.” Dorene stopped crocheting and clasped her hands, clearly adoring this moment in the spotlight. “I was crazy about him. I guess you knew that.”

“You might have mentioned it,” Ella said drily. “Maybe three or four thousand times.”

“The Bankses lived next door to us, Elizabeth. I knew his parents were out of town one weekend, and I just decided to see if I had a chance. So I went over there.”

“
You
seduced
him
?” Ella shook her head as if she were trying to put her version of the universe back into focus. “Dorene! You've put me in the chair of shame. I tried once and he said brunettes weren't his thing.”

“Well this brunette was. I told him I wanted to lose my virginity, and that if he didn't do it, I was going to ask Ted Sparrow.”

“Oh, Dorene.” Megan shuddered, and started giggling. “Not Ted.”

“No, no.” Dorene cheerfully fluttered Ted away with her long knobby fingers. “That was just a threat because they were so competitive.”

“Why you little manipulator.” Vera drank more wine, cheeks flushing. Megan couldn't tell if she was condemning or admiring Dorene and had the oddest feeling it was the latter. Maybe she and Vera should drink wine more often.

“Who's Ted?”

“Ted Sparrow. Bad boy, punk rocker, generally scary in a totally sexy way.” Ella smirked. “I did him a few times.”

“Good God, Ella.” Vera turned on her. “What about Stanley?”

“Oh, don't worry, I did him too.”

Raucous laughter, even from Megan, because Vera's face was priceless.

“I wasn't
with
him then, Vera.” Ella touched the old woman's arm affectionately. “I would never have cheated on Stanley.”

“I can't believe you girls. In my day women picked one man and married him.”

“Oh come on, Vera, not all women. Human nature hasn't
changed that much in the last…” Elizabeth started looking panicked. “Years.”

“Wow, Jess Banks.” Sally shook her head admiringly. “I was too shy even to talk to him.”

“I was too. Until that night.” Dorene's face softened wistfully. “For a few hours I was dating the hottest guy in school.”

“And it's been all downhill ever since.” Ella ducked when Dorene mimed throwing her ball of black wool.

“Nonsense.” Elizabeth brandished her wine. “The best is yet to come, Dorene. Ella, for that comment you're next.”

“Umm…No thanks.”

“Aw, c'mon, Ella,” Dorene said. “I did it. So did Sally.”

“Sorry, not my thing.”

“Okay, Ella, you tremendous wimp. Then…” Elizabeth pointed to Vera. “Your turn.”

Vera gave her a sour look. “What about
you
?”

“I'll go after you. Come on, something none of us knows about you.”

Vera concentrated on her row so long Megan began to worry she was furious and that Megan should jump in and make excuses for her.

“Well. Since we're telling private things, there is something I'm sure none of you knows.”

Irrational dread began turning over in Megan's stomach. Irrational because, even if Vera knew about Stanley, she'd never admit it to anyone. But the fear was always there that someone might find out, the fallout of carrying a shameful secret.

“No fair telling how your grandmother knew the Vanderbilts,” Dorene said. “We know that one.”

“I lost seven babies before I had Stanley.” She kept her gaze on the wool in her hands, seemingly peaceful except that the
crochet hook was shaking a little. “Rocky wouldn't let me stop trying even though I begged him. Even though Dr. Hanson told him to. I lost them all, two in the seventh month.”

Megan gasped, trying to wrap her mind around that much grief over that many children, understanding a little better why her mother-in-law worshipped her son. “Vera. I'm so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Oh honey.” Sally's eyes filled with tears.

“Vera…” Dorene stared helplessly.

Elizabeth got up and gave Vera a tipsy hug. Vera squeezed her arm awkwardly before going back to her crocheting.

Megan bit her lip. Why hadn't she gotten up to hug her own mother-in-law?

“That is just cruel,” Ella said.

“The cruelest part was that the first pregnancy was the reason I married Rocky to begin with.” Vera shoved the crochet hook into her blanket square, split the yarn and had to back out and do it again. “I lost that baby. Didn't have to marry him after all.”

“But since you had such a wonderful marriage…” Elizabeth rubbed Vera's back. “You had a silver lining too.”

“Right.” Vera shrugged to get Elizabeth's arm off her. “Now back to your seat and keep working. It's your turn.”

“Why yes, ma'am.” Elizabeth did a fair imitation of a North Carolinian accent, plopping into her seat. “But it's easy for me since you don't know much. I could say I like banana-peanut butter sandwiches and technically that would count.”

“No way. We gave real dirt, you have to also.” Dorene lifted her side of the blanket. “Hey, we're halfway.”

“It's going to be beautiful,” Sally said.

“Tell us your biggest regret, Elizabeth.” Megan spoke impulsively.

“Ah.” Elizabeth frowned. “I guess…not being born into a family like yours.”

Megan recoiled involuntarily. She wouldn't wish her situation on anyone.

“Biggest regret? That's boring.” Dorene gulped down more wine. “We want something juicy.”

“Hmm.” Elizabeth crocheted on, mouth twisted to one side while she thought some more. “I've never really had close girlfriends. Not like you all have here. It's always been about men for me, one after the other. Starting at age fifteen, when quantity was more important than quality.”

“Good heavens!” Vera half laughed with the rest of them.

“What is your generation coming to?”

“You wanted my secret, Vera.” Elizabeth waggled her eyebrows. “You got it.”

“That's actually kind of sad, Elizabeth,” Dorene said. “I mean poignant sad, not pathetic sad.”

“No strong father figure,” Vera announced.

“Maybe it's that simple. But I won't ever be sure. None of us can really be sure why we do what we do. Whether we're born the way we are or made that way by—”

“Oh, please, Freudina.”

“Okay, okay.” Elizabeth laughed and pointed to Megan.

“Your turn.”

Megan kept crocheting, wondering what they'd do if she stood up and screamed that her husband had another house and another wife and other kids not two hundred miles away, that David was the best lover she'd had in her life, that she
blamed her father for her mother's death, that once, briefly, she'd thought about killing herself.

Then it occurred to her that they'd probably come through and be supportive, at least in the short term. She might not have thought that about the Purls if Elizabeth hadn't suggested this game.

“Yes, Megan, you're the only one left,” Dorene said. “Since Ella is a party pooper.”

“Well.” Megan stalled for time, checking the neat black seam she'd done so far, joining blue to green halfway across the blanket. “My mother used to tell me stories of her grandmother on the Shetland Islands in the 1920s.”

“That's not dirt,” Dorene complained.

“No.” Megan smiled. “But Elizabeth only said something you didn't know, and I've never told any of these.”

“But they're not about you.”

Megan thought of her high-school tormentor, the original Gillian. “You'd be surprised.”

“Tell us,” Sally said.

Megan glanced around at the room of eager faces. Even Ella looked curious. “Now?”

“Like we can go anywhere else for a while?” Ella pointed to the half-finished blanket. “Dorene, open another bottle. It's story time and this one's empty.”

“Coming right up.” Dorene put her hook down and pushed her chair back. “Though you'll probably have to open it for me.”

“Geez, Dorene,” Ella called after her. “What do you do when you're alone?”

“Drink beer,” she called back from the kitchen and cracked herself up.

Megan took another sip, emptying her glass, feeling reluc
tant and elated at the same time. She'd kept her stories to herself for so long, she wasn't really sure why she'd volunteered to share Fiona and Gillian with these women tonight. And yet…if she was going to share lace with them, by telling Mom's stories she could put the craft and the art in context and honor her mother at the same time, help her friends understand what kind of history they were becoming part of.