Knot the Usual Suspects (3 page)

“E
xcellent.” Ardis rubbed her hands. “We shall continue to keep mum while the knitting public can overhear us, but, may I just say, I can hardly wait for Thursday night?”

“It's going to be a blast.”

“Utter,” Ardis said, “and absolute.”

She trotted down the hall to the front room and Argyle joined me for the trek up the back stairs. Despite what I'd told Ardis about the ever-changing habits of cats, Argyle's nap schedule didn't have much room for variation. Nap time called frequently and often, and the window seat in the attic dormer was a favorite place. He leapt onto the cushion now and curled into a skein of snoring yellow fur. I took the coil of marked string out of my shoulder bag and tucked it in a pocket. The bag went in the bottom drawer of the oak teacher's desk.

The study had been Granny's snug and private space. Now it was mine. Except that I shared it with Argyle and Geneva, and that made the snug space . . . snugger. Granddaddy, as creative in woodworking as Granny had been
with fibers and fabrics, finished the wide-plank floor, fitted bookcases and cupboards under the eaves, and built the window seat in the dormer. He'd also hidden a tall, narrow cupboard behind one wall. He'd painted the inside of the cupboard Granny's favorite deep indigo blue and printed M
Y DEAREST, DARLING
I
VY
along the edge of the shelf he'd put in the cupboard. Granny had kept her private dye journals on that shelf. Geneva claimed the cupboard as her own “room.”

“Geneva?” I called.

“Boo.”

I turned around. She was floating behind me.

“You do not jump as much as you used to when I sneak up on you.”

“Have you been up here since you disappeared in the kitchen?”

“I sat on the stairs while you talked to Ardent. That is what her name means. Did you know that? And that is what she is, too. Putting up with Ardent is arduous.”

“I asked
her
to give you time and space,” I said. “Do you think
you
can be more patient with her? This is a new situation for both of you. And you're right; she is ardent. But she's tickled pink that you're here and that you're her great-great-aunt.”

“Her great-great-aunt who has never liked the color pink.”

“Come on, Geneva. It really would help me out if you two could meet each other halfway.”

“On the stairs? I do not think her creaky old bones will be comfortable sitting on the stairs. I did not get where I am today by having creaky old bones.”

I was feeling enervated and didn't say anything.

“That was haunted humor, in case you did not notice.”

“I'll come back when you're ready to take this seriously,” Geneva said.

“But you cannot tell me you did not cringe when she started prattling.”

“She's excited. You get the same way when you're excited. You two are a lot alike. I'm kind of surprised I didn't notice that sooner. Come on, Geneva. You heard her say she's willing to give you time and space. There needs to be some give-and-take here. That's how friends and family work things out and how they help each other out.”

“Shall I tell you what will help me out?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger before answering. It didn't help me out much. “Sure. What?”

“Go back downstairs and let me have my very valuable alone time.”

*   *   *

The shop stayed busy all morning. That kept us from discussing our plans for Thursday night, but it was good for the till. It was also good for ignoring the difficulties Ardis and Geneva were experiencing. I loved them both, but I didn't love my new role as counselor and mediator for the suddenly and hauntingly related. It was so much easier helping the shop's customers develop relationships with the comforting textures and colors of fibers and fabrics. Thank goodness Ardis
was
willing to be patient with Geneva, though, and that we shared the fiber and fabric passion.

“I get a particular joy from watching neophytes cradling their first tools and materials,” she said after two young women left with bulging bags. “I feel as though I
should follow them to the door and hold it open, blessing them as they go.”

“Telling them to fly free and come back to us when they've learned to soar?”

“Exactly,” Ardis said. “In reality, they'll be back tomorrow for help with a problem, but getting them back on track will bring its own kind of joy. Didn't I tell you we'd be run off our feet this week?”

“You did.”

“Like sap rising in the New England sugar bush,” she said, “the creative juices in Blue Plum awaken, they stir, and now they're in full spate.”

“You're full of good analogies this morning, Ardis, except this is October and I think maple sap might rise in February.”

She waved the quibble away. “It's a natural phenomenon like any other, and you can count on it happening every year when the kiddos go back to school. It's that whiff of school paste in the air.”

“It's probably all glue sticks these days.”

Another dismissive wave. “Crafty-minded folks aren't so particular. They're in tune. They catch whatever whiff it is, and they see visions of handmade gifts dancing in their heads—hats, scarves, ornaments.”

“Table runners, afghans, stockings, and tree skirts?”

“Yes, oh yes.” Ardis put a hand on my shoulder. “And sweaters. Close your eyes, Kath. Can't you picture those glorious projects?”

I closed my eyes, though I didn't need to; we had samples of sweaters and hats and all the rest displayed everywhere in the shop.

“And although we know an awful lot of those
embroidered, quilted, crocheted, and knitted visions are unrealistic,” Ardis said, “there's nothing wrong with embellished dreams and hopes. We all have them.
I
have them. And I need them. They give me respite—from reality, from the world, from Daddy's increasing infirmity. They give me strength.”

“That's really nice, Ardis.”

“I can't lay claim to the analogy or the philosophy. They were Ivy's. Your grandmother knew human nature as well as she knew knitting or any other needle art. I'm sure creativity bubbles up and burgeons all over the country in the fall, but you watch, the local flow will turn into a flood—beautiful and abundant. This was Ivy's favorite time of year, and especially the weeks before and after Handmade Blue Plum.”

“I haven't been here in the fall for years. I should've come to visit her more often.”

“She didn't expect you to run down here every few months. She couldn't have been more proud of you, or more proud of your career.”

I closed my eyes again, this time picturing Granny—gray braid and blue jeans, blue eyes with crow's-feet to prove her good humor, and a tilt to her head to show she saw and heard more than some. “I'll take a walk around, Ardis. See if anyone needs help.” I moved away before she could reach over and squeeze my shoulder, and a few tears from my own blue eyes. As I started up the front stairs to check on shoppers on the second floor, I heard the smile in her voice as she greeted the next customer at the counter.

“Good morning. You've made an excellent choice with that turquoise bouclé. Soft and cozy, yet carrying
with it underlying hints of daring and whimsy. I think you'll be very happy.”

I paused on the stairs to listen for an answer and wasn't disappointed.

“I picked it up,” an almost breathless voice said, “and I couldn't put it back down. A scarf, don't you think? Or no! A cropped vest!”

I went on up the stairs, missing the rest of their discussion. Ardis was right about the upwelling of creativity in and around Blue Plum in the past month or so. And Handmade Blue Plum, the arts and crafts fair held the second weekend in October each year, was perfectly timed—either to feed the flow of creative energy, or to take advantage of it. The fair, opening Friday at noon in the school gym, was also perfectly timed to take advantage of the three-week fall break in Blue Plum's year-round school calendar. Having the fair at the school was a win-win. The crafters were under a roof with classrooms for demonstrations and workshops, and the school received ten percent of the crafters' booth registration fees.

The Weaver's Cat couldn't be an official part of the fair, because commercially produced goods and materials were prohibited, but some of the more prolific crocheters, crafters, knitters, knotters, weavers, and whatnot who belonged to TGIF would be selling their handmade wares. In the meantime, we stayed busy in the shop ringing up all manner of needles, hooks, hoops, patterns, and the manipulable fibers and fabrics that dreams and finished projects were made of. We were busy enough that Debbie Keith, who worked part-time for us and full-time raising sheep on her farm outside town, was coming in for a couple of extra afternoons during the week, and
we'd hired a fiber-smitten high school student for weekend hours. The student, Abby Netherton, dressed goth and worked a drop spindle like a pro.

Ardis was also right that fall might have been Granny's favorite time of year, although I seemed to remember Granny saying that about every season at one point or another. She would definitely have loved the
un
official part TGIF and her beloved Weaver's Cat intended to play in Handmade Blue Plum. The project—the clandestine fiber installation project I'd been measuring for, concocted and devised by a select splinter group of TGIF—would have blown her away.

A whiff of conversation and the scent of coffee led me to one of the front rooms on the second floor. We encouraged drop-in needlework, and a couple of women sat knitting in the comfy chairs near the windows that looked down on Main Street, one working on a blue baby sock, the other something voluminous and raspberry. Their project bags, a thermos, and two steaming mugs sat on the low table between them. The baby sock woman raised a mug when she saw me.

“It's okay that we brought our own brew, isn't it?” She held the mug under her nose and steamed her glasses before taking a sip.

“We're in town a few days early for the craft show,” the raspberry woman said. “I'm Ellen and she's Janet. We came last year and found this shop and decided it was a perfect spot. We promised ourselves the perfect morning in these chairs.”

“It's what they're here for,” I said, “and we're glad to have you, coffee and all. I'm Kath. Ardis is downstairs. Let us know if there's anything we can find for you.”

“There was an older woman here last year,” Janet said. She'd put her mug back on the table and picked up her needles. “She talked me into the extravagance of handspun, hand-dyed wool.”

Her friend looked over the tops of her glasses at her. “It didn't take much talking.”

“Well, no, it didn't. But I think she had me sized up. Somehow she knew I wouldn't be able to resist it—it was a gorgeous indigo and knitted up into a shawl that I'll treasure forever. And I've been wondering what she can show me this year that I won't be able to live without.”

It didn't happen often anymore, that someone came in the shop who didn't know Granny had died in the spring. Still, I should have had a response at hand—something less distressing to customers, anyway, than silence and what must have been the stricken look on my face. It was the woman's mention of the indigo wool that threw me. That would have been wool Granny had spun and dyed. Indigo was her favorite and her specialty.

The women stopped knitting.

“I'm so sorry,” I said. “She had the amazing knack for remembering everyone who bought her wool, and she would have loved seeing you again.”

“You were related?” Janet asked.

“My grandmother.”

She nodded. “You favor her. She must have had your dark red hair when she was younger. We're sorry for your loss. And the store's.”

“Thank you.” I backed out of the room, hoping I hadn't made their perfect morning too awkward, leaving them to their socks and the raspberry cloud.

The other two upstairs rooms were quiet, and I took
a few quiet minutes to straighten them. Tidying the shop had been my “job” during my childhood visits to Granny. I'd liked doing it, liked pleasing Granny by putting things in order. I liked tidying now, too, because I found
her
in each room. In every skein I returned to its bin and every pattern or notion that went back where it belonged, I found her love for everything to do with fibers.

*   *   *

During the next lull in business, when we were both behind the sales counter, Ardis slid closer to me, casting glances left and right. “Yours is the last piece of intel we need,” she said. “So, how does it look? Are all systems go? What do you think?”

“That you're mixing spies and astronauts in your jargon.”

“Pshaw. Mission accomplished? Can we move forward?”

Ardent Ardis—Geneva had her pegged perfectly. Ardis was fired up and raring to bomb the courthouse and the entire town—with knitting and crochet work. With tatting, macramé, braiding, weaving, and coiling, too, for that matter.

Ardis hadn't come up with the idea that we should yarn-bomb the town on the eve of Handmade Blue Plum. But as soon as she'd heard the suggestion, she was behind the project one hundred percent. She was primed and ready to be pointed in the right direction as soon as darkness fell Thursday night. She was gung ho to leave her mark on Blue Plum with yarn graffiti.

I copied her left-right glances. No customers were in sight. I pulled the coil of string from my pocket, put it on
the counter, and held out my hand. “Measuring tape,” I whispered.

Ardis slapped a measuring tape in my hand and whispered back, “Measuring tape, Dr. Rutledge. This is very exciting.”

I uncoiled the string and measured from the end to the point I'd marked with the felt tip. “Twelve feet, Dr. Buchanan, plus seven and one half inches. Congratulations, you have four strapping courthouse columns.”