“Can I help you?” said a lady with a silver mohawk and impressive tattoo sleeves.
“You have a tattoo of a skull and crossbones with knitting needles,” I said.
“Yes, I do.”
“You are really into this?” I gestured toward the wall.
“I mean. I own a yarn store,” she said.
“Gotcha,” I said. I sniffed back a stray memory of dick Brandon. “I would like to learn. To knit. To cope with heartbreak,” I said.
“You are the third one. A girl wrote a letter in the paper. Poor thing. I hope her ex drops dead. Good for business, though.”
“I’m the third?” I asked.
“Yup. Here’s what I’m recommending—long flat scarf. Great project to start, easy to correct mistakes, useful in the Pennsylvania winter, thoughtful gift, and can be used to choke someone. Perfect both practically and metaphorically.”
“Yes, that does sound like what I need,” I said.
“I’m going to set you up with some number tens and a pretty worsted weight. What is your favorite color?” she said.
“Blue? Actually, no. Any other color than blue. Green, maybe?”
“Great. I have some with gradient coloring. It will keep it interesting, watching the colors change without having to switch skeins.”
Nothing she said made any sense to me.
“Awesome?” I said. “Is this the yarn I’m using?” I pointed to a section of wall with the most captivating rainbow of colors.
“Well … I would say to hold off on this stuff. It’s hand-dyed Peruvian alpaca. It will set you back a pretty penny, and that particular kind is so fine it would take you forever to finish. If you devote yourself to becoming a full-fledged yarnie, I’ll let you have your pick, twenty percent off. For now, use this.” The woman walked over to another rack and pushed a puffy cylinder of green into my hands.
“Okay,” I said.
“And take these.” She handed me a pair of purple needles.
“Okay,” I said.
She rang me up, and I surrendered the birthday money I’d been saving to buy Brandon a sixth-anniversary present.
“Take this, too,” she said, slipping a flyer into the bag. “There’s a beginner’s group that meets upstairs every Tuesday. It’s free but bringing snacks to share is recommended. Given my recent uptick in sales, it might also function as a ‘newly single’ support group.”
“Thanks.” I sighed.
“We’ve all been there, sweetheart. You’ll cast it off soon enough. Roll the skein into a ball before you come to a meetup here at your LYS.”
“LYS?” I said.
“Local yarn store. Actually, if you come early enough, you can use the yarn ball winder.”
“Thanks,” I said again.
I clinked the bell on the door on the way out. I passed a woman who could have been my mom’s age coming in. Her face looked blotched and her eyes puffed. How many breakups had Steelton had lately? And who knew so many people read the paper?
Maybe she just had winter allergies.
JANUARY 19: DISCUSSION
“I need you to come with me tonight,” I said to Megan.
“But I don’t want to learn to knit. I’m not heartbroken.” She turned the steering wheel and navigated her car into a parking space in the slush-filled Steelton High lot.
“You should do it for me,” I said.
“I’ve come to every production you’ve ever been in. That’s about three plays and maybe a musical a year. I hate sitting still. Why do I have to do this, too?”
“How many swim meets do you have in a year? Ten? And I came to the swim-camp mixer because that dude you liked stopped by.”
“Michael Phelps is an Olympic world record holder. You got to hug him. I was doing you a favor.”
“Ten meets a year. You’ve been swimming since third grade. I’ve helped you wax your legs. Tell me one knitting class is worse than that.”
“Okay, okay, fine.”
“Good,” I said. I took a deep breath and got out of the car.
“All clear,” said Megan.
A best friend who did a visual Brandon/Ruby sweep was a keeper.
“Great,” I said.
“Are you sure you don’t want to run lines or something at lunch? Usually by Presidents’ Day you are forcing me to run lines for spring auditions.”
“They’re doing fucking Our Town.”
“I know.”
“I hate that play.”
“You also made that pretty clear.”
“So, what’s the point?”
“Don’t you have to audition for Carnegie Mellon soon? And Claire? Doesn’t she want to go there, too? And they take about minus seven people into the program?”
I shrugged.
“Girl, forget tonight; obviously we need to go knit now.” She looked at her watch. “At 9:30 a.m. I’ll ditch school. I am seriously worried here.”
“The group meets at seven.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“Okay.” I waved as she walked into her homeroom. I moved through a sea of bodies toward my locker and there, of course, came Brandon and the new woman. Heads together. Happy.
Why were these assholes constantly walking down hallways, visible in public?
I ducked into the girls’ room to do more breathing or possibly sobbing. The restroom wasn’t a great place for this because the odor of pee and illicit strawberry vaping did not exactly create a calming atmosphere. I slid into my favorite stall, the one with the FEMINISTS WIPE THE SEAT graffiti. All my breakup grief had helped condition a pretty powerful new lung response. I bet I could project to the back of the auditorium without a mic now. Or maybe the entirety of the gym. In happier times, maybe this would have …
The sound of unmeasured gasps pulled me from my pity party. For a second, I thought I’d sat next to happy people getting it on in the girls’ room, but no. I could recognize the sound of someone else sobbing, as well-acquainted I had become with my own. I weighed my options. Personally, I wanted to disappear when I hid in the bathroom. But this person sounded worse than I thought I ever felt, which was saying something.
I left my stall and looked at the closed door next to it. The sobs kept coming. I knocked gently. “Hello?” I said. “Are you okay?”
The sobs lessened a bit.
“Listen, I know this probably sounds weird, but I totally come in here to cry, too. Actually, I’m likely closing in on detention, I’m late for homeroom so much, but I think Mr. Plaza is just happy I’m not crying there. Are you hurt?”
“No,” came a voice.
“Do you need a pad or something?”
“No,” said the voice again, though it shook less than the first time. I heard shuffling and the door opened.
“Oh! Millie!” I said. I recognized her from Brandon’s Mock Trial team. “What’s wrong?”
She hung her head. “N-nothing,” she said.
“Oh. Okay?” I said. She and I weren’t exactly friends. I’d talked to her at a party once. She said her favorite musical was Waitress, and I could find no fault in that.
“No,” she said. “It’s awful. I’ve been kicked off Mock Trial! I think I was in shock before when I found out. Now that I’ve had some time for it to sink in, I couldn’t keep it together in American Government class,” she said.