Page 17 of The Weekend Crashers
“No, but I once did an internship at a crisis PR firm.”
“Really? That’s interesting. Do you work there now?”
“No. I have the most heinous bureaucratic job in the world.”
“Doing what?”
“I literally don’t want it entering my mind long enough to tell you.”
“That bad?”
“Soul-crushing,” she says. “I’m just biding my time until this knitting influencer gig starts bringing in real money. But that’s a whole other story. My point is this: At the PR firm, one thing I learned is that when something negative about you is out there, you have to reframe the narrative.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning—if there’s a viral video of you falling on your ass, you better put out a video of yourself doing something more interesting.”
“Like what? Modeling your clothes?” She raises her eyebrows. “I don’t think so.”
“No! Knitting. Show yourselfcreatingsomething instead of wearing something. Do it now. Right here. I’ll record it. Use something of mine. Here...” She leans over, fishing through a wide-open canvas bag, and passes her knitting sample. “Thepart of the pattern I’m at now is simple stockinette for a few rows, so you can pick that right up here.”
“Are you sure?” Piper arranges the piece on her lap and takes hold of the needles. “I don’t want to mess it up.”
“It’s just a swatch for one of my classes. You won’t mess it up, and if you do I can fix it.”
Well, okay then. It’s worth a try.
She picks up the first stitch and Hannah Elise starts recording.
Maggie doesn’t know what came over her back there in the restaurant. But as soon as the man at the table stood and apologized, it was like a spell broke and she saw herself from the outside, shrieking at people simply enjoying themselves at a restaurant.
She’s becoming the Dragon Lady. And she needs to reset, immediately.
With Piper otherwise occupied, Maggie takes Sheila Bevins up on her invite to stop by the room for the yarn swap. Ever since her favorite knit shop closed, yarn swaps have been one of her favorite ways to build her stash without breaking the bank. Especially as she’s completely adopted the philosophy that there’s no such thing as having too much yarn.
The Edgar Allan Poe Room is on the top floor. She knocks, and Sheila’s low, raspy voice calls out, “Come in!”
Maggie opens the door and finds Sheila sitting on the edge of the mahogany canopy bed, surrounded by balls of yarn, needles in her hands. One half of the honeymoon duo—Alexis? Lexi—is sorting through piles of yarn on a wood side table. The room has blue-and-white toile wallpaper and wainscotting—just magnificent. It’s much larger than her twin room, and she assumes after so many years at the retreats Sheila knows exactly what to book for her stay.
“Welcome, welcome. You just missed the rush—and you get to peruse all the goodies left behind. Help yourself.”
Maggie holds up her offerings: some worsted-weight yarn with a plush smooth texture in a shade called Lettuce, then a felted tweed in an orange-brown color called Cinnamon. Sheila gestures for her to leave them both on the table. “If they don’t have labels, use the Post-it pad to note the fiber and yardage if you know offhand.”
“I like this green,” Lexi says, picking up the Malabrigo.
“Isn’t it great? I used it for a fantastic little shawl and miscalculated how much of that color I’d need,” Maggie says.
“Where’s your daughter?” Sheila says.
“I think she’s doing something with the crochet instructor. They know each other from social media.”
“KnitTok,” Lexi says.
“I guess.” In the swap pile, Maggie spots a deep, dark blue she needs for a quilt she started and never finished.
“What do you think of the retreat so far?” Sheila asks, not looking up from her clacking needles.
Maggie is about to offer the expectedIt’s great!But she’s still feeling a bit hungover from the encounter at the restaurant. So she says, “I guess I just imagined it to be a more intimate, knitters-only vibe here.”
