Page 93 of The Weekend Crashers
Chapter Forty-Two
There are many things Belinda could be doing since returning from coffee with Maggie: answering emails, calling the linen vendor, paying the florist bill. But she does none of these things. Instead, she’s standing in the middle of the Purl contemplating the portrait wall.
She’s troubled by the conversation with Maggie, and so she minimizes it by telling herself that everything Maggie said was just talk. And she reminds herself that it’s often like that for her guests in the days following a retreat: They can’t quite let go of the weekend. And if she’s done her job right, they shouldn’t want to. She’d always hoped she could at the very least teach people about knitting, and at the most, maybe something about themselves. And so yes, she’s fielded calls from guests asking for the name of a Realtor. Or asking about the elementary schools. Sometimes they just call to book a return weekend, this time with their significant other. They all want to keep one foot in New Hope.
But deep down, she knows it’s different with Maggie, and Belinda would have liked nothing more than to encourage her. She wishes she could plan a retreat with Maggie as an instructor. It would be a dream to have a new knit shop intown, and to find creative ways for them to work together. But now, none of that is possible.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Max says behind her and standing in the doorway. “You’re not answering your phone.”
She turns and walks closer to him. “I didn’t hear it ring. Why?”
“Maggie Hodges just picked up her room key at the front desk and asked for you. She’s here for the weekend again?”
“Yes. She surprised me today with a visit.”
“Oh, that’s great. But... you remember that I’m going to be in Philly, tomorrow, right? I’m just reminding you so that if you’re planning an outing with Maggie you have someone to cover—”
“I don’t need anyone to cover for me,” she snaps. She’d considered maybe she and Maggie could spend some time together tomorrow afternoon since she’s here, maybe go antiquing across the bridge in Lambertville. But she hadn’t thought it all through.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to reschedule this appointment for a day when we can both go?” he says.
She already told him no—she’s not interested in looking for a new home. That she has a home. “You’re on your own with this one,” she told him.
“Am I on my ownfindingthe new home, or will I be on my ownlivingin it?” he presses.
She doesn’t know how to respond.
“Can you please tell Maggie she can find me back here?”
When he leaves, she returns to the portrait wall and looks at herself standing amidst the group. She’s in the center, sitting beside Sheila, wearing a big smile, one she knows that in the moment was genuine. But it wasn’t genuine. Had shebeen deeply happy for even one minute since agreeing to sell the inn? Why on earth had she said yes so easily? The knitting retreats mean so much to her. How could Max ask her to give that up?
“Belinda?” Maggie says from the doorway. “Do you have a minute?”
Belinda waves her in. “I’m so glad you stayed in town. I want to tell you: The knitting shop is a great idea. I believe in you, Maggie. Don’t let my situation change your ambitions.”
“That’s the thing, Belinda. My ambition isn’t necessarily a knit shop. It’s to continue what I experienced here last weekend. Not just the knitting, not just the inn, not just teaching, not just you—but all of it, together. I believe it can be just the beginning of something special.”
“Maggie, you need to let this go. You’re making it more difficult for me. I appreciate the idea, and that you want to work with me. I obviously felt the same way getting to know you last weekend. But then there’s reality. Some things can’t be fixed.”
“I don’t agree,” Maggie says urgently. “What if I find an investor to buy out Max? The inn is half yours, right? So if you want to keep it, you just need someone to compensate Max for what would be his half of the sale.”
Belinda digests this, then says, “Is this for real? You know someone who would want to do this?”
“Possibly. It’s worth a shot. The woman who owns the clothing store where I work was born and raised here. She moved to New York before you took over the inn, but she’s the one who told me about the knitting retreat in the first place. She was in finance for the first part of her career and now she invests in things all the time.”
Belinda nods. “Okay. Sounds promising. How do we make this happen?”
Maggie needs to get Elaine under Belinda’s roof. She remembers the New Hope Inn from decades ago, but that wasn’tBelinda’sinn. “I don’t know when she was last here, or what she envisions when she thinks about this place. And I want her to see it the way I experienced it this weekend.” It will be a challenge to re-create the energy of the knitting retreat, but she’d like to figure out a way to try. She’d have to, as Elaine put it, leap before she looks.
“So how do we do that?” Belinda says. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t snap my fingers and have the knitting retreat appear.” The Purl is in its default state: spare and lovely with the river on full display. But it was also quiet and seemed empty after the weekend.
Maggie looks around, folds her arms in front of her chest and admits, “I’m not sure yet.”
Maggie helps Belinda retrieve folding tables from the back office storage closet and set them up in the Purl the way they’d been arranged for the yarn market. Max, catching them in the act during their second trip to the supply closet, offers to help: “Looks like I’m missing a party.”
“No party,” Belinda says quickly.
She’s already advised Maggie that Max is on a need-to-know basis about their plan. “I’m not telling him anything until—if—there’s something to tell,” she’d said. Maggie understands, and plays along by being vague even as Max asks questions.
