the fuzzy red yarn scarf I'd started. The directions promised easy, easy, easy. All you had to do was make a foundation of eight chain stitches and then start the next row with a single crochet in the second chain from the hook. From then on, it was just row after row of single crochet. I had quickly discovered that the fuzzy yarn looked great, but kind of knocked out a couple of the easys. The stitches seemed to disappear in all the fuzz, and I kept missing or adding an extra stitch on a row, which led to lots of unraveling.The only way to keep at seven stitches a row was to count each one as I did it. The piece was only about three inches long so far, but I was very proud of it.
'I suppose you think the name's funny,' Peter said, clearly implying that he didn't agree. He didn't seem that impressed with my scarf-in-progress, either. 'I thought when you got the job at the bookstore, you'd sell the house, get a condo and . . .'
'Fade into the background,' I said, finishing his thought. 'I don't think so. I'm beginning a whole new chapter in my life. It wasn't my choosing, but I'm going to make the best of it.'
He held up a copy of
'That was quick. It was what, two days ago? We weren't going into the funeral. It was the after thing at the house.' I looked at the photo again. CeeCee was right about the makeup. She looked great, and I looked pasty again. 'You know, if I'd moved to a condo, you wouldn't be able to leave your golf clubs, bicycle, tennis rackets, skis and boxes of old toys and video games here.'
Peter rolled his eyes. 'Mother, that's not the point. . . .'
'Relax. I'm just listed as 'friend.' I don't see how any of this reflects on you, anyway.' I glanced at the picture one more time. CeeCee's pose had looked so weird in person, but it photographed perfectly. I was not only pasty but had a dorky expression. 'You deal with actresses,' I said. 'Can you think of what CeeCee Collins could have been looking for in Ellen's home office?'
Peter's expression darkened. 'Mother, how do you know she was going through Ellen's office?' He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. 'You didn't wander off during the funeral reception, did you?'
When I didn't answer, he shook his head. 'I'm going to tell Barry on you.'
'Oh, so you two are friends now?'
'Not exactly, but we do see eye to eye on this. Mother, stay out of the Ellen thing.'
'Okay, but first, can you answer my question?'
Peter had rolled his eyes so many times by now, I thought he was going to get dizzy. He threw his hands into the air. Apparently I had graduated from difficult to impossible.'I don't know. Maybe Ellen had some embarrassing picture of her and she wanted it back. So now you'll drop it?'
When I didn't answer, Peter just gave up. It was probablyjust as well that he didn't know about Lawrence's little outburst.
IT WAS ALREADY AFTER THE OFFICIAL TEN A.M. start time for the crochet group when Dinah got to the bookstore. I grabbed my tote bag, and we headed to the event area. Mrs. Shedd had been thrilled when she'd heard I'd joined the crochet group. She said I could do it on work time. Of course, she expected me to keep an eye on things and make sure the charity blanket got finished.
The Tarzana Hookers were already at the table. It was obvious who they were: Adele had made a big sign in red calligraphy and stuck it on the table in full view of the window.Apparently the original shock of Ellen's demise had worn off. This time there was lots of activity. Everyone looked up as Dinah and I set down our tote bags and pulled out chairs.
I took out the square I had completed. Well, almost completed. I had done the main part in a medium blue yarn, all single crochet. Some of the stitches were a little wobbly, but I thought it looked pretty good. All it needed was a black border.
'And I remembered what you said'--I nodded toward CeeCee--'about working on my own project, too.' I took out the fuzzy scarf gonna-be. I had added another inch or so, but it still had a long way to go.
CeeCee picked it up and examined my work. 'Nice job.' She pointed out how even the edges were.
'How could you tell if the stitches were too tight?' Sheila took it from CeeCee and ran her fingers over the top row. 'It's so hard to see them in all the fuzz.'
Adele checked it out and said nothing, which was as close to a compliment as I was going to get.
Dinah apologized for not having a square, but she had brought in things for her own project. She pulled out a crochetmagazine and opened it to a page featuring a crochetedyellow bikini. 'I thought I'd try that.' Dinah put down a ball of yellow cotton yarn and a pink crochet hook next to it. CeeCee examined the instructions, pointing out that it said 'intermediate level.'
'You don't want to defeat yourself, dear, by trying something too hard, to start.' She flipped through the magazineand found a section featuring washcloths. 'Why not try one of these? It won't take too long, it features a couple of different stitches and the yellow cotton you have should work fine.'
Dinah didn't look sold. It was a bit of a shift from a bikini to a washcloth.
'It's nice that you two want to make your own things, but first we should concentrate on our group project,' Adele said.
CeeCee unfolded a piece of paper and laid it on the table. It showed the dimensions of the proposed blanket and a lot of squares. All the squares were the same size exceptin the middle section, where she'd marked four large ones. I tried figuring how many squares there were in total. Adele picked up on what I was doing.
'Pink, there are sixty-five small squares and four of mine, each of which is equal to four of everybody else's.'
'And how many are done?' I asked.
CeeCee appeared uncomfortable. 'I haven't had time to count. But when we have them all done, we'll connect them into strips and then put the strips together.'
Adele rolled her eyes. 'It's irrelevant to be talking about finishing when we've barely started.' She turned to all of us and in a drill-sergeant voice told us we better get moving.She pointed her hook at my partial square and said she'd show me how to finish it.
I had been hoping CeeCee would be the one to help me.
Adele whizzed through a description of making a slipknoton the hook with the new color and told me something about making a slip stitch to the edge of one side of the square. 'Then you just keep going around all four sides untilit matches the size of the rest of the squares.'
When I didn't get it immediately, she took the blue square out of my hands and finished it so quickly, I couldn't tell what she was doing. It reminded me of how someone can demonstrate something on a computer, but the cursor moves so quickly and the screens change before you can tell what they did. Adele was about to hand back the completed square, but CeeCee shook her head.
'Adele, dear, perhaps you haven't heard the one about how if you give someone a fish, they have food for today, but if you teach them how to fish, or in this case crochet a border, they're set for life.'
Adele viewed CeeCee with consternation as she unraveledthe border and gave me directions about how to begin.
Meredith arrived just as Adele let out a loud groan at my ineptness when my slipknot slipped out of my fingers.
'I know that blond detective talked to Molly, but did she get in touch with the rest of you?' Meredith asked as she set out her things.
Adele, Sheila and CeeCee all nodded and gave me funny looks.
'Dear, that woman really doesn't like you,' CeeCee said to me in her usual sweet tone. 'Did you do something to offend her?'
So it wasn't my imagination. I couldn't wait to tell Barry.
Sheila cleared her throat to speak. 'Detective Gilmore wanted to know what I knew about Ellen, and about the rest of you.' Her eyes passed over the group but stayed on me too long. 'I told her I knew Ellen from the crochet group and the gym. I just said she did weights and treadmill early Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and that I didn't know anything about any feud between you two.' Her gaze rested on me. 'And I said the last time I'd seen her was when I left the group to go back to work.'
