Three times a week the Tarzana Hookers gathered at 10 a.m. in the event area of the neighborhood bookstore, Shedd & Royal Books and More. A long table was set up in an alcove with a large window facing Ventura Boulevard. We could look out at the street, and passersby could see there was something going on inside. This morning the light was flat and shadowless due to the silvery early-day clouds.
I glanced around the table to see the crochet group’s response to my yarnaholic comment, hoping for a smile. Adele Abrams looked up from her work.
“Pink, no matter how much yarn you have, I’m sure I have more.”
Some people would have said that to make me feel better, but Adele said it to irritate me; she called me by my last name for the same reason. We had a running rivalry that started when I got my job at Shedd & Royal Books and More after my husband Charlie died. Based on my experience putting on receptions and events for Charlie’s public relations firm, Mrs. Shedd, co-owner of the bookstore, had hired me as event coordinator-community relations person. Adele had hoped to get promoted to my job. Instead, she’d gotten story time in the kids’ department. She still hadn’t gotten over it, and it’d been way over a year.
“And if you thought it was funny, it wasn’t—or even original,” Adele said with an implied groan in her voice. Adele Abrams had an ample build and an interesting fashion sense. She liked to think she had flair. Today’s ensemble was something of a cowgirl look. She wore boots and a long denim skirt decorated with big sewn-on doily-type things. She topped it with a white western-style shirt and a leather vest. Her brown hair had some new highlights and was pulled into a minuscule ponytail, with a battalion of clips keeping up the sides. Even as she talked, she kept crocheting. Adele might be a little weird with her clothes, but she was top-notch with a crochet hook.
I had kind of backed into becoming a Tarzana Hooker. It started with too much caramel corn. It was homemade and totally delicious, if I say so myself, but also totally bad for the fit of my khaki slacks. I’d reasoned that if I could occupy my fingers with something besides ferrying caramel corn to my mouth it might help. The Hookers were already meeting at the bookstore, but I didn’t want to be totally green when I joined. Actually, I didn’t want Adele to be the one to teach me, so when she wasn’t looking I had bought a kids’ kit we had in the children’s department and taught myself the basics. I’d shared the kit with my best friend Dinah and gotten her to join, too.
I was still a newbie, but totally hooked on crochet. I loved watching a ball of yarn turn into something, even if I had to undo it a lot. It was soothing and relaxing, and somehow always left me feeling restored. And there was something wonderful about wrapping a pretty scarf around your neck and knowing you’d made it.
Adele had accepted that I was part of the group, but never missed a chance to remind me how good she was and how I was still struggling. I noticed she was working with what appeared to be a ball of thin string and a small silver-colored hook. I couldn’t see what she was making at first, but as it got bigger, I realized it was a doily similar to the ones on her skirt. Maybe she was planning to start a fashion trend.
“Sorry, dear, but Adele’s right about your yarnaholic comment not being original,” CeeCee Collins said. “We’ve all said something similar at one time or another. Let’s see what you’ve got.” She reached across the table and emptied my bag. The hanks of multicolored silk tumbled on the table followed by the three companion skeins. The silk ones were shades of reds and warm tones, and the other three were a soft mauve. All were from the Himalayas and promised to help impoverished villagers, which made me feel better about my purchase.
“It’s beautiful,” CeeCee said, fingering it. “You must give me details about where you got it.” Her real name was Connie Collins, but everybody knew her as CeeCee. She was the reason the Tarzana Hookers hadn’t been meeting for a while. CeeCee had recently become the host of a reality show called
CeeCee and Adele were still vying to be head of the group. So far, CeeCee seemed to be winning. As usual CeeCee’s hair was poufed into a stiff bubble. It was that reddish, blondish sort of acrylic-looking color that never occurs without help. She favored velour warm-up suits in jewel tones. Due to the morning chill, she wore a white turtleneck shirt under her jade-colored jacket. She had barely stopped working during the interchange. She was so good at crocheting, I almost believed she could do it in her sleep. But I couldn’t figure out what she was making. It was round and brown. I leaned closer and she held it up. It looked like a furry donut with pink icing.
CeeCee was known for her runaway sweet tooth and the battle of the bulge that went with it. “This is the only kind of donut I can deal with right now.” She seemed embarrassed as she admitted that she’d gained five pounds. “And I need to lose it starting this second,” she said. She gazed longingly at the yarn donut. “This looks so authentic I can almost smell the sugar.” She explained that it was going to be a pincushion when she finished it. She had been making them in her spare time on the set and called them zero-calorie donuts. “I’m donating them to the Not Exactly A Bake Sale at Wilbur Avenue Elementary.”
CeeCee was always making something for someone else. I’d discovered that crocheters had big hearts and gave away or donated most of what they produced. I wanted to do the same, and the toasty brown scarf I was working on was going to be donated to soldiers when it was finished. I began doing simple rows of double crochet stitches.
As I worked, I waited for some comment from the third person at the table, Sheila Altman, but she never glanced up from her work. I could tell by the hunch of her shoulders she was having a nervous moment, which was not uncommon for her. I had to give her credit. She never gave up trying to lessen her anxiety and had taken up crochet, thinking it might help. Her crocheting was fine as long as her mind was clear, but if something was bothering her it showed up in her stitches. Like now. I watched her trying to jam her hook into stitches so tight they looked like knots. Whatever was upsetting her this time had to be something big. Without missing a beat, Adele handed her a smaller-size hook. It might help her stitches but probably wouldn’t do anything for whatever she was thinking about.
“What’s up, ladies?” Dinah Lyons said as she came up to the table, tote bag in hand.
“Pink was just venting about her yarn habit,” Adele said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.
Dinah looked at me with surprise. “What’s the problem?” Dinah was a ball of energy. I pointed to the hank of yarn on the table. Dinah picked it up and ran her fingers through it while saying, “Sorry, I’m late,” before settling in. Dinah taught English at Walter Beasley Community College and claimed that teaching college freshmen had made her ready to deal with anything. She loved silk scarves and today had twined a long kelly green one with a purple one and wrapped them around her neck. As usual, she wore almost-to-the-shoulder dangle earrings and had her short salt-and-pepper hair bristling with gel-encased spikes. She took out a ball of yellow cotton yarn and a pattern book. She thumbed through the pages, then took out an F-size hook.
“What are you making?” Adele asked. Without waiting for an answer, she pulled the pattern book toward her and looked at the open page. “Not another washcloth.”
“Dinah, dear, you really should think of moving on to something bigger, say a baby blanket,” CeeCee said.
Dinah took back the pattern book and proceeded to make a slip knot and start doing a foundation chain. “Not yet.”
“Okay, so how many have you made now?” Adele said, leaning over to get a view inside Dinah’s bag, since she carried all of them with her.
“I’ll show you.” Dinah stopped with the yellow yarn and dumped out her tote bag, revealing a cornucopia of washcloths in varying colors and stitch styles. There must have been fifteen or so.
“These are lovely,” CeeCee said, picking up several. “But enough is enough.”
Dinah loosened her green and purple scarves. “How many partially finished projects do you have?” she said to Adele.
Adele looked slightly uncomfortable while she calculated in her head. “Just a few, maybe ten or a few more.”
“And you?” she said to CeeCee.
“What’s your point?” CeeCee said defensively.
I noticed Dinah didn’t bother asking me. She knew the answer. I had turned one of my sons’ rooms into a
