Knitting Under the Influence

“We should all have dinner together,” Lucy said. “Could you do it next Friday night?”

“I don't know,” Sari said. “I’d have to cancel my date with this hot guy I’ve been seeing who gets really jealous when I go out without him. Have I mentioned that he's imaginary?”

“The problem is your job,” Lucy said. She scooped up the whole pile of yarn and dropped it back in its bin. “Every guy you meet at work is married.”

“Or on the spectrum. Hey, I like that green.” Sari picked up a skein and showed her. “Don't you think that would look nice on James?”

“Yeah, I do. Help me check the dye lots.” They started to search through the barrel of yarn. Then Lucy stopped. “Oh, wait-I just remembered something else about Jason Smith.”

“I’m counting D-44s. What?”

“He slept with Portia Grossman.”

Sari looked up. “Shut up! She was our class valedictorian.”

Lucy nodded. “He did. I’m sure of it. I remember her strutting around, telling her friends during homeroom. They were all so jealous, I was jealous.”

“You just said he was an asshole.”

“I said he was a good-looking asshole. There's no one hotter in the whole world than that, Sari.”

“Not to me. There are only twelve D-44s, Luce.”

“I think there are enough D-47s. See if you can find one more in there.” Lucy watched as Sari rooted through the bin. “There's just a vibe about bad boys, Sari. Like they could get a little angry, a little dangerous, and in bed that would be-”

“Jason Smith tortured my brother,” Sari said. “I could never be attracted to him.”

“Yeah, all right,” Lucy said.

The total for the yarn came to two hundred and fifty dollars. Lucy sighed and paid it.

Sari lay in bed that night feeling lonely. Kathleen had moved into her new place that afternoon, which was a good thing-she took up a lot of space, both because she was so tall and because she was… well, Kathleen. She had, for example, woken Sari up at four the previous morning because she thought it would be “fun” to bake cookies and talk, and Sari, who had to be up at seven to go to work, cursed at her and pulled a pillow over her own head so she could go back to sleep.

But tonight she could have used Kathleen's company.

For the first few years of her life, Sari had shared a room with Charlie, because the house had only three bedrooms and Cassie had thrown a fit when they tried moving newborn baby Sari in with her. Even at the age of five, Cassie was spending a lot of time alone in her room with the door shut-presumably living out a fantasy life that improved on her real one-and she wasn't about to give up her privacy without a fight. So Sari's crib was set up in Charlie's room, which he accepted without question. He accepted everything without question. Possibly because he didn't have the language then to ask a question. But also because he was, by nature, passive and accommodating.

When Sari turned five, they moved to a bigger house, and she got her own room. She was thrilled-no more worrying that Charlie would suddenly decide to empty everything off the shelves or methodically pull every hair out of her dolls’ heads as he occasionally had done in the room they shared.

But for years after that, if she woke up during the night because of a bad dream or because she heard a strange noise or because it was raining out-for any reason at all-the loneliness of her own room would become unbearable. She would slip out of her bed and dash across the hallway to Charlie's room. Before she had even reached the threshold, she could hear his snoring-he was already growing fat and had always had allergies, and the combination made him a noisy sleeper.

Sari would crawl into bed next to him, shoving him over to make room for her on the outside half of his narrow twin bed. He often muttered in response but never woke up, and Sari would snuggle up tight against him. He was big and warm and the familiar rhythm of his snores soon put her back to sleep.

In the morning, Charlie would wake up early and roll over her to get out of bed, as if she weren't even there. Sari would huddle under the covers then, still half asleep, and drowsily watch him while he walked in circles around the room, hooting and waving his hands in the air, an alien creature whom she could never completely come to know.

2.Ribbing

I

So what's the apartment like?” Lucy asked, glancing up from her knitting. This morning was the first chance she'd had to start the sweater for James, and she was casting on stitches for the back.

“Big,” Kathleen said.

“What is it with you and big?” Sari asked. She lived in a tiny one-bedroom fourth-floor walk-up near Westwood Village and could barely afford the rent. Right now, the three of them were crammed around the one small round table that functioned as both her kitchen table and her desk-she'd had to move her computer and a bunch of papers onto the floor before setting up for brunch. Plates of half-eaten muffins and cups of tepid coffee were jammed in with knitting magazines and uncurling coils of measuring tape. Sari gestured around her. “How come you keep getting to live in these big beautiful places, and I’m stuck here?”

“I don't know,” Kathleen said. “Maybe I was nice to cows in a previous life and earned a lot of good karma.”

“I was a cow in a previous life,” Lucy said with a smirk. “Back in high school.”

“You weren't fat.” Sari squinted at her row counter and flicked another number forward. “You just thought you were. Is it furnished, Kath?”

“Nope.”

“Shit,” Lucy said, throwing down her needle with the cast-on stitches. “I’ve counted this three times and I’ve gotten a different number each time. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

“Here.” Sari rested her own knitting on her lap and held out her hand. “Let me try.”

“Thanks.” Lucy handed it to her and watched as Sari slid the stitches along, one by one, her lips moving silently. “So when are you going furniture shopping, Kathleen?”

“I already bought a couple of airbeds and a few odds and ends. But I’m not going to buy any real furniture or anything. I mean, the guy could kick me out at any minute. No point getting too settled. Plus I’m short on cash.”

“How long can you live like that, though?” Lucy said. “It sounds like you'll have this place for at least a few months. You can rent furniture, you know.”

“Too much work.”

“Well, at least buy some kind of bed frame, so you're not sleeping on the floor with all the bugs.”

“There aren't any bugs in that place,” Kathleen said. “They can't afford the rent.”

“I got sixty-four,” Sari said, handing the needle and yarn back to Lucy.

“Good,” Lucy said. “I got that once, too.” She took her knitting back to her own seat. “You'll need a table and at least three chairs, Kath, for when it's your turn to host.”

“Can't we just sit on the floor?” Kathleen said. “Have we gotten so old we need to sit in chairs all the time?”

“I have,” Lucy said. “It's one thing to be all bohemian and stuff in college, but we're years out of college now. I’m over being uncomfortable.”

“But I like having the empty floor space,” Kathleen said. “I can run laps in my own apartment. And do push-ups and play soccer-”

“Play soccer?” Sari said. “Your neighbors must love the sound of balls thwacking against their walls night and