Knitting Under the Influence

She waited.

He smiled. “Not anymore. Not as of last night.”

“That worked out well,” Kathleen said.

“It's not a coincidence.” Then he said, “Those times we've gone running-”

Again she waited.

“I haven't wanted to stop.”

“Well,” she said. “It's good exercise.”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I know. So dinner and a movie tonight?”

“At least,” he said.

That evening, after they had finished their entrees and were relaxing at the table, trying to decide if they were hungry enough to order dessert, Kevin asked Kathleen about her family and was genuinely surprised to hear she was related to the famous Winters twins. “I can't believe you never mentioned it before,” he said. “You'd be an instant celebrity at work.”

“And for all the right reasons,” Kathleen said.

“Life is boring. People need thrills.” He gestured to a waiter, who immediately came running over. Kathleen wondered if it was something they taught you in rich kid school-how to flick your finger just so. “Another bottle of wine,” Kevin told the waiter. “Same kind.” He settled back down in his chair. “So what's it like being a triplet?”

“Weird for me, because they were identical twins and I was the different one.”

“Did you hate that?”

“Sometimes. My mom dressed us all alike when we were babies, and then one year I had different clothes but Christa and Kelly still matched. So I asked what happened and my mother said, ‘Oh, honey, it's so cute on them but on you it just looks wrong.’”

“Ouch,” he said.

“No, it was probably good, in the long run. If I had twins, I wouldn't dress them the same, anyway. People couldn't ever tell my sisters apart, and sometimes that really bothered them.”

“How did they get into acting?”

“This agent stopped my mother at Target one day and asked her if she had any idea how valuable identical twins were in Hollywood. Especially ones that were small for their age.”

“What makes twins so valuable?”

“It has to do with the child labor laws. Any individual kid can only work a certain number of hours, but if you have identical twins, they can both play a single role and double the number of working hours.”

“Cool. But what was that about being small?”

“It just means they can play younger roles as well as their age.”

“It's hard to believe,” Kevin said, “that you have sisters who are on the small side.”

“I know,” Kathleen said. “But my dad's like a foot and a half taller than my mom and I look like him and they look like her. Kind of like if a Great Dane mated with a Chihuahua.”

He laughed. “Sounds a little painful… Do you get along with your sisters? Does the Great Dane play nicely with the Chihuahuas?”

“Yeah, I guess so. They've actually always been pretty generous to me. They paid for me to go to college even though they didn't get to go.”

“Why not?”

“They were stars already. No point. And they had been tutored-badly-on sets for most of their lives, so I think college would have been a disaster for them, anyway.” She looked at him sideways. “How about you? Do you and your brothers get along? It's got to be complicated, working together every day like you guys do.”

He dismissed the question with a quick wave. “It's fine. We get along fine.”

The word around the office was that Kevin's relationship with his brothers wasn't fine, that the two of them had allied in a way that froze him out, left him an outsider in his own family's business. There were meetings he wasn't told about, client dinners he wasn't invited to, projects he never had a chance to weigh in on, information he was never given and looked foolish without. When Kathleen heard all this-Kevin had the office assistants’ loyalty, if not his brothers’-she thought she'd found something they had in common. He, too, was the odd man out. Only now it seemed he wouldn't admit it.

Not yet, she reminded herself. It was just a first date. There would be plenty of time for confidences in the lengthy future she was planning for their relationship. She had to be patient- something, admittedly, she wasn't all that good at.

The waiter came over with their wine. He showed Kevin the label. “It's fine,” Kevin said, without a glance. “Just pour it. I don't need to taste it this time.”

The waiter moved off. Kathleen took a sip of wine and looked up to find Kevin studying her. She was wearing the gold tank top she had recently finished knitting and her hair was loose and wavy.

He said, “So what sports did you play in college?”

“Soccer mostly. But I swam during the off-season.”

“For the school?”

“Just intramurally.”

“When was the last time you swam?”

“Not since I moved out of the twins’ house. Why?”

He leaned forward. “I was just thinking… I keep the pool heated at my place all year round. We could-” He stopped. “What was your fastest time?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your fastest freestyle time.”

“Oh.” Kathleen had to think about it. “I broke a minute in the 100. Once. I don't think I still could.”

“That's pretty fast,” he said. “And you look like you've stayed in better shape than I have.”

“Are you asking me to race?”

He just smiled at her and beckoned the waiter over. Without taking his eyes off of Kathleen, Kevin said, “Check, please.”

So they never finished the second bottle of wine, barely touched it in fact. Kathleen loved that he had ordered it but didn't care whether they actually drank it or not. The wastefulness of the gesture sang of wealth and power and indifference to the kinds of things other people spent their lives worrying about.

Kevin's house was smaller than the twins’, but more impressive. The lot was so big, you couldn't even see his neighbors’ houses once you had gone up the driveway. Inside, all the details were pricey, from the perfectly straight lines of the ceilings and walls-no moldings to cover mistakes and no mistakes to cover- to the vintage Eames furniture. It was clean and modern and architectural, manly and unfussy.

In the foyer, Kevin watched her as she looked around the place. “It's fantastic,” Kathleen said.

“You really like it?”

“It's fantastic,” she said again and meant it.

“Come see the backyard. That's my favorite part.” Once he had led her through the house and out back, she could see why. The yard stretched in all directions, at least as far as she could see in the dark. Tiny lights were hidden among the bushes and trees, sparkling here and there like lightning bugs. “Hear that?” Kevin said. There was a faint tinkling-whooshing sound when Kathleen stopped to listen. “There's a creek down below-it's part of the property.”

“Nice. We're not swimming there, though, right? You mentioned a heated pool.”

“This way.” He led her to a fenced-off part of the yard and opened up the iron gate. “My sister-in-law made me gate it,” he said. “It kind of ruins the way the backyard looks, but she has little kids and wouldn't come visit until I did.”

“Couldn't she just tie her kids to a tree when she comes over?”

“Somehow I don't think she'd go for that.”

“You're just too nice to suggest it.” Kathleen walked over to the edge of the water and knelt down. She put her hand in. “Warm.”

“Eighty-eight degrees. It feels even better when you get your whole body in.”