Knitting Under the Influence

Ashley warily darted forward, snatched at the bag, and ran to the door. “Think about what you're doing,” she said. “Think about the pain you're causing these animals just because you're bigger than they are. Think about how you'd like to be treated if-”

“Think about the police coming to your door,” David said.

She shot him one last look of pure hatred and then was gone, slamming the door behind her.

David raised his fist in the air. “Vive la resistance!” he said cheerfully.

“Yeah, right,” Lucy said. “Do you think she thinks she's some kind of hero?”

“Definitely.”

“Someone should tell her about rats and the bubonic plague.”

“Someone should give her the bubonic plague.” He stared at the closed door. “Although, it was kind of a relief meeting her-she wasn't exactly an angry mob, was she?”

“She could have friends.”

“Or just crazy nuts on the Internet who encourage her to do this shit.” David leaned comfortably back in his chair and crossed his ankles up on top of his desk. “So… do we tell James?”

“Better not,” Lucy said, feeling a little guilty even as she said it. “We can always tell him if she does something else.”

“Do you think she will?”

“Now that we have her name and know she goes to school here, she'd have to be pretty stupid to target us again.” Lucy bent down and opened up one of her desk drawers. “Want some dried cranberries?”

“Sure.” She carried the bag over and poured a bunch into his outstretched palm. “It must be nice,” he said, gazing absently at the berries in his hand.

“What?” She put a single cranberry in her mouth.

“To be like that girl. To feel like you're one hundred percent right and everyone else is wrong. To be willing to sacrifice yourself for a cause without ever questioning whether it's really worth sacrificing yourself for.” He tilted his hand and let the cranberries fall into a pile on his desktop. “Nothing ever seems that clear-cut to me.”

“I know,” she said. “To me, either.”

They chewed away in thoughtful silence and finished off the bag of cranberries before getting down to work.

IV

Kathleen settled on a cocktail-length, thin-strapped, body-hugging black dress for the fund-raising event that night. “Wow,” Kevin said when she slid into his car. “You look amazing.” He leaned over and kissed her hard on her open mouth. Lingered there a moment. He sat back and took a deep breath. “Maybe we should run upstairs. Think I could leave the car here?”

“Not without getting towed.” She pulled the seatbelt across her body.

He drove away from the curb with a good-natured sigh of acceptance. He glanced at her a couple of times as he drove along Wilshire. “You have truly beautiful breasts, you know that?”

“They do what they need to.”

“Except… something's missing.”

She looked down at herself. “One. Two. Same as always.”

“Dress like that needs a necklace. And I know where to get one.” And, with those words, Kevin Porter drove straight to Rodeo Drive and Tiffany & Co., where he bought Kathleen a beautiful and delicate necklace that was, admittedly, sterling silver and not diamond-encrusted, but still cost several hundred dollars and was, for a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, a touching gesture.

Kathleen was pleased. The only tiny-minuscule really-jarring note for her was that Kevin had chosen to take her to Tiffany, which was where Jackson Porter bought all the gifts for his mistresses. The man actually kept a cache of filled small blue boxes in a locked drawer in his office for ready access.

And that nagged at her. Surely there were other decent jewelry stores in Los Angeles.

When they arrived at the fund-raiser-held in the biggest ballroom Kathleen had ever seen, in one of the swankiest hotels in Beverly Hills-Kevin led her to where his family stood in a knot. They all said hello and then ignored her.

Which left Kathleen free to sip some decent champagne and absorb everything that was going on around her. She and Kevin were among the youngest people at the event. No surprise there, since the honoree that evening was Jackson Porter, who was nearing seventy, and most of the guests were his contemporaries. Besides, a single ticket cost five hundred dollars, and a table went for five thousand, and Kathleen couldn't think of a lot of people her age who could afford to spring for something like that, even for a good cause.

Assuming tonight's charity was one, of course. She still didn't know what it was. The signs that hung around the room all read, “In a Parallel Universe…” which didn't enlighten her at all.

Kevin's two sisters-in-law were gorgeously turned out that evening, one in Armani black, the other in Prada crimson. Their dresses were almost severe in their simplicity, but tailored and draped beautifully, and the extravagance of the jewelry they wore complemented the spare lines of their dresses. In the past, Kathleen had thought both women were too thin-scrawny, really-but tonight their evening finery made the prominence of their bones seem elegant rather than sickly.

While she was standing there, she heard the sister-in-law in black say to the sister-in-law in red, “You are so brave to wear that color. You know-this year, when no one else is.”

The other narrowed her eyes and said, “Oh, I just grabbed what I could. The kids don't give me a second to get ready. I’m sure you'll understand someday. I mean, I hope so.” From this, Kathleen inferred the one in black was having fertility problems.

Kevin's brothers greeted him with pleasant enough claps on the shoulder and then immediately took their father aside and started whispering to him, freezing Kevin out of the discussion. Kevin just smiled affably at their backs and made some comment to his mother about the turnout. She dipped her head an inch-a nod of agreement, Kathleen assumed. That done, Caro Porter retreated back to silence, smiling vaguely at some distant object while she clutched her champagne glass to her chest with one bony hand.

The fog in her dull blue eyes and her halting speech hinted at artificial sedation. Kathleen, who waved goodbye to Jackson Porter every day as he strode out of the office at noon, reeking of cologne and often tucking one of those small blue boxes into his breast pocket, had nothing but sympathy for Caro's choice to reject clarity.

After an hour or so of this standing around and drinking, someone flashed the lights in the room. None of the guests paid any attention to it. The lights flashed again. This time, there was a subde murmur throughout the crowd-which then went back to talking and drinking. A waiter refilled Kathleen's glass.

Then someone-hotel staff, Kathleen assumed-called out a personal appeal for people to move toward the dining room. He was ignored, but a little while after that a guest with a booming voice called out that they were already way behind schedule and wouldn't be out before midnight at this rate, and the threat of that finally got people moving.

When they reached their table, Kevin and Kathleen sat down, but Kevin's brothers waited, standing, until their father joined them, and then they maneuvered him into a seat between the two of them. Caro sat down on Kathleen's empty side and the two wives sat next to their husbands. Wine was poured and Caro raised her glass.

“To the poor children,” she said wearily, and they all drank.

Kathleen thought Caro meant her own kids for a second, and then realized that she was referring to the recipients of that evening's fund-raising efforts.

Kathleen had been to many social events in her life, but never one that reeked of wealth the way this one did. There were at least three waiters to every table and they were always hovering, refilling glasses and clearing and bringing plates. The room was decorated with wreaths of flowers and candles that cast a flattering warm glow and made the ropes of jewels on the women all around her sparkle brightly.

Cinderella was at the ball.