Knitting Under the Influence

murderers or anything like that. They want to keep animals from being tortured and killed. They're wrong, but they're not totally evil.”

“Being this stupid is totally evil,” he said. “It's worse than evil. Jesus, Lucy, I can't believe you would defend them.”

“I’m not defending them,” she said. “They're stupid assholes for targeting scientists doing valid experiments. But sometimes it takes stupid asshole extremists to get people to really think about what they're doing. When we sac rats it's legitimate, but I don't think cosmetics companies should just go and-”

“Oh, please,” he said. “Don't waste my time with that shit.”

“I know you're mad about the car-”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m fucking pissed.” He unlocked his front door and pulled it open. “I’m going to the police station. You can come with me or not. I don't care.”

“If you want the company-”

“I said I don't care.”

“Fine, then,” Lucy said. “Go by yourself.”

And he did.

Lucy spent the evening at home alone. Since they hadn't made it to dinner, she ate an apple and a small piece of cheese, just as happy not to have to face the calories of a full meal, then worked on a grant proposal for a while, but got bored with that after an hour or so and decided she wanted to do something more fun with her Sunday night than write about rat adrenal glands, so she took out her knitting and worked on it while she watched a soapy medical drama on TV.

After an hour or so, she tried the scarf around her neck and decided it was the right length. She bound off the end and held it up to look at it. It needed something more. Fringe. She searched through her leftover bits of yarn and found a deep blue that looked good with the metallic blue of the scarf. She cut it into short, even pieces and pulled several strands through the ends of the scarf about one half inch apart to make the fringe. She was so absorbed in what she was doing she didn't even notice that the TV channel she was watching had switched to showing a late-night rerun of an eighties sitcom she had never liked in the first place.

It took several rings before she realized it was her phone and not the TV set that was ringing.

She put the scarf down and reached for the phone.

“It's me,” said James.

“Hey,” she said. “How'd it go with the police?”

“Oh, you know. The usual. They took some photos and wrote up a report. Nothing will come of it. I went to the carwash and got most of the paint off.”

“That's good,” she said.

“I guess… So, listen, Luce, I’ve got some stuff to do tomorrow. And Tuesday I have this stupid thing down at Irvine and won't be back until late. Can I see you Wednesday night?”

“Yeah. Wednesday's good.”

“Great,” he said. “Sorry about losing my temper today.”

“It's okay,” she said. “You had every right to be in a bad mood.”

“Yeah, and you were saying some pretty stupid things. But it's okay. And by the way, I forgot to tell you I loved what we did earlier-too bad this had to ruin it. We'll try to keep the mood a little longer on Wednesday, okay? Maybe even make it to dinner? I’ll call you at the lab, or just come by.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there all day.” But he had already hung up.

She went back to her fringe, and in a fever of industry didn't stop until she had finished it all. She dampened and blocked the scarf and left it to dry on the ironing table. It was already after one when she crawled into bed.

The next morning she woke up with a delicious sense of possibility: she could start a new knitting project. Maybe she'd tackle something more intricate than a scarf this time. Before going into work, she spent an hour online looking through patterns and pictures, trying to find something that inspired her. Pretty soon she realized she was looking almost entirely at men's sweaters.

She and James had been going out for six months. She had never been so in love with a guy before, never felt her body leap to someone's touch the way it did at just the thought of James's hand on her.

It would be wonderful to see him in a sweater she had knit, to watch him walk out into the world wearing something that marked him as hers for everyone to see. If she started it now, she could have it done by Christmas.

Online again late that night, she found a design for an oversize man's cabled sweater in dark red. It was the kind of thing James tended to wear, anyway, only if she made it, she'd buy better yarn than he was used to-like a soft wool with a touch of silk or linen in it. It would be wildly expensive, but she didn't mind spending a lot on his Christmas present.

Later, though, it occurred to her that she probably shouldn't buy the wool in dark red. Another color might be… better.

V

Can you take on a new kid?” Ellen asked Sari first thing Tuesday morning. It wasn't really a question, since Ellen never accepted a refusal.

Sari looked up from the desk she shared on a first-come-first-served basis with several other clinicians. It was early and she was the only one there now, so it was all hers. “How many hours a week are we talking?”

“As many as you can give him.”

“Then there's no way,” Sari said. “I barely have enough time in the day for the workload I’ve got now.”

“Join the club,” Ellen said. “You want to call the parents and tell them you can't make time for their kid?”

“Am I allowed to mention that I work for a crazy zealot?”

Ellen laughed. “Come on, Sari. He's your kind of kid-melt-your-heart-cute with big Bambi eyes. Their first appointment's at ten this morning.”

“That's in less than an hour,” Sari said. “Seriously, Ellen-you said you needed Mary's progress report written up for her IEP this afternoon. I won't have time if I’ve got to-”

“You'll figure something out,” Ellen said. She tossed a file on the table in front of Sari.

“Who did the eval?”

“I did.”

“By yourself?” Sari raised her eyebrows. Ellen never had time to do the whole evaluation. She usually just came in at the end.

“Yes, all by myself. I taught you how to do them, if you remember.”

“You just don't, usually.”

“Well, they were desperate, so I squeezed them in late one night last week.” She pointed her finger at Sari. “You see? You can make more hours in the day, if you try hard enough.”

“We can't all be you,” Sari said.

“Mores the pity,” Ellen said with a wink and left.

And Sari sighed and opened the file, because Ellen-whose voice was too loud and who wore skirts that were too tight over torn black stockings and whose hair was too long and too red for someone over fifty-five-Ellen was her hero and her big sister and her best friend and the bane of her existence all rolled into one overwhelmingly dear package.

Sari had left home to get away from her parents and then somehow ended up working in a place where every woman she met reminded her of her mother. They weren't necessarily as pretty and well preserved as she was, but they all flickered with the same nervous terror.

Like the mother who had come in just the week before. The first thing she'd said when she walked in the door with her son was, “I wouldn't even be bringing him if his teacher hadn't made me. All this fuss and bother, just because he has a slight language delay.”