The Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches (10 page)

 

I get to The Pews early Saturday morning so I can go to my office and pack all of my baseball caps in the small duffel bag I have. I'm not wearing any of the caps because I have used some mousse on my hair this morning, and I don't want my hair to get flattened under a cap. These caps might be the stuff that champions are made of, but they don't send out the kind of message I need to send if I'm going to get more dates before next Thursday.

I probably won't be able to write in the journal while the baseball game is going on, but I'll do what I can to let you know what is happening. And I can certainly check my e-mail to see if Carly has an update on her cat.

Oh, yes, here's an e-mail from Carly: Tuna gone. All four cans. At least Marie isn't hungry. She's still up in the tree, though. I saw her this morning. She moved to one of the trees inside the fence. I guess that's because that's where I put the tuna. Randy says we should go to the baseball game with all of you—he says Marie is playing hard to get, and she'll come down quicker if we ignore her a little. Anyway, Randy and I will both be at the game. See you then. Oh—I just reread this and I know what
you're thinking, but you'd be wrong. Randy did go home last night. He just came back early this morning. Marilee, you really need to date this guy. He's nice.

Now that I've added Carly's e-mail for you, I have to tell you my reponse is “No comment.” Randy might be nice, but he's clearly interested in Carly and her cat. Don't you think? Not that it matters, I hear Quinn talking to Uncle Lou out front so I'd better put my pen away and go out there.

 

Okay, I'm back—now we're up at the park in Altadena. It's a great park next to the foothills, and there are lots of kids here. White kids. Blacks. Hispanics. Armenians. Asians. The whole melting pot, and they're all ready to play ball. The reason I have a few minutes to write in the journal is because our team is up to bat and I won't be going up for some time. I wouldn't bother to write at a time like this normally, but I have to tell someone how I am feeling, and you're it. I particularly don't want to let Lizabett see that I am upset.

Lizabett is on my team, by the way, and she's getting ready to go up to bat after two more players go. You should see Lizabett this morning—she's bouncy and happy because Quinn told her that my dad was going to see if the car dealership where he works will let her ballet company use their showroom for the production of
Swan Lake.

I've had to watch my face because Lizabett keeps smiling over at me as if we have a wonderful secret. I'm afraid the secrets go deeper than she knows. I feel as though I have one of my own and I can't tell her. You see, my dad didn't show up this morning for the baseball game. He didn't call me or Quinn or Uncle Lou and tell us he wasn't coming to The Pews to meet us to ride to the game; he just didn't show. We waited around for twenty minutes for him, but then we had to leave. Quinn told Uncle Lou where the park was so my father could drive up when he got to the diner.

Oh, we handled it well. Uncle Lou said my dad had probably gotten caught in some weekend traffic. I said he might have had car trouble. We all smiled and agreed something unforeseen must have come up.

Inside I knew better. I'm in on the secret. My dad didn't come because he's doing what he always does—he's flaking out. He's busy making commitments he won't keep and promises he'll ignore. It's as if he thinks that if a commitment isn't important to him, it's not important to anyone else, either.

That's why I'm finding it so hard to return Lizabett's smiles. She's all happy because she thinks my father has solved her problem; I'm the only one who knows her problems are just what they always were. My dad won't do what he said he would do. Lizabett is no closer to having a place for her ballet performance than she was yesterday when she first heard
the old theater was closed. In fact, she might be further away than she was yesterday, because she's wasting time today thinking she has a solution when she could be out there looking for another place.

You see why I'm so upset? I don't want Lizabett to be disappointed, and I particularly don't want it to be my father who disappoints her. I'm used to the way my father operates, but Lizabett is not. She expects my dad to be like Quinn and, let's face it, Quinn would move mountains with his bare hands to make Lizabett happy. My dad is not like that. He's not even close.

Well, you get the idea. I'm glad I can write my thoughts down in this journal.

Oh, there's Lizabett now, and she's up to bat. She doesn't look much bigger than some of the kids here, but she does know how to swing a bat. See there, she's got it and she's off to first base.

Quinn is walking over here now, so I'm going to close for a bit. He's the assistant to the assistant coach for the other team, and he's coming over to get some more bottles of water. It would bother some guys to be the assistant to the assistant, but Quinn looks perfectly happy to just be the guy who gets everyone their water. He's looking at me now, and I can see he's going to stop and say hi before he picks up the water bottles that he needs.

You know, with the sun shining behind Quinn's head as it is right now, I'd say he's even better-look
ing than the grill guy. Don't tell the others that I said that or they'll be after me to get some more dates out of him before next Thursday, and I have to tell you I'm losing my drive to date Quinn like that—not that I don't want to go out with him, but I don't want to do it just to finish up some goals. A guy like Quinn deserves better than that. Of course, I'm making major assumptions here. He might not want to really date me at all, especially not when my father completely lets Lizabett down.

Yeah, that could be a problem all right. I wonder if Uncle Lou knows anyone who has enough room for a production of
Swan Lake.
He knows all the restaurant people along the boulevard—maybe one of them will have room enough. I can hope, at least, can't I?

Oh, here's Quinn. Gotta go.

W
e had one Sisterhood meeting that first year when we didn't knit. It was the meeting after Lizabett had surgery on her leg. We had all braced ourselves for the surgery, knowing Lizabett was so frail she could die from the surgery alone. We were pulling for her so hard that we didn't know what to do when the doctors said they'd have to do a second surgery.

Lizabett had already taken chemotherapy to reduce the size of her tumor before the first operation, so she was in bad shape. I didn't think she looked strong enough to live through another surgery. All of the Sisterhood felt that way, except for
Lizabett. The Old Mother Hen had told her she'd be fine, and she believed him. She wasn't afraid.

That's why Becca brought the rest of us this acting quote. Lizabett was in the hospital that week, and so wasn't with us at our meeting. We knew we needed to hide our worries from her when we went to visit her just like The Old Mother Hen hid his. I soon discovered that some of the best acting never makes it onto the movie screen. Instead, it's played out next to hospital beds all across the country.

 

My baseball caps are popular with the kids. The Los Angeles Dodgers. The Toronto Blue Jays. The Cincinnati Reds. I have all their caps and more sitting on a folding table with the brims all facing upward. The table looks like it has dozens of colorful bumps on it.

The kids all crowded around the table earlier until it was time for them to put on their T-shirts—one team was blue and one was red. Then they hit the field. I was on a team, but, when my team was up to bat, I sat on a bench by the table holding my caps and watching the game.

The game was almost over when the little girl came up to me and asked me where I got all the caps. I noticed this girl earlier, although she hadn't gathered around the table like the other kids had then. Instead, she'd spent the time before the game walking beside Quinn and talking to him as he pulled
the cart of water bottles back and forth to where the teams would be sitting. The little girl was Hispanic and looked as though she was seven or eight years old.

“What's your name?” I ask the girl as I put my hand on her shoulder.

She leans into me as if she was starved for affection. “Lupe.”

“Well, Lupe,” I say as I bend down to put my arm around her shoulders, “my dad gave me these caps.”

Her eyes grow serious. “My dad doesn't give me any caps. He's in prison.”

I squeeze her shoulder. “That's too bad.”

“I wish he wasn't in prison,” she says. “My mom misses him.”

“I'm sure she does.” I wonder if my mom ever misses my dad. I suppose she does sometimes.

“I miss him, too,” Lupe says.

I nod. I don't tell her that sometimes a dad doesn't need to be in prison for his daughter to miss him.

Instead, I give Lupe my Baltimore Orioles cap. I noticed her looking at that one in particular, and she admitted she liked the bird on the cap. She said she likes birds because they can fly away when they want and no one can ever keep them in a prison—I decided not to tell her about cages.

After I give Lupe her cap, she runs to show it to Quinn.

That just happened a minute ago, so I now have
a few minutes to write in this journal. Usually I just note things here and there, but my conversation with Lupe has struck a few chords with me. If I'm not careful, I'll write a whole editorial right here and now about how much daughters need to have their fathers around.

If you could have seen the longing on Lupe's face, I wouldn't even need to write a word for you to agree with me. She likes the cap I gave to her, but, even that does not make her eyes sparkle with complete joy. Talking about her dad has made her lonely.

Thinking about my dad has made me feel lonely, too. Especially because I can look out over the baseball field here and see Lizabett with her smiling confidence in my father and Quinn, who really believes my father had car trouble this morning. It's as if they know a man who doesn't exist.

The way I have coped with my father during all the years since I got cancer is that I expect nothing from him. Zero. Nada. If I expect nothing, I am never disappointed. And, then, if he does come by the diner to see me, I can be pleased because it is something instead of nothing.

If he gives me a half hug instead of a full hug, I can be happy.

I'm not sure I can continue like this, though.

Something about writing this journal is making me less content with the way I used to handle things.
Maybe when I see it all written out in black and white, I see how very small our contact has been all along. Even prisoners are allowed some visits with their families. My dad could be in prison like Lupe's and spend more time with me than he does.

There's not much more to say to that, so I look up just in time to see Lizabett hit the ball. Wham—right over to the right field. And she's off and running to first base. I can hear Quinn cheering louder than anyone else. The game should be over in a few minutes, and then Quinn is planning to take me out for coffee.

I have already decided that I am not going to count coffee with Quinn or the walk in the dark to look for Carly's cat last night as dates toward my goal. It feels a little pressured and contrived to go out on dates just to meet a goal, and I want this thing with Quinn to be its own thing. If I'm going to date a guy just to meet a goal, I'd rather it be some stranger who isn't my friend.

Becca isn't going to understand this, of course. Maybe if I can find a place for Lizabett's ballet troupe to give their performance, Becca will forgive me. At least we will meet
that
goal. And there's nothing that says I can't get three dates yet. After all, I haven't really turned on my charm. Who knows what might happen?

Speaking of romance, here comes Carly now. She and Randy just got to the park, and Carly's walking
toward me looking as if she's lost her last friend. I see Randy walk over to the bench where Quinn's team is sitting.

Watching Carly walk toward me reminds me that I should tell you again what a beautiful day it is here. It is February and so the air is clear—we have enough Santa Ana winds to blow the smog away. The grass here in the park is that deep mature green that says the park is well-tended year-around. I think the grass was mowed this morning, as it still has that cut-grass smell.

“How's it going?” I ask Carly.

She plops herself down on the bench next to me. “Sorry we missed most of the game.”

“No problem. The blue team is ahead four to three.”

I notice Carly hasn't answered my question about how things are going. “Did your cat come down from the trees?”

“Almost,” Carly says. “Randy thinks we need to get one of those little boxes and put a can of tuna in it tonight—you know the boxes where a door slams down while the cat is inside and eating?”

“That might work.”

“I couldn't do that to my cat.” Carly turns to me with horror on her face. “No one should be boxed in.”

“But it would be for Marie's own good. So that she can go back inside where she'll be warm and safe.”

“I don't think Marie wants to go inside.” Carly says. She sounds forlorn. “Some things just aren't meant to be.”

“Well, your cat can't stay outside forever. What does Randy think?”

I see tears start to form in Carly's eyes. She blinks them back quickly. “What does Randy know?”

I don't like the look on Carly's face. She is clearly upset about something. “Did Randy say something to you that upset you?”

Carly smiles. Well, it's not a real smile, but it shows all her teeth, and I know she means it to be a smile.

“Because if Randy did say something,” I continue, “we don't have to hang around with him, you know—none of us do.”

It had never occurred to me in all of the years since I met Randy that he might be a mean person. Wouldn't that be something if I spent all that time back then whining about a missed date with an unpleasant guy?

“He's not mean,” Carly says. “He's actually a very nice guy.”

“Well, that's good,” I say.

My attention is taken away from Carly when I hear another cheer. Someone on the blue team hit the ball way out into right field. I stand up to shout and clap like everyone else is doing before I see that the player who hit the ball like that is Becca. “Go, Becca, go!”

As I stand up, the journal falls to the ground in front of our bench. Carly bends over to pick it up. “Mind if I write a little?”

“Be my guest,” I say, and decide Carly might like some time alone while she writes. “I'll go give Becca a hug.”

 

Hi, this is Carly. I have to talk to someone, and I can't tell anyone in the Sisterhood about this so I'm going to tell you. Once I write this down, I'm going to double-fold the pages back and clip them together somehow. Warning—if anyone in the Sisterhood has managed to read this far, you need to stop right now! No peeking.

And the rest of you who are reading this have to promise not to tell anyone else what I'm going to tell you now.

I don't know what to do. We don't have any rules in the Sisterhood about dating, but we should. No Sister should be allowed to date another Sister's boyfriend—or even potential boyfriend. It's just not right. Besides, I wouldn't hurt one of the Sisters for all of the dates in the world, and two women going after the same man is bound to hurt somebody big-time.

My problem is that Randy—Marilee's grill guy—asked me out. And not on a date like getting together for a cup of coffee or even a movie. Those kinds of dates might not really be dates at all. What Randy
invited me to do was to have dinner with him at The Dining Room in The Ritz-Carlton Hotel here in Pasadena. That's one of the most expensive restaurants in all of Pasadena. There's no mistaking that for anything but a date.

That place is my aunt's kind of place—elegant and dripping in crystal. It has entrées like sautéed monkfish and poached lobster with desserts like toasted meringue and lavender cream. I know because my aunt has bragged about eating there. It is a hundred dollars to eat there—per person.
Gourmet
magazine voted it one of the World's Best Hotel Dining Rooms.

My aunt would die if I went there on a date.

Of course, she can never even know it was an option. I'm not going to tell anyone about that invitation. I wish Randy had never asked me. I was having a good time with him, waiting for my cat to come down out of the tree. And then he had to spoil it all by asking me out.

You know I can't date Randy. He's Marilee's grill guy. She saw him first. She might even love him now that she's had a chance to get to know him again. I've noticed she has a dreamy look about her sometimes when she's writing in this journal and, when I see her like that, I wonder if she's writing about how nice the grill guy is even after all of these years.

Marilee deserves the grill guy. She's smart. And funny. And brave. I'm not going to stand in the way
of her happiness. Who am I kidding? A guy like Randy isn't for me anyway. I'll tell you why sometime, but for now I'll just say there are big reasons. So I told Randy he had to ask Marilee out and not me.

Ah, well. I hope my cat climbs down out of those trees soon. I have a feeling I'm going to need something to hug before this is all over. Randy hasn't talked to me since I suggested he ask Marilee out.

Sometimes life just doesn't work out the way anyone thinks it should.

I'm going to say goodbye now and fold these pages over so many times there will be no chance they'll ever be opened by mistake. I wonder if I can find a stapler somewhere.

I look out to the park, but all I see are dozens of kids milling around in their blue and red T-shirts. The ball game must be over. I wonder what the score is. I see Randy over there carrying water bottles with Quinn.

Randy doesn't look brokenhearted the way you would think a guy would look if a woman he was really interested in said she wouldn't go out with him. Not that I want him to break down in despair or anything, but it does seem a little cold to look quite so cheerful, don't you think? I'm not sure how I feel about that.

 

This is Marilee again. I'm glad to see Carly wrote her heart out again even if it is highly secretive—I had
to cross my heart and promise not to look at any of the pages no matter what. I don't know what the secrecy is for—I know she's still worried about her cat. I hope we find that beast before too much more time goes by. As I've said earlier, Carly tends to be a worrier, and I don't like to see all this tension on her face.

At least she went over to give Becca a congratulatory hug so she's not still sitting on the bench here bemoaning the fact that her cat won't come home.

I, of course, plan to sit here and bemoan entirely different things. My problem is I don't know what to do with myself now. Quinn had said he wanted to take me out for a cup of coffee after the game, but I'm not sure if he means to invite everyone else, too, so I don't want to go running over to Quinn looking as though I'm expecting something special. Because I'm not.

The number of people at the table can make a big difference in whether this is a date or not and I want to be cool about it all until I see if Quinn is collecting other people for coffee, as well. Right now, he's talking to Becca, so you never know.

You may know what to do in this situation and think I'm being silly, but I have been out of the dating game for years and I am just beginning to realize how complicated this whole dating thing is. There is something to be said for arranged marriages, although, believe me, I'm not saying we should go there. It's just that dating is so hazy it's sometimes
hard to know if one is out on a date or if one is just passing the time with a guy who thinks you're a buddy.