Page 24 of The Weekend Crashers
Maggie and Piper share a little smile. She starts to take notes on the pad of paper set in front of her. She exhales, finally feeling the closeness to Piper she’d been aching for all day. Longer than a day. It’s actually been a while since she felt connected to Piper, and it hurts. Their relationship hasn’t been the same since Piper moved in with Ethan. Maggie knows it’s a normal progression, one that every parent goes through. But it’s always been just the two of them.
She’s thankful they have knitting to bring them together.
Maggie hadn’t learned to knit until after Piper was born. It began as a source of stress relief and quickly became an integral part of her life and happiness. She was determined to expose Piper to the craft as early as possible, and as soon as she was old enough to grasp the basics, Maggie sat her down and taught her.
But Piper’s intolerance for her own mistakes made knitting a source of frustration, not joy. She’d known going in that Piper had a bit of a perfectionist streak—a stubborn trait from Maggie’s own mother that had apparently skipped a generation. Maggie tried and tried to cajole Piper into sticking with it, but with no luck. When she shared her frustration with Elaine, who is also a knitter, she said, “Just tell Piper there’s no such thing as mistakes in knitting. With children, so much is how it’s presented to them.” Maggie gave it a try, but her smart little girl just rolled her eyes. But Elaine’s words stuckwith her. It was true: many knitting “mistakes” are actually just advanced stitches that the beginner accidentally stumbles into—like a yarnover. A yarnover is a way to create an extra loop on the needle, resulting in a deliberate hole or “eyelet” in the fabric. Beginning knitters can accidentally create a yarnover when they unintentionally wrap the yarn around the needle in a way that adds an extra stitch. So instead of telling Piper that a knitting “mistake” was often a technique she just didn’t need yet, sheshowedher. And it changed everything.
“I signed us up for the brioche class after this,” Maggie whispers to her.
Piper shakes her head. “Ooh, can’t. I’m taking intro to crochet.”
Crochet? She thought they’d already discussed this and agreed on other knitting workshops.This is because of Hannah Elise.Of course, it’s fine that Piper made a new friend—it’s great. But the weekend is supposed to betheirbonding time.
“Mixing and matching yarns can improve the way your fibers perform,” Belinda says. “For example, since mohair can be heavy and drapey, you can add wool to stabilize it. And weaving in some silk controls the fuzz.”
Maggie jots down these notes, then turns to Piper.
“I thought the whole point of the weekend is to spend time together.”
“Mom, of course,” Piper says. “We’ll just meet up after. It’s not like we have to be together every minute, right?”
Maggie doesn’t answer.
Her mother is really beinga lot. Piperalmost feels guilty enough to change her mind about taking the crochet class, but ultimately doesn’t give in to it.
After Belinda’s workshop, Piper makes her way back to thePurl, where Hannah Elise is teaching intro to crochet. The space is arranged slightly differently than earlier, with a large round table now dominating one side of the room, an island surrounded by the colorful yarn displays. The space is bright and toasty from sunshine streaming in through the large windows.
Piper takes a seat at one of the spots set with a crochet hook and a skein of an acrylic wool blend. Kalli and Laurel join her at the table, and she detects a tension between them that she didn’t notice earlier.
Or maybe she’s just projecting because she herself is tense.
“Welcome, everyone,” Hannah Elise says, standing in front of the room. She’s dressed in head-to-toe crochet, including a cream-colored crop top with bell sleeves and intricate floral motifs in orange and teal. She’s paired it with high-waisted pants with a whimsical, tasseled drawstring that matches the orange and teal of the top. “Like many of you, I came to crochet as a second love, after knitting. Crafters often message me asking which is better, and the simple answer is that it depends on the individual. But personally, as someone who’s become partial to crochet, I can tell you there’re a few advantages—especially for beginners.”
Piper’s phone buzzes with a text. It’s from Ethan: the cat-with-heart-eyes emoji. She smiles. They always use that cat emoji as shorthand forI love youbecause of the way they met. She feels a little guilty for finding that guy Cole attractive. It wasn’t that she was attracted to him—she just couldn’t help but note the obvious. Piper had absolutely no reservations when it came to her commitment to Ethan. She hadn’t been with any other guys since the day she and Ethan met, and she’d never wanted to. Maybe it was less than ideal to find her Person so early in life; she was missing out on all the drama her friends were going through, both good and bad. But people spenttheir entire lives looking for the sort of connection—physical, emotional, spiritual—that she has with Ethan. But maybe Ethan is having doubts because their relationship timeline is more advanced than that of their friends.
“It’s easier to correct mistakes in crochet because you can usually unravel a few stitches and redo them versus unraveling entire rows in knitting,” Hannah Elise says, and Piper wonders what her mother would think of that. There was never a knitting mistake that Maggie couldn’t tackle. She loves finding creative ways to save an errant stitch. Piper prefers to just rip out rows quickly and get the suffering over with. That’s a major difference between the two of them: Maggie doesn’t mind messiness. She goes with the flow—except when it comes to Ethan.
Piper knows that her mother thinks she’s too young to be in such a serious relationship. She’d only said so once, and after Piper’s resounding rejection of the idea, she never brought it up again. At least, not overtly. But Piper continues to feel her disapproval. Her mother, usually so warm and bubbly and open, is just not herself around Ethan. It’s frustrating sometimes, but Piper understands that Maggie’s simply afraid she’ll make the same mistake she made. Of course, Maggie would never put it like that. She’d always insisted that having Piper young was the best thing that ever happened to her. But Piper can tell Maggie wants something different for her.
“As you get more experienced, crochet is faster because it only involves one active loop at a time. And because I like to make things that are structured, like bags and jackets, crochet fabric tends to be denser and more stable. But again, this is about you discovering your unique relationship with crochet.”
Hannah Elise talks through the instructions for what she calls a single change, and Piper follows along with her hookand yarn. She pushes down the negative thoughts about her mother, like a tough piece of meat she can barely swallow. She waits for the magic of crafting to kick in, making everything else recede.
And soon, it does.
Chapter Fourteen
Maggie is impatient to reunite with Piper, and while she waits she changes into black corduroy pants and a black cashmere turtleneck for the welcome dinner. Then she heads downstairs for a glass of wine.
Bucks Tavern has a warm, intimate vibe. Rustic wooden tables are set with handmade pottery. There are thick timber beams overhead and windows looking out to the river. The crowd seems to be a mix of locals and out-of-towners. There’s a lot of flannel and all-weather footwear.
The horseshoe-shaped bar is dark wood with an inner bank of shelves displaying glass bottles filled with aged whiskey and gin and colorful liqueurs. Two bartenders buzz around shaking cocktail mixers.
Maggie’s lucky to find an empty seat in the center facing the river. It’s a lovely spot, one she should enjoy. But she hears her mother’s voice in her head, saying:A lady never drinks alone.It makes absolutely no sense on any level, but every time Maggie sits alone at a bar or at a table for one, she feels like a failure. And considering her track record with men, that’s fairly often.
But tonight, men are the last thing on her mind. She’s hurt over how readily Piper keeps choosing to spend time apart this weekend. Fine, she wanted to take crochet. But the classended an hour ago, and Piper’s still hanging out with Hannah Elise; she texted her to say they were doing knitting videos for social media, that she’d meet her at dinner. Maggie knows, on a practical level, she shouldn’t take it personally. But she can’t help feeling rejected. And, she has to admit, also a little scared.
The conversation with Ethan yesterday has left her a bit unmoored. She doesn’t know if he’s going to heed her advice and wait to propose or if he’s going to ignore her. These next few years are Piper’s chance to establish a career that’s interesting and rewarding. While Maggie’s grateful for the steady paycheck Elaine’s store has provided for her, she can’t help but want something more for Piper. People in their twenties simply don’t realize how their decisions will reverberate for decades to come.
