Page 50 of The Weekend Crashers
The doors to the Purl open and Laurel bursts into the hall, her face flushed and her fingers tapping furiously on her phone. She barely looks up in her rush towards the lobby.
“Piper, try to just enjoy the weekend. I’m glad you have some space to think about the whole Gretchen thing, away from the city. Don’t let her pressure you.”
He’s right. Still, she thinks it was strange for him to suggest she talk to Maggie. Typically, she gets the sense that he wishes she and mom had more boundaries, not less. But, heading back inside the Purl, she pushes aside her unsettled feelings. Instead, she thinks of something positive: Cole’s potentially brilliant parent trap idea.
Belinda finds Laurel on the front porch alone. She’s sipping from a Bucks Tavern takeout coffee cup and staring out at the direction of Main Street.
There’s a moment in almost every retreat where Belinda goes from teacher to den mother. Sometimes it happens on day one. Sometimes there are tears at the farewell breakfast. This weekend, it’s the brioche workshop.
“I heard reports of a runaway knitter,” Belinda says, sitting in the wicker chair beside her.
“Sorry for walking out like that.”
“No need to apologize. I just want you to know I’m here if you need anything.”
Laurel fixes her gray eyes on her and sighs.
“You ever care about somebody so much, but at the same time want to strangle them?”
“Of course. I’ve been married over thirty years.”
Laurel gives her a half smile. “Okay. Well, I brought Kalli here this weekend to cheer her up. To support her during a rough time. And it backfired.”
Belinda frowns. That’s not what she wants to hear.
“She isn’t enjoying herself?”
Laurel stays silent for a minute, then says, “She’s enjoying herself a littletoomuch.”
Well, that’s a new one. Belinda’s there to listen, not talk, so that’s what she does. But Laurel doesn’t offer anything further. The front door opens and a few of the younger men from the bachelor party head out to the parking area. When the brioche class ended, Aidan Danby invited her to join them for the next activity in the bushcraft-knitting challenge: axe-throwing. She doesn’t have time, but the fact that they’ve constructed this little competition amuses her to no end. Normally, she’d rush to tell Max all about it and together they’d “unpack it,” as the kids say today. But she knows all he wants to hear from her is yes, take the offer. And she can’t say that right now. Not until the weekend is over. She’s giving herself two more days to pretend she has any real argument to make for turning down that kind of money.
Now that she’s thinking of it, the bushcraft competition seems to be what set Laurel off.
“I know the outdoors stuff with the bachelor party might be an unwelcome diversion to you, but maybe it will be fun. Maybe it’s what Kalli needs right now too.”
Belinda’s phone buzzes with a message from the staffer at the front desk, but she ignores it. Let him bother Max.
“Kalli isn’t makingnewfriends,” Laurel says. “She already knows Cole Danby.”
Belinda is confused. She saw Piper introduce Cole to Kalli, and the interaction was that of strangers. As if reading her mind, Laurel says, “Yeah, that whole ‘nice to meet you’ thing was an act.”
She proceeds to tell her that Kalli had been married to her high school boyfriend for two years when she met Cole Danby and fell madly in love. She tried breaking things off, but it was too late for her marriage. She couldn’t go back. Then, when she finally filed for divorce and reached out to Cole, he shut her down. Said he’d been too heartbroken by the whole thing to go back and try again, leaving Kalli completely heartbroken. And so: the knitting retreat.
“I see,” Belinda says. And she does: Laurel planned a trip to help Kalli get over a guy, and the guy shows up on the trip. Not good. “But Laurel, sometimes you just need to let people make mistakes. Even people you care about. There’s no way through life without a few stumbles, right? As friends, we just have to be there after the fall. And who knows? Maybe this is what she needs to get over the relationship once and for all.”
“You think?” Laurel says, looking a little more hopeful.
“Absolutely,” Belinda tells her. “A long weekend can work miracles.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
If someone had asked Maggie where she imagined herself on day two of the knitting retreat, her answer wouldn’t have been “Big Al’s Hatchet House.” But that’s exactly where she finds herself, along with Piper, Lexi, Sheila, and the entire bachelor party. Even Belinda decided to tag along.
“Someone’s gotta keep Barclay Cavanaugh honest,” she said.
The Hatchet House is a cavernous space inside an unassuming, farmhouse-style building a short drive from the inn. It’s set up with batting cage–like stalls outfitted with bull’s-eye targets. The rest of the space has wood-plank floors, a bar with beer on tap and a merch section selling Al’s Hatchet House baseball caps, T-shirts, beer mugs and shot glasses. There’s a viewing section with bleachers, and a giant American flag covers nearly an entire wall. Classic rock plays over the sound system: the Stones. Bruce. Bon Jovi.
The bachelors cluster together near the bar, and the knitters are looking at a display of vintage axes.
