Knit One, Girl Two Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, cats, roseate spoonbills, snakes, scorpions, conchs, or hermit crabs, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Knit One, Girl Two by Shira Glassman, edited by J.L. Douglas

  Small-batch independent yarn dyer Clara Ziegler is eager to brainstorm new color combinations--if only she could come up with ideas she likes as much as last time! When she sees Danielle Solomon's paintings of Florida wildlife by chance at a neighborhood gallery, she finds her source of inspiration. Outspoken, passionate, and complicated, Danielle herself soon proves even more captivating than her artwork...

  Cover art by Jane Dominguez

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright 2017 © Shira Glassman

  This book is protected under the copyrights laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Acknowledgements

  J.L. Douglas for editing

  Áine Noonan for proofing

  Jane, Shermi, and especially Caitlin for indie dyer technical help and ideas

  Ducky, Kat, and Kate for reading early drafts

  Erin and Mehek for beta-reading

  Ellie Blair and Lyssa Bowen for answering questions about the work side of art

  Marina for inspiration

  Ginger for guidance on Lyme Disease

  K.D. Lubeck and Xan West for guidance on trans and fat characters; all remaining errors mine

  Eliana for a second pair of eyes on kashrut

  Vee from GayYA for naming the nonbinary kid

  Greg for not killing me for using his name. We the musicians appreciate you.

  Erik, Eponine, and Johanna: If I cannot fly, let me sing!

  Roseate spoonbills for existing

  and

  Mehek Naresh again, for the sprint that got me off my writing drought

  Notes:

  According to the staff, the Museum of Discovery and Science no longer has a goliath grouper, so the “Jewfish” sign I remember from my adolescence is not there in real life.

  References to characters from my other contemporaries are intentional

  for Caitlin,

  who keeps the lights on.

  ❀

  Knit One, Girl Two

  ❀

  "So you're doing sock club again?" Jasmine Ziegler asked, making tinkly noises on her coffee cup with long electric-blue nails.

  "I really want to," said her older sister Clara, "but, like." She paused. "I'm afraid I used all my best ideas on the first go-round. All that time I was planning and practicing, I was also narrowing down my colors. Only the best made it in, and that means I…kinda used up my best."

  "No problem," said Jasmine. "Just means you have to start from scratch and come up with six more best ideas!"

  "Yeah, I know." Clara sipped her apple cider. "I think I'm suffering from the perfect being the enemy of the good, though. Like, my first round got such positive feedback so now I'm like, what if I can't do that again? I can't be less picky, but..."

  "I wonder if anyone's ever drawn that."

  "What?"

  "The perfect being the enemy of the good," said Jasmine. "Like superheroes."

  "Which one's the villain?" asked Clara.

  "Perfect," they agreed at the same time.

  "But he's not bad bad," Jasmine continued. "It could be like one of those ‘good guys fighting each other’ storylines the comics are always doing to get more attention."

  "Perfect never has a bad hair day." Clara squinted to count the stitches on her knitting needle.

  "Good's wearing socks that don't match, but he always holds the door open for little old ladies," Jasmine added enthusiastically.

  "Perfect's cat is toilet trained."

  Jasmine burst out laughing. "I'm writing this down. You could use it in the sock club."

  Just then, an older woman in a business suit stopped by their table. "I'm sorry, did you say sock club?" Clara nodded enthusiastically. "What's that?"

  "I dye yarn," Clara explained, "in my kitchen. I dyed this, actually!" She held up her project, which was light pink, varying shades of plum, and navy blue.

  "Ooh, very nice!"

  "Sock club is this thing a lot of indie dyers—sorry, independent, small-batch dyers—are doing where you pay a flat fee and every month or every other month you get a surprise yarn color."

  "My brother gave us something like that for Christmas last year, only it was gourmet food from around the world," said the stranger.

  "I've seen those," said Jasmine. She thwapped Clara's upper arm. "That's where I got so obsessed with dried goldenberries. From Dana's food thing. It was in the Peruvian themed box."

  "Basically like that," Clara agreed. "A lot of us also include little free treats with the yarn, like handmade soap, or stitch markers."

  "What a neat idea!" said the woman.

  "Are you interested?" Clara beamed, rummaging around in her purse for a business card.

  But by the time she had it out, the woman held up her hand. "Oh, no thanks, I don't knit. I don't have the patience." She smiled and continued past them out of the café.

  "If you had a dollar for every time you heard that," Jasmine remarked.

  "Out of all the things people say," said Clara, "that's the one I understand the least. I don't have the patience not to! I mean, I totally get it when people try it and don’t like it because their fingers won’t do the thing. But I'm already sitting here. I'm already watching TV. I'm already hanging out with people. Why shouldn't I have something in my hands taking shape while I'm doing it?"

  "They probably mean they don’t have the patience to start something that takes so long to finish,” Jasmine pointed out, “but don't look at me—I'm the girl who started from scratch and sewed an entire dress during a Star Wars marathon."

  "And you’ve been a legend for it since college." Clara grinned.

  "I bet you could do something like that, knit a pair of socks during Lord of the Rings, or something," Jasmine suggested. "To help get publicity for Sock Club Round Two."

  "Do I really need publicity at this point?" asked Clara. "I had twenty-five people in the first round."

  "You might be able to get it up to fifty! Especially since you've got the pictures from last time now."

  "I don't know if I could handle fifty," said Clara. "And in any case, I need ideas first."

  ❀

  Daydreaming about color combinations was never far from Clara's brain over the next few days. During her commute she watched the dance of the other cars on the road — lots of reds, grays, black, golds, silvers—constantly shifting and shimmering. In the box office, and in the theater's hallway just outside, she studied the posters and cast photos for shows gone by. A riot of colors to rival any art supply store gave her every combination possible, but they didn't really work as sock yarn.

  I bet if I did one themed on musicals, she mused to herself, the theater nerds would snap it up. But would they look any good?

  It was one thing in theory, but producing an attractive sock was the goal at the end of the day, not just 'sounding cool.' Some of the most iconic and memorable musicals had posters that wouldn't produce stand-out socks, once you teased out their basic color scheme.

  She was thinking particularly of Les Miz.

  "I don't have any more seats together in the first ten rows," she said apologetically to her customer as she forced her brain out of the dye-pot. "I could either put you one behind the other in rows six and seven, or
together in row fourteen."

  Clara took her lunch break at two, giving the audience members on more conventional lunch schedules time to get back to their office jobs. "Taco truck?" she called to Nasreen as she slipped her purse strap over her shoulder.

  Her coworker shook her head and waved a plastic container at her. "Leftovers. Thanks, though! No, wait, can you bring me back a Gatorade?"

  "Any particular flavor?"

  "Anything but yellow."

  Clara stepped out into the harsh Florida sunshine, blinking a couple of times as her eyes got used to not being in the office. It was slightly worse just outside the theater because the Intercoastal Waterway was right there, twinkling reflected sunlight.

  She had an hour. If she hurried, she had time to wander around the shops and galleries before she was due back at work. The more diverse images she provided for her hungry brain, the better the chances of inspiration.

  Clara obtained her pair of tacos from the man in the shiny green truck and ate them quickly by the riverside. Nearby, a saxophone player serenaded people sitting outside for a late lunch in one of the fancier restaurants in the area, and a boat full of tourists passed by, ready to gawk at the homes of the rich.

  She hopped up when she was done, in search of Nasreen's Gatorade. The first place she looked was the pizza parlor, but, as she had feared from Nasreen's instructions, all they had was lemon-lime. Glancing at her watch, she kept walking, figuring she had plenty of time.

  Clara headed into the area with shops and galleries, figuring a convenience store would pop up, well, conveniently!

  Instead, she found modern art, expensive shoes, a store devoted entirely to pet supplies that looked more well-made than half her wardrobe, and horribly garish handbags. Well, she definitely knew what she didn't want her next sock club to look like.

  She crossed to the next street. Oh, good, there was a bodega across the way. Just then, a beautiful nude sculpture caught her attention in the window of the gallery she was nearest.

  "I am so gay," she whispered to herself happily. It was just your ordinary classical nude, probably a Muse or something, but it was curvy and well-made and it put a smile on her face.

  But as she looked beyond the sculpture into the gallery itself, she found herself intrigued by the paintings she saw beyond. Their subjects weren't unusual for Ft. Lauderdale—mostly familiar Florida scenes. Vivid pinks and greens and gold contrasted with mild blues and greys, as coconut palms and roseate spoonbills interacted with sunset or stormy backgrounds.

  She moved from painting to painting, licking bits of cilantro out of her teeth but barely blinking. Here was a mango tree; there a plumeria in full bloom. Here more roseate spoonbills, their strange beaks instantly recognizable even if their pink feathers weren't already enough.

  It was something about the intensity level the artist had chosen, or maybe it was the way they'd combined their colors. Either way, whatever it was, Clara was hooked. This was it. This was the perfect theme for her next sock club.

  Images of promotional posts, featuring the most inspiring paintings, flashed into her mind. Maybe she could do some mini-interviews with the artist, about how they chose their scenes, or if they’d had any fun adventures while taking reference photos.

  It all, of course, depended on the person's consent! Maybe they'd be weirded out by the whole idea. Maybe they'd want too much of a cut to make it worthwhile—kettle-dying yarn in small batches was a lot of labor. Maybe they'd think it was too nerdy or too grandmotherly for their high-class image.

  Clara, however, was not the kind of person to let these thoughts stand in her way. "Excuse me — whose paintings are these?" she asked the gallery attendant.

  "Right now we're displaying Danielle Solomon, and the statue in the window is by Xavier Jurado. Do you need me to spell that?"

  "No thanks, I was just interested in the paintings. Would I be able to get in touch with Ms. Solomon online?"

  "She does have a website," said the attendant, "but she's authorized us to handle all sales."

  "It's..." Clara geared up for the impending awkwardness. "It's not so much about sales. I was interested in a... sort of a collaboration..." She took her unfinished sock out of her purse and then handed him a business card. "I dye yarn."

  "Yarn?"

  "Small-batch luxury hand-dyes. Merino, usually. Or merino-nylon, or merino-nylon-cashmere..." She realized she was tiptoeing the 'crank' line and dialed it back. "I'm interested in making these paintings the inspiration for my next—uh, my next yarn line." There, that sounded more like fashion and she wouldn't have to explain sock clubs to someone who was clearly skeptical of her right to claim artistic talent.

  "Well, I'll leave this for her and she can get in touch with you if she's interested." His tone was dismissive as he placed Clara's business card on his desk.

  "Thank you," said Clara, smiling through her total lack of optimism.

  Oh, well, she thought as she left the gallery and hurried across the street for the Gatorade. If inspiration could come that strongly, it was still out there somewhere else, right?

  ❀

  Clara flipped the switch on her crock-pot and settled into her squishy sofa with her laptop. She had three hours before Jasmine got home from OasisLand, so hopefully the cookbook wasn't lying about this recipe’s prep time. Crock-pots still seemed vaguely magical to her.

  The Phantom jumped up beside her and aggressively headbutted her thigh. "Sorry, we don't have any more front-row seats," she said in what Jasmine called her "Creepy Cat Mom" voice while mock-nombling his head. He tried again to push her laptop out of the way. "Oh, my God."

  They eventually compromised, with the laptop on one leg and the cat on the other, his paws folded under his head as if he were contemplating deep things.

  She pulled up the Captain Werewolf page on a fanfiction site to check for new uploads and quickly got engrossed in a story where he and his team saved all the Deco buildings on South Beach from sea monsters. Breezing through the adventure, she soon clicked the link for Chapter Four, only to get an error message. Sure enough, the site's Twitter account verified that they were having a momentary hiccup. "Yaaaay, just when I get home." The Phantom looked up at her with alarm at the outburst, then resumed his pose of maximum chill.

  They said they expected to be back online any minute, so she opened another tab and found herself searching the artist from the gallery showing. Danielle Solomon wasn't too hard to find, and her website was slick and professional. Clara recognized the same Florida brightness in the pictures online, though except for one coconut palm they looked like different ones from the ones she'd seen earlier.

  She clicked 'About' while narrowly missing closing the tab entirely, thanks to The Phantom demanding scritches by inserting his forehead where he clearly thought it belonged.

  The page started with an artist's statement. Everyone is out there trying to get likes these days. My art is me clicking Like on G-d's Instagram. I'm filled with enthusiasm for my subjects, and it overflows beyond my body into my paintings and sketches. That being said, I believe in craft as much as self-expression, and strive to accurately reproduce the beauties of the world as I perceive them.

  Clara's eyes glazed over the where-she-went-to-school parts and landed on the photo at the bottom, beside a digital reproduction of Danielle Solomon's swoopy illegible signature.

  She was momentarily shocked by how attractive she looked— whatever Clara had expected wasn't this curvaceous brunette beauty. Between Danielle Solomon's zaftig figure, flowy shirt, and the gentle way her black curls cascaded around her face, she seemed to Clara an ideal from an earlier age. Surely she'd seen people going for that look in various theater productions.

  The effect was enhanced by the thoughtful romance of Danielle's expression, not smiling but not unhappy.

  She looked, Clara decided, like a Jewish Snow White. With a treyf apple, she joked to herself as she closed the tab, self-conscious about the awkwardness of her sudden react
ion.

  Danielle Solomon: very cute, very talented, and probably in very different circles from little nobody Clara Ziegler. Danielle was someone people Had Heard Of; she was in a gallery in a street where Clara could only afford Gatorade, and the people who had money enough to buy her paintings were those who kept the lights on in the theater, not sold the tickets. Clara figured she could always try to scavenge more about her as a person instead of professionally on Facebook, but there was such a thing as being a creeper.

  Clara retrieved her current sock project and maximized the tab in which she'd been watching Captain Werewolf. It didn't take long to completely absorb her attention—in her own way, of course. She found herself staring down every interesting camera shot for potential color combinations, as usual.