Knit One, Girl Two Page 3

  She shot over the email before she could chicken out. After she sent it, she realized she'd included more smilies than was probably normal.

  Danielle must have read it late at night after Clara already passed out, because she woke up to a two word email — omg, cute!

  That night when her next batch of test skeins were drip drying in front of the box fans she borrowed from the theater, she glanced at her email. Danielle had replied again—Have you seen this one? It's longish but worth it. Included was another fanfic link.

  Clara showed her appreciation by sending her tiny reaction emails as she progressed through the chapters.

  Thursday the email arrived with the papers Danielle's dad had prepared. "Can I swing by your work Friday morning and pick it up?"

  "Sure," Clara emailed back. "I'm at the performing arts center box office. If I'm not at the window when you come, just ask for me."

  She scanned the contract to make sure everything both women had agreed on was there. Good, they'd remembered the clause about Danielle not having veto power or any other kind of dramatic recourse if one of the colorways didn't knit up to her taste. Not that she expected the generous, encouraging woman to do that, but she'd seen enough drama in the yarn world to anticipate problems.

  At least I'm not faking my own death to get out of sending people their yarn, she mulled with dry amusement. "Help, I am too dead to dye," she murmured out loud, pouting that Jasmine wasn't home to hear that incredible free-range organic pun. Pity.

  She had bad luck with the fanfic browsing that night. One ran that risk when it was all free — not that published fiction wasn't its own kind of crapshoot — but she must have been clicking under a bad star. First she wasted time with one that went nowhere, and then two in a row wound up being racist. "I know it's free, but I would literally pay for a racism filter," she bellyached to Danielle in a quick email that made her feel better for having a place to send it.

  When Danielle stepped up to the box office window on Friday morning, Clara had to remind herself to breathe. She looked like the website photo again—a princess from a forgotten time, the heroine of an opera, an artist's muse. Is she my muse if my yarn colors come from her paintings, or does that make her my muse once-removed? Second muse? Muse-in-law? "Hi," Clara stuttered out loud, smiling a lot. "You look really nice."

  "Thanks—I'm dressed up for shul already," Danielle explained, waving one sleeve of her purple mock-Ren-fest blouse. "I hate laundry, and I don't teach today anyway so I might as well." She slid a paper under the ticket window. "Here. Sign over your immortal soul, Faust."

  Clara scanned the document briefly just so she wouldn't have to admit to her parents that she'd signed something without reading it first, but her mind was still skipping around like a preschooler on a sugar high. Step-muse?

  "Oh, and I brought you this." Danielle passed another piece of paper through the tray.

  It was a pencil drawing, hasty yet full of skill and motion. Captain Werewolf's sidekick Cinnamon Blade, a reformed cat burglar, had scaled the side of the office building where Soledad worked and was kissing her through an open window. "Holy shit," Clara exclaimed, unable to contain her sensation of her glowing heart.

  "Did that last night after I got your email," Danielle explained, tossing a lock of her long black hair out of her face. "You like it? Does the trick?" Dark dancing eyes scanned Clara's face.

  "This is everything I ever wanted out of fan art," Clara murmured.

  "I'm glad." Danielle looked satisfied, and leaned with both elbows on the box office counter. As she peered through the window at her handiwork, Clara got an eyeful of miraculous cleavage.

  "So, now that we've both signed this, I can start posting about it, right?" Clara passed the contract back through the window.

  Danielle nodded. "I'm totally stoked. I hope some of these people are local; maybe we can get them to take pictures with the stuff they make from the yarn, next to the painting."

  "That would be super cool!" Clara beamed.

  An older couple walked up behind Danielle, and she moved away from the window so Clara could get back to work. "See you later!"

  It was only after she'd helped the couple pick out their seats that she realized she didn't know if Danielle did, in fact, stay offline during Shabbat. She'd better post on Saturday night, then, just in case. So they could both be there to promote it.

  ❀

  Clara, high on the adrenaline of creativity, worked late into the night on Friday poking and prodding her online sales pitch. She took pictures of some of her sample yarn, arranged it with Danielle's paintings, and wrote and rewrote her ad copy until the word 'color' stopped making sense.

  Even her breaks were productive, feverishly knitting a disconnected ankle for a sock that would never exist so she'd have a picture of at least one of the colorways knitted up. She cycled through a number of Captain Werewolf fan-made music videos before switching to a cooking competition.

  She passed out some time around three in the morning and dreamt of Cinnamon Blade defeating villains with an eggbeater.

  Saturday was still a work day for her this week, so Clara doubled up on coffee and did the best she could. Luckily, she was still pumped up from how excited she was to launch her second ever sock club.

  Finally, the matinee performance was over; the evening crew came to relieve her, and she was on the road headed for home. Just a few more touches needed and the page would be live!

  After a quick dinner with Jasmine, she texted Danielle. I'm ready to post. Are you good?

  I'm ready to signal boost! Best of luck :) Danielle replied.

  Clara checked her handiwork one more time before calling to Jasmine, "Hey, can you count me down?"

  "Cla-ra, Cla-ra, Cla-ra," Jasmine chanted, punching the air with every syllable like a Dolphins fan.

  "Yay! Wait, that's not counting."

  "I was in Base Clara."

  "I'm in your base, killing your dudes," Clara retorted.

  "Old meme is old."

  Clara stuck out her tongue.

  "Fine. Three, two, one, press the stupid button."

  Clara dramatically clicked on her laptop. "And we have liftoff!"

  Five minutes later, she'd tweeted, Facebooked, and probably most importantly, Raveled about it.

  An email came in from Danielle. Looks great! I love how much work you put into this. I have complete confidence. Gonna go signal boost now.

  "Are you refreshing Ravelry every twenty seconds?" Jasmine smirked as she leaned against the fridge.

  "I'm not not refreshing Rav every twenty seconds." Clara grinned. Just then, her phone chirped. "Did I make a sale??"

  "Did you make a sale?" Jasmine echoed.

  "I made a sale!"

  Clara and Jasmine jumped up and down together. "Okay, holy shit, I'm tired."

  "How late were you up last night?" asked Jasmine.

  "...Yes."

  "Go to sleep."

  "But the thing."

  "Thing can thing in the morning." Jasmine started to lightly shove Clara by the shoulders out of the kitchen.

  "But what if there's a problem? Like if the site goes down and—"

  "And you need to be taking care of that while you're dead on your feet? They know you're just one woman in your kitchen, right?"

  "One woman and the world's greatest sister." The Phantom chose that moment to weave figure eights around both their ankles. "And her stupid tuxedo cat," Clara added.

  Jasmine was right. Clara was asleep ten seconds after her head hit the pillow, and this time she didn't remember her dreams.

  ❀

  She woke up Sunday morning with beautiful sunlight streaming in her window and the heaviness of an adult male cat on her chest. The third and final component of a glorious morning was the remembrance that when she turned on her phone, she'd see sales. At least, she hoped she'd see sales!

  ...three hundred and five????

  She put the phone down and took a moment. Was she st
ill dreaming? Had she read it wrong? No, because "30.5" wouldn't make any sense. She hadn't set it up where anyone could do "half" the sock club. Wait, was that 305 like the Miami area code?

  No. It was real. There were really that many notifications in the shopping cart app.

  What the shit...?

  Clara nearly crashed into Jasmine on her way into the bathroom. "Sorry, I..."

  "You look confused. Toilet's that way. Close to the floor, looks like a really small bathtub."

  "Very funny."

  "What's going on?" Jasmine called from the other side of the bathroom door. “That's not your happy face. No sales?"

  "...Oh, I had sales!" Clara replied from the toilet. "I had over three hundred sales!"

  "What!?" Jasmine's squeal was ear-piercing. "That's amazing! I'm so happy for you!"

  "Wait," Clara countered. "That's way more than I can handle. What do I do?"

  "Who gives a shit? Doesn't this mean you have, like, five figures you didn't have yesterday?"

  At this, Clara was stunned again. All she'd been thinking about was the extra work. Now visions of simple luxuries began to hatch from their shells —Turkish Delight with pistachios, that really nice set of interchangeable needles, maybe tickets to something on Actual Broadway.

  "I might have to file quarterly taxes," she realized out loud.

  "What happened?" Jasmine asked.

  Clara emerged from the bathroom. "I don't know yet. I haven't checked Twitter or anything. Maybe someone told the Yarn Harlot or Franklin Habit."

  "On the first night of the ad? I mean, yeah, I guess it's possible. Oh, by the way, we're meeting Mom and Dad and Zayde for linner."

  "Okay. At their house?"

  "Yeah. She's making salmon."

  "That's perfect, because I already feel like I'm swimming upstream."

  "Deep, man." Jasmine snapped her fingers with mock-beatnik sincerity, then left Clara to herself on the sofa.

  Clara stared at her phone. She wanted to call Danielle, but she didn't want to sound disappointed about her terrifying good news.

  She dialed the call before she chickened out.

  "Hello?" Danielle's voice was husky—almost unnaturally so.

  "Hey, good morning!"

  "How are you?" Her voice cracked.

  "Wait, sorry, did I wake you up?"

  "No, I—no, you're fine. Excuse me one second?"

  Clara waited patiently until the sound of rustling and sniffling had cleared. She hoped Danielle hadn't come down sick.

  "Okay, I'm back. So how did we do?"

  "Well, we kind of... broke the house. When I woke up, it was at three hundred and five sales."

  "Wow, Clara, that's terrific!" Now Danielle's voice sounded like the sun had burned off the haze after a morning of bad weather. "Oh, that's so great. Such good news."

  "Oh, it's terrific, but I'm scared to death!" Clara ran her fingers through her hair. "I only had twenty-five last time. I never thought I'd have more than fifty, maybe seventy-five. It didn't even occur to me to put a limit on signups. I never imagined—"

  "I'm sorry," said Danielle. "I think this might be my fault, indirectly, anyway."

  "What do you mean?"

  "My uncle retweeted your post."

  "Your uncle?"

  "Snowplow Solomon," said Danielle. "The comedian?"

  "Snowplow Solomon is your uncle??"

  "You scared the cat!" Jasmine groused from another room.

  "Snowplow Solomon as in, everybody's Meme Grandpa?" Clara was in shock.

  "Yep, that's my Uncle Dave." Danielle seemed to be taking Clara's reaction in stride.

  "Okay, no wonder my shopping cart is blowing up. Okay. Okay, I can do this. Okay."

  "We've got this. Breathe." Danielle's voice was commanding, reassuring, a solid wall of feminine strength. "You can close sales now, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "Can you get more blank yarn?"

  "Oh, I can get more yarn," Clara reassured her. "It's just about finding the time."

  "Can I come over and help? Even if you have to paint the yarn yourself, I can help wrap packages."

  "I would love your help." Clara's skin tingled at the idea. "You can help wind."

  "I kinda feel like I have to," said Danielle. "Really, I didn't understand how small-batch this was. But we'll make it work!"

  "Snowplow freaking Solomon."

  ❀

  "Which one is Snowplow Solomon?" Mama Ziegler spooned a second helping of green beans that Clara hadn't asked for on to Clara's plate.

  "College U?" Clara's father tried helpfully. "He was the friend. The one who winds up with the supermodel. And he was the uncle on Triplet Trouble."

  "What's he doing these days?" asked Clara's mother.

  "He's basically become an internet celebrity for being a wiseass and reposting funny pictures," said Jasmine. "Like, half the people who follow him are under twenty-five."

  "Babies." Mama smiled indulgently. "Do they even know he was on TV?"

  "Probably only from YouTube clips," said Clara. "And, like, reaction shots and stuff."

  "He was also the swim instructor on…" Zayde paused for a moment. "Resort Miami. That was the name of the show! Bubby always enjoyed when he was on. She laughed and laughed..." Then he started quoting catchphrases.

  "Oh, that was him?" said Mama. "I remember that show."

  Clara didn't mean to tune them out, but they seemed happy enough discussing sixties television and her worries were starting to fill her skull like balloons inflating in a shoebox. What if she ran into supply problems? She'd better order all the yarn in advance just in case. And then stub her toe on the boxes every single night for the next year.

  She couldn't even bear thinking about free time. This was a whole second job she'd just accidentally signed herself up for.

  Clara suddenly realized that she'd eaten the last bite of her salmon, and she'd zoned the entire rest of the way through dinner. Daddy was clearing the dishes away, and Mama stood beside Zayde's wheelchair. "How do you feel, Pop? Take a couple of steps?"

  "If the girls can walk me back to my chair, I think I can manage it."

  Clara and Jasmine rushed to either side of him, each taking an arm. These arms had been so muscular in their childhood; Clara's heart quailed a little.

  He settled into his armchair — His Armchair, Clara thought, always mentally capitalizing it — with a delighted sigh. "Now, if only I had my ice cream."

  "I'll go get it!" Jasmine scampered off.

  Zayde turned to Clara. "What's wrong? Dinner you were somewhere else."

  Of course HE would be able to tell. Clara told him all about the sock club. "I am so in over my head," she concluded. "If I fu—mess this up, I'll get slammed all over the internet. And not messing it up means I have way more work than I was expecting."

  Zayde smiled. "You can do it. You'll be fine. You have help, right? Especially since you got money up front?"

  "Yeah, Jasmine's helping, and the artist who gave me the idea for the colors."

  "What about that Trina of yours?"

  Clara flushed. "Trina and I broke up two years ago."

  "Oh, that's right. I knew that. Anybody new out there? You know, I think the Moskowitzes have a gay daughter... she lives in Northhampton."

  "I'm kind of interested in the artist lady, actually," Clara admitted. "The one who's Snowplow Solomon's niece."

  "Snowplow Solomon! Your Bubby loved whenever he came on the screen! On Resort Miami. He was the swim instructor. His niece?"

  "She's the reason I sold so much yarn." Clara explained again. Sometimes Zayde's memory problems could be a little bit of a funhouse ride, but she was used to it.

  ❀

  It turned out that Danielle was not, in fact, shomer Shabbos but only observant. "I go to temple every week, I fast on Yom Kippur, and I guess I keep kosher-lite or whatever," she explained over the phone. "Like, no pork, no shellfish, no cheeseburgers." Cheeseburgers aside, this meant she was
free on Saturday afternoon to start helping Clara prepare and dye the yarn.