The Knitting Circle Read Online Free PDF Page A

to her. The scarf, free from the needle, lay in her lap.
    “It’s like having a baby, isn’t it?” someone said, and Mary’s heart lurched. Babies and children were the last thing she wanted to discuss.
    “Except it’s fun,” the woman knitting socks said.
    Mary didn’t look up. Instead she concentrated on her scarf.
    “Tonight,” Alice said, standing right in front of her, “you’re going to learn how to cast on and you’re going to make a scarf with this beautiful yarn.”
    Grateful for the change of subject, for the start of a new project, for the feel of this yarn in her hands, Mary could only nod.
    “Tell us who you are first,” the red-haired woman said to Mary.
    “Mary Baxter,” she said.
    “Have you ever eaten at Rouge?” Alice asked Mary.
    “Of course. It’s great.”
    “Well, she’s Rouge.”
    “But most people call me Scarlet,” she said. She patted the woman in the chair next to her. “This is Lulu. And that’s Ellen,” she added, pointing to the sock woman.
    Mary tried to remember, to put the name to something about each person. Scarlet was easy with all that red hair. Lulu, with her short hair dyed platinum above black roots, her cat glasses, and dressed all in black, looked like she’d been dropped here from New York City.
    Ellen reminded Mary of someone from another era. The forties, she decided. Her dirty blonde hair fell in long waves down her back. She wore a faded vintage housedress in a red and white pattern. Bare legs and black Mary Janes. Her face was what Mary’s mother would call horsey, and her head seemed too big for her small, thin body. Yet the overall effect worked, all the elements coming together in an interesting combination of sexiness and innocence.
    “I’m Harriet,” the older woman with the salt-and-pepper hair said, all matter-of-fact and slightly sour.
    Harriet the sourpuss, Mary thought.
    “And this is Beth,” Harriet said almost possessively. “Beth can knit anything. She’s amazing. See that little knit bag she’s practically finished with? When did you start that, Beth?”
    “At lunch,” Beth said.
    “Today!” Harriet said. “Isn’t she something?”
    Everyone agreed that Beth was something. But Mary took in her shiny dark hair, styled and wisped and sprayed; her full makeup, the carefully lined eyes and glossy lips; her color-coordinated outfit, the sweater and those shoes the same beige, the creased plaid pants, the amber earrings and matching necklace. Mary took it all in and thought, She’s something all right .
    “Do you remember how to get started?” Alice was asking her.
    “Uh…no,” Mary said.
    “First,” Alice said, “you cast on.”
    Mary watched how deftly she moved the yarn, how easily the needles flew in her hands. Clumsily, she followed.
     
    THE TWO HOURS ended too quickly. That was what Mary thought as she said goodbye to this circle of strangers. Somehow, in the course of the evening, their presence had soothed her. Unlike her friends—her “mommy friends,” Dylan called them—whose lives still revolved around their children, these women’s lives remained a mystery. All that mattered, sitting there with them, was knitting.
    In the dark parking lot, she watched Harriet and Beth get into a car together and drive away. Briefly she wondered what their story was, what had brought the older woman to boast so possessively about Beth, what had brought them here tonight.
    The lights in the shop went dark. But Mary still stood there.
    “Mary?” Scarlet said from behind her. “Wishing on a star?”
    “You know,” Mary said, “I don’t believe in that anymore.”
    Scarlet leaned against the car beside Mary’s and lit a cigarette. “Fuck,” she said. “Neither do I.”
    They both looked up at the sky. Clouds floated by, blocking the stars, then revealing them.
    “You know something else?” Scarlet said. “I don’t believe in comets or meteor showers.”
    “Those are scientific facts,” Mary said.
    “Do