by Kate Jacobs
“Of course. And I’ll be there,” said Sarah. “But we have a lot of catching up to do, Anita. I’m not a young girl anymore. We won’t just fall into old roles, you know. You can’t show up in Italy after forty years and begin telling me what to do.”
“I know,” said Anita, but inside she knew she didn’t, really. She’d spent months looking at the photos of her first wedding, at that cute flower girl, and she knew well enough to realize that she wasn’t entirely prepared to discover Sarah had silver hair. That she’d gotten older, as well, that time hadn’t frozen her in place, waiting for Anita to be ready to ask for forgiveness.
Sometimes getting what is wanted only leaves more questions. But now, finally, they were ready to find the answers. Together.
They made runs for coffee. For mops. For paper towels, and cloth towels, and for garbage bags. And for tissues to sop up the tears.
The store was what her mother had left behind. Where she had seemed most fully herself. The photograph of Georgia and Dakota—the outtake from Lucie’s film—was still hanging, chunks of drywall having fallen off all around where it had been placed. Behind what had once been the register.
Dakota felt angry, initially, with Rosie. With Peri.
“How could she just let her use the bathroom like that?” was one angry question Dakota had hurled at Catherine on the plane. She had all sorts of choice words she wanted to share with Lucie, demands and accusations. And then she thought of Ginger, little Ginger, born on the day Georgia died. Rosie’s granddaughter. And she thought how sad it was going to be, for all of them, to watch Rosie get older. To adjust. To not know what to do to make it all better.
“She didn’t do this on purpose.” That’s what Darwin had come over and said shortly after they’d arrived, anticipated the question, when they’d pulled on their own hastily purchased rubber gloves and started on the mucking out. It would be easier to blame, of course, but that wasn’t going to get the shop back. The store was gone—bits of ceiling had fallen to the floor and all of it had gotten stuck to the inventory—and everything was ruined.
What Dakota wanted was to order everyone out. “Get out, get out,” she wanted to yell, so she could just perch herself on the counter by the cash register and spend some time—all day, weeks, who knew?—just absorbing what had happened. To close her eyes and walk herself through the shop in her mind’s eye, seeing it as it had been when she was young, and how it looked after Peri’s redesign. She wanted to make it go back. She wanted to make it all go back. Undo every bad thing. She’d give up all the good to make it so: Roberto, the summer in Italy, even that two-week trip when she met Gran for the first time. Too much had happened. There was too much to take in.
She bargained. With whom? With God?
“I just want . . .” was how she began every sentence. “I just want the shop to be like I left it.” “I just want the shop to be like it was when I was a kid.” “I just want my mother to still be alive and for everything to be the way it once was.”
“Why?” shouted Dakota every so often as she cleaned, the rest of the crew deep in their own thoughts and leaving her to her own outbursts.
It all seemed so unfair. They confronted all this loss and back at Cara Mia, Anita was reconnecting with Sarah. Dakota knew she ought to be thrilled for Anita, of course. She adored Anita, who took all her calls, answered her texts, listened to her worries, helped solve her problems. But it was not fair! Why did Anita get to find Sarah? Why was she so lucky? Who wouldn’t want to have a loved one come back from the dead, as it were?
Dakota wanted more chances, too. More time to be with her mother. To go back and apologize for all the moments she’d been a smart-ass, and maybe even to thank her for working in the store that Dakota could see now she’d never appreciated quite enough. What was she to do with the chunks of ceiling and the floorboards popping out? What was she to do with Peri’s handbags mounded on the table, with KC running up and down the stairs trying to spare what could be saved, with Catherine cleaning and cleaning and never seeming to get anywhere—Dakota was certain she didn’t really know how to use a mop but didn’t want to take away her sense that she was doing something, anything, to stem the mess—and with the fact that James could not seem to stop walking around the walls of the shop, reaching out to touch the flaking paint as though trying to grab hold of Georgia.
All Dakota’s mistakes came back to her now. Running off to Baltimore on the bike. All the mean things she’d said to her mother. Telling James to sell the store. Yelling at Peri. That was here, too, mixed up with everything else.
What was she to do with all the things she was finally old enough to make right?
“It’s easy to look back and think how we could make only the good things happen to us,” counseled Catherine, still swishing her mop to and fro, spreading dirty water instead of soaking it up. “But that’s not how we become ourselves. You are made who you are by the bad stuff, the little things, as much as the great triumphs and big decisions.”
Even as Dakota saw her childhood reflected in the puddles, so Catherine saw herself, in her mind’s eye, coming into Walker and Daughter to try to punish Georgia, to make her see how successful and happy she was in her life married to Adam. Only she wasn’t. And Georgia hadn’t recognized her. Who am I? That’s what she’d wondered that day. It was a question she continued to ask but, more and more, she was starting to understand. Figure it out for herself. Accept that the answer changed, just as she did.
Because Georgia Walker never turned anyone away at all. That’s what Lucie had said in her voice-over in the film about the shop and the club, the one that had gone on to the festivals. How true, thought Catherine. Georgia gave and gave, and they just messed up. Over and over.
She mopped, but she couldn’t understand how the water seemed to linger, and her hands felt sore and blistered. Only for you, Georgia, Catherine thought, looking down at her fingers. How much her body had done in five, no, coming up on six years since that fateful October day. Right here in the store. Right where Catherine stood. We knit and we sat and we laughed. That’s what Walker and Daughter had been: A place of laughter. A place of friendship. A place of renewal and reinvention.
It had just been a normal afternoon, the day that Georgia died. That’s what always struck Catherine. There had been no warning label on the morning to let them know that something momentous was going to occur. She hadn’t awakened in the San Remo knowing that she would return that night, heartbroken and lost. That there would always be a before, and an after, and they’d be left behind to sort out moving on without Georgia.
But what they’d always, always had since that day was the shop. All of Georgia’s love captured in one place, made even more perfect when Dakota came to a club meeting. Where would they get together now? She hadn’t thought about that until now. Catherine watched KC as she carted box after box of yarn downstairs to the deli, which was also closed to help speed up the cleaning operation. At Darwin, sorting through her paper, at Peri in her gloves, scrubbing away. Where would they go if they didn’t have the store? What happens to a club when the club hangout has been washed away? She had no idea, and she worried.
She wished people did something other than cry. It was so messy, so obvious. But there it was: tears in everyone’s eyes. No sooner would they dry up than someone would start again, that Dakota’s muttering and James’s aimless walking through the tiny shop would set someone off anew.
Catherine thought she was done crying. She believed that the counseling sessions she and James had attended were the final steps in a long process that was coming to a close. Now, she knew, fully aware as she looked at the destruction of Georgia’s beloved shop, just how thin was the line between her life and the grief that flowed just under the surface. It wasn’t only about Georgia, she knew. Her own regrets were mixed up with it all and, even as she moved forward, the sadness remained. It informed her. It reminded her how far she had journeyed.
After a day of cleaning, and cry
ing, and cleaning some more, Marty and James brought in expert help to assess the damage to the store. The building was going to be fine, they were told, which was a relief. But then they looked around the shop and felt defeated again.
“Peri,” Dakota said, as she mopped the floor that had been refinished only months ago. “You do a lot without getting enough in return from me. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Dakota,” said Peri. “You’re like the little sister who drives me mental. Sometimes I hate you, but mostly I love you.”
“Same same,” said Dakota.
“Perhaps Georgia hated the reno I did,” said Peri.
“So much so she flooded her own shop?” said KC. “She would have sent you a registered letter from The Other Side or something. No, this is a full-on of-this-world disaster.”
“Maybe it’s a warning sign that we need to pay better attention,” said Catherine. “To issues. To each other.”
“Maybe,” said Dakota. “Maybe it’s just something that is.” One thing was rapidly becoming clear to her as Darwin and KC and Peri and Catherine all pitched in and yet the room still looked a mess: Walker and Daughter was never going to be the same.
“Dad?” she asked. “Can I talk to you and Marty privately?” The three went down to the deli.
“I wish I had a Scotch,” said Marty. “I’d definitely offer you one, kiddo. It’s been a tough few days.” He reached his arm around to pat Dakota’s shoulder.
“I’m just nineteen,” Dakota reminded him.
“Oh, you’ve seen enough for one lifetime,” said Marty. His clothes were covered in flecks of drywall. “I remember when your mom worked in here part-time to make extra cash—you were just a baby and she wasn’t much older than you are now.” And then Marty leaned forward, put his face in his hands, and bawled. All James and Dakota could see was his white hair and his shaking body. In all this time, Dakota realized, she’d never once seen Marty cry for her mother, and the knowledge that he was also devastated—that he, like Anita, like Peri, like Catherine, like James—all had their own stories with Georgia that were in addition to her own moved and inspired her. She knew. Finally, she knew.
The store wasn’t just about Georgia. It wasn’t just about her. Or Peri. It was about all of them, as a group, being available to one another.
When they returned, Peri was on a ladder taking out stained ceiling tiles, Darwin was standing against the wall fast asleep, and KC was schlepping out bags of trash.
“Well, guys,” said Dakota, “we have a plan. We’re going to rebuild. Right here, the store my mother started. Because there will always be a Walker and Daughter. I didn’t think I wanted that but this situation has helped me see that I truly do.”
“Me, too,” said Peri, still on the ladder. She reached up to adjust another tile, to add the stained ones to the pile she’d collected, and tried to tally in her mind just how much it would cost to replace the ceiling. Along with the walls, the floor, the yarn. Even the cash register, which wasn’t opening as well as it might, not even ringing when the till opened. The cost would be astronomical.
But it was all fixable, she told herself. It could all be repaired. Would be repaired.
“Let’s grab some coffee and rest our hands,” said Catherine, smiling. “You made a good call, Dakota.”
“I’ll say,” said Peri, her hands full of ceiling tiles as she balanced precariously on the ladder. “Just one more and I’m done with this corner . . .”
She lost her footing, flailing at the ceiling as though to hold on, yelping as a flurry of white surrounded the room and Peri stumbled off the ladder with a thud. Followed, milliseconds later, by the ladder tipping over and a red binder falling right out of the loose section of ceiling, smashing into the warped wood just a few inches from her head.
“Are you okay?” yelled Marty, rushing over to steady Peri, who was bruised and shaking but otherwise fine.
“What the hell was that?” said James, stepping over the ladder to help Peri stand up.
Darwin came to with a start, utterly confused and exhausted at the sight of Dakota pumping her fist in the air just like she used to do when she was a little girl.
“Ha!” said Dakota. “I’ve been searching the apartment for this for years!”
“What is it?” asked KC, just returning from dragging a trash bag to the street and seeing Peri, the fallen ladder, Dakota dancing. “What’s going on?”
“It’s my mom’s top-secret binder of original patterns,” said Dakota, reaching down and picking up the plump book.
“Oh, Dakota, it’s going to be ruined,” said Catherine.
“No,” said Dakota, suddenly feeling calm. She smiled serenely. “Think like Georgia Walker. Be prepared.”
She opened up the binder and there, in sheets of plastic matting, was page after page of Georgia’s original knitwear. The launching of a career she never had the chance to have. Until now.
experienced
You know enough now that you don’t just have to follow someone else’s pattern. Or keep repeating your own. You can break the pattern. Improve it. Perfect it. Change the plan. Adapt and improvise. Make what works best for you. Now your skills will take you wherever you want to go.
thirty-three
The day of the charity walk began, as it did every September, with a call from Scotland.
“Got your trainers on?” asked Gran.
“I’m ready to walk to the end of the world,” Dakota replied. “How are you, Gran?” Her great-grandmother chuckled.
“As well as can be expected, I’d say,” said Gran. “Now get out there and raise a million dollars, young lady.”
“I’m not there yet, Gran,” said Dakota. “But I’m on my way.”
The plans were set in motion: the shop was being refurbished very simply so that it could reopen as soon as possible. In the meantime, Peri had scheduled a trip to investigate mass production: she had more orders coming in online from Europe than she could make herself. Even her slightly damaged bags had interested buyers, thanks to Italian Vogue and the power of Isabella. She’d already made her first hire: a lawyer named KC Silverman.
And she’d done something else. She’d decided to sign up for online dating, and get out there and find herself a guy if that’s what she wanted.
“No use sitting around and wanting what you can make happen for yourself,” she told Dakota.
For her part, Dakota was working at dividing up Georgia’s pattern book into her masterpieces and her more accessible concepts. Dakota planned to make her mother’s hand-knit couture designs available for only a select few who could afford them, put together by a team she would personally hire. With the rest, she and Peri and Anita were putting together a pattern book available for sale, dividing the pieces into levels of difficulty so there was something for everyone, and then writing introductions for each section just as Georgia had once explained knitting sweaters to Dakota. And all the profits would be donated to charity.
“Your mother would like the idea that her own work is going to help save someone else from ovarian cancer that killed her,” said Anita. “It’s a very clever idea, Dakota. You make her proud.”
But Dakota had not abandoned her own dreams for her mother’s, however. Quite on the contrary. With her father’s full confidence, Dakota was doing one more year at NYU, and then she was going to start a degree in pastry making and management at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.
The arrangement suited everyone: in a few years, when Dakota was finished, Marty would be ready to retire—he had no intention of going anywhere before he turned seventy-five—and the first floor that was now the deli would become a knitting café, known as Dakota’s Bakery at Walker and Daughter. Here, customers could eat all the muffins and scones and cookies they wanted while knitting with friends old and new. It would be the best of the club meetings. Reinvented as a business.
And on the second floor, all to its own, would be Peri Pocketbook. Couture knitted hand-
(and diaper and computer) bags to the stars. And anyone else who could afford them.
The restructuring of the building was the initial project of a new concern, James Foster Architecture, which had come very well recommended, of course.
Dakota and Roberto kept up their correspondence via text and the occasional phone call. He’d decided to spend the year working at Cara Mia alongside his father, just to figure out if his lack of interest was motivated more by a desire for independence than anything else. He still planned to fly, he told her, but there was time enough to wait.
And she saw Andrew Doyle, as well, at the end of the summer, while she was going with her pal Olivia to a concert at Jones Beach. He waved when he saw them, and Dakota waved back. He was still cute, she thought. But he was just a guy. She had a lot of goals to reach before she got serious. With anyone.
Darwin and Lucie were hard at work on a business proposal for a television concept they called Chicklet. It was everything they wanted all the little Gingers and little Cadys to learn about being smart and confident and believing in their own individual beauty. At the same time, Isabella’s album—and the accompanying music movie—was climbing the charts, cementing Lucie’s professional reputation.
Rosie was going through rounds of tests, and just as Lucie was confronting how to best help her, Dan and Darwin realized their small apartment wouldn’t hold Cady and Stanton for long. The solution that worked for everyone and even made Lucie’s brothers happy? Buy a duplex out in Jersey and coordinate all the different types of care—child and elder—that was needed. Darwin and Dan would take one side, Lucie and Ginger the other. And Rosie had a room of her own. Coming and going at her leisure, depending on who was at home. It was perfect research for her academic paper about women in the sandwich generation, thought Darwin. Not only that, but she’d submitted an early draft to a quarterly and had high hopes for its publication.