“Welcome back, Raina,” said Carla as I walked into The Dropped Stitch. She carried handfuls of stitch counters and hung them on the rack next to the bargain yarn selections. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Just debating color choices for my next project. When you knit something as a gift, do people prefer you make it in their favorite color, or what you think would look good on them?” I said.
“I find people are touched if you make them anything at all,” she said. “Go with the color that inspires you the most, I say. Or whatever reminds you of the lucky recipient.”
“Yeah. Luuuuu-cky.” I snorted. “I’ll go with red. It’s a power color. She’ll like that.”
“Oh, is this for your friend? The one who comes with your sometimes? What’s her name? Mary?”
“Megan. No, this is for my Mock Trial teammate. I think I’ll go with this nice bloodlike hue.”
“Mock Trial! How appropriate for tonight. Blood it is. See you upstairs,” she said.
I checked out with Carla’s helper, Alex, and made my way upstairs to the meeting room. A few of the regulars were there, Beatrice and her crew, along with a few people I didn’t recognize. I helped myself to cake, thinking I’d eat a piece for Megan since she chose chlorine over me.
“All right, folks, as I emailed, the Tuesday circle format is changing a bit going forward, although your penguin sweater is looking wonderful, Gretta dear. Your great-grandson is going to love it.”
“Thanks!” said Gretta. “He turns five on March first, and he’s excited to wear this to his party.”
Carla beamed but then immediately turned all business.
“Okay, people, this is where we’re at,” she said. “There have been some court cases in the news lately that have me shook. The November elections did not go the way we wanted, so we have to focus on the statewide and municipal level. Like the new justice on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.”
“That’s a ten-year term,” said Gretta.
“But the more immediate, pressing problem is a magisterial district judge we’ve got our eye on. Judge Herman T. Wise.” Carla sounded like she was choking when she said his name.
Then Beatrice looked at me and another girl a few seats away who looked about my age. “A lot of things are determined at a local and statewide level, you know. I imagine you want access to legal pot, don’t you?” she said.
“Not really?” I said. I’d tried it once after a cast party, but after it made me hear string cheese and taste colors, I’d vowed never to touch marijuana again. But there were lighting guys who swore by the stuff, and you always wanted the tech people on your side. I could fight for them. “He is against legal pot?”
I glanced over at the other girl. She had her hand over her mouth and shook slightly with silent laughter.
“Beatrice, for God’s sake, you can go to your daughter’s in Massachusetts for legal pot. They have bakeries for edibles on every corner up there. This is bigger than that!” said Carla.
“Easy for you to say,” Beatrice mumbled, but then she winked at me, so clearly, she wasn’t mad.
“Herman T. Wise has such a terrible record. He was accused of harassment by two of his aides. It was a shame, since his predecessor was a fierce supporter of a woman’s right to choose, eliminating mandatory minimums, privacy laws. You name it,” said Carla. “But then he had to go and retire.”
“What could people have against privacy laws?” I asked.
“National security means the government should get to snoop whenever and wherever it wants, doesn’t it? People could be texting terrorist bombing plans,” said Gretta.
“Um…” I said. I had no idea. I thought about my midnight texts to Megan. I wasn’t a national security threat, but the NSA might think I intended to hurt Brandon. I needed to bring Millie to this. I bet she watched the news. Some deep shit like Rachel Maddow. I’d have to ask her about all this.
“We are most concerned with Wise’s record of judgments against women. In family-law cases, in civil cases … anything. He is a known misogynist. If we don’t start letting our voices be heard, who knows what he will do. You think that smaller, local case judgments don’t make a difference. But they can, they really can. Legal precedent can be set in the unlikeliest of places. One day you think women have the right to choose what’s best for their bodies; the next the court determines it controls your uterus.”
A murmur of agreement traveled around the circle. I stress-shoved more cake in my mouth. I didn’t like the sound of six years of woman-hating dude bro making law. There was not enough Mock in this Trial for my comfort level. Maybe I could still do stage crew for fucking Our Town.
“What’s the plan, boss?” asked Alex, the part-time store helper.
“I’m thinking we teach the noobs about anatomical yarning,” said Carla. “And we do a bit of installation art. And door to door, for whoever has the time and hip flexibility.”
“I finished physical therapy months ago, thank you very much,” said Gretta, “if that was directed at me.”
“Didn’t your daughter forbid you from doing strangers’ stairs?”
“I’ll stay in my scooter and shout,” said Gretta. She pointed a delicate, wrinkled finger at the center of the room. “Don’t try to stop me, kid.”
Carla held up her hands. “Fine. I just want everyone in the group to back me up when I tell your kids I wanted you on some stationary job. Like a direct-mail campaign.”
“No one reads mail. You need to get on the apps,” said Beatrice. “To reach the youth.”
“How do you even … forget it. Bea, you do you. But I have printouts of the anatomy patterns, and we will help anyone who wants to learn this for the remainder of tonight.”
“Anatomical yarning?” the new girl and I said at the same time.
“Listen up, girls,” said Carla. “I have a story to tell.”
I sat up a little straighter. The other girl leaned forward, arms propped on her knees.
“Knitters have tacked and sewn liberty through the ages. There have been problematic elements—there are always are—but this traditional women’s work has forged nations.”
“I…” started the other girl.
“Hush, Grace. For too long, maybe even today, it is believed that a woman’s place is the home. Away from the public eye, out of view. But every person is capable of strength in the face of adversity, and that strength can’t be contained by aprons or even legal subjugation,” continued Carla.
“This is why we knit?” I said.
“Well, technically, I think people developed needlework and such because they needed clothing and mended socks and maybe just pretty things to look at. But in any art, there is a possibility to reach outside of yourself, outside the home or whatever cage you find yourself in. You can go out in public without anyone even thinking about what you are doing.”
“And this is political how?” said the girl who must be named Grace.
“You ever hear of a thing called the American Revolution? About taxes driving the colonists batty? Maybe the men threw the tea in the bay—what a waste—but the women made their own cloth so they didn’t have to pay exorbitant prices on British-made goods. And maybe knitting and sewing gave bored rich women something to do during the day, but it kept the working-class women alive. Today DIY throws a middle finger up to the corporations trying to sell you ease and crappy products made by mistreated workers.”
One by one, the knitters put down their needles and clapped for Carla.
“Oh, stuff it,” she said.
I grinned. “I’m still a little unclear about how this all will influence the judge?”
“Here is where you combine the proud activist roots of needlework with a little creative messaging,” said Carla. “You have some options, here.”
“I have a few great patterns for a sweater or a hat that looks like cardiograph. It represents the heartbeats of women who died at the hands of their abusers. Or you could read it as the impr
int of those who died without access to affordable, appropriate medical care. Your choice,” said Beatrice.
“Wow. That’s deep,” I said.
“And kind of dark,” said Grace.
Carla nodded. “Understandable. You could also make little female reproductive organs. I have a bunch of extra cotton to stuff them.”
“Why would…” I started.
“Complete with vulva, vagina, and uterus,” said Carla.
“How would we…” said Grace.
“Fallopian tubes can be added if you wanted, but they are a bit floppy because they are slender, and I think the whole thing loses impact if you can’t hold it firmly in your hand.”
I could feel warmth rising involuntarily to my cheeks.
“Do you have the one with the labia majora, labia minora, and the clitoris? It’s not difficult to change the colors on that,” said Alex.
“The one I have had the uterus separate. Are yours together?” said Beatrice. “Is there something to be gained in attaching them? Truthfully, I haven’t had half of those bits in twenty years. I don’t even remember.”
“Does the fuzz shed every twenty-eight days?” said Gretta.
Grace’s face was far pinker than it had been earlier.
“Oh, don’t mind them. Once you hit menopause, you really need to joke about it, or you just spend half your day angry about the lack of research into estrogen reduction and bone loss.”
“What do you do with knit vulva?” I managed.
“You can also crochet it, too, dear,” said Alex.
“Uh, or crocheted vulva?”
“Lots of things! I like sending vulvas to elected officials who try to exert legal control over my body. It’s best to do that in bulk. Sometimes we show up and leave them in their office waiting rooms. Or they can be used in classrooms or doctors’ offices. Models like these are useful for the very young who might need a speculum or vaginal exam, you know?”
“I also have a dick pattern!” called out Beatrice. “They make nice pin cushions.”
The ladies roared. I worried Gretta would throw out her other hip.
Carla reached for her own knitting bag. She rummaged around for a second and handed Grace a uterus and me a vagina.
(Technically, she also handed me a vulva, clitoris, and some labia as well.)
“This is very soft yarn,” I said, unable to come up with much else to comment on.
“That’s alpaca. It’s my display reproductive system, so I wanted it to be a higher quality. This is important, so you are welcome to use some.”
“I don’t even know if I can do this,” I said. “My hats turned out all wrong.”
“It’s basically just a ball. And look, your vagina is a tube. They are like scarves that you just stich together. Don’t worry. I believe in you. Have you been practicing reading patterns?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good. Use this one, then. It really is beginner. And it’s pretty fast. You could make this set in a couple of days.”
“This … dot in the middle?” I couldn’t bring myself to call it by its name in front of the group. “It’s only a few stiches of another color. How do I…”
“Your young fingers are nimble,” said Alex.
“Just work it, honey.”
“Knit that clit!” said Gretta.
Grace put her head into her hands.
“All of you are the worst,” said Beatrice.
“Says the dick-pattern lady,” Carla said.
Knitting circle at The Dropped Stitch could never be called boring.
At the end of the meeting I felt a little light-headed. I gathered my newly purchased, conveniently red yarn (with a small skein of purple for clitoral purposes, white for labia majora), and made my way to the parking lot as fast as humanly possible.
“Is it always this wild?” asked a voice behind me.
I turned and saw Grace heading out the door.
“This is only my second circle. This was the first mention of genitalia.”
“Good to know.”
“Have you never been here before?” I asked.
“We just moved here. Dad got a job running a lab at Penn State Steelton. I’m from Intercourse.”
“Is this a knitting joke?”
“Intercourse, PA. It’s a real place. I like leading with that. It either breaks the ice or scares people. You can tell a lot about a person by how they react.”
I grinned. “Where is that?”
“It’s not far from Lancaster.”
I nodded like I knew anything about that side of the state. Everything east of State College might as well be a blank map with Here There Be Dragons scrawled on it. This was mostly owed to the fact that Philly schools crushed us at every state festival I’d attended, so I’d repressed the memory of them.
“Welcome to Steelton. We produce exceptional dairy products and fuzzy anatomy.”
Grace laughed. “I actually start school tomorrow. I was going to wait until Monday, but I couldn’t take another day at home unpacking with my dads. They take organization too seriously.”
“Are you going to Steelton High?” I said.
“You got it.”
I looked at her. She was on the heavier side like me, and had short blond hair, shaved on one side and the other swept into an artful wave on the other. Her lip and nose and ears were all pierced, and she wore several necklaces, long and short, over an explosion of colorful layers.
“Nice necklaces,” I said.
“Oh, thanks!” she said. “I found this one in town today.” She approached and held one up in The Dropped Stitch’s porch light. “It’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent collar.”
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” I said.
“Yes.”
“The Supreme Court justice.”
“Is there any other?”
Somewhere, I could sense Millie tense and psychically look in our direction.
“She’s how I got into knitting, actually,” said Grace. “Funny story. I wanted to go as her for Halloween, but I couldn’t find any good costumes. They were all sexy lawyer and sexy judge, you know? And she has all these collars that always impressed me. Lace is hard and some of that sheer fabric is a bitch, but you can crochet something that gets close to a near replica. And it just went from there. I’ve even knit a few uteri in my day but never a vagina. And I’ve never heard them discussed at such great length.” Grace glanced at Beatrice coming out of the door and grinned.
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” I said again. “You really like her.”
“Yes?” she said.
“Well, Grace,” I said, “do I ever have an opportunity for you.”
6
EMILIA GOODWIN,
:
SUPREME(LY PISSED
:
OFF) COURT OF
Plaintiff,
:
CAMBRIA COUNTY
:
v.
:
:
THE PATRIARCHY,
:
Case No. GRLPWR4US
:
:
Defendant
:
JANUARY 29: NONPARTY’S VERIFIED MOTION
I brushed the soft pink threads under my fingers.
“This is so beautiful!” I said as I squeezed my anatomically correct heart (mostly—it had eyes and a mouth).
“My knitting group is getting political. I needed to practice before I could commit to their … other patterns. This heart is my first attempt at crochet. You’ll note the valves in turquoise. Grace helped with those. This is Grace, by the way.”
“Yes, I get it. I appreciate the happy face. It’s really for me?” I said. I looked at Raina and the new Mock Trial recruit.
“I was going to make you a hat, too,” said Raina. “But then needed to move to this.”
“Would you like a set of lungs to go with it?” Grace asked. Her eyeliner sparkled silver. There was a magic to her there, even under the pale hallway lights
.
I laughed. “I mean, if you want.” The bell rang. “We are meeting Veronica in study hall after lunch. Don’t forget,” I said.
“How could we?” asked Raina.
Things were looking up again. It was pretty weird, and I didn’t really understand why she was making such a thing, but a gift was a gift and Raina had found me another mock lawyer in Grace.
An incredibly attractive mock lawyer. Who was really into Ruth Bader Ginsburg?
That part made my heart feel like it was trying to do a little leap. I did my best to ignore whatever that was.
Focus, I thought. Your goals will be yours.
After third period, I stopped by my locker.
“What,” said Claire, coming up the hall, “is that?”
“It’s a heart,” I said.
“Where did you get such a thing?”
I hesitated. “It was a gift.”
“Oh?” Claire raised her eyebrows. “From whom?” From the tone in her voice, I guessed she already knew.
“Raina. And our new Mock Trial lawyer. Don’t get all mad. She’s knitting. Or crocheting. And they have to make body parts because activism, or something.”
“You sure are spending a lot of time with Raina these days.”
“She’s nice. She’s helping me. We have shared adversity, et cetera, et cetera. And may I mention again that we have another lawyer. A new girl who just moved here named Grace. Yes, she’s cute.”
That distracted Claire. It always did.
“Oh, really now? Tell me more, darling.”
Claire had slipped into old-timey movie actress mode, which meant she had forgotten she was mad at me.
“Blond. Smart. Tall.”
“You think everyone is tall.”
“True. Still.”
“Again with that girl already.” Claire actually shuddered.
“Oh stop. You don’t even really hate her, and you know it. Without her, you wouldn’t have any competition. If my math is correct—which it always is—the two of you have split all the big parts in plays for years. She got Ginette in Almost, Maine, and you got to be the waitress. You got to be Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls, and she got to be Miss Adelaide. The list goes on, here. Even last year when we all had lit together, you were that person with all the lines in the Merry Wives of Windsor, but then she got to be…”
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