Inherit the Wool

by Betty Hechtman

  “Shall we begin,” I said, pointing to the projects on the table. Only Lucinda grabbed her needles and began to knit. The others just stared and I realized Lauren wasn’t the only one who’d already forgotten what they’d learned. I regretted not having Crystal make an appearance, but it was too late to get her to come over.

  “It looks like it’s you and me,” I said to Lucinda.

  “Just tell me what to do.” She put down her work and smiled.

  Neither of us were skilled knitters, but then this was so basic, we could handle it. I did a brief demo and then Lucinda and I circulated through the group, helping them individually. Vanessa seemed uninterested and her needles and few rows of knitting were sitting on the table next to her tote bag.

  “Thank heavens for the wine,” Vanessa said, grabbing her glass of pink wine and taking a generous sip. “The offer’s still good about forgetting this yarn stuff and letting me buy you all scarves.”

  Lauren gave our wealthy Baller-rina a disparaging shake of her head. “You just don’t get it. Whatever you would buy wouldn’t be the same. These scarves truly will be souvenirs of our time together. And there’s something special about a handmade piece.”

  “Oh, save us your preaching,” Vanessa said in an annoyed tone. “You don’t really think we’ll finish these scarves. Then the souvenir of the weekend will be a bunch of tangled yarn.”

  “You’re sure cross,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe this place isn’t the Ritz, but the point was for us to get together

  “Well, at least this wine is good and has quite a kick,” she said, beginning to slur her words. She reached for her glass of wine. I mentioned that it was probably local and that one of the things I’d planned was a wine tasting at a local winery, which of course she would have known if she’d looked at the schedule.

  “Now that’s something I can get behind,” Vanessa said, replacing her glass. “I hope they ship. You all have no idea how much stress I’m under.”

  I was thinking about how I could slip away unnoticed to go do my baking. I decided to wait until they left for the roast and toast. It would be easy for me to just go out the other door by the driveway and get my car and baking stuff. In the meantime, I sought a moment of respite in the ladies’ room. I wondered if the weekend would bring the group closer together. And it was stupid of me to think that they’d just take to knitting. Courtney was too upset that she was cut off from her work. Elizabeth seemed intent on putting the moves on Kevin. Vanessa was right—Lauren was a little preachy and she did seem to see herself as the light in a dark world. And who had invited Zak and why?

  I had the ladies’ room to myself and took my time washing my hands and finger combing my hair. Finally accepting I couldn’t stall anymore, I went back into the main room.

  Kevin St. John was working the room, playing the host and talking to the guests. In no time he would work his way back to my group. Then Vanessa would start complaining and Elizabeth would throw herself at him again. Courtney would probably chime in about how busy the phone booths were. I was trying to think of a way to divert him when I noticed the tall skinny desk clerk sliding over the wooden counter. He rushed toward the manager, frantically waving the cordless. Kevin St. John’s lips were in an annoyed slash as he went toward the clerk.

  The clerk seemed very upset as he pushed the phone on Kevin, and as the manager held the phone to his ear I watched his usually impassive face explode as he looked around the room. I saw his gaze stop under the window on the driveway side of the room not far from where I was standing. A colorful recycled grocery bag was sitting alone with smoke billowing out of the top and the distinct sound of a timer clicking off the seconds.

  Kevin banged the phone on the wood counter. “Everybody out,” he yelled. “Use the door that leads to the deck and head to the beach.”

  “We’re in the middle of a hand,” a man said from one of the tables.

  “Get out now and keep going,” Kevin bellowed. I made a move to get back to my group, but the rush of people heading to the door carried me with them and I had no choice but to go along. When we got outside, Kevin yelled to keep going and to get as far away as possible. “There’s a bomb,” he screamed. “It’s going to blow.”

  In the dark it was hard to see who was who and we all rumbled over the boardwalk through the dunes, crossed the street and stepped on to the sand. I tried to find my group but all I could see were silhouettes as everyone surged to the water’s edge. I heard sirens in the distance growing louder. I finally bumped into Lucinda and we threw ourselves into each other’s arms.

  She said she’d heard the bomb squad was on the way. “Cadbury has a bomb squad?” I said, surprised.

  “No, I’m sure they borrowed them from somewhere.”

  “Who’d want to bomb Vista Del Mar?” I said, incredulous.

  “I was standing near the clerk who took the phone call and I heard him tell Kevin St. John somebody was upset because the place was unplugged and they claimed it ruined their life.”

  “What’s the world come to when people can’t survive without staring at a screen. But blow up the place?” I heard a woman say, who’d overheard our conversation. I looked back toward Vista Del Mar, wondering what was going on, but from here all I could see were the sand dunes and the silhouettes of some cypress trees.

  I kept bracing for an explosion as we stood there for what seemed like eternity.

  Finally, I saw a light bobbing as someone crossed the street and walked onto the beach. “That looks like Kevin St. John,” I said as the light momentarily illuminated his dark suit. When he reached the beach, he began to call out. “Everything’s okay. You can all come back now, but please go directly to your rooms. The roast and toast has been canceled and the Lodge is off limits for now.” He turned to retrace his steps and used his flashlight to direct everyone to follow him.

  Lucinda and I moved with the crowd as they made their way back to the grounds. When we reached the end of the boardwalk, Kevin St. John was using his flashlight to direct everyone to the path that led to the guest room buildings and reminding them that the Lodge was off limits.

  “Go on and do your baking. Don’t worry about your friends,” Lucinda said. “I’ll play mother hen if anyone seems upset.” I reluctantly took her up on her offer and watched as she continued on toward the Sand and Sea building. I waited until the crowd thinned and looked at the Lodge. It seemed peaceful enough, and I was sure that when Kevin St. John told everyone to stay out, that didn’t include me. I wanted to gather up all the knitting stuff and put it back in the meeting room for the morning workshop before I left.

  I pulled open the door and went inside. Two men were standing by the window taking off their padded suits. They seemed awfully calm and almost seemed to be joking.

  “So everything is really okay?” I said as I approached them.

  The taller man nodded. “It was a stupid prank. Just some dry ice in water and a recording of a ticking sound.”

  The shopping bag I’d seen before had been ripped apart and I saw a round metal container with the top open. The effects of the dry ice were fading and there was just of hint of smoke coming off the water. I asked for the details and the other bomb guy explained.

  “There’s nothing to worry about—it’s just carbon dioxide,” the other man said at the end. They went back to packing up their gear and I moved on to the seating area.

  In the rush to get out of there, my people had thrown their knitting on the coffee table and the stitches had slipped off the needles. All the balls of yarn had gotten thrown together and it was a terrible tangled mess. I was trying to think of how to transport it all back to the meeting room, and was so wrapped up in trying to figure how I was going to undo the disaster that I almost tripped as I stepped on something soft. When I looked down, I saw it was an arm encased in yellow and orange silk. I rushed to move the coffee table and saw Vanessa was sprawled on the ground.

  Chapter Nine

  “I think you missed so
mething,” I yelled to the two men. By now the bomb squad guys had stripped down to their uniforms and they double-timed it over to where I was standing.

  “Geez Louise,” the tall cop said. “What happened to her? We thought everyone evacuated.”

  “Maybe she drank too much wine or she tripped and hit her head when everybody ran out,” I said. I started explaining about the retreat and that she was an old friend and that I’d been pushed out the door before I could get to my group. They pretty much ignored me as one of them checked her pulse while the other one used his radio to call the paramedics.

  The good news was she still was breathing and the paramedics had just left, so it didn’t take long for them to return.

  I kept hoping she would suddenly sit up and wonder what had happened. But she didn’t, and after some checking, the paramedics loaded her on a gurney and took her back to their rig. I couldn’t let her go alone, so I grabbed my retreat tote bag and got in the back of the ambulance. One of the paramedics drove, while the other sat next to her monitoring her vitals. I sat on a bench on the other side of the back area. My stomach roiled and I felt nauseous as the rig rolled down the road. Not only was I worried about Vanessa, but the ride was amazingly rough. You’d think they’d put extra shock absorbers in something that was ferrying sick people.

  They took Vanessa in through the ER door and I went into the small lobby. I’d had the forethought to grab my folders of information and was able to give the clerk Vanessa’s emergency contact information. Then the waiting began. The hospital was small and the waiting room empty. There was a row of chairs and a stack of out-of-date magazines. A TV was turned to WNN with no sound and it was too small to read the captions.

  After what seemed like eternity, the doctor came out. He was wearing a white coat over mint green scrubs. He looked like somebody who spent a lot of time outdoors, and despite the late hour seemed wide awake.

  “I’m Casey Feldstein,” I said, holding out my hand.

  “Dr. Mark Gendel,” he said, holding out his as he looked at my face rather intently.

  His face broke into a smile. “I know who you are—Muffins by Casey, right?” he said. “They’re the best. I always try to snag one when I get off of work.” He continued to study my face. “And I know you from something else.” He furrowed his brow and then his eyes widened. “You were in that magic show. The medical seminar at the Cypress Inn,” he said. I felt myself blushing. Sammy had done a show for a medical meeting at the posh resort and I’d been his assistant. “Very clever how you made it into a comedy routine. Nobody cared that the illusions were all pretty passé.” I was hoping that his upbeat manner meant that it was nothing serious with Vanessa.

  “So, will she be able to leave with me?” I asked. His pleasant expression faded into somber and he shook his head.

  “I’m afraid it’s very serious. It looks like a heart attack,” he said.

  “What? But she’s only in her thirties,” I protested.

  “Heart attacks can be caused by different things. In her case—” He stopped and let out his breath. “Someone else might not have noticed, but I do a lot of diving in Monterey Bay and I have dealt with a lot of divers. When I was listening to her heart, I heard something. We did some tests and it confirmed what I thought. This is going to sound strange to you, but it seems to have been caused by an air bubble. The technical title is an air embolism.” He explained that an air bubble acted like a blood clot and cut off the blood supply to her heart.

  “How did air get in her?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t happen on its own. But I noticed there was a needle mark on her arm.”

  He let it hang there until I got what he was saying. “So you mean that was where the air could have come from?”

  He nodded. “It had to be a fairly large amount of air.” He looked at me with a question in his eyes. “It seems doubtful that she did it to herself.” He explained that even if she was injecting herself with drugs and made a mistake it would have been just a small air bubble, but this was something much larger.

  “I don’t know. We were all sitting around knitting—well, we were supposed to be knitting, but Vanessa wasn’t that interested. She was more interested in her wine.” Then I shrugged and explained the bomb threat and that we’d all run out in a panic.

  “Except for Vanessa?” he said and I nodded. “She’s hanging on for the moment. We’ve called her family.” He looked at me directly. “I’m going to have to notify the police about the air bubble. They’re going to want to talk to her—if she recovers.” His voice dropped on the last part and he put his hand on my upper arm for reassurance.

  After he left, I stood there still processing the information, trying to make some sense of it. Someone has pumped Vanessa full of air? Why? How? The doctor’s last comment stuck in my mind. If she recovered. She had to recover, I thought, looking skyward. It was only when I glanced around at my surroundings that I remembered I’d ridden there in the ambulance and realized that I was stranded. I called Sammy and asked for a ride home. It didn’t seem to matter that it was close to midnight by now. Without even asking for an explanation, he said he’d be there in a few minutes. I wanted to meet him outside so he wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of parking, but he insisted he’d come in.

  It seemed like I’d barely hung up when he came in through the door. His brows were knit with worry as he glanced over me and I realized he’d thought I’d gone there for treatment.

  “I heard about the bomb scare at Vista Del Mar,” he said, taking a last look to make sure I was okay.

  “It was a prank,” I said. “I was here with one of my retreat people.” I explained about finding Vanessa and what the doctor had said about the air bubble, since besides being a comedy magician he was actually a doctor.

  “It’s not something I usually deal with as a urologist.” He asked me about the needle mark. “Did she use drugs?”

  I shrugged and said I didn’t think so. “Well, the needle mark got there somehow,” he said.

  “Somebody must have done it to her,” I said with a shudder. “But it doesn’t make sense. Vanessa was so fussy about everything, I can’t believe she’d let somebody give her a shot.”

  He pulled into my driveway. “Case, try to get some sleep. I need you rested and in tip-top form for the show on Sunday.”

  I thanked him for the ride as I got out.

  “Any time,” he said with a soft smile.

  I looked down as I walked to my door. If only I felt the same way about him that Sammy felt about me. I cared about him, I really did, but there just wasn’t any chemistry.

  Julius was watching from the window. He’d become my greeter and it was nice to have someone happy to see me when I got home, even if I sometimes thought it was only because I handed out stink fish.

  I had my hand on the handle and was about to unlock the door, when I remembered the mess of yarn. No matter what, I still had the retreat to run. I stopped in the guest house and grabbed the handle of a rolling plastic bin, figuring I could load it all in there and went across the street. The big silence of night had fallen over Vista Del Mar and the clatter of the wheels echoed as I went up the driveway. Most of the lights were out in the buildings with the guest rooms, but as always the lights were on in the Lodge. And after what Dr. Gendel had said about the air in Vanessa’s heart, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a look around.

  Despite what Kevin had said about the Lodge being off limits, the door was unlocked and there was a clerk behind the desk. Well, sitting there with his head down. I cleared my throat a few times loudly and he snapped to attention, looking a little bewildered and maybe a little freaked out.

  “You don’t have a bomb or anything?” he asked nervously, looking at the bin I’d brought for the yarn.

  “Of course not,” I said. “We’ve never met, but I’m sure you’ve seen me around. I live across the street and I put on yarn retreats here.” I pointed to the bin. “That’s wh
y I’m here. My people left their yarn and needles. I want to collect them for our morning workshop.” I glanced around the large room. Everything was as it had been before we left for the hospital, except all evidence of the fake bomb was gone.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Mr. St. John said I was only supposed to let people in if they had to use the phone booths or if they needed something.”

  “Well, that covers me. I need to get this yarn out of here.” I pointed at the mess on the coffee table. “Where’s Kevin?” I said, looking around as if I was implying he’d say it was okay. The clerk blanched at hearing the manager referred to by his first name. I never called him Kevin to his face. He insisted on being called by his last name, as he thought befitted his position.

  “He went home just when I got here. He was all upset about the fake bomb and then some woman hit her head or something. I heard him trying to get the details and nobody seemed to know her name. I think he’s worried she’ll sue.”

  The clerk looked at the bin and shrugged. “I guess it’s all right to let you get your stuff,” he said finally. “Since you sort of work here.” He looked around at the mess in the gathering place. Board games were still set up and playing cards were scattered around. “I suppose I should straighten up,” he said half-heartedly.

  I offered to help him, which wasn’t exactly altruistic. It gave me an excuse to have a look around. While he picked up the Monopoly board and gathered all the fake money and pieces, I went to the area my group had been in. The wineglasses were still on the end tables and the yarn and knitting needles were spread over the coffee table.

  I kept thinking of what Sammy had said. That if Vanessa hadn’t injected herself, someone else had. How could that have happened? I couldn’t picture her being a willing participant. She had to have been passed out. I remembered how she’d said something about the wine having a kick and she’d gotten kind of slurry when she’d barely drunk half a glass of the wine. It hadn’t registered then, but for someone who so obviously drank a lot of wine, feeling something after so little alcohol seemed odd. I looked over the four glasses on the end table. It was easy to pick out hers. She was the only one who’d ordered the pink-colored white zinfandel. I picked it up and smelled it. It just smelled like wine to me. I was beginning to feel very guilty for not making sure all my people had left when Kevin announced the bomb scare. There was only one way to see if there was anything wrong with the wine. I sucked in a deep breath and took a generous sip. It seemed okay at first and then the wooziness hit me. I went to put the glass down and then everything went black.