Tight Knit

by Shaya Crabtree

  “I’m pretty sure that’s every lesbian community in every city ever,” Paige said.

  “If that’s the case, then you should get used to it. Stop caring so much about other people and live your life. Sound familiar?”

  Paige conceded with a small nod. “Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled. “You’re right.”

  “I don’t know if you saw, since you rushed us out of there like we were running from the mob, but that woman that your ex was with was Kerry.”

  Paige winced. Lara couldn’t tell if Paige was empathizing with her or feeling a pang of jealousy over hearing Kerry’s name. “Uh, sorry, then,” Paige said. “Are you okay?”

  In general? No. About this fiasco? Surprisingly, yes. Aside from a bit of awkwardness, Lara felt no emotions about seeing Kerry with someone else. She looked happy with that woman. Good for her.

  “I’m fine. Are you okay? You seem more caught up in this than I am.”

  “I’m good,” Paige said, only a little out of breath from her jog and her borderline anxiety attack. “Thanks for caring enough to ask. You were right, adventure was a bad idea. Let’s go see if your phone is ready.”

  It was. Lara was happy to have it back. It was like a phantom limb that her body subconsciously knew she was missing, and the dull ache wasn’t relieved until the phone was reattached to her hip. If only Betty could come back; that same empty feeling in Lara’s chest would dissipate.

  “One more pit stop.” Paige cut off Lara’s groan with a single word. “Pretzels. You can’t take a trip to the mall and not get a soft pretzel.”

  Lara could, in fact, do that, but it didn’t look like that feat would be achieved today. “You’re paying. I’ll find a table.”

  When Lara took the first bite, she realized how hungry she was. Her stomach was still a bit queasy, but she needed to put something in her body, even if the salt of the pretzel made her already dry throat feel even drier. She took a sip of lemonade and winced from the burst of sour on her tongue as she watched Paige play with her phone.

  “What are you doing?” Lara asked.

  “I’m writing something.”

  “Like a book?”

  Paige glared at Lara like she’d told a terrible joke. “The obituary.”

  Right. That. Paige had asked if Lara wanted to do the honors, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She didn’t know how to talk about Betty in the past tense. If anyone had the writing skills to do the obituary justice, it was Paige.

  Lara pulled her own phone out of her pocket and set it on the table next to her pretzel. No new messages from her parents. That was a blessing, honestly. What would she say to them? She wasn’t ready to talk to anyone right now, and especially not about Betty.

  The only thing on her phone worth looking at was the photo of Paige and Cosmo. It had been upgraded from contact photo to home screen photo, and Lara stared at it wistfully until her phone timed out and faded to black of its own accord. Lara hit the home button again and watched the image come to life once more.

  Fuck it. It was a wonderful photo. Memories as good as that deserved to be immortalized.

  With the press of a few buttons, the photo was soon front and center on Lara’s Instagram page. With a quick refresh, the photo already had ten likes and one comment: Meow-gnificent!

  Lara took another bite of her pretzel. It went down a little easier.

  “My phone feels a lot better.” It was nice to be able to swipe across the screen without worrying about cutting her fingers. It was also a bonus that Paige and Cosmo’s picture looked even cuter without the jagged lines obscuring their faces.

  “I’m glad,” Paige said. She popped the last bite of bread into her mouth and wiped the salt off her fingers. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Outside the car window, Perry flew by. None of it looked like it had before: Perry’s Pins wasn’t a bowling alley; it was the place where Gam Gam had helped organize Lara’s eighth birthday party. The grocery store was the place where Lara helped her grandmother carry home heavy bags. The pet store made her think of her cat, which made her think of her knitting, which made her think of her grandmother. Everything was tainted now by the memory of Betty.

  Paige was driving, and Lara didn’t know where they were going. Home? Did that mean Paige’s home or Lara’s home?

  “Do you mind if we stop by the office for a minute?” Paige asked. “I have something I need to pick up.”

  “Sure.” The Daily Page headquarters was maybe the only place in town that wouldn’t remind her of Betty. She could only associate the building with Paige, and Lara already missed that time in her life when Paige was her most painful memory.

  Paige drove on, and Lara tried to let the speed of the car blur the buildings enough that she didn’t have to look at them.

  “Do you want to come in or stay in the car?” Paige asked when they’d parked. “I won’t be long.”

  Across the street was Mozart Cafe, an Italian restaurant the Spellmeyer family had eaten at together a thousand times, and a bar that no doubt the Spellmeyers were banned from. It wasn’t a view Lara could stomach for more than a few seconds. “Uh, I’ll go in.”

  Even for a Saturday, the office looked remarkably empty. Only a handful of workers had stayed until the late afternoon, apparently to print the next day’s paper, and Lorraine, one of the few still lingering, lit up when she saw Lara. For once, Lara found her enthusiasm admirable instead of annoying. Lorraine’s happiness was far from the worst thing in the world.

  “I’ll wait for you out here,” Lara said.

  Paige headed for her office, and Lara headed for Lorraine’s desk. Lorraine pushed her chair away from her workstation and turned to face Lara. “Hey, I heard the news. How are you doing?”

  “Honestly? I’ve been better.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.” Lorraine’s smile was replaced by a sympathetic frown. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not right now. I wanted to thank you.”

  Lorraine’s brow twitched quizzically. “For what?”

  “For suggesting that I share that video on my Instagram. You were right. People loved it.”

  “I saw that!” Lorraine’s face lit up again. Her emerald green eyes sparkled. “I saw that picture you posted of Paige, too.” As soon as Lorraine said it, Lara realized that she didn’t care what people thought of her posting pictures of Paige anymore. After last night, it was hard to deny that something was going on between them. Let the world know. Who cared? “Super cute.”

  Lara glanced towards Paige’s office. The door was cracked open, and Paige was visibly digging through her things like a hamster tunneling into its bedding. “She is, isn’t she?”

  “Only when she’s with you. Everything is so much better here lately, Lara. You really saved us.”

  Lara scoffed. “Please. I know you think of me as a Hometown Hero and all, but I don’t think I’ve saved anyone. Nothing I’ve done warrants a claim like that.”

  “I don’t mean all the stuff we covered in the project, I mean the project itself. It’s exactly what we need. I don’t know what we would’ve done if we hadn’t found you and Betty. Between the two of you, we have a real chance of winning now, and boy do we need it.”

  Lorraine was passionate about her work, but Lara had never seen her particularly excited about the contest itself. Now she was all about it. “What do you mean? It can’t be that big of a deal. No offense, but I’ve never heard of the Oklahoma News Organization, and I doubt any organization named after the state of Oklahoma is that prestigious.”

  Lorraine shook her head. “It’s not just the prestige. We aren’t entering for the accolades. It’s the prize money. You wouldn’t believe how much an ‘organization named after the state of Oklahoma’ is willing to pay to support its journalists. And if we can get pull with them, we can get funding from other places too. The prize money will tide us over until that happens. It’s a whole new start for the business. We’re this close to going under.”

>   There was money involved in this? Lara couldn’t believe it. She had actually bought Paige’s bullshit lie about wanting to improve the image of the community and help Perry stand out as one of the greatest cities in Oklahoma. What a load of crap. What else was Paige not disclosing?

  Lara’s most firmly held belief was that she knew two things in this world. One: Perry, Oklahoma, was not as great as everyone made it out to be. And two: Paige Daley had always been and always would be a selfish liar willing to do whatever it took to climb to the top. Lara had been so distracted by the first truth lately that somewhere along the way she had forgotten the second.

  Lara’s fists balled at her sides, but she had nowhere to unleash the anger. Lorraine didn’t deserve it. The energy bubbled in her palms with nowhere to go. She was static ready to shock the first object that dared to touch her.

  “Is that really why Paige wanted to enter the contest?” Lara asked. “Just for the money?”

  “Well, I doubt that’s the only reason. It’s a cool project. I’ve had fun working on it, and I’m sure she has too. She’s put a lot of effort into this.”

  Lara scoffed at Lorraine’s naiveté. “Yeah, because if she doesn’t, she’s apparently going to lose her business.”

  Lorraine was noticeably taken aback by Lara’s change in mood. She leaned back in her chair a little more, trying to calm Lara by showing her how at ease she was. “Come on, Paige likes what she does.”

  “Yeah. Too much. This paper has always been the only thing she cares about. How long has she known it was in trouble?”

  “I-I’m not sure,” Lorraine stuttered. “For a while, I’d imagine.”

  “Did she ever mention when she was going to tell me this?”

  Lorraine rolled backward in her chair, putting distance between herself and Lara. “I don’t know. I didn’t know you didn’t know. She probably didn’t want to bother you with her work problems.”

  Lorraine didn’t know Paige like Lara did.

  “No. She was fine with bothering me when this project started. She didn’t tell me because she knew I never would have agreed to help her if she had.” Lara shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. “She was a complete asshole to me for years, and I should have known better than to trust her. She was using me right from the get-go.” Lara’s chest tightened. She wanted to be angry, but she couldn’t. She was too hurt.

  It wasn’t the using that bothered Lara; she had always known Paige was using her to win the contest. They had been using each other. What bothered Lara was that after all they had been through, Paige hadn’t come clean about it. After all the time they’d spent together, after all the reconnecting they’d done, Paige still wasn’t comfortable sharing her life with Lara in the way Lara had shared hers with Paige.

  Lorraine took Lara’s words at face value, but Lara could see her brain working to connect all the pieces of the story. She’d never be able to. “Are you alright, Lara?”

  “No.” Lara shrugged her jacket back on. The thought of staying in the building for one more moment made her skin crawl. “When Paige finishes, tell her I didn’t wait for her.”

  CHAPTER 21

  The roar of a hundred voices surrounded her. Lara watched as new face after new face passed by her table outside the café. Businesswomen powerwalked their way to work. Cars honked through the traffic of the crowded street. A group of teenage boys skated off to class. There was an urgency. An excitement. An anxiety. No other place in the world was more suited for Lara Spellmeyer at this moment than the heart of downtown Oklahoma City.

  The busy din drowned out her thoughts, but that was the best thing about it.

  Lara took a bite of the muffin she had ordered. The cake was dry, or maybe that was her throat. Either way, it scratched on the way down, and the artificial blueberry flavor that was left on her tongue was nearly as unpleasant.

  The phone in her hand rang three more times then went to voicemail. “You’ve reached Janet Westler, landlord for Paradise Springs Apartments. I’m unable to answer the phone right now, but if you leave your name, number, and apartment number I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  “Damn it, Janet.”

  Lara ended the call. Maybe this wasn’t the best time to start apartment hunting, but Lara didn’t care. She needed out of Perry. She needed away from everyone. She’d call Janet back later, or she’d try another place. Oklahoma City had plenty of apartments, and Lara had enough saved up to book a hotel room until she figured something out. Once she had a plan, she could go back to Perry, get the rest of her stuff, and move back for good.

  Lara pocketed the phone to save her battery.

  She had nowhere to go, but that was the point. OKC was her oyster now. She could go anywhere she wanted.

  She finished her muffin, downed her coffee, and set off down the busy street of shops. Aside from the restaurants, there were a few street vendors. Most were tourist traps selling nothing but trinkets, but a small stand caught Lara’s eye.

  The newspaper stand was small but well-stocked; a single worker sat on a stool next to a cash register. She expected to pick up a copy of some national tabloid, and, if she was lucky, something international as well, but more of the newspapers than Lara expected were local. The Guthrie Gazette. The Checotah Chronicle. And right there amongst them all was the very thing Lara was running away from. That day’s copy of The Daily Page.

  Lara grabbed the top paper from the stack. The pile was significantly higher than all the others. No one was buying them, and Lara wasn’t surprised, not after what Lorraine had told her. She couldn’t help but feel bad, as if her own hatred for The Daily Page had somehow helped caused this. She thought of Lorraine and the rest of the workers who would suffer if the paper went under. She thought of Paige, who was on the brink of losing her dream. Paige had sacrificed so much for this paper, including Lara, and it was all on the verge of being for naught. Once upon a time, Lara would have felt validated watching Paige crash and burn, and some of that resentment was still there, but now for the most part she just felt sad. For Perry. For Paige. For what could have been if things had been different between them. If they had been different people, now or back then.

  But it wasn’t Lara’s problem anymore. She couldn’t help if Paige didn’t let her. She couldn’t let herself get trapped in another relationship if Paige was just going to push her away again. She needed honesty. She needed communication. She needed someone willing to sit beside her on the train ride of life.

  So why couldn’t she put the paper down?

  “You gonna pay for that?”

  Lara fished the money out of her pocket and regretted it as soon as the coins fell into the vendor’s hand. Was she really spending money on this? Apparently. She grabbed a copy of a different paper and gave the vendor money for that too.

  Lara resumed her trek down the street, partially out of shame for what she was doing and partially to find a spot quiet enough where she could sit down and read.

  There was one place in OKC that could always bring her clarity. The Bricktown Canal was to Lara what Clandestine Orchards was to Kerry. Sitting along the water and watching tourists pass by the storefronts and enjoy the bit of nature in the heart of the city was Lara’s way of connecting to the natural elements of the world around her.

  She took the stairs down to the water and sat on the final step. With the papers splayed out on the concrete beside her, Lara began sifting through the pages to find the only article she really cared about.

  “Beatrice Spellmeyer passed Friday evening after a long bout of respiratory problems. Born on May 8, 1943 in McClean, Virginia, Betty moved to Perry with her late husband Daniel in the 1960s. A retired attorney with a heart of gold, Betty became a pillar of the Perry community in her final years and has single-handedly made the Spellmeyer name one of the most beloved in Perry. Her loves included knitting, fudge-making, and her ultimate pride and joy, her beautiful granddaughter Lara. She is survived by Lara, her son Hank, and a bounty
of close friends who will miss her dearly.”

  Lara put the OKC newspaper on the ground. She didn’t need it. Nothing in it would top the obituary. She wasn’t in the mood for political going-ons or crime reports any longer.

  How could someone so imperfect have written such a wonderful obituary? How could she know exactly what Lara needed to hear? How could Lara never stay mad at Paige for more than a day?

  Lara had her own corner of solitude down by the waterfront, but she was far from alone. Above her, a busy footbridge crossed the canal, and below her the ferries passed by on the water. Lara paid the passersby no mind until she heard footsteps on the stairs behind her.

  She scrambled to move her newspapers and give the stranger space to pass her, but when Lara looked behind her, it wasn’t a stranger. Lara let the papers be and turned back around to face the water.

  “How’d you know I’d be here?” she asked.

  Paige crept her way down another step. She approached Lara slowly, as if she were a wild animal. “You weren’t at home. Where else would you be?”

  “What’d you do, break in and check?”

  “Is it considered breaking in if I used a key?” Paige sat down on the steps next to Lara. The newspapers divided them like a barrier.

  “How’d you get my house key?”

  “Betty gave me her copy.” Paige exhumed the key from her back pocket as proof. “She said I’d need it more than she would.”

  “She really thought I’d let you back into my life that easy?”

  “It didn’t seem that farfetched to her.”

  Lara scoffed. “Only because you tricked her. You tried so hard to worm your way back into my life over the past two months. Then I finally let you in, only to find out that you weren’t being honest with me. Again. Did you really expect me to stay?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The contest?” Lara waited for Paige to realize that Lara knew what she was up to, but there was no flash of panic on Paige’s face. There was nothing but hurt and sunken cheeks and pouty lips. “Lorraine told me what you were up to. This stupid contest isn’t about Perry at all. It’s about you saving your ass and winning the prize money. Using my life story for monetary gain without telling me is one thing, but using my dead grandmother’s? That’s a new low, even for you, Paige. She spent some of her very last moments with you. You realize that, right? You should feel honored that you got to bear witness to those stories. You should have had to pay to hear them, not get paid to regurgitate them and butcher them with your shitty writing.”