The Friday Night Knitting Club
Author: Kate Jacobs
The hours of Walker and Daughter: Knitters were clearly displayed in multicolored letters on a white sandwich board placed just so at the top of the stair landing. Though Georgia Walker–usually preoccupied with closing out the till and picking up the strays of yarn on the floor–rarely made a move to turn the lock until at least eight-fifteen.., or later. And yet when Georgia finally went to turn out the lights of her shop, she would often be met by a potential customer, all furrowed brow and breathless from dashing up the steep stairs to the second-floor shop, the seemingly innocuous "Can I pop in, just for a quick minute?" out of her mouth before Georgia could even insist they were done for the night. She'd open the door a little wider, knowing all too well what it was like to juggle work and kids and still try to sneak in a little something for herself on the side: reading a book, coloring her hair in the bathroom sink, taking a nap. Come in, get what you need, she'd say, putting off the short climb to her sparsely decorated apartment on the floor above. She never let any straggler stay past nine on a school night, though, because she needed to shoo her Dakota from the corner desk where she did her homework. But Georgia would never turn away a potential sale. She'd never turn away anyone at all.
