Chapter Five
Maggie is locking up the shop. Outside, she finds that it’s raining—a light, irritating drizzle. But there will be no rain
check: She’s going through with the date.
She’s regretting this fact with every fiber of her being when she spots, of all people, Ethan just a few feet away. She’s
never run into Piper’s boyfriend in this neighborhood, and it takes her a few seconds to process that this isn’t a coincidence.
“Maggie, hi. Do you have a minute?” he asks, instantly putting her on high alert.
“Is Piper okay?”
“Yeah . . . yeah. She’s napping. Didn’t get much sleep last night.”
The drizzle really is no more than a mist at this point. She checks the time on her phone and decides she’s going to walk
to the restaurant instead of taking the subway.
“I’m meeting someone for dinner. Can you talk while we walk?”
It’s just after five but the street is blanketed in the fall’s early darkness. They turn right on Lexington. Some storefronts
already have seasonal twinkling lights, and with the last glimpse of daylight on the horizon, the moment makes her feel wistful
and oddly alone.
“I assume you’re here because of Piper’s fall last night,” Maggie says. “And I appreciate that you’re that concerned. She needs both of our support so she can dust herself off and get back to work.”
“I’m actually not here about last night,” he says, and stops walking. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for a few weeks
now.”
Yes. The texts. A voicemail. Maggie is embarrassed she never got back to him. If pressed, even now, she can’t explain why,
exactly, she’s been avoiding him.
“I apologize,” she says. “Things have been busy.”
He nods in understanding. “I thought about talking to you last night when we were waiting for the discharge paperwork, but
figured it wasn’t the right time.”
Maggie feels the hair rise on the back of her neck, her motherly intuition tingling like a sixth sense.
“The right time for what?”
Ethan smiles sheepishly. “I want to ask Piper to marry me.”
Maggie’s stomach drops. Piper is twenty-three years old. Ethan is a decent guy, and if this were five years later she’d be
thrilled for the two of them. But what’s the rush?
“Look, Ethan. Please don’t take this personally. But I think Piper should be focused on her career and just being a carefree
young woman right now. There’s plenty of time for marriage down the line.”
Ethan looks incredulous. “With all due respect, Maggie, we’ve been together for three years and taking the next step feels
right.”
“But she’s trying to get her career off the ground.”
“And I’m proud of her.”
“I know you are. I’m just concerned that getting married right now would derail that.”
“Why would it?” he says.
“Because I know my daughter, and she loves with her whole heart. She’ll be torn between you and work, and you will always come first. There’s certainly a time for that.
But that time is not now.” She pauses, looking into his big brown eyes to see if any of this is sinking in.
It’s tough to tell. So she keeps going. “Clearly, something has her stressed out. Look what happened last night. She’s never fainted before in her life!
So if you want what’s best for her, you’ll give her some space to be selfish for a little while.
Let her make her own money, and have a career she can look back on when she’s older and say, Yeah—I did that.
And then, when you do get married, she won’t have any regrets. ”
Ethan looks stricken. “Okay. Well, you’ve given me something to think about.”
Maggie smiles at him, resisting the urge to pat him on the shoulder. He looks very young himself in the moment. She knows
she’s given good advice. That’s all she can do.
Maggie walks the rest of the way to the restaurant alone.
Her date takes her to an expensive French restaurant. Allan is ten years older, a lawyer with a tan that suggests he has a
second home somewhere warm. He reminds her of one of her mother’s favorite old movie stars, George Hamilton.
She doesn’t want to think of her mother, Birdie Hodges, who is relentlessly vocal in her disapproval of Maggie’s single status.
According to Birdie, Maggie is willfully making life unnecessarily difficult by failing to find a man to take care of her.
This is Maggie’s second unforgivable mistake in life. The first, of course, was getting pregnant at age twenty.
Maggie met Piper’s father backstage at a fashion show.
It was her second year at Parsons and she had an internship with a major designer.
Maggie’s job was to assist the assistants.
One night, in the flurry of backstage activity, she ended up working with a male model from Iceland.
Kris was sweet and self-deprecating and she went home with him that night.
It was six weeks before she realized she was pregnant.
And, that being the dark ages before iPhones and social media, she had no way to get in touch with him.
And even if she did, it would be pointless.
He was in his early twenties, based in Europe, traveling the world as a model. She was on her own.
But a decade later, after some online sleuthing, she did find him: He owned a furniture design company in his hometown of
Hofn. They messaged briefly on an app. He was married, with no kids, and no interest in Piper.
Her last serious relationship ended when Piper was twelve. Daniel was an architect she’d met at a friend’s birthday dinner.
They dated happily for a few years, but when she kept declining his invitations to move into his apartment, they reached an
impasse. She said she’d consider it once Piper was off to college, but he said he couldn’t “put his life on hold.” And that
was the end of her romantic life, essentially. She didn’t do the whole online dating thing. The construct was so flawed. How
could a true love match ever come from it? So she’d accepted that she’d missed the boat on romance. Her own mother had told
her as much: “You always overreach and then you wonder why nothing works out.” She liked to add, “If you don’t watch out,
you’ll spend the rest of your life alone.”
Maggie didn’t bother explaining that she’d never be alone as long as she had Piper.
Birdie would never understand how fulfilling a mother-daughter relationship could be because they themselves didn’t have one.
Once she got over the initial shock and logistical worries of being pregnant at twenty, Maggie stopped viewing it as a mistake.
It was a second chance at a good mother-daughter relationship, just reversed.
The day she gave birth to Piper was the day she stopped aching for her own mother’s love.
Maggie listens to Allan the lawyer talk about his home in Palm Beach (She knew it!) while she sips her glass of wine.
“I feel like I’m doing all the talking,” he says after a while. “What about you? Where are you from?”
“Outside of Philadelphia,” she says.
“The Main Line?”
She nods. The wealthy suburb was made famous by the Katharine Hepburn film The Philadelphia Story.
“You don’t look like a Main Line girl,” he says.
She resists the urge to say, Well, because I’m not a girl, I’m a woman. Instead, she tells him, “I moved to New York for college.”
“Me too. Columbia, class of 1993.”
She smiles politely and offers, “I was at Parsons.” She omits the part about dropping out before getting her degree. She’s
not ashamed of it; she just doesn’t see the point in expending the energy to explain it. She already knows she won’t be seeing
this man again.
The bottom line is that she doesn’t have any interest in sharing her life with a man. She’s tried, it hasn’t worked, and she’s
moved on. She has everything she needs: A good job. Friends. Knitting. And most importantly, she has her daughter.
Before they’ve ordered food, Piper texts, Ru around?
Maggie excuses herself for the ladies’ room. She takes the wide staircase leading to the bathrooms on the second floor. Upstairs,
she stands outside the bathroom and texts back, I’m around. What’s up?
She doesn’t mention she’s on a date. Piper would be horrified to know she’d interrupted.
Can you meet at the diner? Need to talk.
Maggie doesn’t have to ask what diner. She and Piper have a shorthand for everything. See u in 15, Maggie writes.
She has until she reaches the bottom of the staircase to think of an excuse to tell her date.
Gracie Mews diner has occupied the corner of East 81st Street and First Avenue for decades. The portions are huge and the
prices are outrageous, but it’s the dining equivalent of a warm cozy blanket. The place has had the same staff for as long
as she can remember, and when she asks for her usual, LEO (lox, eggs, onion) omelet—her server comments:
“Breakfast for dinner.”
Maggie exchanges a look with Piper. Dimitris, their server, says this same thing every time, in the same deadpan expression,
as if he’s never made the comment before. And she plays along, not sure if it’s a reprimand, a question or a suggesting for
framing her order.
“He never disappoints,” Piper says. Maggie and Piper are seated in a booth next to windows overlooking 81st Street. It’s dark
outside, and all she sees are car headlights. Piper moves French fries around her plate, but doesn’t take even one bite. Across
the aisle, Maggie spots a familiar old woman sitting alone at a table for two. She has dyed red hair and overly rouged cheeks
and cartoonish blue eyeshadow. She’s been eating at the same table every night for all the years Maggie’s lived in the neighborhood.
“You’re finally quiet enough to appease the Dragon Lady,” Maggie jokes. Piper dubbed the old woman Dragon Lady back when she
was in fourth grade because the woman used to scold her for talking too loudly.
“She still fucking terrifies me.”
Maggie steals a glance at the woman. It seems she hasn’t aged, but that’s probably because she’s the type of person who looked eighty when they were sixty.
It’s sad, really. Maggie wonders, with a shudder, if that will be her fate. Sitting alone at a table in Gracie Mews eating
overpriced breakfast food for dinner and snapping at small children. But no, she will never be alone. She has Piper.
Maggie reaches across the table and pats her arm.
“I know you’re embarrassed about last night. But trust me, no one else is thinking about it anymore. The important thing is
to get right back on the horse.” Right back on the horse? Oh god. She was turning into Birdie. “You know what I mean,” she adds.
Piper exhales. “Yeah, well, it’s not that simple. That’s why I wanted to have dinner—to talk to you in person. But I don’t
want you to get upset.”
Maggie’s stomach tightens into a knot. “Now I’m already upset. What happened?”
Piper reaches for a lock of her hair, twisting it around her forefinger.
“Gretchen dropped me.”
“Dropped you meaning . . . what?” Maggie knows, but she can’t believe it.
“Meaning, she no longer represents me.”
She understands that Piper’s manager would be upset, concerned even. But to drop her?
“That doesn’t make sense,” Maggie says. Piper starts talking about her contract being up, that she doesn’t have enough momentum—but
that she’s fine with it. Clearly, she’s determined to put up a brave front. But Maggie knows deep down she must be heartbroken.
Maggie feels helpless. Motherhood was so much easier when almost anything could be fixed with a trip to the ice cream shop
or toy store. She wonders, what’s the adult equivalent?
She remembers the knitting retreat.
“Piper, let’s get away this weekend.”
Piper shakes her head. “Mom, you don’t have to fix this for me. I’m fine.”
“I know you’re fine,” Maggie says. “But Elaine told me about this amazing knitting retreat. It’s just two hours away. I think
it would be good for both of us.”
She shows Piper her phone, where’s she pulled up the retreat website.
Welcome to New Hope: Indulge your passion for all things yarn in the heart of a charming historic town nestled on the Delaware River. Our exclusive
knitting and crochet retreat offers a sanctuary for creativity and relaxation . . .
“A sanctuary for creativity,” Piper says.
“Are you making fun?” Maggie says, swiping the phone away.
“No! Come on—show me again.”
Maggie hands the phone back, and Piper reads aloud: “Craft in comfort. Your accommodations will be the cozy New Hope Inn,
blending old-world charm with modern amenities, providing the perfect backdrop for your crafting endeavors.” She looks up.
“I like old-world charm.”
“As do I,” Maggie says, and they share a smile. She has the rest of the post memorized:
Something for Everyone: Whether you’re an experienced crafter looking to refine your skills or a novice eager to learn the basics, our knitting and
crochet retreat promises an enriching experience for all.
“What do you think?” Maggie says.
Piper nods. “I mean, it sounds great. But it starts tomorrow. I’m sure it’s sold out.”
Maggie’s thinking the same thing, and that’s why she’s not going to bother trying to register online. “Let’s see about that.”
She dials the number for the inn, and a man answers.
“New Hope Inn.”
“Oh, hello,” she says, glancing at Piper. “I’m calling about the knitting retreat? Are there any spots left?”
“Hold on,” he says. “That’s my wife’s domain.”
Maggie hears the thunk of a landline receiver hitting a hard surface. Across the aisle, The Dragon Lady gets up and grabs
hold of her walker.
“Hello, Belinda speaking.”
The woman’s voice is warm and mellifluous.
“Oh, Belinda, hi, my name is Maggie Hodges. I’m calling to see if you have any spots left for your retreat this weekend.”
The woman asks how many people are in her “party.”
“Two. Just me and my daughter.”
“I have space in my workshops,” the woman says. “The only issue is . . . I’m looking at my occupancy now . . . you’d have
to share a room. We have a deluxe twin available.”
Sharing a room is even better. It will be just like the old days when Piper lived at home and they ate popcorn on the couch
and watched Gilmore Girls.
“We’ll take it.” She looks at Piper and gives her the thumbs-up.
They’re going to have the perfect mother-daughter weekend.