Chapter Forty-Two
There are many things Belinda could be doing since returning from coffee with Maggie: answering emails, calling the linen
vendor, paying the florist bill. But she does none of these things. Instead, she’s standing in the middle of the Purl contemplating
the portrait wall.
She’s troubled by the conversation with Maggie, and so she minimizes it by telling herself that everything Maggie said was
just talk. And she reminds herself that it’s often like that for her guests in the days following a retreat: They can’t quite
let go of the weekend. And if she’s done her job right, they shouldn’t want to. She’d always hoped she could at the very least
teach people about knitting, and at the most, maybe something about themselves. And so yes, she’s fielded calls from guests
asking for the name of a Realtor. Or asking about the elementary schools. Sometimes they just call to book a return weekend,
this time with their significant other. They all want to keep one foot in New Hope.
But deep down, she knows it’s different with Maggie, and Belinda would have liked nothing more than to encourage her.
She wishes she could plan a retreat with Maggie as an instructor.
It would be a dream to have a new knit shop in town, and to find creative ways for them to work together. But now, none of that is possible.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Max says behind her and standing in the doorway. “You’re not answering your phone.”
She turns and walks closer to him. “I didn’t hear it ring. Why?”
“Maggie Hodges just picked up her room key at the front desk and asked for you. She’s here for the weekend again?”
“Yes. She surprised me today with a visit.”
“Oh, that’s great. But . . . you remember that I’m going to be in Philly, tomorrow, right? I’m just reminding you so that
if you’re planning an outing with Maggie you have someone to cover—”
“I don’t need anyone to cover for me,” she snaps. She’d considered maybe she and Maggie could spend some time together tomorrow
afternoon since she’s here, maybe go antiquing across the bridge in Lambertville. But she hadn’t thought it all through.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to reschedule this appointment for a day when we can both go?” he says.
She already told him no—she’s not interested in looking for a new home. That she has a home. “You’re on your own with this
one,” she told him.
“Am I on my own finding the new home, or will I be on my own living in it?” he presses.
She doesn’t know how to respond.
“Can you please tell Maggie she can find me back here?”
When he leaves, she returns to the portrait wall and looks at herself standing amidst the group.
She’s in the center, sitting beside Sheila, wearing a big smile, one she knows that in the moment was genuine.
But it wasn’t genuine. Had she been deeply happy for even one minute since agreeing to sell the inn?
Why on earth had she said yes so easily?
The knitting retreats mean so much to her. How could Max ask her to give that up?
“Belinda?” Maggie says from the doorway. “Do you have a minute?”
Belinda waves her in. “I’m so glad you stayed in town. I want to tell you: The knitting shop is a great idea. I believe in
you, Maggie. Don’t let my situation change your ambitions.”
“That’s the thing, Belinda. My ambition isn’t necessarily a knit shop. It’s to continue what I experienced here last weekend.
Not just the knitting, not just the inn, not just teaching, not just you—but all of it, together. I believe it can be just
the beginning of something special.”
“Maggie, you need to let this go. You’re making it more difficult for me. I appreciate the idea, and that you want to work
with me. I obviously felt the same way getting to know you last weekend. But then there’s reality. Some things can’t be fixed.”
“I don’t agree,” Maggie says urgently. “What if I find an investor to buy out Max? The inn is half yours, right? So if you
want to keep it, you just need someone to compensate Max for what would be his half of the sale.”
Belinda digests this, then says, “Is this for real? You know someone who would want to do this?”
“Possibly. It’s worth a shot. The woman who owns the clothing store where I work was born and raised here. She moved to New
York before you took over the inn, but she’s the one who told me about the knitting retreat in the first place. She was in
finance for the first part of her career and now she invests in things all the time.”
Belinda nods. “Okay. Sounds promising. How do we make this happen?”
Maggie needs to get Elaine under Belinda’s roof. She remembers the New Hope Inn from decades ago, but that wasn’t Belinda’s inn. “I don’t know when she was last here, or what she envisions when she thinks about this place. And I want her to see
it the way I experienced it this weekend.” It will be a challenge to re-create the energy of the knitting retreat, but she’d
like to figure out a way to try. She’d have to, as Elaine put it, leap before she looks.
“So how do we do that?” Belinda says. “As much as I’d like to, I can’t snap my fingers and have the knitting retreat appear.”
The Purl is in its default state: spare and lovely with the river on full display. But it was also quiet and seemed empty
after the weekend.
Maggie looks around, folds her arms in front of her chest and admits, “I’m not sure yet.”
Maggie helps Belinda retrieve folding tables from the back office storage closet and set them up in the Purl the way they’d
been arranged for the yarn market. Max, catching them in the act during their second trip to the supply closet, offers to
help: “Looks like I’m missing a party.”
“No party,” Belinda says quickly.
She’s already advised Maggie that Max is on a need-to-know basis about their plan. “I’m not telling him anything until—if—there’s
something to tell,” she’d said. Maggie understands, and plays along by being vague even as Max asks questions.
If Maggie and Belinda are going to convince Elaine to become a partner in the inn, every detail counts: the way the place
sounds, the way it looks, the way it smells. She’s tapping out a list on her phone as she paces in front of the fireplace:
Food. Drinks . . .
“Do you think you could get that hot cocoa cart in the lobby?”
“It’s short notice,” Belinda says. “But Max seemed to get her on a whim last weekend, so it’s worth a try. I have to say,
the bachelors certainly enjoyed it. Genevieve told me she rarely sells out so fast. Speaking of bachelors: You and Aidan Danby
seemed to hit it off. Do you think you’ll stay in touch?”
Maggie takes a beat before responding.
“I sort of stood him up when I left like that on Sunday night. By the time I remembered our plans, I was back in New York.
I texted him an apology but didn’t hear back.”
Belinda refastens the hair tie at the tail end of her braid and says, “Oh, you know the fragile male ego. They’re all-powerful
when wielding an axe, but often crumble in the face of emotional nuance. Just let him know you’re back in town. I’m sure he’s
gotten over that mishap by now. Especially if he knows there’s the chance to see you this weekend.”
Maggie hasn’t had time to process the run-in. She doesn’t know what to make of the fact that he was clearly on a date. It’s
none of her business, really. If anything, she’s the one who made a big deal out of not looking for a relationship, of making
sure he understood that it was just a weekend thing between them.
“Actually, he knows I’m here. I went for a walk after you and I had coffee and ran into him. He seemed to be on a date.”
Belinda looks skeptical. “That’s a big assumption. You’re probably projecting.”
“Anyway—I’m not here for Aidan.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Of course!”
“So you’re telling me that all of a sudden, you want leave your daughter and New York City—after how many years—and move to New Hope because you have a sudden urge to open a knit shop? As much as I like to believe my retreats are that inspiring, this might push the bounds of credulity.”
Maggie nods. “There is more to it. I’m not leaving Piper. I’m giving her some space. I think it’ll be good for us. And as
for the knit shop—I want to spend my days doing something I care about. Something that brings meaning and joy—to me and to
other people. I know you understand that.”
Belinda nods. “I do.”
Maybe, on some deep level, Maggie factored Aidan into her idea of a future in New Hope. But it’s not a concrete thought, or
plan. It’s formless, barely a shadow in the corner of her mind.
When the room is mostly staged, Maggie’s disappointed to see that with only a fraction of the yarn on hand that Belinda displayed
at the beginning of last weekend’s retreat, Maggie can’t get the visual effect she wants. She envisions a symphony of color
and textures, the room bursting with abundance; when she walked into the yarn market one week ago, it had felt like a knitter’s
wonderland. It’s imperative that be Elaine’s experience tomorrow morning when she arrives.
“This is all the yarn you have on-site?” Maggie says.
Belinda nods. “I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing how much to order for the retreats without having too much inventory left.”
“Yeah. A little too good.” She frowns.
Belinda turns on the sound system and plays the Carole King album Tapestry while she arranges the worsted-weight yarn on a table next to the hand-dyed cotton.
“I like this music—can you queue this up tomorrow?” Maggie says.
The song “Where You Lead” plays, and Maggie feels a twinge. It’s a song Carole King rerecorded with her daughter as the theme
for Gilmore Girls.
Life is happening too fast. One minute they’re huddled on the couch watching Netflix after Piper finishes her homework and the next . . . Piper is married.
Maggie left her a voicemail congratulating her. It was a huge effort to make her tone sound normal—unbothered. Joyful, even.
She hasn’t told Belinda about the elopement. When she asked how Piper is doing, Maggie simply said, “Fine.” This is a business
trip. She needs Belinda to view her as a steady hand, as a potential partner—not as a distracted, emotional mom.
The scarcity of yarn is nagging at her. There’s no yarn shop in town—hence, her initial idea to open one. But while the town
lacks knit shops, it doesn’t lack knitters.
Maggie exchanged numbers with everyone at the retreat, and they already have their own robust group chat going. Two of the
people in the chat are local—Kalli and Laurel. Sheila is an hour away, but it’s worth a try. So she sends a quick message:
I know this is totally random and if it’s not possible no problem—but can any of you bring your yarn stash to the inn tomorrow
morning? Belinda and I need to borrow it for decoration.
She doesn’t know about Kalli and Laurel, but Sheila mentioned her mountainous stash during the yarn swap in her room.
The yarn swap.
Maggie stands up. “Belinda. I think I figured out what to do tomorrow.”