Excerpt: The Friday Night Knitting Club

"When the store is a booming success, then you can pay me," she suggested that day ten years before.

Of course, the shop -- with careful planning, slow growth, and a lot of hope -- had grown into something of a hit. Over the years, it had even popped up in mentions of local haunts in papers and such; recently an article in New York on mompreneurs had featured Walker and Daughter.

"Sure thing, it might bring your classmates and their moms into the shop," Georgia had said when Dakota wanted to take the story to school. She planned to drop off her little girl at the front entrance as she did every morning, then go home to open up the shop. A quick hug and see you later; the usual. Instead, Dakota surprised her mother as she wheeled around, her winter coat already unzipped and revealing the bright turquoise sweater that accented her warm, café-au-lait skin. It was one of Georgia's creations. Dakota spoke, pointing to the article in triumph, then dashed into the door before the buzzer sounded. Georgia barely remembered the walk home, fumbled with the keys to the shop before her face became wet with heavy tears as she let the years of fear and hard work wash out of her, Dakota's casual "I'm proud of us, Mom" ringing in her ears.

Anita continued to work only for yarn, and when she wanted to start a personal knitting project -- she still made vest after vest even though Stan had been gone for a decade -- she simply went to the shelf and chose something exquisite. When she wanted a hug, she wrapped her arms around Dakota. And that was that. It was enough.

So Anita always let out a deep breath upon seeing this last-minute customer skate into the store, felt the ball in her stomach begin to unwind. A few more minutes to be needed, a further delay to keep her from going home to the apartment at the San Remo that remained too big and too empty. "Oh, come on in," she'd say over Georgia's mild protests, walking right over to help the client. "Tell me what you need…"

And so the door at Walker and Daughter was open a little bit late and eventually a little bit later than that. Soon enough, at the end of the long workweek, a few regular customers took to popping in with their knitting -- sweaters and scarves and cell-phone socks -- and asking questions about all the mistakes they'd made while commuting on the subway.

"I just can't get the buttonhole right!"

"Why do I keep dropping stitches?"

"Do you think I can finish it by Christmas?"

Without ever putting up one sign or announcing the creation of a knitting club, these women began regularly appearing in the evenings and, well, loitering. Chatting with each other, talking to Anita, gathering about the large round table in the center of the room, picking up where they had left things the week before. And then, one Friday last fall, it became official. Well, sort of.

Lucie, a striking woman with short, sandy-colored hair, who favored tortoiseshell glasses over her big, blue eyes and colorful, funky outfits, was an occasional shopper at Walker and Daughter. She came in every few months and was always working on the same piece, a thick cable knit sweater -- a man's garment. There were a lot of these types who came in to the store, folks whose knitting ambitions were out of line with either their ability or with whatever mysterious comings and goings kept them from sitting down and getting the job done.

But Lucie began appearing more and more often in the early evening, gazing wistfully at the fancier yarns but typically choosing a good-quality wool that was just this side of inexpensive. Some days she sauntered in with a leather attaché and suit jacket slung over her arm as if she'd come from a big meeting. At other times, she looked relaxed in slim-fitting cigarette pants and a messenger bag draped across her body. But without fail she had a single bag of groceries in her hand, the makings of a simple supper, which she carefully placed on the counter as she paid for her yarn. After talking to Lucie on several visits, Anita understood that she was pretty fair with a set of needles but simply couldn't find the time to get going. "You could always knit here," Anita suggested idly, not thinking much of it. And then, one Friday, Lucie simply pulled up a chair at the table and began to do her knitting right then and there. And Dakota, who had been idly milling about and rolling her eyes and making noises about being bored and wanting to go to the movies, sat right down beside her.

"That's pretty," said Dakota, impulsively reaching out to stroke the top of the sparkling gemstone Lucie wore on her right hand.

"Yes, I bought it for myself," said Lucie, with a smile that recalled happy times, but offered no more explanation. Dakota shrugged, then reached out to look at the big, thick sweater Lucie had on round needles.

"I'm pretty good, you know," she said, nodding, putting out a hand to take a look at Lucie's stitches. Lucie laughed, kept clacking away. "I'm sure you are," she said, without looking up.

And then Anita sat down, ostensibly to keep Dakota in check. Other shoppers joined them at the table and suddenly, unexpectedly, it was a group. On a whim, Lucie pulled out the fresh box of bakery cookies she had just picked up at Fairway and had planned to savor over the weekend; instead, she offered them around. The polite no, thank-yous echoed until Dakota declared that she most certainly would enjoy a treat, and then the laughter sliced through the awkwardness and they each took one cookie, and then another. And somehow, between mouthfuls, they began to show one another what they had been working on. Anita talked buttonholes and dropped stitches, and then she offered to put on a fresh pot of coffee in the back. More cookies, more conversation. It became late, too late to really stay on, and the women packed up their bags and made motions to move but lingered, reluctant to leave. It was Dakota who declared she'd bring muffins to the next meeting. Next meeting? I might be busy, the women said. I don't know if I can commit. Let me check my calendar. But the next week, Lucie did show up. Dakota brought her muffins. Georgia even sat down with them. And so the Friday Night Knitting Club emerged.

Six months later, the club was going strong even as the winter drew to a close. Lucie had finished her sweater and started another; Dakota was making a regular mess in the kitchen in their apartment above, experimenting with everything from pinwheel cookies to blondies to decorated cupcakes. "Ever heard of June Cleaver?" Georgia would tease her. Big sigh from her sweet brown-eyed little girl who kept growing bigger.

"Yeah, I've seen TV Land, Mom." Then: "It's for club, Mom, the ladies are hungry!" A beat. "What do you think about selling my creations?"

Ah, she'd raised another independent businesswoman with vision. It felt good.

Dakota's bake sale plans never came to pass -- "No, Dakota, this Walker still outranks the daughter!" -- but the group continued to grow anyway. People told their friends, and women would stroll in after meeting up for drinks or a nosh. Coming to the Friday Night Knitting Club became a bit of a thing to do -- different enough to be fun, refreshing in that it wasn't just another place to meet men.

One such drop-in -- a woman who came once but never came back -- mentioned the shop in a casual way to her cousin, Darwin Chiu, who arrived one evening and spoke in hushed tones with Georgia, then sat at the table with a serious expression and a notepad. She was no ordinary customer; in fact, Darwin wasn't a knitter at all. She was a struggling graduate student in search of a dissertation for her doctorate in women's studies. The knitting club became her primary resource for thesis research. A compact Asian-American woman in her late twenties, Darwin was all business. In the beginning, she rarely smiled; she just furiously scribbled and later moved on to interviewing the members of the club about their "obsession with knitting."

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