Tightening the Knot Read online

  “I appreciate that you let me put my arms down.”

  “Now who’s cheating?”

  “I also appreciate how determined you are. I’d have chucked those blue strings a while ago.”

  Meredith laughed. “No you wouldn’t’ve.” She picked up another string and began to work it through. It did not escape her notice that she had to lean against his back a little to reach. It seemed to her that it had been a long time since they had been this close. And she loved that he still felt familiar.

  “I appreciate that you’re better at weaving than I am. I hope you’re going to be able to do what she’s doing now.” He nodded in the direction of the instructors. The woman was looping the ends to hold everything together.

  “Yeah. It’s just like a potholder.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know, those bags of sock pieces you wove together as a kid to make potholders.”

  “I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I know you’re a guy, but surely you’ve seen it done. Didn’t Mary make any potholders?”

  “Let me get this straight. I’ve never seen anyone make potholders out of socks and you think that’s weird?”

  “Yes. But you better be careful because I’m on the next string so you’re supposed to be saying something nice.”

  “Okay. You look very cute when you think I’m the one who’s weird.”

  “Thank you.” Meredith smiled and continued working. She was leaning in a little more than she had to now and they were almost check to check. Meredith blushed slightly, partly from the closeness and partly because half the room was now copying their technique. She wasn’t getting too comfortable in front of an audience. Greg seemed aware of her nearness though and got a little more serious with his next few compliments. Until the final string when he got a lot more serious.

  “I love knowing you’ll be an excellent mother.”

  She gulped a little at the forbidden topic and looped together their new creation in silence. It really didn’t look anything like a potholder.

  ╣ Chapter 23 ╠

  Meredith had enjoyed that first activity, though she was embarrassed to admit it even to herself. And this didn’t mean she was any more optimistic about “Molding Emotions” than when she had first read the title. Still, she walked into meeting room C hoping to at least find some participants that were not as old as her parents. Instead, she found her parents.

  “Mom? Dad? Uh… hi.”

  “Hello, Meredith. Greg.”

  “What are you kids doing here with all us old fogies?”

  A few answers popped into Meredith’s head, but she only smiled while Greg said something much more diplomatic than anything she had come up with. She probably should have appreciated his people skills in the previous session. The four of them made small talk while Meredith appraised the room. It was arranged like the other meeting room except there was no yarn on the tables. There was a large box of Play-Doh, blue and pink of course. A woman near the front was wearing a heavy apron that may have been more suited to shielding her from x-rays than something normally used by preschoolers. Meredith surmised that this was the female half of a lead couple, but no man was similarly armored so the other half was still conjecture. The woman clapped her hands excitedly.

  “People… people! It’s already 5:04. We must get started. Take your seats, please.”

  Seats were taken and heads turned to face the front. Meredith had grabbed a chair on the end because it was nearest to her. Her mother was on Greg’s other side. One man remained standing and had moved to the front. The lead woman gave him an impatient gesture and he began passing out the cans of Play-Doh. He hobbled. There was no other way to describe it. He had a limp, and though pain did not register on his face, he held the cans in one hand and hunched over to grip the table edges as he passed. There was a mound of what must have been five or six cans of dough mixed together on the front desk. The woman waved her hands over this mound as though considering how best to approach it and Meredith wondered if she might be trying to animate it.

  The woman became very lively herself as she pushed and mangled and forced her mass into a sloping mass. She grabbed a hunk from the top and vigorously worked it into a ball between her hands. Then she added this ball near the bottom of the slope and stepped back.

  “This,” she said with gusto, “is anticipation.”

  There was a pause, during which she appeared to be allowing this revelation to sink in. Meredith and the other students stared back in wordless awe.

  “More specifically, it represents my anticipation of the beautiful sculptures you are about to create. You will have the opportunity to display your own emotions in this form. You may now open your materials.”

  “Materials?” Greg murmured. Meredith rolled her eyes in agreement and then turned her attention back to the front.

  “Now, what I want you to do is pick a time, with your spouse, that you both felt particularly strong emotions. This can be a happy event or an argument, or any situation you experienced together… just as long as you both remember your feelings at the time. Then… mold that emotion and show it to your spouse. You may do as many as time permits. This is an excellent activity to connect with each other. Don’t worry if it is very powerful your first time. There is a box of tissues here if anyone needs one.”

  The man had taken his place in one of the two chairs up front, where he sat looking rather bored as the woman sank down next to him, clearly drained by the expression.

  Meredith turned to Greg.

  “Is that all the help we’re going to get?” he asked.

  “Was that helpful to you?”

  “Well, I mean, I get that we’re supposed to try to make an emotion with this stuff, but how do you do that?”

  Meredith shook her head doubtfully. “I’d probably say the point is just to get us talking about our shared experiences, except that she was really getting into it. I think if we don’t look like we’re trying it’s going to hurt her feelings.”

  “You mean she might be molding melancholy after we leave?” He was biting his lip to keep from laughing.

  Meredith smiled back; her mother had overheard and poked Greg gently. “You two be nice.” The commandment was more from a sense of what was polite than a sense of her appreciating the experience. She would probably be joking with them about it next week.

  Greg tried to look more serious. He may have actually been a little more so given the reminder that his mother-in-law was close enough to hear a conversation about his emotions. Meredith decided to go first. She took the still cylindrical dough and twisted it in the middle. “This is…um, I’m not sure what emotion that would be, but this is what I felt like when that dog coughed up the batteries… and all that other yucky stuff.”

  “Hey! You’re actually pretty good at this.” Greg looked genuinely impressed. He looked at his “materials.” After a few moments of thought, he began shaking his head. “I just really don’t get this.”

  “I’m pretty sure there’s no wrong way to do it. Would you like to try molding grossed out, too?”

  He laughed. “Um, no, I don’t think I can. I mean, not without copying you. That’s clearly grossed out so if I do anything else it will just look wrong.”

  “Well, what emotion do you want to do?”

  Jeanette poked back into the conversation. “I started with love. I’m sure you can remember strong emotions from your wedding day. Try that.”

  This suggestion made Greg squirm a bit. What would Jeanette say if marrying her daughter was not enough of a muse? Then again, he was a guy; he wasn’t wired to mold mushy emotions out of squishy dough. He reluctantly began rolling the dough into a ball and then flattening it out a bit, which Meredith recognized as the way most of her students worked with it. And was theirs not a labor of love? Greg was working slowly though, still waiting for an idea to come to him. Then his hands worked faster and he formed the dough into a heart.

/>   “How about this?” He looked up at Meredith feeling reasonably satisfied with his efforts. The female instructor had given up her seat to survey the work of her class. She arrived in front of Greg before Meredith had a chance to answer.

  She looked disappointed. “Emotions are abstract by nature, and unique to the individual. A heart is an object, the same to everyone. You need to feel the sculpture, not form it.” She walked away with the look of someone who had been wounded.

  Meredith was shocked at the lecture and raised her eyebrows at Greg, who only shrugged. “I guess there is a wrong way.”

  ╣ Chapter 24 ╠

  Greg and Meredith arrived in the hotel dining room at 6:25 to discover they were one of the last couples to arrive. There seemed to be about fifty people in the room and Meredith guessed most of the other participants had figured out there was no point to going back to their rooms to stand around for twenty minutes without actually going back to their rooms for those twenty minutes.

  Hotel staff members were setting out a buffet and Meredith recognized the instructors from the weaving class running like sheepdogs to herd the men and women into separate groups. They had taped pink and blue streamers to the floor to mark out the pens. Meredith gave Greg a look of surrender as they moved apart to join their respective genders. She had just about given up on finding her mom in the group when she spotted her parents entering the room. Jeanette quickly smoothed down her hair as she entered and Meredith had to squash from her mind the horrifying idea that her parents might not have been standing around since the last session.

  Mother and daughter found each other and stood together trying to decide what was on the menu. Meredith was about to comment on how good the cheesecake looked when the room was filled with the ear-splitting squeal of sound equipment used poorly. When the pain subsided, the crowd looked up to see an apologetic-looking man standing before a microphone. He had black hair dotted with gray and the woman next to him had red hair, very red hair. They wore overly large, matching T-shirts sporting the words “I’m not complete without” and arrows pointing at each other.

  The man leaned timidly into the mic before he began. “I’d like to first take a minute to welcome everyone here. I hope you’re all having fun and that those knots are tighter already.” He received many polite smiles for his words. Then he led the group in a heartfelt prayer of thanks for the food they were to receive and for God’s work in bringing all the couples together. He said he was proud to have the opportunity to witness so many couples gathered to further the will of God in their holy unions. Meredith was stunned by the depth and eloquence of his speech and felt a slight pang for having judged him so harshly on his wardrobe.

  He moved to the side so that his wife could have a turn at the mic. She also looked as though it might bite her.

  “Hi.” She pulled some note cards from her pocket and began reading. “So is anyone hungry?” A few hands went up on the men’s side, but she didn’t look up for a response. “I’m sure you’d all like to get to this splendid meal, but we have a little activity for you first.” She forced a smile. “I need all the women to organize in order of wedding date. The most recently married should be first in line behind Sue. Raise your hand, Sue, so they know where to go.

  Apparently, Sue was the tall woman of pink yarn fame. Meredith had a feeling she would be near the front of the line so she left her mom’s side to find her way to Sue. The women were able to assemble themselves fairly quickly. When the line was formed, Meredith was second only to a 70-year-old newlywed.

  Sue gave a thumbs-up sign and the redhead flipped to her next card. “Now is where the fun begins. Each of you ladies will grab a blue plate. You’ll be dishing food for your husbands to prove how well you know what he likes. Then find your couple number on these tables and wait for him to bring you your dinner.” She stepped quickly back from the mic, and Sue stepped aside to let the women through the line.

  Meredith picked up a blue plate. Greg was not a picky eater. He liked pretty much anything except coconut, which he felt was a little too much like eating plastic. Meredith had never asked when he had eaten plastic. She went through the line and dished a little of this and that, leaving room for dessert. As she was about to slide a slice of pumpkin pie onto the plate, she saw that the woman in front of her was hurriedly eating a slice of the cheesecake right out of the pan! It didn’t look as though anyone else had noticed the offense. She skipped the cheesecake for Greg and hoped he wouldn’t ask why.

  Once Meredith sat down, it seemed that the line was moving rather slowly. Perhaps some of the women were taking this very seriously. When they were through, the organizers had the men organize into a similar line, except in reverse for “more fun.” This put Greg near the end. What Meredith had chosen for him was becoming less and less important because she knew what he liked most of all was food that was still very hot. The steam from his plate was dissipating with any hopes of delivering on that preference. She considered taking this plate for herself, but worried what sort of fun punishment might be in store for breaking the rules.

  Several people had already finished and had begun to mingle by the time Greg sat down with Meredith’s dinner. They sat at a round table with three other couples. Two of the couples obviously knew each other well and were engaged in heavy conversation that never let up. The other couple had placed their hearing aids on the table as they sat down. Greg and Meredith mostly ate in silence as well.

  As they were about to leave though, Greg noticed that she had not touched her dessert. “I know you love cheesecake so I got you a big slice. Don’t you even have room for a few bites?”

  It did look tasty and it was irrational to think a fresh pan hadn’t been brought out since her time at the buffet, but she couldn’t bring herself to risk it. “I’ll tell you later,” she said.

  ╣ Chapter 25 ╠

  Meredith expected to find the shirt buddies from dinner leading her and Greg’s last activity before the dance. Instead, they were introduced to another couple, Martha and Stan, who seemed less than thrilled to be leading the group.

  “Okay, everyone,” Martha started, “we’re going to spend some time talking about putting the fun back in the fundamentals of a good marriage.” She put air quotes around the word fun and also included a slight eye roll, which was probably not in the script. “The first fundamental is communication. Of course, we all know good communication is essential to the success of any relationship and we’re going to do a little game to remind ourselves.” Meredith got the distinct impression that Martha had to hold back from adding more quotes to the word game. “Each couple should take one box, but don’t open it yet, and they’re all the same so it doesn’t matter if you take a pink one or a blue one.”

  There was a table in the center of the room with piles of pink and blue boxes. All the chairs were lined up along the walls. A few had been taken, but most of the couples had been milling around the table waiting for instructions. Greg happened to be closer to the table and now picked up a blue box, then looked at Meredith as though asking if he had made a good choice. She nodded, sure it wouldn’t matter. The cutesy pastel theme was starting to get on her nerves, mostly because all the pink and blue reminded her of a baby shower.

  When it appeared no one else intended to pick up a box, Martha continued her explanation. “Now everyone grab a chair and spread out. You’ll want to be facing your spouse, but leave some space between each couple.” Meredith and Greg staked out a good corner while the other couples took their places as well. “Ready? Good. Now if you have a blue box, the husband should be holding it, and if you have a pink box, it goes to the wife. Each box has the same four objects inside, one for each of the fundamentals, and the person holding the box needs to get his or her spouse to guess these objects by describing them. I’ll put on some music to drown out the clues.” She sat down, pushed a button on a CD player to fill the room with muzak, and buried her face in a magazine.

  “Is the music supposed to
make it harder?” Greg wanted to know.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What did she mean by ‘drown out the clues?’”

  “That didn’t make sense to me at first, but I think she meant drown out the other clues.” Meredith gestured around the room. “You know, so I can’t guess off what anyone other than you says.”

  “Alright, I guess we should get started then.” Greg opened his box slowly, tilting it towards himself and giving Meredith an exaggerated hairy eyeball, as though she might be trying to sneak a peek. He studied the contents for a moment, then nodded. “We’re gonna start with an easy one. It’s like a string of beads with a cross on the end.”

  “A rosary?”

  “One down, um, three to go. The next is a little… thing with, um, bits in it?” He paused for a moment, but Meredith made no attempt to guess. “Oh, grains, it has little grains of…”

  “Sand?”

  Greg nodded encouragingly.

  “Oh! An egg timer?”

  Greg looked thoughtful for a second, then shrugged and held up the item. “Is this what you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I was calling it a sand timer, which is why I thought I couldn’t say sand.”

  “I see, so now we’re halfway there.” Meredith glanced around the room a bit. This almost felt like a game and it made her feel slightly competitive.

  “The next one is something you write on.”

  “Paper?”

  “Yes. And now we have a problem.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Well, I was saving this one for last because I’m not sure I know what to call it.”

  “Just try to describe it. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “It’s black.” He looked up expectantly.

  Meredith let out a snort. “Keep going.”

  “Okay, it’s kind of long and made out of some sort of fabric.”