Free About Last Night by Ruthie Knox

at the station early hoping to find me?”
    “The latter.”
    And that was the spear that knocked the whole rickety structure of Fort Cath flat. She raised a white flag in surrender. “I take the 6:05 home from Bank.”

    Judith set a huge box on the conference table and frowned. Cath didn’t let it bother her; frowning was Judith’s default expression. She was a grumpy woman. Heavyset, with short hair and a permanent scowl, she had a brilliant mind and the dark, sharp eyes of a hawk.
    “Well, how’d they come out?” Cath asked. The box contained a number of World WarII–era sweaters that Judith had allowed Cath to select from the museum’s collection for cleaning and restoration. Cath had been anticipating the arrival of the restored sweaters for several days, hoping they’d live up to their potential once the storage creases and the accumulated grime of decades had been carefully washed and pressed out by the specialists.
    “They’re okay.” Judith pulled on a pair of cotton gloves and began lifting the sweaters out of the box and laying them on the rice-paper-covered table. “See for yourself.”
    Okay? Okay wouldn’t do. The sweaters had to be stunning. Immaculate. Interesting and beautiful. They had to be perfect examples of mid-century hand knitting, or they wouldn’t work for the exhibit. Cath took a deep breath and leaned closer to look.
    Then she exhaled, relieved. “Jeez, you just about gave me a heart attack,” she said, giving Judith a playful shove. “These are gorgeous.”
    She ran her gloved finger over the beaded yoke of an ivory cardigan, amazed at how the restoration had brought out the luster of the pearls and the quiet beauty of the piece. Judith continued to lay the sweaters out on the table, patting them into shape with a tenderness that belied her expression. Soon there were half a dozen on display, including a V-neck argyle pullover that reminded Cath painfully of her mother.
    When Mom hadn’t been busy doing sample knitting or working up one of her own patterns, she’d spent evenings in front of the TV knitting argyle socks for Dad. Cath had often sat beside her, working on some small project of her own. She couldn’t even remember learning to knit—like breathing, she’d been born knowing how to do it. It was really the only thing she and Mom had ever had in common.
    Lifting up a child’s sweater in the Bohus style for a closer look, she muttered, “ ‘Okay,’ my ass.” The piece was a teeny-tiny work of art, humble but perfect.
    Judith smirked, clearly amused. “What did you expect me to say? ‘They’re gorgeous, darling? You’ve done a smashing job’?” She pitched her voice high and her accent posh, doing a creditable imitation of Christopher Morrow, the museum’s director.
    “You get off on withholding approval,” Cath said matter-of-factly.
    “And you get off on pretending not to want it.”
    “I picked up the straitjacket last night. Approve of me.”
    That caught Judith’s attention. “I thought you’d have to pry it out of Amanda’s cold, dead hands.”
    “Nope. I only had to go on a blind date with her boyfriend’s cousin.”
    “Smashing job, darling,” Judith said, the words still faux-English but the sentiment genuine this time. “That’s going to look fantastic in the exhibit. It’s such an unusual piece, no one will know what to think about it. A hand-knit straitjacket as protest object—the domestic meets the political. It’ll blow their minds.”
    “Just don’t let it go to Amanda’s head. It’s big enough already.”
    “You could learn a thing or two from her about showmanship,” Judith remarked. “I’d hate to have to spend time with the woman, but she knows how to get the attention of the press.”
    Cath inspected the repaired hem of the Bohus cardigan, thinking the exchange was typical of her relationship with her boss, which had been odd from the first. They’d met at a gallery opening, where they’d started talking