Baby Lessons

could barely concentrate on her needles and yarn.
“Do you want me to fix it for you?” Alice held out a hand.
“No, thank you.” Madison examined her sloppy baby bootie in progress. “I’ve grown rather attached to the idea of finishing this project all on my own, even if it’s kind of a mess.”
I find all your imperfections utterly perfect. Jack’s voice rang in her head like a bell, and she had to bite down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep herself from tearing up.
Great. She’d managed to get through the entire day in one piece, and now she was going to lose it in front of Sarah Cole.
“I think you’re doing a lovely job,” Sarah said, looking up from her neat, even rows of knitting.
“Thank you,” Madison managed to say around the lump in her throat. “I’m not exactly a knitter. I probably should have started with something more basic.”
Then again, the only reason she’d joined this class was to meet some poor, unsuspecting babies she could exploit for her job. God, she was a terrible person.
Sarah offered her a sympathetic smile. “You’re fine. It’s not until we really challenge ourselves and jump right in that we realize what we’re capable of, right?”
“Exactly right.” Aunt Alice nodded as she took her seat again on the other side of Madison. “And the more you try and control the outcome, the more trouble you’ll have. See your nice section of stitches by the toe?”
She pointed her knitting needle at a few neat rows of loosely connected garter stitches in the middle of Madison’s half-finished project.
“I guess that part doesn’t look so terrible,” Madison conceded.
“That’s because you loosened your grip on the yarn when you were knitting that section. Are your hands hurting right now?” Her aunt arched a brow.
Madison’s hands were indeed aching. “A little.”
“You’ve got to let go, sweetie.” Alice winked.
Madison glanced back and forth between Alice and Sarah. The other students sitting around the table kept on knitting, their needles making rhythmic clacking sounds that had become oddly soothing to Madison since she’d moved in with her aunt.
“Forget what the bootie is supposed to look like, and just go with the flow. Sometimes whatever we’re creating doesn’t turn out the way we planned. It might look different from anything we’ve imagined, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good or valuable,” Alice said, and then she stood to go help a customer who’d wandered into the store off Main Street.
Toby’s ears pricked forward as if he was contemplating going after her, but instead, he trotted toward Madison and rested a dainty paw on top of her foot. The sweater he was wearing today was lime green, and when Madison smiled down at him, she noticed a handful of gaping spaces between stitches. She wasn’t sure if they were the result of Toby getting a paw caught in the material or just plain sloppy knitting...knitting like hers.
She sort of hoped it was the latter.
When she looked back up, Sarah winked at her and then turned her knitting around as she reached the end of a row, leaving Madison to wonder if they’d just been talking about knitting or something else entirely.

Chapter Twelve
Dear Editor,
Is Fired Up in Lovestruck a real person, or all those letters I saw on television yesterday just a publicity stunt?
Fingers crossed, he’s real and soon to be revealed to the entire town.
Sincerely,
Curious in Lovestruck
Editor’s Note:
The Lovestruck Bee is a newspaper founded on sound journalistic ethics. Every letter printed in the Bee is true and correct, as received by the Editor-in-Chief, Floyd Grant, including those delivered under the name Fired Up in Lovestruck.
Dear Editor,
Then tell us who he is!
Sincerely,
Curious in Lovestruck
On slow news days—basically every day in Lovestruck—Mr. Grant liked to hold brainstorming sessions in the conference room. Never mind that the “conference room” was actually just a corner of the bullpen, next to the water cooler. And never mind that the conference table wasn’t even an actual piece of office furniture, but a repurposed barn door. Madison was almost used to it by now. She sat and jotted down ideas for her column while the lifestyle reporter waxed poetic all the upcoming festivals in the area. Vermonters loved a good festival.
“Excellent. We’ve got plenty of material for the community page, but I’d like to see a few more news pieces. Maybe even some light investigative reporting.” Mr. Grant glanced around the table. “Any ideas?”
“I have one.” Brett Johnson, one of Madison’s colleagues, raised his hand.
Mr. Grant aimed finger guns at him. “Shoot.”
“Since you mentioned light investigative pieces, maybe we should seriously try to uncover Fired Up in Lovestruck’s identity.” Brett shrugged, and seemed to be avoiding Madison’s gaze.
“What?” She looked up from her list of ludicrous ideas and shook her head. “We can’t do that.”
Brett shrugged. “Why not? That’s what investigative reporters do—they investigate things and report on them.”
Madison managed to refrain from reminding Brett that he wasn’t an actual investigative reporter. His last article had been a play-by-play of the local school board meeting. “It would be wrong. Besides, it’s been a few days since his goodbye letter and we still haven’t heard from him. I think he’s really stopped this time.”
Mr. Grant nodded. “You might be right.”
Madison breathed a little easier. She’d pulled out all the stops the past few days, even writing a story on preschool prom dresses and Fired Up in Lovestruck had remained stoically silent. If she hadn’t hated him so much she would have been impressed by his restraint.
In any event, she had a feeling he’d been telling the truth. It really was over, and soon she could put this whole embarrassing episode behind her.
Mr. Grant, however, wasn’t ready to give up. “But without revealing his identity, there’s no end to the story. We can’t just let it fizzle out. The Good Morning Sunshine producer has been calling me daily, begging for information on Fired Up in Lovestruck so they can bring him to New York for a follow-up