J.J. Montrose and the Karma Cardigans

J.J. had an invisible storefront on a nondescript street in a forgotten industrial area. The bleak stores around her tiny shop had once sold notions, offered shoe repair, hawked international foods that brought nostalgia to recent immigrants. But now most were empty. 

A few doors down from her was a magazine and second-hand book stand run by a young man named Trent who sometimes smiled at her when he passed by. 

Her great uncle owned the building, and he let her rent the corner spot for pennies on the dollar because J.J. made people feel good. There was something special about her. She sat in her shop all day and she crocheted the most magical creations, and she hung them one by one in her window. 

A faded sign in the corner read: “repairs, inquire within.” But nobody ever did.

Members of her family weren’t exactly sure how J.J. stayed in business. When asked, she said it was because she believed in magic, fairy tales, happily ever afters, and good things happening to good people. Which would invariably win her a scoff or a cough or a “we’ll see how long that lasts.” 

The truth was that if things looked grim, something unusual would save her. She’d never run out of money for food or rent, and if she didn’t have a lot of extras, she didn’t need a lot. She was aware of the fact that if she thought too hard about her finances, things would get worse. It was when she didn’t worry, put the bills out of her mind, that a random stranger might wander into her store and purchase just enough to get her through the month.

Her uncle let her live in the converted studio above her store, where she grew forget-me-nots in pots on the balcony and an herb garden on her window sill. At night, she wished on every falling star that one day, or evening, or mid-afternoon even she’d find love. It hadn’t happened yet, but she reminded herself regularly that didn’t mean it wouldn’t.

She wasn’t sure what love equalled to other people, but to J.J., love meant looking for fireflies on a warm summer night. Or sharing a thermos of coffee on a bench by the lake. Or kissing beneath the stars on a second-hand blanket. Until she found someone who appreciated her definition, she was satisfied to wait.

One day, an elderly woman with a bun of fine silver hair and a well-worn black coat came into the store. The bell tinkled her arrival. J.J. looked up. The woman was lanky and tall and carried herself with a type of dignity and grace. The leather of her purse was faded. Her face was thin and there were deep shadows under her eyes. The woman said, “I was wondering if you could patch some of the holes in my coat. I could find another one, but this is special, and I can’t bear to live without it.”

J.J. looked at the overcoat and then asked if the woman was interested in simply black patches to match the fabric or possibly something more unusual?

“Like what?” the woman asked.

J.J. spread out some of her granny squares and told the customer that recently she’d been using the squares as patches, and they seemed to spread joy. The woman nodded, and J.J. meticulously used the squares to cover the holes, and when she was done, the jacket looked reborn.

“How much do I owe you?” the woman said.

There are ways one can tell if a dollar means a lot to someone, and J.J. said, “It’s on the house.” The woman began to protest, but J.J. said easily, “If you get compliments, send the people my way. I’m sort of off the beaten path.” The silver-haired woman said, “I will do you one better,” and she pulled a ball of glistening thread out of her bag. “This is special yarn,” she said in a hushed voice. “Use a little bit in anything you make. But listen,” and she lowered her voice, “don’t price the items. The yarn will tell you what to charge.”

J.J. thought that sounded a little odd, but she nodded because the ball was calling to her. It seemed to change colors in the woman’s palm. Gold at first, then silver, then like a kaleidoscope. When the woman handed it to J.J., she felt a warmth. J.J. knew her way around yarn, and she’d never seen anything like this before. The woman had left by the time J.J. stopped admiring her new treasure.

That night, J.J. stayed up late to make a sweater. She used only a bit of the yarn at first, but then threaded the ball through the entire cardigan. Though it was strange, even as she pulled from the ball, it didn’t appear to change size. A creation that should have taken her at least a week to finish, was done in a few hours. She added mismatched buttons, which was one of her trademarks. The final result was the most beautiful thing she’d ever made.

She hung the sweater in the window in the morning, and when the sun hit the threads, it was dazzling. She was not surprised when a customer came in almost immediately and said, “Oh, may I see the sweater in the window?” The woman was dark haired, with pale blue eyes that looked tired.

J.J. quickly got the cardigan down, as the woman said, “I’m sure I can’t afford it. But I couldn’t walk past without coming in.”

She slid the sweater on and it was as if J.J. had known the customer’s measurements ahead of time. The sweater seemed to make the woman more beautiful. 

“How much is it?” The young woman seemed afraid to ask.

J.J. recalled what the elderly customer had said, and answered quickly, “$17,” even though it would have easily been worth 20 time that amount. 

“Are you sure?” the woman asked. “There’s no way. It’s too luxurious…”

“I promise you. $17.” J.J. accepted a crumpled twenty, and gave back the woman her change.

After she’d left, J.J. looked at the golden ball. It was almost as if the yarn were singing to her. She could hear its music in her head. That evening, she decided to make another sweater. This one took her even less time. She didn’t understand. She matched the yarn to another she had been saving, and the sweater almost seemed to crochet itself. In the morning, she hung it in the place of the other, and she sat at the counter and made granny squares.

Within an hour, a fancy-looking blonde walked in and said, “The sweater in the window.”

“Yes?” J.J. said, not liking this woman at all. “What about it.”

“I want it.”

J.J. had a feeling that she couldn’t immediately place. She knew all about difficult customers. She generally handled them with such panache they didn’t even realize they were being handled. But this woman made it difficult for her to keep the pleasant smile on her face. She said without missing a beat, “It’s $1,000.” Never in her life had she quoted a price this high.

“Fine,” the blonde said, and she pulled out her credit card.

“Cash only,” said J.J. “no returns.” 

This wasn’t her general policy. She did not know where the words were coming from. The woman gave her a cold glance, but handed over the cash, plus the tax, and then waited while J.J. got the sweater down. The woman put the sweater on immediately. As before, it seemed to transform her. But to J.J., she looked monstrous. It was strange. Her blonde hair appeared brittle and straw-like. Her nose seemed flattened. Her teeth were pointy. She left in a hurry, and J.J. locked the door behind her and sighed with relief.

Then she looked at the ball of yarn again. It seemed to glint at her. Almost as if it were laughing.

Outside of J.J.’s store was a free box. She would put items that she’d made that were a little off. Gloves in which one was slightly longer than the other. Socks in which one was slightly shorter. She put balls of yarn that weren’t big enough to make a full project. And sometimes she put in stuffed toys she’d made, just so that there was always something for everyone.

That night, she made a third cardigan. How strange that if anything, the ball of yarn was definitely getting bigger. 

In the morning, she opened the store and hung the beautiful sweater in the window. Moments later, the young woman appeared who had bought the first sweater. She had a brown paper sack in her hand, and she came forward shyly. She said, “I’d been out of work for a few months. Even at the price you gave it to me, buying the sweater from you was a splurge I couldn’t afford. That $20 was supposed to be for food. But yesterday, I got a new job. And on my way home, I passed a peach tree. The woman who owned it was sitting in her yard, and she said I could pick all I wanted, as long as I took them with me. So I brought a bag for you.”

J.J. thanked her, and the woman ducked her head and said, “I know it will sound strange, but I think your sweater got me the job.” Before she could say anything else, she left, and J.J. cut a fresh peach, and enjoyed the sweetness. She wondered idly if the peach-tree owner had shimmering white hair.

As she was wiping her mouth, the blonde from the day before came in. She looked angry and disheveled, and she thrust the sweater at J.J. and said, “Take it back.”

“I’m sorry,”J.J. said firmly, “but there are no returns.”

“I don’t care. You take it!” The woman was enraged. 

J.J. said, “You can put it in the free box if you like,” and the woman glared at her and said, “Yeah, maybe someone else will have my bad luck then. Since I bought your sweater, my boyfriend broke up with me, I lost my job, and my wallet was stolen.” She threw the sweater in the box and stormed off. J.J. noticed that even without the sweater, the woman looked like a monster.

She cut another peach.

A young family passed by the store, and the child selected one of the free toys. The mother touched the sweater, and then looked inside. She called out to J.J., “This can’t really be free, can it? It’s so beautiful.”

J.J. assured her that it was hers if she wanted it. When the woman slid it on, J.J. was astonished by how her cheeks looked pink and full and her eyes seemed to have a new spark.

Could she be imagining it? The child was clutching the toy with glee, and the mother whispered something in his ear. He came into the store and said, “Thank you, Ms. Mongoose,” and J.J. was so charmed she didn’t correct him.

The mother was standing inside the threshold, and J.J. took a risk and called out to her. “I don’t mean to be rude, but could you use any… help?”

The woman came forward, confused, and J.J. took out the money she’d received the day before, money she’d put in an envelope, not feeling right about depositing. J.J. said, “I think I’m supposed to give you this,” and when the woman looked inside the crisp white envelope she started to cry.

“I can’t,” she stammered.

“But does it feel like you should?” There was a moment of silence, and the woman nodded. “Then you can,” said J.J. The ball of yarn spun in a circle and then spun back again.

When she was riding the bus home that night, J.J. overheard two women talking. “You won’t believe what happened to Miley,” one said. “Jake found out that she’d been cheating on him with his brother, and then she got fired for stealing from her bosses. She lost her penthouse apartment, and her car was repossessed. When I saw her at the bar last night, she looked like she’d been through hell.”

J.J. felt the yarn in her purse seem to quiver.

The next sweater hung in the window for a few days, and J.J. started to think she was imagining what she had started to believe. That the ball of yarn was in some way magical, and that was when a teenage girl entered the store.

J.J. greeted her before she could say the words. J.J. said kindly, “You saw the sweater, and you want to know how much, but you’re pretty sure you can’t afford it…” and as she was talking, she was taking the sweater out of the window. “But the thing is that you have never seen one like this, and…”

The teenager said, “It’s not for me, though.”

And J.J. hesitated, and then she said, “It’s for your grandmother,” and the girl nodded, and J.J. said, “It’s free.”

“It can’t be.”

“No, it is. You don’t have to believe me, but the yarn tells me how much to charge for the sweaters, and it’s telling me to give it to you.”

She packaged the sweater up in a pretty bag, and the teenager, looking confused, took it, and J.J. said, “Just do me a favor, and never stop believing in magic. Promise me.”

And the girl, bemused, promised.

For some reason that night J.J. didn’t crochet a sweater. She crocheted a scarf. She’d never made a scarf before. The yarn seemed to have a mind of its own.

She hung the scarf in the window the next day and began to make new toys for her free box. Mid-afternoon, a man entered her store. When men entered, they generally were looking for the cobbler who had retired, or the TV repairman who’d moved to Florida, or the tobacconist who had closed up shop. This man was the owner of the magazine stand. He was about J.J.’s age, and he had neatly brushed red hair and freckles that were the color of her gilded, golden thread.

He said, “I saw the scarf from the bus, and I got off at the next stop and walked back.”

She took the scarf out of the window and handed it to him, and he put it on. Nothing in his appearance seemed to change or brighten. Trent didn’t start to glow or emanate a warmth. But he smiled at J.J., and he said, “I have always wanted to come in.”

And she said, “I have always wished you would.”

He asked how much the scarf cost, and J.J. said “a quarter.”

“That doesn’t seem possible,” he said.

So she countered, “What about a walk? We could stroll around the lake and then sit on a bench and eat sandwiches…” 

“…and watch fireflies?” Trent asked, and J.J. felt startled, but then relaxed. Because suddenly everything seemed to be falling into place.

Trent said he would love to, and when their fingers touched as he handed her a quarter, she saw the ball of yarn on the counter trace a heart.

That night, as J.J. was getting ready to close, the white-haired woman with the patched jacket came into the store. 

“Are you here to take the yarn back?” J.J. asked.

The woman shook her head. “Of course not. I just wanted to show you my coat,” and J.J. realized that the squares had multiplied, and the jacket was now entirely covered. There was not a speck of black showing.

“When you’ve done good deeds, when you’ve had pure thoughts, the granny squares have multiplied.”

“I think I owe you something,” J.J. said, and she handed her the last peach, and the woman smiled and for a second J.J. saw her true self. Her fairy self. Semi-translucent. Iridescent and ethereal. And then the woman was a woman once more. She walked into the night, and J.J. went to hang the closed sign out, and she knew that she would be making another sweater soon. 

But tonight, she’d be looking for fireflies at the lake. And Trent would cradle her face and kiss her lips as stars danced in the skies above them.

Because she believed in love, and good things happening to good people… and magic.