The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (27 page)

* * *
* *

The kilns had all cooled and Nathan
was in the process of emptying the electric kiln when Will entered the
studio.
 
Will gave Nathan a look
that Nathan took as a sneer.

“I hope it’s alright.
 
I was just checking to see if everything
went all right with the kiln.
 
It
was still going when you went to sleep yesterday,” said Nathan.

“That fine.
 
You can’t mess up that kiln.
 
It’s automatic.
 
The gas is another story.”

Nathan stood motionless with a
piece of ceramic in each hand.
 
If
now was ok to empty the kiln, Nathan wondered, then why had Will sneered at
him.
 
“What’s wrong then?
 
Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m judging your reaction,” said
Will.

“To the way you’re looking at
me?
 
I don’t like it.”

“No,” said Will.
 
“You got to relax kid.
 
I wanted to see what you thought of
those pieces your taking out of the kiln there.
 
They’re the ones you helped with you
know?”

Nathan grinned and examined the two
ceramic birds in his hands, a hummingbird, and a cardinal.
 
Each had a subtle shine from the glaze
that Nathan had applied.
 
“God performs
such miracles with his creations,” said Nathan.

“I’ll give you that,” said
Will.
 
He walked over to Nathan and
took the humming bird from him, “But I think the help you gave him turned out
pretty good.”

“Yea, I guess it did.
 
Do you really think so?”

“Sure,” said Will.
 
He lifted the piece eye level and
lightly brushed his finger across the surface, “You see the evenness of the
glaze.
 
This is good.
 
The way the glaze covers the paint on
the hummingbird makes every detail accentuated not dulled down.
 
You wouldn’t get this iridescent effect
where the colors meld between the feathers without the light glaze here, here,
and here.
 
This is quality
work.”
 
Will held the piece up to
the light then offered the hummingbird back to Nathan.
 
“You keep this one.”

Nathan held the piece up inspecting
the details that Will had just pointed out.
 
“Thanks,” said Nathan.

“You made it,” said Will.
 
“But you don’t get to keep everything
you make.
 
This is a business.
 
That’s your first, so take it home.”

“I take it you slept well.”

“Slept fine,” said Will and then
added before Nathan would question, “and I already raided the fridge this
morning.
 
So let’s get to work.”

Nathan put the birds on the
worktable where he had been placing the items from the kiln and went back to
empty the rest of the items still inside.

“Put the soldiers over here,” said
Will as he sat down at the station he had set up for painting.
 
“I’m going to work on the boys.
 
I have some more glazing for you to do,
maybe some painting today too.”

“The boys?
 
The toy soldiers you mean.”

“Call ‘em what you will,” said Will
as he put on his glasses and started to sort through his jars of paint.

“I was meaning to ask you about
them.
 
I sorted the orders on the
board like you asked me.
 
I didn’t
see any orders for these.”

“These aren’t for any clients.”

“You just decided to build a bunch
of toys.”

“Something like that, I’m building
an army.”

Nathan watched Will for a
moment.
 
He had another question for
Will on his lips.
 
Will had steady
hands for such small detailed work, steady hands that had not shown signs of
tremors over the last few days, and his breath lacked the usual sweet scent of
wine.
 
Nathan chose to go on
working.
 
If Will needed an army
Nathan thought he understood why.

* * *
* *

The train ride had been scenic and
peaceful.
 
Mitch had spent most of
the ride in the dining car with his notebook.
 
He enjoyed trains and thought the trip
was relaxing despite the mounting commuter crowd that had boarded as he
approached the city.
 
When he
arrived at the station, all sense of calmness went away.
 
Upon exiting the train, he was caught up
in the whirlwind that was the city’s mass transit center.
 
Mitch had not been to the city in two years
and the bustle caught him by surprise.
 
This was mid-afternoon and hardly a busy time by any means, still people
whisked past him to get to where they needed to be.

Mitch took in a deep breath, lifted
his duffel to his shoulder, and made his way to the street.
 
Still too early to meet up with Abby he
did not have an immediate plan.
 
Mitch decided that his time would best be served at a diner and decided
to find one nearby.

Out on the street the snow was
falling in large fluffy flakes that were building up a layer of slush on the
sidewalk.
 
He paused outside of the
doors of the station momentarily to get his bearings and was almost knocked
down by a large man in a black overcoat carrying a briefcase.
 
Mitch turned to say, “Excuse me,” and
the man was already down the sidewalk.
 
On the street people were in just as much of a hurry as they had been in
the station.
 
Mitch decided he
needed to start walking just to not be taken down.
 
He wanted to stretch his legs anyway, he
thought, and if he came upon a place to stop he would.

The snow continued to fall and
people pressed between cars in traffic with their shoulders hunched up to ward
off the wet snow.
 
Taxi’s honked
their horns at the slow moving trucks in front of them.
 
The vendors along the avenue stood vigil
over card tables covered with plastic sheets, the same Mitch bought in bulk for
job sites.

After walking several blocks, Mitch
could feel the snow starting to cake into his hair and melt down the side of
his face.
 
Not wanting to get too
wet he stepped into the next diner he saw and took a seat at the counter,
placing his duffel on the floor next to him.
 
A large Mediterranean man behind the
counter approached him and handed Mitch a menu.

“Coffee?”

“A coffee would be fine,” said
Mitch.

The man produced a cup and a coffee
pitcher in two swift motions, before Mitch’s jacket was off his shoulders.

Mitch removed his canvas jacket and
before he could set the coat down he heard his cell phone ring inside.
 
He reached his hand to the inside pocket
and pulled out his phone to see if Abby was calling.
 
Abby was.

* * *
* *

Olivia had left the office early
again, leaving Abby responsible for Jules.
 
The two were peers yet Jules defined ‘when the cat’s away’
behavior.
 
Olivia had not been gone
for more than twenty minutes before Jules was deep into questioning about
Mitch.
 
Abby had made the mistake of
telling Jules that Mitch was to call in the evening and Abby had been
delinquent to report.
 
Jules had not
mentioned a report through the day as Abby was still catching up.
 
Now that the last hour of Friday
afternoon was upon them there would be no more slack.
 
So Abby filled Jules in on what she
remembered of the conversation.
 
She
did not really mind doing so.
 
Having a man to discuss was a bit of an upswing for a change, something
positive.
 
The talk did remind Abby
that she wanted to call Mitch though so she told Jules to let her go for a
moment and Jules did so happily.

Abby tapped Mitch’s name on her
cell and the phone dialed.

“Hello,” said Mitch.

“Hi,” said Abby.
 
“How are you?”

“Great.
 
A little wet.
 
The snow is really starting to come
down.”

“That’s funny, it is here too,”
said Abby glancing out the window at the large flakes floating past.

“Well, I should think so.
 
I’m only about three or four blocks from
the museum.”

Silence.
 
A pause.
 
“Hello?” asked Mitch.

“Where are you?” asked Abby.

“I think I’m about three blocks
over.
 
At a place called the Moon
diner.
 
It’s on--,”

“—Yea, I know where it
is.
 
What are you doing there?”

“I had to step in from the
snow.
 
I was getting soaked.”

“What are you doing in the city?”

“Oh,” said Mitch, “This was a
mistake.
 
You don’t remember do
you?
 
I told you, you wouldn’t
remember.”

“Remember what?”

“On the phone last night.”

Abby went back to the night before
and rewound the conversation.
 
Abby
had said she was sorry she left, she had left because of her father, and she
had talked about her father.
 
What
else was there that was missing?
 
In
a rush, an epiphany came to Abby.
 
She had told Mitch that if he came this weekend she would smooth things
over.
 
She had told him to
come.
 
Mitch had said no and Abby
dared him to come, had talked him into coming.

“Of course, on the phone,” said
Abby.
 
“Hang on a second.”

Abby turned to Jules and whispered
frantically, “I invited him to the city last night, and it’s all your fault.”

Jules did not miss a beat, “So ask
him why he hasn’t called you?”

Calmly Abby asked, “So why haven’t
you called me?
 
I mean what are you
doing in the city already and you haven’t called me?”

“Oh, well I thought you’d be
working.
 
You’re working right?”

Abby whispered to Jules, “He
thought I’d be working.”

“Well, tell him we can meet him
when we get off,” said Jules.

Abby turned back into the
phone.
 
“We can meet you when we get
off,” said Abby.

“We?”

“We, yea, you and me I mean,” said
Abby.
 
Abby rolled her eyes at
Jules.

“Ok,” said Mitch.

“Ok,” said Abby, “How about
O’Malley’s, say an hour?”

“Sure.
 
I’ll see you then.”

Abby put her cell phone down on her
desk then let out a guttural sound.

“That doesn’t sound nice honey,”
said Jules.
 
She pulled a compact
mirror with face powder out of her bag, opened the clamshell, and applied a
soft amount of powder to her cheeks.

“This is horrible,” said Abby.

“Is it?” asked Jules.
 
“ Now why is that?”

“Because he is here.”

“This is going to be fun, I like
country boys.
 
I don’t think I’ve
met a lake boy either.”

“Cut it out,” said Abby, “ besides,
he’s from here.
 
He just lives out
there now.”

“Now there’s a thought.
 
He was smart enough to get away from it
all.
 
You may have yourself a
genius.”

“I said cut it out,” said Abby.

“Ok, ok.
 
I tell you what.
 
Why don’t we head over there now and get
a head start.
 
That way you can
prepare.”

“Well, I’m not going to get anymore
work done today.
 
That’s for sure.”

“Now you’re talking.”

* * *
* *

“I’ll have a Guinness and a shot of
Jameson and so will she,” Jules said to the young waiter at their booth.

“I will not,” said Abby.
 
Jules locked her green eyes on Abby and
arched her red brows.
 
Abby changed
her order, “Ok, I guess I will.”

“Sure thing,” the waiter said as he
turned away, only moderately impressed with the two young women ordering shots.

Jules took note of his cavalier
reaction, “I wonder what I have to do to impress him?”

Abby quickly picked up, “Nothing,”
said Abby.
 
“And this will be it for
the shots.
 
The last thing I need is
to lose my head.”

“I promise,” said Jules, “no more
shots.”
 
When the waiter came back
with their beer, she immediately ordered two more.
 
The girls toasted to late night phone
calls and drank their shot of Jameson.
 
Both of them snickered their noses at the sharpness of the whiskey.

O’Malley’s was large for a bar in
the city.
 
Upon entering there was a
large recessed floor full of tables that was surrounded on the sides by dark
wooden booths and above them a second floor of the same.
 
At the back of the room was a stage that
had equipment set up for the sound system.
 
Televisions peppered the bar, Abby thought
this the
only down side of the bar.