The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (29 page)

The last pluck from the lute left
the gathered group silent.
 
Abby
realized her eyes had gone misty.
 
She lifted her head from Mitch’s shoulder and pulled her hands away to
clap for the musician with everyone else.
 
Mitch was moved as well.
 
He
removed his glove to dig through his pocket to find a dollar bill.
 
Upon digging one out, he walked over and
placed the dollar in a small wicker basket at the woman’s feet.
 
The woman acknowledged Mitch with a
smile and Abby and Mitch both thanked her.
 
When they turned, Abby took Mitch’s arm again with both hands and rested
her head on his arm as they walked.

The rest of the walk down the
arcade toward the skating pond was not as crowded as the rest of the park had
been.
 
The sky was still grey yet
the daylight was brighter with less people around them.
 
Their stride was slow and their company
relaxed, as a couple that had been together for years and not just a short
while.
 
Abby was content with Mitch
and he was comfortable with her.
 
With Abby, Mitch was having no issue being in the city.
 
Abby had now washed away whatever Mitch
was dreading before.
 
Her upbeat
attitude and demeanor made him want to be near her.

When they reached the skating pond
Mitch gave Abby her skates and he went to stand in the rental line.

On the ice Mitch found that though
the skates were not his own, they were not as uncomfortable as he thought they
would be.
 
Abby had not been totally
correct on the condition of the rental skates yet she was right that Mitch was
able to skate effortlessly in them.

Abby and Mitch skated next to each
other and glided around the pond under the towers that bordered the end of the
park.
 
Their rhythm synchronized on
the ice and with each stride, each could feel the others shared action as if
they were parts working from the same mechanism.
 
The couple enjoyed the simple
attachment, emotional and physical, that was born between them.

* * *
* *

Mitch and Abby scanned the
departure boards to see if a track had been assigned to the afternoon train
that would take Mitch back to Willow Lake.
 
There was still a little while before Mitch would need to board.
 
They had toyed with the idea of Mitch
staying until Monday, and then agreed better to keep the trip short.
 
The two nights they had spent together
had been the best either of them could have imagined.
 
They had enjoyed the city together, a
hockey game the night before, and spent the entire morning and early afternoon
in Abby’s apartment, never far from each other’s arms.
 
Now at the station they made small talk
and anxiously scanned the departure boards each time they rattled the updates.

“I can be back soon,” said Mitch.

Abby again let her eyes sync deeply
into his and smiled bashfully, embarrassed that she might tear up at any
moment.
 
Mitch touched her hand and
she intertwined her fingers with his.
 
The weekend had gone by too quickly for both of them.

“I’d like that,” said Abby.
 
“I’d like that a lot.”

The boards made another loud rattle
and track numbers shifted behind each of the postings.
 
Mitch’s track appeared behind the name
of his train and the boarding sign lit up.

“Well, that’s me,” said Mitch.

“I’ll walk you down.”

Mitch picked up his duffle and the
two walked through the crowd holding each other’s hand toward the entrance to
the platform.
 
When they reached the
stairwell Mitch turned to Abby and said, “I guess this is it until next time.”

“All the way,” said Abby.
 
Mitch smiled and the two walked down the
steps to the platform and stopped next to the train.
 
Mitch set down his duffel and turned to
say goodbye to Abby.
 
Before words
could escape his mouth she was upon him with a tight embrace, her feet on tip
toe, giving him a deep kiss.
 
After
Abby kissed Mitch she told him that she felt like a schoolgirl.
 
Mitch pulled her close and held her, “me
too,” said Mitch.
 
They both
giggled.

Abby made Mitch promise to call her
when he reached Willow Lake.

When the conductor gave the final
call, Mitch boarded the train.
 
Abby
watched him make his way through the crowded car until he found an empty seat
near where she stood.
 
He smiled at
her then stowed his bag in the overhead bin.
 
He sat near the window and the two gazed
at each other until the train started to pull away.

As the train left from the platform
Abby’s stomach fluttered.
 
She
watched the window until she could not see Mitch any longer then slowly turned
and went up the stairs to the crowded station.
 
There were hundreds of people roaming
through the main lobby as she crossed yet Abby was alone.
 
This was the second time in a week that
she had left Mitch, yet the first time she had said goodbye.

When Abby exited the station, she
flagged a cab.
 
She had thought of
walking home yet now wanted to be as far from where she was at that moment and
as soon as possible, for fear of being overcome with emotion.

* * *
* *

“Will,” said Nathan.

Nathan sat at the next worktable
with his head down and his eyes focused on the detail work he was doing.
 
With each of them wearing glasses,
over-shirts and smocks, Nathan appeared to be a clone of Will, a young thin
clone with long stringy blonde hair, a version of Will that never was.

“How do I get that fade effect
again?” asked Nathan.

Will did not shift either.
 
His head like Nathan’s was cocked
slightly to the right and every once in a while each of them would shift
slightly to the left and back to get a better perspective, sometimes in unison.

“Use the straw,” said Will.

“Right,” said Nathan.
 
“Use the straw.”

Nathan meticulously dabbed the
small songbird he was holding with his brush one more time and then held the
piece away from himself.
 
He set the
hummingbird down, scanned the table for the plastic straw Will had given him
earlier, and found the straw behind his left arm.
 
He dipped the straw into the Dixie cup
that held the paint he wanted to use, and then moved a napkin from the side of
the table to the front of him.
 
He
removed the straw and gently, without putting his mouth too close, blew at the
straw in the direction of the napkin.
 
He then held the napkin up in the air, scowled, and then set the napkin
back down to repeat the process.

“Takes a few times to get right,”
said Will.

“When you showed me it looked
easy.”

“It’s not.
 
Not at first.
 
Just be gentle.”

Nathan tried again and again.
 
Then under his breath Will heard him
say, “Jesus help me.”

“Jesus was a carpenter,” said Will.

“What?”
 
Nathan was absorbed in working with his
paint and straw.

“As far as I know Jesus didn’t make
pottery.
 
He was a carpenter.
 
No airbrushing.”

“Oh,” said Nathan, not at all
jarred by Will.

“Now that I think of it.
 
Some say he could have been a stonemason
if he built houses.
 
Houses were
built from stone back then.
 
Some
think of him as a fisherman, too, and a sailor.
 
Others say no.
 
Still, I can’t imagine he would have had
to do any airbrushing.”

“You don’t believe in the power of
Jesus, Will?”

“Sure, don’t think that’s going to
fix your technique though.
 
Shorter
blasts may help.
 
And be gentle.”

“You don’t believe in God, in
eternity?”

“I believe in eternity, in God,”
said Will.
 
“This clay in my hands,
these hands.
 
They’re thirteen and a
half billion years old, maybe fourteen billion years old.
 
No matter really.
 
And they’ll be here most likely for
eternity.
 
Probably not eating ham
sandwiches or attached to these arms.
 
But this universe isn’t going anywhere.
 
Neither is anything in it.”

“So you don’t believe in heaven or
hell?”

“I don’t believe anybody’s going to
be eating ham sandwiches for eternity, that’s all.”

“What about hell?”

“Every school kid knows the answer
to that by the time they’re in middle school.
 
Hell can be right here if you let
it.”
 
Will tilted his head to the
left again and then back to the right observing the piece in his hands from
different angles.
 
“I think there
are a lot of people that make it that way.
 
They like it that way.
 
They
don’t know how to help themselves.”

“Jesus is there to help them with
that,” said Nathan.

“That he is, saving souls that need
saving.
 
But not blowing paint, you
need to figure that out for yourself.”

Nathan held up the last napkin he
had blown into.
 
“What do you
think?”

Will shifted his attention toward
him and leaned forward so that he could see over his glasses.
 
“That looks good.
 
Give it a shot.”

Nathan put some fresh paint into
the Dixie cup, positioned the songbird where he wanted and then blew toward the
little plastic straw.
 
“Oh man.”

Will picked up the jar of white
paint from his worktable and extended his arm.
 
“We have plenty of this,” said Will.

“I was so close,” said Nathan.

“No you weren’t,” said Will.
 
“But I can’t have you using up all of
the napkins.
 
Now paint it white and
try again.”

Nathan held up the bird and
frowned.

“You don’t have to paint the whole
thing, just the tail where you blew the paint,” said Will.

“I splattered all over the thing.”

“Well, white it is.”

“How long did it take you to get
that right?” asked Nathan.

“A while,” said Will.
 
“I just use the electric gun now.
 
It’s up in that cabinet over there.”

Will gestured to the cupboard above
the sink.

Nathan’s voice was somber, “Above
the coffee pot?”

“To the right.”

“You didn’t tell me you had an
electric airbrush.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“I did,” said Nathan.

“Oh.
 
Well, you’ll find it up there.”

Nathan went over to the cabinet and
opened the door.
 
Inside on the
shelf next to the airbrush kit were bottles of wine, all unopened except
one.
 
Nathan had
not seen Will with a Dixie cup in his hand since Abby had left.
 
Nor had Nathan seen Will drink any
brandy.
 
What he had seen was Will
working endlessly in the studio without
reprieve, that
is until he had finally taken that long sleep.
 
Since then Will had been going nonstop.

Nathan took the airbrush kit down
from the shelf and carried the case over to the table.

“You know how to set that up?”
asked Will.

“Yea, my friend used to have one of
these when I was in school,” said Nathan.
 
“We used to paint t-shirts.”

“Good.
 
Then you know how to clean it too.”

Will stood up, walked over toward
the window, and grabbed an extension cord.
 
Will plugged the cord into the wall and brought the other end to Nathan,
uncoiling the cord as he did.
 
“Use
this cord instead of the table socket, you won’t have to have it right on top
of you that way.”

“Thanks,” said Nathan then
proceeded to set up the kit.
 
Will
walked back to the window and stretched his arms above his head, clasping his
hands in the air.

“Storm’s a comin’,” said Will
faintly.

“What’s that Will?”

“Nothing, something I heard about
the weather.
 
I’ll be back in a
minute, I got to stretch my legs.”

Will grabbed the jacket he kept by
the door and stepped out into the light.
 
The glare of the sun caught him off guard and he quickly brought his
hand above his eyes to correct his vision.
 
From where he stood the sun was shining through the willow and the
branches played games with the light.
 
He shifted his head.
 
In the
side yard he heard the loud knock of a woodpecker pounding into a tree and out
on the lake the soft buzz of a chainsaw cutting into the ice.
 
He walked the path to the willow and
ducked beneath the canopy of branches to stand next to the trunk.
 
Will placed his hand on the willow.
 
He patted the tree twice to test the
solidity and peered up at the cables that attached themselves to the tree from
the house and the studio.
 
He
flattened his hand and gave the willow a solid forward push.
 
The tree did not budge or make a sound
within.
 
The branches above did not
waiver to surrender any ice or snow and looking back at the cables again,
neither seemed anymore aware of him then before.
 
He decided the tree was solid and patted
the bark again, this time gently, biting his lower lip as he did.