The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (7 page)

“What’s taking Jodi so long to pour
a damn beer and a shot,” Will thought to himself as he continued the small talk
then half-heartedly laughed at a comment he really did not hear.
 
The world around Will was secondary and
out of focus.
 
To watch Jodi talking
to someone else at the end of the bar was frustrating for him when he had not
even been served yet.
 
Will clenched
his jaw.
 
Jodi had just taken some
money from another customer and was about to ring them up.

Terry was still going on about some
hockey game and how he thought some coach had made an unfair call.
 
Will was not paying much attention to
Terry anymore.
 
Terry realized this
and tried to get Will’s attention.

“Will, what do you think?”

A pause.

Terry asked a second time, “What do
you think Will?”

Terry began to ask a third time and
Will snapped at him in a raised voice, “I don’t really care what call he makes
Terry.
 
I just want Jodi to get me a
beer!”

“I hear ya,” said Jodi across the
bar.
 
“I’m comin’ right over.”

 
“That’s fine,” said Terry.
 
“No point getting uppity.”

Everybody else on that side of the
bar heard Will as well, including Abby.

Abby and Caroline looked at each
other and then up at Will fidgeting at the end of the bar—tap, tap, tap
with the hands.
 
Jodi was holding a
pint glass with one hand and the beer tap down with the other, as if that would
make the beer pour any faster.
 
As
soon as the beer neared the top of the glass Jodi eased up the tap at a pace
just slow enough to put a head on the beer yet fast enough to let
Will
know that he was working with a sense of urgency.

“Why thank you Jodi,” said Will
when the beer was placed in front of him.

“No problem Will,” said Jodi,
holding the rocks glass in one hand and pouring whiskey with the other.

Jodi set the rocks glass next to
the pint.

Will raised his brow and said to
Terry, “Now that wasn’t so hard was it.”

“Lay off him and go home,” said
Abby.
 
She was now standing just
behind Will.
 
“You need a drink so
bad you need to be a bully?” she asked.

“Whoa, now hold on there,” said
Will.

Terry turned toward the television
at the other end of the bar and everyone sitting at the bar in earshot
pretended not to hear.
 
Mitch,
Brian, and Caroline were a few feet away and were coming closer until Abby held
out her hand for them to halt where they were.

“Whoa nothing,” Abby’s voice was
quiet, “you might think you can get away with being nasty in your studio but
this is the real world.
 
How dare
you bully these nice people?”

Will was caught off guard and did not
quite know what to say.
 
Will
started to stutter a sentence, “Well just a minute Abby, I
was
just --.”
 
Abby cut him off,
“—Just a minute nothing.
 
Go
home Will.
 
Go home.
 
This has to stop.
 
You don’t understand what you’re doing
to yourself.”
 
Abby turned and
walked to the door.
 
Mitch and Brian
followed.

Caroline sidled over to her uncle,
“Listen to her uncle Will.”

“Storm’s a comin’,” said Will with
a wink.
 
Caroline raised her
eyebrows, looked to the door, back to her uncle, smiled, and then she too
walked out the door.

When Caroline joined the three
outside Abby was moving both of her arms up and down to shake out whatever
negative energy she felt could be expelled through her fingertips.

“Are you ok?” asked Caroline.

“It’s not me,” said Abby.
 
“It’s him, and he doesn’t see it.”

“I know,” said Caroline, “That’s
why I called you to begin with.”

“You were so right.
 
He’s like this every day?”

The door to the bar opened and out
walked Terry Enders.
 
Terry could
not avoid Abby because she was right in front of the door.

“Hey there, you okay?” asked Terry.

“I’m fine Mr. Enders,” said
Abby.
 
Long since retired, Terry had
been one of Abby and Caroline’s schoolteachers.

“I’m sorry my father was so rude to
you.”

“Abby dear,” said Terry, “ Your
father has been there for me when I’ve needed him many times over.
 
We all need to blow off a little steam
sometimes.”

“He upset every one in the bar,”
said Abby.

“The only person he upset in the
bar, just walked out and is talking to me right here,” said Terry.
 
“Your father is a good man.
 
Good night.”

“Good night,” said Abby.

* * *
* *

Will gazed up from the split log
bench through the leafless willow branches.
 
He marveled at how large the willow had
become since Emily had planted the tree twenty long years ago.
 
Though chemotherapy had made Emily feel
ill, she had found the strength to go out to the bench in the early mornings to
watch the sunrise.
 
Often
Will
would wrap a blanket around her cold shoulders and hold
her frail body to keep her warm.
 
Emily found comfort next to him.

Emily knew Will had concerns about
the progress of the treatment so she told him that she had decided to plant and
watch a tree grow tall.
 
Watch as
the tree aged with them.
 
Will had
suggested the now fifty-foot tall weeping willow and told Emily the seedling
would thrive next to the lake.
 
Will
did not tell Emily why the fast growing willow tree had been his choice, yet
she knew.
 
Will’s hope that Emily
could see the seedling grow to a tree kept her going.
 
Shivering and weak Emily had put the
roots deep into the ground.

Sitting on the bench, gazing
through the branches of the tree that had thrived next to the lake for those
almost twenty years Will lost himself in thoughts of Emily.
 
Thoughts where Emily was still alive,
always exuberant, never weak, never dying.
 
He felt her presence there.
 
He felt their youth.
 
He was
not alone.

* * *
* *

William Bellen and Emily Allen met
during her college break when Emily took a summer job, detail painting for
Will’s father.
 
Will barely said a
word to Emily the first weeks she worked at the studio.
 
The studio was electric when Emily was
there.
 
Her detailing on the urns
was as dazzling as Emily herself.
 
Emily wore her chestnut hair to her shoulders making her hazel eyes all
the more friendly and inviting, like her laughter, and she always wore a
sleeveless blouse and Capri pants that came half way down her calves.
 
Will did not say much to her.
 
He could not think about anything else.

Will tended the big wood-burning
kiln, the only kiln at that time, and fed the oven’s voracious appetite for
small logs.
 
The temperatures in
June and July that year had already been high and were twenty degrees higher
working next to the kiln.
 
Often
Will did not wear a shirt when he chopped the logs by axe and then fed them
into the kiln.
 
Emily had secretly
been sketching him from the window of the studio.
 
She had taken notice of Will’s young
frame, oily and covered with a fine mist of soot that made the tone of his body
glisten.

Will’s fascination with Emily had
distracted him to near stupor.
 
Will’s father was getting frustrated with all of the clay that Will was
breaking, not much pottery was getting into the kiln or getting too far away.
 
Will’s father finally resolved to coax
Will into asking Emily to have lunch.

When Will approached Emily with the
sodas and sandwiches he had made himself and asked her to have lunch on the
dock, she did not hesitate to say yes in fear he would change his mind.

“Perfect timing,” said Emily.
 
Emily grabbed Will’s hand and
practically dragged him out to the lakeshore.

Capitalizing on the opportunity to
make an impression, Will began rattling out all of the conversation he had held
back for the last two months.
 
There
was no pause for Emily to say anything.
 
She thought the sweet boy’s behavior incredibly cute.
 
Still Emily feared that Will was going
to give himself the hiccups.

Emily decided she needed to calm
him down.
 
Though what she did next
would not exactly slow his heart.
 
Will’s speech did slow, first to a crawl then a stop.

As Will professed how modern kilns
could change the family business, Emily stood up on the dock, pulled off her
white blouse, tossed the shirt down, then undid her Capri pants and shimmied
them to her feet.
 
Emily stepped out
of the crumpled pants one foot at a time.
 
Standing in her bra and panties, Emily fixed her eyes on Will.
 
Now silent, Will sat on the dock with
his legs crossed, a sandwich in one hand and a soda in the other, his mouth
open.

“It is so hot today Will, let’s go
swimming,” said Emily.
 
She ran to
the end of the dock and dove into the clear water of the lake.
 
Emily surfaced fifteen feet away, her
head bobbing above the water.

Will was still sitting on the dock
with his mouth open.

“Well,” said Emily.

“I’m coming.”

Will tried to stand so quickly that
he forgot his legs were crossed.
 
He
tumbled over the side of the dock, blue jeans, t-shirt, soda, and sandwich in
hand.

Will stood up next to the dock, the
water at his waist and t-shirt soaked, still holding his soda.
 
Emily, concerned for Will’s safety,
wanted to call out to him to ask if he was ok.
 
Instead, she could not help herself from
laughing uncontrollably.

“What’s so funny?” asked Will, the
corners of his mouth pushing his cheeks up to his dripping ears.

Will placed his soda on the
dock.
 
He waded a few feet out into
the lake and then, still wearing his clothes, dove toward Emily.
 
Will surfaced when he got to Emily.
 
She immediately started splashing water
in his face to which he splashed back.
 
They played in the water and then went up to the soft green grass by the
shoreline where they dried themselves in the warm air of the hot July day.

Through the rest of July and all of
August, a day did not go by that Emily and Will did not have lunch together.

Emily had come to Willow Lake with
her twin sister Mary and the two shared a cabin on their parent’s property that
was the size of a small house.
 
To
make spending time together easier Will and Emily set Mary up with Will’s
friend Tom.
 
Tom’s parents owned the
IGA grocery store kitty corner from the Stone Tavern.
 
The four of them went boating, swimming,
and had late night bonfires with six-packs of beer and steaks from the IGA.

When not with Mary and Tom, Emily
and Will would explore the many trails in the wooded hills surrounding Willow
Lake sometimes disappearing for the whole afternoon.
 
This prompted Will’s Father to go on
about both of them slacking on the work that needed to be done around the
studio.
 
He really could not be
happier for both of them.

On rainy days Will and Emily stayed
in the studio and marveled at each other’s artistic skills.
 
Will had been raised a potter and, a
master of the kick wheel, could bring up tall pots, squat pots, vases, and cups.
 
While at the wheel
Will
explained to Emily what he was doing.
 
Emily took her turn at the wheel next to Will and made mess after
mess.
 
Will came over to Emily, put
his arms around her, placed his hands gently below hers, and guided her.
 
With Will’s guidance, Emily was able to
even out the ball of clay to the center of her wheel and then indent the center
in the right way so that the sides began to rise.
 
Will explained to her that this was the
dance of the clay.
 
As he spoke, her
neck quivered.
 
When the spinning
wheel stopped, Emily held a small pot and Will held Emily.
 
Their eyes were closed, frozen in the
moment.

Emily in turn helped Will with his
sketching.

Will always carried a notepad and a
pencil in his back pocket.
 
He was
ready for a fiddlehead fern at the edge of a trail or a cardinal perched in an
almost hidden tree.
 
Every small
bird, leaf, and flower was captured in his sketchpad as an ornate possibility
for his pieces.
 
Will’s sketches
matured to full designs and lines of pottery and he would explain to Emily how
important he thought the ornamentation could be if done the right way.