The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (9 page)

“Pool?”

“An infinity pool.
 
Right here under the terrace,” said
Mitch.

“And overlooking all of that,” said
Abby.
 
Abby rested her eyes closed
then inhaled deeply taking in the brisk air and the whole of the lake and
countryside.
 
She opened her eyes
and relaxed her shoulders, “Not a bad day at the office.”

“Except for the ice road across the
lake,” said Mitch, “It looks pretty much the same as it did a hundred years
ago.”

The ice road ran from the IGA in
the village to the South Point Inn on the other side of Willow Lake cutting the
distance and time off the trip from one side of the lake to the other December
through March.
 
The ice road was the
road that fisherman used to get to their ice shanties in the center of the lake
and snowmobile enthusiasts made part of their route when riding the
trails.
 
The ice road also created a
direct route of travel to the ski lodge on Mount Frisia.
 
Abby did not like the ice road much and
could not wait to get from one end to the other when she needed to travel
across the lake because the thought of driving over the ice in something as
heavy as a vehicle always churned her stomach.

A slight wind chilled the
terrace.
 
“That’s from the lake,”
said Mitch.
 
“Let’s go back
inside.
 
I’ll give you the grand
tour.”

The two went back into the house
that now seemed far warmer than when the two had stepped outside.

“So who is paying for all of this?”
asked Abby.

“An investment group from the city
hopes that the place will become a premier spa, bed and breakfast sort of
thing.”

“Ah, how nice.”

Mitch showed Abby the rooms on the
main floor she had missed coming in.
 
Then he took her upstairs and showed her the bedrooms to be decorated in
contemporary style, each of course with a separate bath.
 
Three tradesmen were at different phases
of construction as Abby walked through the upstairs rooms.
 
A lot of the interior was complete still
Abby could see there was trim work, painting, and stucco yet to be done.

The third floor consisted of luxury
spa suites overlooking the lake.
 
These two and three bedroom suites were larger than Abby’s fourth floor
city apartment and loaded with amenities.
 
In the middle of the grey marble bathrooms were stone hot tubs and
glassed-in showers that had water jets floor to ceiling in every corner.
 
The views were better in the luxury
suites then two floors below.
 
On
the horizon to the north, Abby could see Fremont and to the east, she could see
skiers on lift to the top of Mount Frisia, the large hill at the lakes
southeast corner.

“You know these will fill up,” said
Abby.

“You still haven’t seen my pet
project,” said Mitch.

* * *
* *

Mitch led Abby back to the main
floor library then through a sheet-curtained door that led into a large room
built on to the side of the house.
 
If Abby had closed her eyes, she would have thought she walked into the
center of a pine grove.
 
The large
room was entirely pine paneled except for one wall that had a very large velvet
curtain.
 
Three rows of large
cushion armchairs filled the room.
 
The trim across the top, bottom, and sides of the wood panels was
embedded with the details of routed design work, and seated within the center
of the wall panels were custom sound cushions.

“This theater has been my pet
project,” said Mitch.

“It’s amazing,” said Abby.
 
“How much of it did you do?”

“Practically all of
it,
except of course the curtains, chairs and movie
equipment.”

“Did you design this?”

“Not exactly,” said Mitch, “ I
kinda played it by ear – like jazz, ya know?”

“Whadda ya mean jazz?”

“You know,” said Mitch, “ I had to
build this theater so I picked a place outside the library in the fall when I
could still get a good foundation down.
 
Once I had the foundation I had the bass line.”
 
He slowly drew a horizontal line through
the air to illustrate his point.
 
“I
already knew the melody in as much as a theme.
 
I mean the room was to be a
theater.
 
The movie equipment had a
set of requirements.
 
The rest I
just made up as I went a long – like making up notes.”
 
Mitch made a rapid conducting motion,
“Like jazz, I filled in the spaces in between the bars.”

“Heavy,” said Abby.

Mitch took Abby’s hand, eased her
down into a cushion chair next to him, and in his Bogart voice said, “The stuff
dreams are made
of
.”

Abby and Mitch took in the room.

“That’s a great perspective,” said
Abby.
 
“I’ve never seen a theater
like this before.
 
Pine paneled.”

“I like tackling work like this,
creativity in limits, your cousins make good partners.”

“I can see why they like working
with you,” said Abby.
 
She inspected
the pine details.
 
“How did you get
the detailing so ornate?”

“Having Brian show me Roman and
Greek reliefs until my eyes popped out and then a lot of hours practicing with
the router.
 
I enjoy the way the
wood smells when you work with it, how the process relaxes the mind.
 
It’s Zen like I think.”

“I can appreciate that,” said Abby,
“ sometimes I get so caught up in my work it gets to the point where it takes
over everything else.”

“That’s not exactly what I mean,”
said Mitch.
 
“ I don’t think about
it that way.
 
Getting caught up in
something that takes over.”

“Well,” said Abby, “my work can be
an escape from the world around me.
 
The city isn’t like out here, you have to find a place to hide from it
sometimes.
 
It can suck you in and
thrash you.
 
You have to work to
keep yourself sane.
 
Isn’t that what
you mean?”

“I don’t know if I am trying to
hide from the world.
 
I want to be
part of my work, what I’m doing, not a slave to it,” said Mitch.

“What’s the difference if you enjoy
what you’re doing?” asked Abby.

“I dunno, but I think you got
something there,” said Mitch.
 
“I
don’t suppose you want any tea.”

Abby did want a cup of tea and was
pleased that Mitch remembered.

When they exited the theater to the
library Mitch gestured for Abby to step to the left.

“I forgot to show you the guest
entrance,” said Mitch.

They went through the foyer to the
porch and looked out the window to the circular end of the drive.

“Step out the door and look to the
side,” said Mitch.

Abby did and saw on either side of
the double oak doors two four-foot high, three-foot circular urns with embossed
ivy decoration.

“I think they’re Bellen’s,” said
Mitch.

“They seem to be close, but I have
never seen this design before.
 
I
wish we could see the mark on the bottom.”

“Unfortunately they weigh half a
ton.
 
We’re going to move them
inside later, we’ll take a look then.”

“I can’t wait to see,” said
Abby.
 
Mitch and Abby went back
inside.

They went to the kitchen where
Mitch filled an electric kettle with water and then put the plug into a wall
socket next to the stainless steel stove.
 
From his lunch pail, Mitch produced milk from a short blue thermos and
even some honey.

“You were pretty sure I was going
to stop by,” said Abby.

“Not in the least.”

“I hope you aren’t trying to
impress me.”

“Well, yea.”

“Good job then.”

Mitch put out two ceramic mugs and
a box of Earl Grey.
 
“So you must
think of Willow Lake pretty nostalgically.
 
I mean you grew up here and everything but it has to be pretty far
removed from where you are.”

“It’s removed alright.”

“How are things in the city?”

“Things are fine, the job is good,”
said Abby.
 
“It’s not here.”

Mitch raised his brow.
 
“This back-water you mean?”

“Yea, that’s what I mean,” said
Abby.
 
“No of course that’s not what
I mean.
 
I mean it isn’t here.
 
Simply that.
 
Here everybody knows you.
 
You’re not from here, I am.
 
Everybody knows my business, my
past.
 
There, I blend.
 
I get to choose who I want to be, how I
want to be.
 
I don’t get that here.”

“So you don’t like the ‘every body
knows your name’ thing, eh?” asked Mitch.

“It’s not that in so many words.”

“What do you mean?
 
I kinda like it.”
 
Mitch leaned his back against the
counter picked up a spoon and began to stroke the end.

“It’s just that here I am ‘Will
Bellen’s’ little girl, and there, I’m ‘Abby Bellen woman-of-the-world’.”

“I thought Caroline said that you
girls had a great time growing up.”

“We did, it was great, and I
wouldn’t trade it.
 
But I had to get
out of here.
 
I mean after,” Abby
hesitated, “after my mom died, and then after high school.
 
I had to get out of here.”

“Your Mom, right, sorry.
 
Caroline told me about her, said she was
some kind of firecracker artist.
 
Caroline said she was an inspiration.”

“Yea she was all of that all
right.”

“That had to be rough dealing with
the cancer, being a teenager, losing your mom.
 
Good thing you had this whole community
to support you.”

“To support me, to remind me
everyday, to treat me like I was broken.
 
That’s exactly why I had to get out of here.”

“You still won’t catch me in the
city, but I think I get it.”

“What do you get?”

“I get the ‘where nobody knows your
name’ syndrome, I guess it works for everybody that moves around.
 
Nobody knows you so you can invent
yourself.”
 
Mitch turned and placed
the spoon he had been fiddling with into a mug and unplugged the electric
pitcher that had already heated the water to a boil.
 
“Here you felt you were ‘Will Bellen’s
daughter’,” said Mitch, “ there you invented Abby Bellen, the great curator.”

“And you Mitch Carlson, you’re not
from here, who were you before you reinvented yourself?”

Abby opened the Earl Grey.

“No great mystery Abby,” said Mitch
taking a tea bag from Abby.
 
“I was
a coffee drinker.”

* * *
* *

Will went into the house to get
more coffee.
 
The coffee can Will
kept by the automatic drip in the studio was empty.
 
He opened the yellow cupboard above the
counter and pulled down the can kept there only to find few grounds inside.
 
“How long since we had coffee in the
house?” he thought.
 
Shuffling
further behind the sugar packets and cubes, the pink and yellow sweeteners, and
the honey, produced no coffee.
 
Will
pulled out three boxes of tea instead.
 
Holding two boxes in one hand and the other at arms length he tilted his
head back to read the label.
 
This
did not satisfy Will so he reached into his pocket and put on his wire frame
glasses for another look.

“Ok then,” mumbled Will, “herbal
assorted mint, raspberry… no.”
 
Will
set the box on the counter and inspected the next.
 
“Bergamot.
 
Ughh.”
 
Will set down the Earl Grey and turned
to the last box that read ‘Black Breakfast
Tea’.
 
Will smirked and nodded his head.
 
He tapped the box on his palm and
scanned the kitchen.

The kettle was on the back of the
counter.
 
Will grinned, set the box
of black tea down by the stove, and then filled the kettle with water from the
tap.
 
He put the kettle on the stove
and then sat down at the table to wait.
 
From the driveway came the sound of the pickup.
 
Abby walked into the kitchen to see her
father sitting peacefully watching the stove in anticipation.
 
Abby stood for a moment contemplating
whether to leave him for a while or to get the conversation over with that she
had been dreading.

 
“Hey there, what are you doing?” asked
Abby.

“ I, am having, a cup of tea,” said
Will, as if he had been planning a cup of tea all morning.

“Mind if I join you?” asked
Abby.
 
She removed her coat.

“Please do, please do,” said Will
graciously.
 
“I heard the old truck
pull in.
 
I hope it ran all right
for you.”