“You’ll get him back,” Lee said confidently, patting my shoulder. “I feel that.”
Reynold smiled. “You’ll need to clean up the place. It hasn’t been used for anything except storage in decades. I’ll bring in a cot from my house for your bed. If you can handle all that, the place is yours.”
“You sure you’re not just
getting Chrissy to do your tidying up for you, Reynold?” Lee laughed.
“I’m more than happy to do it,” I said, brushing a lock of my bangs behind my ear, and then tying the rest into a ponytail. Such a strange mixture of emotions rushed through me. I was excited to stay, but still broken up about Henry’s disappearance. He’ll be back, I thought hopefully. It was all I could really do—be positive. So many bad things had happened recently, but finally some good was coming my way, and I just had to believe that this was only the beginning of it.
Reynold took me to the back of the shop where, behind palettes of beer and energy drinks, a narrow set of stairs rose up to a pull-down attic door. He undid a metal latch on it and swung the door open, and then continued up inside. After fumbling around in the dark for a moment, he switched on a single lightbulb that hung from the ceiling. The place was definitely not much to look at—it was dust and cobweb ridden and packed with stacks of old storage boxes, but it was at least dry.
Reynold went over and pulled back the curtains on the room’s single window, a small rectangle that sat on the far wall opposite the entrance door. Cloudy sunlight streamed in, slanting through the sparkles of dust dancing in the air. Lee, who followed up behind us, let out a monster sneeze.
“You can just move all the boxes into one of the corners,” said Reynold. “The old bed used to be over there.” He pointed to a side wall, and I could see that the wood floor had a slightly different color where the bed was.
“Well, I’d better get to work,” I said, putting my hands on my hips. “If I want a place to sleep by tonight.”
Reynold laughed. “I’ll get you a broom and a vacuum.”
4
Lucy
I stepped outside from the sunroom to get some fresh air and enjoy the sunshine that was finally starting to peek through the clouds. I’d meant to go to the pet store the day before to buy some supplies for my furry guest, but I’d ended up getting caught by a rare burst of inspiration and spent the day churning out bowl after bowl. The cat didn’t seem to mind—he was using his newspaper cat box and was perfectly happy with being fed scraps of chicken, and spent the whole time lounging around nearby. The little guy was really growing on me, and he’d given me inspiration to work on something again, even if they were just simple bowls.
Plus, it was just nice to have some company.
When I’d found him, I’d had no intention of keeping him. After all, I was only here to try and get my mojo back, not to actually become a crazy cat lady. Now, I was starting to wonder how I could not keep him. I’d held off on naming him—I’d only get attached if I gave him a name—but I didn’t know what options there were for my little guest. I could keep him, or bring him in for someone else to adopt him.
I went back into the sunroom, and the cat bounded up to me, nuzzling his face up against my leg. I crouched down and stroked his head, scratching behind his ears and at his whiskers. He mrred and pushed against my hand, and I smiled. I couldn’t just get rid of you.
A timer dinged. I went over to the kiln, opened it, and pulled out the first bowl I’d made, which was now cool and ready for a glaze. I opened the cabinet with my custom glazes and chose something simple. I wanted to give it an overall dark stain, but with shimmers of opalescent green that would peek out around the interior of the bowl, exactly how my guest’s green eyes contrasted with his dark fur.
He nuzzled up against my leg again and let out a long meow. “What’s the matter, guy?” I said. He looked up at me and meowed again. “Shit,” I said, looking at my watch. It was already getting to be the late afternoon, and he was probably hungry.
I got up, went to the kitchen, and pulled open the fridge.
Double shit. I was out of the leftover chicken.
The fridge was pretty much void of anything else desirable to be eaten by cat or human. I turned around and saw that he’d followed me. “Good thing you’re here,” I said, “otherwise we might’ve both starved to death.” It was a good sign, actually—it’d been a long while since I’d gotten so absorbed in working that I forgot to eat.
“Keys, keys,” I muttered, searching around the house for my car keys until I found them in a random spot in the living room, and then repeated the routine with my wallet.
“Don’t burn the house down,” I said to the cat, who stared at me as I walked out the door, his tail swishing curiously.
I drove down the street until I reached the corner with the gas station and saw Reynold, the old-timer who’d operated the place ever since I could remember, standing out front cleaning debris from the driveway and the sidewalk. He looked up, saw me, and waved. I waved back. A girl, maybe in her early or mid-twenties, came out from the gas station with a push broom and started to help Reynold clean. Reynold didn’t have a kid, so she must’ve been someone from town. It wasn’t usual to see another younger person around Armstrong, so I found myself staring with a little more interest than I normally would’ve. Not to mention, it’d been a while since I’d seen such a pretty face.
No, stop it. I looked away and quickly took the turn, driving off up the street towards the grocery market.
I hated when girls made me feel that way. I felt guilty about it, and I didn’t want to believe that I could feel that way about another woman… but it happened so often.
Still, the thought of that girl at the gas station trailed in my mind, like an image burned into my retinas from staring at a light for too long. She was tall, with dirty blonde hair that hung in a long ponytail and bangs that swept her face. She’d had on a green, military style jacket over a v-neck shirt and ripped jeans that hugged long legs. She was very slim and fit. Younger girls were able to burn the weight so easily. 22 was when I started to hit the gym hard, because I found that the repetition and the mental discipline required was quite similar to the skills I used to create my pottery. These days, at 34, it was becoming an uphill battle to keep the weight off. I knew I was in pretty damn good shape, but it was hard not to feel flabby constantly, especially because I hadn’t been in a gym in ages.
There was something else about her that stuck in my head. I’d only seen her for a second and from a distance, but there was something about the look she carried on her face… She was pretty, but that wasn’t the only thing. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It wasn’t so much the expression, as something that lingered behind it. Maybe it reminded me of myself. I wasn’t sure. I’d only seen her for a moment, after all.
I wandered around the market in a bit of a daze, not really thinking about anything in particular, but still had that girl’s image bouncing around in my head. I forced myself to divert my thoughts to my new furry friend, and the bowls that I was making. The first—the one that I would glaze the moment I got home—I’d made to use as a food bowl, but it was probably too large for that purpose. I’d made four others, all of varying sizes. One was probably a more fitting size, and the three others were just sort of random and likely would end up in the trash can later.
It’d been so long since I’d produced work that I wasn’t immediately smashing into a lump.