He focused on the vase but halfway listened to her setting up the station to work. As she laid out the colored glass she wanted and pulled out the tools, she talked quietly to herself. He couldn’t make out all of the words, but it seemed to be a cross between reminding herself of the steps to get it right and a pep talk to not screw up.
After he finished the vase he was working on, he considered starting another project but decided that he would only get irritated if he had to stop mid-project to help London, so he grabbed a bottle of water and sat on his stool. If nothing else, she would need help at the end. He’d show her the technique he mentioned the other night.
“Again with the staring,” she said from in front of the furnace without looking at him.
“I told Bronte I’d keep an eye on you. Need help with anything?”
“I think I have this part handled. It’s a little tedious, but if I can remember what I did the other night, I should be good. I will need help getting it off here and into the annealer, though. I don’t want a repeat of that mess.”
“It happens to all of us. There’s always more broken glass than finished projects. You just never know.”
She rolled the glass in the red color and returned to the furnace. On her trip back for the next round of color, she asked, “Really? You don’t know intuitively if something’s gonna break?”
“Sometimes you can feel it. Something’s not sitting right with the glass.” He shrugged. “Other times it looks damn near perfect but the glass fools you. It goes into the annealer and comes out cracked or shifted wrong.”
“That sounds awful. Why put yourself through it?” she asked, as she began to shape the red spire.
Her technique wasn’t bad for a newbie. “It’s who I am. Maybe you should ask yourself that question. This isn’t your job, your career. You’re doing this for what? A gift that will probably never be appreciated?”
A sly smile crossed her face. “Oh, no. This gift will be appreciated in more ways than you can imagine.”
That first feeling of suspicion when Bronte approached him about this deal crept back in. As odd as it seemed, though, what shady thing could she possibly be doing with a tree topper?
“So tell me, Ezra, why did you become a glassblower?”
“My dad used to have a studio in the city. He let me come in and hang out and learn from him. I loved it. Why did you become an artist?” he asked. While he normally hated small talk, this felt natural. Not the burden it usually was for him.
She was quiet for a moment as she went back to the furnace with her glass. When she came back, she said, “There was nothing else I ever really wanted. I’ve always drawn and sketched, much to the dismay of every teacher who ever had me in class. I had some great art teachers who encouraged me and it felt right. I could never imagine getting up every day, putting on a suit, and sitting at a desk. All day. Every day. Just the same thing over and over.”
He chuckled. That was a sentiment he could get behind.
She worked in silence, intently focused on the glass, so he assumed their conversation was finished. She wasn’t quiet when she worked with Bronte, so maybe she didn’t want to talk with him. It wasn’t as if he’d been overly friendly.
After blowing and stretching the glass, she suddenly looked over at him. “What happened to your dad’s studio? What made you open up out here in the suburbs?”
His muscles tightened and the familiar burn of anger settled in his gut. As soon as he mentioned his dad’s studio, he should’ve expected this question. He hated talking about it. “It closed down.”
She narrowed her eyes, but turned back to her project and continued to work.
She shouldn’t have asked.There was a story, but she didn’t know if it had to do with Mia’s and Jared’s fathers. The immediate tension in both Ezra’s body and voice told her to back off. She half expected him to ignore the question. Now, she just wanted to poke, but she couldn’t abandon the tree topper. She was finally in a rhythm and knew what she was doing. With any luck, she’d be able to make two or three of them tonight.
Unless Ezra got fed up with her and made her leave.
He didn’t say anything more, just sat on his stool drinking his water, watching her work. The silence was both unnerving and calming, which continued to toy with her. When she had the shape near perfect, she paused to double-check the dimensions. She only had tonight. If she couldn’t get this done right, chances were good that she wouldn’t have enough time to get another done and still be able to affix the “diamonds.”
“Hey,” she called to Ezra. “This whole time of trial and error, I haven’t given much thought to the bottom of this thing.”
“What about it?”
“It needs to have about a two-inch opening. You know, to stick the tree branch in. This isn’t going to do it.”
He came around the table. “I can attach to the top, hold it there, and you can work the bottom. It’s just stretching the opening.”
“Won’t attaching to the top screw that part up?”
He smiled, one of those rare, slightly wicked smiles. “Not if it’s done right. If we use the method I mentioned the other night, it’ll go even smoother.”
“If you say so.” She reheated the topper one last time to add some final touches. “Okay. Do your magic.”