The Glass House

by Nancy Lynn Jarvis

  “Come, my darlings, it’s time we begin our journey of learning and artistic endeavor.”

  He stepped forward, and though he was dressed unceremoniously in kakis and a blue pinstriped shirt rolled to his elbows, he moved as if he wore a golden crown and had on a floor-length cape that fluttered behind him. He definitely had that attribute which was impossible to explain, but was recognizable when it was seen: he had star quality. He held his arm out to Lillian Wentner, who took it like his queen. The procession that followed him out the kitchen door was, with just a couple of exceptions, filled with adoring, puppy-dog-eyed women. Pat noted Syda was among them.

  “Come on, come on,” she said as she hooked her arm through Pat’s and dragged her forward. Pat reluctantly returned her half-full coffee cup to the counter before she was swept out the door.

  “Show of hands, please,” Garryn Monteith asked once the women were settled at their stations around a bay of three worktables that took up most of the long part of the building. “How many of you are virgins?”

  The audience erupted with tittering.

  “Never fear. I’m here to help you lose your virginity.”

  There was more laughter.

  “I’m talking about glass-crafting virgins, of course. Oh, you naughty girls. What did you think I meant?” He guffawed and smiled, showing more teeth than Pat thought could fit in one person’s mouth.

  “I want you all to go to the glass sheet bin and pick out a big piece of your favorite color and some complementary colors for petals. You’ll all need some bright yellow as well. Today we’ll learn how to cut and arrange petals and prep them for the kiln. Then we’ll go to work on the spiders. Oh, don’t go squeamish on me. The glass stamens, which are the trickiest part, will look like spiders after the first firing. We’ll fire the stamens and flat petals tonight so we get melting and blending of colors for a realistic look and make the stamens. Tomorrow we’ll drape the flat petals until they form gorgeous natural-looking flowers. I have the most amazing ideas for you on what to use to make them shape beautifully, and then the third day…”

  Pat expected him to say, “I’ll rise from the dead,” given how the women in his class seemed to worship him and how he seemed to feel about himself.

  “…we’ll make any necessary tweaks to your work—although with me as your instructor, I expect all your flowers will be perfect—and I’ll share my secret method for attaching everything to stems so you can display them using my patented stem system. And then we’ll drink wine and celebrate.” He finished with an upsurge to his voice and his hands raised and swirling in the air.

  Pat scanned the room as Garryn Monteith spoke. Most of the students, including Syda and even his co-teacher Lillian Wentner, looked at him with mesmerized half-smiles on their faces. She did note three women who, like her, were not part of his adoring pack. Those women were the ones she wanted to spend time with during the lunch break.

  Glass cutting was fairly straightforward, but Pat had to admit her teacher did offer tips that helped the process. She also had to admit that his nonstop stories were entertaining. She couldn’t help but enjoy them and, his ego aside, she found herself reluctantly warming to him because of his skill as instructor and storyteller. By lunchtime she had completed her petals. She had decided on sunny yellow as the primary petal color and chose a creamy off-white for a complementary color.

  Garryn Monteith, spouting stories as he moved, began the morning walking up and down the tables offering personal words for his students. “You are going to be one of my star pupils, Pat. Your eye for color is fabulous,” Garryn Monteith raved. “Your petals will have so much depth and realism because of your choices.”

  When Garryn Monteith made his second round of the tables, Syda was still in deep concentration mode, her focus only interrupted by an occasional swearword when she failed to get exactly the shape she wanted. He passed over her with a simple, “I’d snip a bit there,” as encouragement and moved to hover over Pat.

  He threw a fingertip kiss to her, a kiss Pat thought more appropriately might have been delivered by an Italian chef with a “bellissimo” attached to it as he sampled his basil pesto.

  “How is it possible that you have so much natural talent?” he quizzed. “You have a bright future. We might need to arrange some private lessons for you so I can share my secrets with you.”

  Pat smiled weakly. “Or you could share them with the entire class.”

  “I’d love some additional help—some private lessons,” the woman seated on Pat’s other side said. She looked up at him with an expression that Pat noticed, but had a hard time characterizing. Her tablemate’s face held yearning, but something else, too. Disappointment? Wistfulness? She was one of the unadoring Pat had determined to talk to during lunch break—Garryn Monteith discouraged conversation at the worktables, telling his pupils they needed to concentrate and they needed to listen to his instructions—so even though they sat next to one another, Pat’s only verbal interaction with her had been a quick exchange of names and the beginning of a conversation.

  “I’m Suzanne Cummings,” the woman had introduced herself.

  “Pat Pirard. Are you one of our instructor’s ‘glass virgins’?” Pat had asked.

  “No,” Suzanne Cummings blushed. “Well, yes. This is my first peony class. But I was a star pupil many years ago in another one of Garryn’s classes.” Suzanne sighed loudly. “There’s usually one, it seems.”

  “Was he right about you?”

  “Ladies.” Garryn Monteith had caught them talking and interrupted, ending their exchange. He smiled at them, but an added raised eyebrow had made it clear that what he was offering was mild chastisement. “Eyes and ears on me, please.”

  His response to Suzanne Cummings’s appeal for extra help was clipped, cool, and flat. “Your work looks fine,” he said. “I don’t see a need for you to have private lessons.”

  “But I just thought…” Suzanne trailed off. Garryn had already moved up the row to the next woman in line, leaving Suzanne talking to herself.

  Pat planned to talk to Suzanne during the lunch break, but when it came, Suzanne disappeared into the bathroom before she could catch up with her. Pat waited by the door for as long as seemed reasonable, but Suzanne didn’t reemerge.

  As she moved toward the counter where others were helping themselves to lunch, Pat was waylaid by another woman.

  “So what do you think of him?” the woman quizzed.

  Pat shrugged. “It’s too soon for me to tell much about him.”

  The woman puffed up her cheeks and expelled air in a huff. “His stories will never stop, especially when he gets into his ‘genius’ mode, but don’t believe most of what he says.”

  “I’m Pat Pirard.” Pat held out her hand. “Why is that?”

  “Angela Grinardi.” The woman’s handshake was solid. “Because he’s a thief and a cheat, albeit a charming one.”

  “I take it you’ve come to those conclusions after taking one of his classes?”

  “No. I’ve just heard him bloviate in other settings. I thought I should take a class and see how he explains ‘his secrets.’ I can’t wait until the last day of class when I get to prove his brilliant methods were stolen from someone with much more ability than he has in front of the entire group of Monteith admirers.

  “It should be great fun to watch him squirm, especially since he’s managed to get away with his thievery for so long and caused so much anguish in the lives of others. Not this time, though; I’ve got nothing to lose.” Angela smiled as she savored her attack. “On day three, I’m going to destroy him.”

  “Pat, Angela,” Joe called out to them cheerfully, “there’s quinoa Greek salad, pasta primavera, or if you prefer, all the fixings to build yourselves spectacular ham sandwiches. Time’s a-wasting. He’s going to drag you back to class pretty soon, and it will be a long afternoon if you’re hungry.”

  Pat was startled by what Angela said, but the woman was finished venting
, turned her shoulder to Pat, and headed for Joe’s array of food. She followed suit.

  “Are these salads more of your creations, Joe?” Pat asked.

  “Yep. I’m in charge of all the food around here. I even prepare Garryn’s special meals. For this course he’s going gluten free, hence the quinoa salad. Tomorrow we’ll be having something corn-based for our star. What would you like?”

  “The Greek salad looks good.”

  As he had in the morning, Garryn had assumed his place near the kitchen fireplace and was entertaining his gathered students, regaling them with even more stories, and feasting not only on salad, but on their charmed titters. Angela, full plate in hand, drifted toward the group.

  Lillian’s tinkling voice rose above the din. Pat couldn’t make out what she said, but the timbre of what she heard caught Pat’s attention, and she watched Lillian’s dialog end with a hand placed familiarly on Garryn’s arm. He covered her hand with his own and then removed it, smiling, not one of his practiced toothy grins, but softly and more intimately. Without the flamboyance that usually accompanied his smiles, his countenance seemed a bit sad, Pat thought.

  Joe’s ladle of quinoa Greek salad remained poised above Pat’s plate as he watched his wife. “Oh, I’m sorry. Here I am telling you to eat and then not letting you.” He was jovial once again as he delivered her salad, but once his task was finished, his eyes returned to his wife and his smile faded.

  After one last glace at the bathroom door with its “occupied” sign still hanging from the doorknob confirming that Suzanne had not emerged, Pat took a seat next to Syda in the midst of the students.

  Syda was glowing as she whispered to Pat, “This is such a great class. I’ve already learned so much. Aren’t you having fun, too?”

  “I am,” Pat promised. “Syda, I can tell from the way we fit around the tables that I’m an extra. How did you manage to get me a place?”

  “I’ve known Lillian forever; we artists tend to know one another. She let me add you to the class when I told her you were my best friend and that your life is kind of a calamity right now so you needed a new experience to take your mind off it. She’s very sympathetic. She even gave me a deal on the class.”

  Pat closed her eyes and sighed. “Great. I love it that she thinks of me as a messed-up charity case.”

  “Well, your life is kind of messed up right now, so I was only being truthful.”

  “I think I need to try the pasta primavera, too,” Pat said as she spied Suzanne finally out of the bathroom and making a ham sandwich. She rose from her seat by Syda and headed back toward Joe.

  “This is so good. May I try your other creation as well?”

  “Of course. It’s so nice to have one’s efforts appreciated.”

  “Suzanne, isn’t it?” Pat turned to her table-neighbor. “I’m enjoying this course immensely. You said you’d taken another class from Garryn. What other classes does he teach?”

  “You can look him up online. Just Google him and you’ll get his schedule.” Suzanne turned her shoulder toward Pat. “Excuse me.”

  “You criticize the way she cut her glass?” Joe asked with a laugh.

  “We sit next to one another. She seemed friendly initially.” Pat shook her head. “Evidently she does think I did something to her.”

  Garryn Monteith clapped his hands. “Finish up, my darlings. We have spiders to play with this afternoon, and then we get to play with the kilns. It’s going to be a big afternoon.” His practiced smile was bigger than ever as he began leading his students back to the workroom.

  ※※※※※※※※※※※

  Day two of classes began with Lillian Wentner opening the huge kiln located in the L-shaped part of her studio. Each of the students had placed their cut glass on a tray able to withstand the 1440-degree temperature the kiln reached during the first phase of the melting and fusing of their glass layers. The kiln was large enough to easily accommodate the fifteen trays of work plus the improvised tray for Pat’s work, a reminder that she was an extra in the class.

  “Collect your trays, please,” Lillian said.

  Pat’s improvised tray had gone in first and so she was the last to remove her work. It was exciting to see what had happened to the glass in the kiln overnight. The petals had fused and melted into natural-looking blends of color, and the stamens, which had started out as simple slices cut partway into a circle of bright yellow glass, were now separated and melted into spider-legged creatures with rounded feet.

  “Oh, my darlings,” Garryn Monteith effused, “you have all done wonderful work.”

  The morning session consisted of discussions about Ikea bowls and other stainless steel implements the students could use under their glass pieces to cause draping during the second firing. Garryn Monteith had several of his own pieces to show them and explained how he had achieved their looks. He promised that, with proper selections, their peonies would look as good as his when they were finished.

  “Give it some thought, my darlings, and choose well, although I have to admit I’ve seen several students make what I considered to be ‘daring’ choices that produced outstanding results. Pick at least two stands for your petals so they drape well and have a natural look. Be thinking about how you want your flowers to look as you pick your drapers. When you are ready and back at your work stations, I’ll show you how to place your glass to achieve the results you’d like. Visualize the look you want and be prepared; we are beginning the magic phase of what I will teach you. Aren’t you excited, my darlings?”

  After a short morning of picking and arranging, and Garryn Monteith’s “tip of the day,” that the tiniest dot of Super Glue was the artifice he used to hold pieces together until the kiln heat took over and melting began, each student was ready to carry their work to the kiln. Again, Pat went first in placing her creations at the very back of the kiln on the bottom row.

  When all the pieces were inside the kiln, Lillian closed the door and secured it with a slide-lock. She set the firing timer and then said, “Lunch is ready. We’ll be giving you some cheap wine with lunch because it’s time for a mini celebration. The big one with champagne comes tomorrow, though, when your pieces are complete.”

  Pat had worked up a big appetite with all the decision-making and imagining that the class required, and she was eager to taste what Joe had come up with for their second-day meal.

  “Joe, you’ve outdone yourself,” Pat said as she let him place an aromatic bowl on her plate next to her butter-dripping cornbread. “Stew cooked in a pumpkin with cornbread on the side. Ten points for presentation and,” she quickly picked up a spoon from an arrangement on the counter and sampled a spoonful of the savory stew that filled her bowl, “eleven for flavor.”

  “And the cornbread is a gluten-free recipe as the master demands,” Joe added, a hint of resignation in his voice.

  Pat noticed Suzanne Cummings was missing, probably in the bathroom again like the day before, and that the third member of the “not the biggest fans” set she observed yesterday morning was sitting by herself away from the devoted. She decided to take advantage of the situation.

  “Hi. I’m Pat Pirard,” she introduced herself. “I’ve met most of the students, but we are on opposite sides of the room…”

  “Kandi Crusher. Don’t say it. I had my name long before that stupid game came along.”

  “Is it your maiden name or your married name?”

  “Both. When I went to high school, lockers were assigned alphabetically. George Crusher had the locker right above mine. We fell in love. We were high school sweethearts who got married—coming up on fourteen years now—so unless I divorce him, there’s no hope for a name change. Believe me, I’ve thought about it, but the problem is I still love the guy.”

  “Do you have a middle name? Possibly you could use it.”

  “Mann. It was my mother’s maiden name.”

  “That’s even worse, isn’t it?” Pat chuckled. “Have you considered using your
initials? You’d be K.M. Crusher.”

  Kandi Crusher laughed heartily. “I have, but K.M. doesn’t flow well, does it? Too reminiscent of a B.M.”

  “You’re right,” Pat laughed. “I guess you just have to flaunt your name. Never explain or apologize,” Pat encouraged jauntily. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’re not by the fireplace hanging on Garryn Monteith’s every word.”

  “No, I’m not. I notice you’re not, either.”

  Pat chuckled. “True, but I was dragged here by a friend who gave me the class as a birthday gift, so I didn’t arrive loaded with hero worship.”

  “Good friend. Much as I love my friends, I’d never give them an eight-hundred-dollar class as a birthday gift.”

  “That’s how much this class cost?” Pat’s mouth fell open. “I had no idea.”

  “Self-aggrandizing famous artists who think they have special skills can charge a lot for enlightening the rest of us lowly wannabes.”

  “You don’t sound like a fan and yet you paid the price? Why did you do it?”

  “Let’s just say that I plan to get a lot out of the class, especially tomorrow.”

  “This afternoon you must be brave because we are going to drill holes in your spider designs, and I hope none of you will shatter what you have done.” Garryn Monteith held up a hand in what to Pat had become his routine traffic-cop-stop pose. “No gasps, please. Never fear. I was just teasing. There’s a trick to drilling glass, and with my guidance, I promise all your hard work will survive.”