Snake in the Glass

by Sarah Atwell

  He shrugged. “Sometimes stones have been known to blow up.”

  “Then you’re wearing safety goggles, at a minimum. Not negotiable. And maybe you’d better sign a standard liability waiver.” I made my students sign something, but I wasn’t sure if that would apply here. Still, it would be better than nothing. I was beginning to wonder what I had let myself in for.

  “No problem. I understand your concerns, and I certainly don’t want to put myself at risk, or anyone else. Not for a bunch of stones.”

  Elizabeth stuck her head in the door. “Are you about done, Denis?”

  “Just another minute or two,” he replied. He turned so that his back blocked his wife’s view of us. “Would you like to see what I’m talking about?” he whispered.

  “I guess.” I watched as he reached into his pocket and fished out a bag filled with what looked like gravel.

  Denis opened it and poured a portion of the contents onto his hand, where they glinted with a dull green light. “Arizona rough. Not very impressive, I’ll admit, but they look a bit better when they’ve been cut and polished. I’m hoping to make them even better than that.”

  “What’re you aiming for?”

  “If I’m lucky, they’ll come out a darker, richer green, closer to emerald, although they’ll probably always have a yellowish cast, as opposed to emerald’s rather bluish tone. Something to shoot for, isn’t it? In any case, darker is better—and more valuable. Is there anything else I should know about the kiln?”

  I thought for a moment. “No, I think we’re good.”

  “Terrific! I think I can fit in the twenty hours during the next week.”

  A week? This guy really was in a hurry. Still, I had no reason to say no, as long as he stuck to the rules I had laid out. “Let’s get that paperwork out of the way. I’ll show you the crucibles and the tongs, and how to turn the kiln on and off, and you’ll be all set to start later today. Remember to leave time for it to heat up.”

  “Great!”

  Denis certainly was enthusiastic. I tracked down some standard boilerplate forms for studio rental and liability, and we duly signed and copied them. I collected five or six crucibles from wherever they had wandered to in the studio, and showed him how to manipulate them with the tongs. When I glanced at the clock, I realized that it was after ten. “You’ll be back later? I should be back here by four, maybe five.”

  “That’s good for me. I’ll be here.”

  “Denis!” Elizabeth stood in the doorway, looking annoyed.

  “All done here. Thanks, Em,” he said in a falsely hearty voice.

  “Later,” I said, and politely hurried Denis and his petulant wife out the door so I could actually work.

  The furnace seemed to be functioning just the way it should, and I had a nice batch of clear glass waiting for me. I still felt a little rusty, so I started working on a series of tumblers, which always sold well, matched in size but varied in color, thanks to the different color frits I added. I was stowing the last of an even dozen in the annealer to cool when I realized it was noon and Frank should be back soon. I shut down the glory hole I had been using, checked the settings on the annealer, tidied up, and went into the shop.

  I was startled when the phone rang. “Shards,” I said crisply.

  “Your cell’s off.” Matt.

  “Hello to you too. I wasn’t expecting any calls, and I was working. Anyway, I’m in the shop at the moment. Did you want something in particular?”

  “To invite you to dinner. At my place.”

  Oh. Dinner at Lorena’s—no, at Matt’s house. I guess I was ready to handle that. “Tonight?

  Matt laughed. “Yes, tonight, if that works.”

  I took a breath. “Sure, sounds good. Shall I meet you there?”

  “If you don’t mind. You know the way?”

  “I can find it.” I didn’t admit I had driven by the house once, a long time ago, when I had thought . . . “Seven?” I figured I’d have to babysit Denis for a while, make sure he didn’t blow himself up.

  “Seven would be fine.” He hung up before I could change my mind.

  Frank arrived as I was hanging up the phone. “Are we on for another go?” he asked me.

  “I am indeed, Frank. I had fun yesterday, and now you tell me there’s more?”

  I locked up, and we set off along the same path as the day before.

  “I need to be back by four, if that’s okay. My peridot guy really wants to get started, so I said I’d give him a few hours today. Tell me, can just changing the color of some stones make them that much more valuable?”

  “Ah, that’s a tricky question. Maybe, at least at first, until the market catches up. There’s often a stampede to a new thing, and then the interest fades.”

  “Well, he said he was working with Arizona stones and they hadn’t cost him much, so he didn’t have a lot to lose if things didn’t work out. Would he have gotten the stones from those people we talked to yesterday?”

  “Most likely—they’ve got a pretty good grip on local output, I hear.”

  This time when we arrived at the convention center, Frank had a word with the person at the entrance, and once we were inside, he headed for a section we hadn’t seen before, down a long hall away from the main hullabaloo. There was a sign over the door at the end of the hall: “Dealers Only.” Frank presented the man at the door with a ticket of some sort, then nodded toward me. “She’s with me.” We were ushered through with no trouble.

  Inside I took a moment to get my bearings. There were similarities to the main space: rows of booths filled the room. But the booths were both larger and less crowded with merchandise, and there were far fewer people, not many of whom were tourists or browsers. Most looked intent and serious.

  I turned to Frank. “Are you doing business today?”

  “Maybe. It’s always good to talk to some of these guys, find out what’s going on in the markets—as much as they’ll tell me, anyway.”

  “You mean they don’t always tell the truth?”

  Frank flashed me a smile. “Not all of it. Come on, let me introduce you to one of my old pals.”

  He led me to a booth across the room, with a man and a woman behind it. Both greeted Frank warmly. “You old crank, what got you out of Oz and all the way to Tucson?” the woman asked. She was a striking woman whose age fell somewhere between mine and Frank’s, although it was hard to pin down since her skin showed evidence of time spent in the sun. A lot of time. I wondered if she and Frank had had . . . something, sometime.

  “Ah, Miranda. It was your siren call, of course.”

  “Go on! And don’t make Stewart here defend my honor.”

  “Bosh—I could take him one-handed. How are you, then?”

  “Couldn’t be better, Frank,” Stewart boomed. “Wish the economy would improve, but we’re holding our own. You buying or selling?”

  “Neither right now, although if the right deal came along . . . Let me introduce you to Em Dowell—she’s a glassblower here in Tucson.”

  “And how do you know this lovely lady, so far from home? Has he been telling you he’s a millionaire ten times over?”

  I laughed. “Does Frank have money? Actually we met because his niece took a class from me.” That was an oversimplified explanation, but true.

  Stewart turned back to Frank. “You have relatives, man? I thought you were a lone wolf.”

  “That would be your sister’s daughter, Frank?” Miranda said more softly. I’d guessed right—they must have been close at one point, if she knew about Frank’s family.

  “She is, all grown up now. Back in Ireland for the moment. So, tell me . . .” Frank and Stewart leapt into an arcane discussion of international gem markets that left me baffled.

  Miranda was kind enough to notice. “Are you interested in stones?”

  “Until yesterday I would have said no—I’ve got my own business here, and any spare cash I have goes right back into that. But there’s some lovely stu
ff here. Have you been doing this long?”

  “Most of my adult life. It kinds of gets into your blood, always hunting for something new or better. The diamond industry has changed quite a bit over the past decade or two, so it’s exciting to try to stay on top of things.”

  “I think it’s great to find a woman here. Are there a lot of women in the gemstone business? Do you find it makes your work more difficult?”

  “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But I can’t imagine doing anything else. And you? I don’t recall hearing of many female glassblowers.”

  “There aren’t,” I admitted. “Maybe twenty percent. But I love what I’m doing, and I love being my own boss.”

  “There is that. Were you looking for anything?”

  “Not at all. Just following Frank around. I’m learning a lot from him.”

  “He is one of a kind, isn’t he?” Miranda smiled fondly at the two men, who were deep in discussion, and I noticed a few small packets of gems had emerged from pockets.

  “He is that.”

  “Are you two . . . ?”

  It took me a moment to figure out what she was asking, then I laughed. “No, not at all. Although he and my, uh, friend seem to be leaning that way.”

  “I’m glad. Frank’s a good man at heart, although he’s hard to pin down.”

  “Do you travel to a lot of shows?” My question set us off on a long dialogue about the gem trade and the places it had taken her, and I had to admit I was fascinated. It sounded like a romantic lifestyle—but also a dirty, uncertain, wearing one. I preferred my own, I decided, although it was delightful to learn about something so different.

  It must have been an hour later when Frank extricated himself from conversation with Stewart, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t noticed any customers approach in that time.

  “Shall we tour out the rest?” Frank asked.

  “Fine with me. Miranda, Stewart, it was great to meet you. I hope you have a chance to enjoy a bit of Tucson while you’re here.”

  Miranda laughed. “Oh, you mean the world doesn’t end at the doors of this place? Thanks for the thought, Em. I’m glad we met too. It was good to see you again, Frank.”

  As Frank and I meandered off toward another cluster of booths, I said, “I didn’t see much business going on.”

  “It’s not all done by daylight. But Stewart and Miranda have done well for themselves.”

  “So, are you friends? Colleagues? Competitors?”

  “A bit of each. It’s a complicated business. Ah, here’s Virender!” And we were off again.

  We made it back to the shop in good time, and Frank went on his way when Denis appeared again at four, ready to go. I got him started, then retreated to the shop where I could keep an eye on him. He spread out little piles of rough stones on the metal surface of a marver and then laid a notebook out. As I watched unobtrusively, he would measure out a group of stones into a crucible, stick it in the kiln, set a small electronic timer he had brought with him, and make a notation in his notebook. While I didn’t spend all my time watching, I had the impression that he was starting with short periods of exposure to the heat and gradually increasing it. Two hours later Denis was still in the studio, and he looked depressed. When I opened the door from the shop, he must have jumped a foot.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Nothing yet. I’ve read up on most techniques, but I guess each type of stone is different. So far I’ve been trying out a fairly low temperature for different intervals. Next time I’ll have to crank it up and see if that makes a difference. Oh, did you want me to leave now?”

  “Yes, I need to close up.” So I could get ready for my “date” with Matt.

  “Oh.” He looked disappointed. “Okay. Can I come back tomorrow?”

  “Sure. We’re open all day. But this time call me first, okay?”

  “Right,” he said in a distracted voice as he gathered his materials up.

  I escorted him out the back door and locked it behind him. Before I shut down the studio, I made sure the little kiln was turned off. At least Denis was neat: he hadn’t left any mess behind him. Odd duck, he was, but maybe a lot of professors were lacking in social graces. Unpolished, as it were. Smiling at my own pathetic joke, I finished closing up and went upstairs to prepare myself for dinner with Matt.

  Chapter 7

  Peridot has been assigned many mystical powers throughout history, including warding off anxiety, enhancing speech, inspiring happiness, and strengthening both the body and the mind.

  Three dinners in a row with Matt—it was a record. Maybe he really had missed me, although I’d been gone only ten days or so. Although maybe that first night home didn’t really count, considering that I had fallen asleep.

  I had to admit I was uneasy about going to Matt’s house, but I told myself to get over it. I realized that it was stupid of me to insist that Matt and I get together only at my place. Matt deserved equal time, and he had been patient. After all, I believed in relationships of equals, didn’t I? So I’d suck it up and go. I hoped he was a better cook than I was. Or that his neighborhood had better takeout than mine.

  Still, in some corner of my mind it was still Lorena’s house. Maybe I was projecting, based on my own experience: I had chosen and shaped my living space. It was Mine, with a capital M. My kingdom, my lair, my sanctuary. I had no reason to think that Lorena had looked at her house in that light; from what little Matt had said, she had seen it as a status symbol, albeit an inadequate one.

  The Sam Hughes neighborhood was the kind of area that Tucson real estate agents love to gush over: “Most Desired Central Historic Neighborhood,” “A charming neighborhood of mature homes” with tree-lined streets—closed to through traffic, so they were quiet. First laid out in the 1920s, now it was on the National Register of Historic Places. It was convenient to downtown and the university. Some of the homes were pricey, others less so because they needed some serious work. I wasn’t sure how Matt fit in there.

  I pulled up and parked, then studied the house. It was a relatively small bungalow, a few steps higher than the street, with a sloping graveled front yard. I couldn’t see the back because of the high wooden fence, although there were clearly some substantial trees there. The building was typical adobe with smallish windows; the entry porch had a terra-cotta tile roof. The house would have looked boxy and plain, but the whole was softened by the brilliant bougainvillea that screened the entry. I took a deep breath and got out of the car. Why should I be nervous?

  Matt had apparently been waiting for me, because he opened the door before I could knock. “Em,” he said gravely.

  “Matt,” I replied. Great—we knew each other’s names.

  “Please, come in.” Matt stepped back to let me in.

  I stepped into the small vestibule, with a niche in the wall straight ahead. If I knew my architecture, the living room would be on one side, the dining room opposite. It was surprisingly dark. Was Matt frugal about electricity?

  Once I stepped into the living room on the left, I saw the reason: the place was filled with flickering light from more candles than I could count. And where there weren’t candles there were flowers. I turned to Matt and silently raised an eyebrow.

  “I wanted this to be special,” he said, his expression anxious.

  Oh, my. This was a side of Matt I had never seen. Romantic. Of course, I hadn’t precisely encouraged it either.

  My prolonged silence must have disturbed him. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, Em. I know you’re not into sentimental stuff, but I wanted to make this . . . memorable, I guess.”

  I rallied my scattered wits and turned to him. “It’s lovely, Matt. Really. I just didn’t expect . . .” I swallowed. Em, move on before you get mushy. “Can I see the rest of the house?”

  “Of course.” Matt smiled tentatively. “This is the living room. The dining room’s over there.”

  “Show me,” I said, leading the way. More surpri
ses in the small, square dining room: a beautifully set table, with more candles and flowers. “Oh, Matt . . .” I began helplessly. I really was touched at the effort he had put into this.

  “Hey,” he said gently, “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I shook my head vehemently. “No, I’m fine. It’s wonderful. I’m just kind of overwhelmed.” There were good smells issuing from the adjoining room. “Kitchen?”

  “This way, what there is of it. Lorena . . .” He stopped abruptly.

  “It’s okay, Matt. She lived here, she was part of your life. I can handle that. What did she think?”

  “She thought the kitchen was too small and too old-fashioned. She was going to take out that back wall there and double the size.”

  I looked around the admittedly tiny galley kitchen, its aging appliances lined up along the walls, its window overlooking the verdant backyard, half hidden in the dusk. “Looks good to me. It has all its working parts, right?”

  “It does.” Matt led the way out the opposite end of the kitchen. “Bathroom’s here—just the one.”

  I peered in: lots of Mexican tile, a skylight in the high ceiling, and a huge, glass-enclosed shower. “Nice.”

  “And two bedrooms—I use one as an office. But I saved the best for last.” He put a hand on the small of my back and guided me to the double glass doors leading out to a small deck nestled in the L between the kitchen and the bedroom hallway.

  I stepped out and heard the unexpected sound of running water. “What the heck?”

  He pointed toward the back of the small lot. “There’s a small pond there, with a little waterfall.” He looked as pleased as a kid about it.

  I made my way to the end of the deck and stepped onto the tiny lawn—real grass was a luxury in Tucson, but this patch could have taken up no more than twenty square feet. “It’s wonderful.” The trickling water drowned out what little sound of traffic drifted this far into the neighborhood. What a delightful kind of white noise.