“Who are you?” a small voice at my side demands.
I stare into intense dark eyes that narrow into slits. A blue denim overall strap hangs off the girl’s shoulder, and before I can think about it, I step forward to fix the girl’s overall.
“Jasmine,” I say. I’ve always loved the younger kids at the Art Palace, and sometimes I like to pretend that one of them is my younger sister or brother. Sometimes it’s lonely being Mom and Dad’s only child, especially when they fight.
“Don’t!” The girl’s small hands bat mine away.
I jump back as if I’ve stepped on a live wire. What am I thinking? I’m acting like Mom. “Sorry.” I try to recover my mistake. “And you are…” I wait for the girl to tell me her name. I figure in two seconds, she’ll start questioning me about everything like the five-year-olds do at the Art Palace. We’ll be friends in no time. In fact, maybe she can be my adopted younger sister on the Island. I’d like a little sister.
“Sammy.” Sammy waves her small fingers toward Opal. “That’s my aunt.” Sammy crosses her hands above her chest and glares at me.
Something about Sammy’s pose makes me want to cross my arms and glare back. I try to remind myself that I am twelve, and I do not need to get into staring wars with five-year-olds who have chips on their shoulders. Looking away, I glance at Sammy’s picture on the table.
“What are you drawing?” The large squares and circles don’t look like any pictures I’ve seen at the Art Palace. This one seems as intense as Sammy, with bold red lines and zigzags down the page.
Sammy struts over to the table, pushing her picture toward the center and away from me. “I don’t like it.”
“Why not?” I follow her, lean over the table, and move the picture back toward us. Although the lines are a bit harsh, and it looks like she has pushed too hard, she does have the right colors in the right places—I see now that it’s an abstract flower. Petals are a rosy red, and the stem is green. And most impressive is that Sammy colors between the lines, unlike some of the younger art students. No matter how often the Art Palace students are told to stay within the lines, their pictures are always a mess of colors outside the picture’s frame.
“She told me to.” Sammy waves her colored crayon in the air toward Opal. A scowl crosses her face. “For the contest flyer.”
“Picture looks great, Sammy.” Opal leaves the woman working on her glass and walks over to us. She peers at Sammy’s picture, and the same silver clip that she wore at the airport pulls her hair onto the top of her head.
Sammy frowns at Opal and yanks away the picture. “No.”
Apparently it’s not just me that sends her into glaring and hostile fits. She doesn’t like Opal, either. As I study Sammy, I can’t help but think that five-year-olds can get away with so much more than twelve-year-olds.
Cole exits from the back room with a manila folder in his hand. “I forgot this,” he says sheepishly. “Gotta write it down when I’m with Jasper and have him sign it.”
Opal looks up and smiles at him.
I do the same.
Cole blushes and lopes toward the front door. “See ya later.” He waves over his shoulder before he heads out the door, the small chime above his head tinkling. My stomach turns over in a strange squishing feeling as he leaves. I’ve never felt this way about cute boys in Chicago, and I wonder if, somehow, the boys on the Island are different. I notice that even the lady at the table smiles at Opal before she tells her that she’s lucky to have such a nice son. The only person oblivious to Cole is Sammy, who continues to struggle with her picture.
A soft popping noise makes me turn my head toward the end of the table. “What are they doing?” I nod toward the woman and two others who are bent over square sheets of glass at the tables.
“Making those.” Opal points to a glass girl hanging by a thin, light blue wire in the window. “For the contest.” The glass girl’s hair is carved from yellow glass, and her small feet cross at the ankles. Thin, slender, glass fingers rest lightly on the pages of a book. The sun moves out from behind a cloud, hits the center of the glass girl’s chest and casts a waterfall of rainbow arcs into the shop. I want to make one. No, not want to make one, have to make one. I have to be in this contest. And I have to win. Something takes over my insides with a rush so strong it almost takes my breath away. As if I’ve known all along that it will come to this moment—this moment in the stained glass shop where the glass girl and I meet.
“Can I make one?” I can barely say the words. I’m shaking inside. This is the moment. This is the contest that I will win. It is the contest that will set me on the path to becoming an award-winning artist—just like Dad.
Opal frowns and shakes her head at me. “We start with a suncatcher.” She shows me the small flowers and birds hanging from the windows on plastic hooks. “It’s only four pieces of glass instead of twelve.”
I scrunch my nose. The suncatchers look like things that small children make. There is no way I’m making a suncatcher. It won’t even come close to competing in a contest. I look back over at the glass girl.
I have to make her.
She and I are fated to be together.
I shake my head at Opal. “The glass girl,” I say in my best demanding voice, which I heard Dad use when someone bid too low for his picture and he wanted it known that the price was unacceptable. “I can pay for the materials. How much is it?” I swing my black art bag off my shoulder and begin to dig around for my wallet. I’ve never priced glass, but it can’t be that much.
“No price,” Opal says in the same tone I have just used. “I’ll give you lessons. It will be for free.”
I stare at Opal for a minute. My hand freezes inches from my wallet. Dad never gave away any of his art supplies or classes away for free. He said you couldn’t just give things away for free. Opal must think I’m going to fail if she’s giving me free lessons. But I will show her. I will show her that I’m not going to fail. I am going to make that girl, even if I have to sleep at the shop. I am going to make that girl, and she’ll be so incredibly good that I will win the contest.
“When do I start?” I ask. “Now?”
“Tomorrow,” Opal says, and turns back to her students at the table. “We’ll start tomorrow.”
I feel the wind rush out of me, as if I’ve just taken a flying leap off a tall diving board and landed belly-down in the water. Opal is in charge here, and she has just made that very clear—it’s not my time, but hers. I am reminded of Dad, and a part of me begins to scrunch down inside. I’m a little bit afraid of Opal. She seems like someone you don’t want to upset, and I begin to wonder if I have upset her.
“Bye-bye Jasmine.” Sammy smirks at me.
I want to slug Sammy. She has been paying attention the whole time. She is not a cute little five-year old; she’s annoying.
“Goodbye Sammy,” I say. I remind myself that I am twelve years old. I do not have to act like a five-year-old, even if I really want to! I push down the empty hole inside and head for the door. It’s obvious that I don’t have a place in this shop. Not yet.
But I will.
Soon.
Outside the shop, the town is busy. I weave my way around couples strolling and families eating ice cream. I wander past a used bookshop, an ice cream parlor, an English tearoom, and then stop outside a window with a small gold sign, “Spectacular Scents and Surprises.” I peer inside the silver bins of colored bath salts. I’ve never seen so many colored salts—turquoise, olive, purple, yellow, and maroon. Mom would love it. I can see us searching through the bins for just the right color, and then finding the right texture of bath salts. Not too grainy and not filled with rock clumps. I decide to buy Mom a small collection of them and pull open the shop door. A bell tinkles, and vanilla, musk, and lilac swirl around me—just like the smells at our home bathroom.
Inside the shop, clusters of women hold creamy vanilla soap bars, lotions, and small plastic packages of bath salts. I can’t belie
ve all these people live on the Island; this must be what Opal means when she talks about the Island tourists. I push past two women making an awful lot of noise about soaps, and make my way up to the front of the counter.
A girl with shoulder length blonde hair, who can’t be older than me, perches on a small stool. In Chicago it’s not possible to have a job at age twelve, at least not a paid job beyond babysitting or lawn mowing, but maybe on the Island people fudge the rules a bit.
“Hello,” I say.
The girl doesn’t look up from her iPad.
“Do you work here?” I hope my voice sounds polite and friendly.
“My mom does. I’m watching the shop while she went out to run an errand.”
“Can you mail soap?” I’m going to send Mom a whole basket of bath salts, along with some of the fizzies that dissolve when tossed into water.
“Sure,” the girl replies as she flicks the screen.
“To Chicago?” I try not to let my annoyance show. I square my shoulders and try to stand very tall. She’s acting snotty to me, just like the girls at home, and she doesn’t even know me.
“You’re Jasmine, aren’t you?” The girl finally looks up, and her hazel eyes meet mine. Her blonde hair swings lightly when she moves her head.
“Don’t believe anything you’ve heard.” I feel like I am pleading, but I really need friends on the Island.
“Opal was talking about you. We were curious,” the girl says shyly. “I wanted to meet you. I’m Alexa. I try to bury my nose in my iPad so I don’t have to answer their questions.” Alexa waves at the ladies who smell and sniff their way through each of the silver barrels of bath scents.
I giggle. She looks so funny, waving at the tourists. “What did Opal say about me?” I ask, and then bite my tongue. I sound guilty and defensive, as if I have something to hide.
“Nothing bad,” Alexa says.
“Okay.” I try to trust her. It’s a small town. Of course they’d know I was coming to visit. I take a deep breath and pick up one of the soaps from the basket on the counter.
Alexa nods to the soap in my hands. “Do you want to buy it?”
I turn over the small manila square tag attached to the soap. “Made by Alexa.” Lifting one of the wrapped bars of soap to my nose, I try to smell through the wrapper. “Sure. I like to make things too.” I swing my art bag off my shoulder and pull out my sketchbook.
Alexa looks over my left shoulder as I begin to flip through the drawings. We talk about each one, and suddenly the Island doesn’t seem so strange or different anymore.
Chapter Eight
I’m eager to get to the stained glass shop the next morning. Uncle Jasper is already at work in his back yard shop, and there is no sign of Cole. I’m a little disappointed that Cole doesn’t work with Uncle Jasper every morning, but I hope I’ll see him in town. I’ve used some of Alexa’s special rose lavender soap, and today my hair is pulled back in a barrette clip with glass stones on the top. It’s something I found at one of the boutique shops in town. The barrette helps to keep my hair away from my face.
The bike ride seems longer today. My legs ache, and sweat rolls off my forehead by the time I get into town. I tried to follow the same road Cole and I took, but I miss a turn. By the time I get to the stained glass shop, I’m so hot, sweaty and tired that I hope I don’t see Cole. I park my bike in the same rack as yesterday and pull open the stained glass shop’s door. Squares of colored glass catch the sunlight, and prisms of light dance across the wood floor. Opal has posted the contest flyer on a wall by the door, and it catches in the wind of the open door.
I’m barely inside the door before I hear Cole say, “Hey Jasmine. How’s the sandal?”
“Still holding.” I am suddenly not tired at all. I even forget to be worried about sweating, as I press against the wall and lift my leg to move my ankle in circles. It’s just like my lucky ring twirl that I used on the airplane when we hit turbulence. I twirled my ring, once to the right, two times to the left, and the turbulence stopped. Sometimes the only way I feel like I am in control is by playing these little games with myself. It’s as if winning at my games will make everything fall into place perfectly. In the shop, the sandal’s strap stays in place and I grin.
“Jasmine is dancing.” Sammy giggles from her stool at the table and tips her head to my swinging ankle. Her whole body moves, and her curly, short blonde hair that bounces around her heart-shaped face. I’ve forgotten how angry I was with her yesterday. Today is a new day, and I am in love. Okay, maybe not in love, but there is a very cute boy standing right in front of me, and I could be in love with him very soon.
“Good thing.” Cole shifts his backpack on his shoulder and heads out the door. “I don’t know if I have any more string.”
I feel like we’re sharing a moment that exists only between us. Cole blushes as he looks at me before he clears his throat. He hikes his backpack up on his shoulders and says, “Gotta go. See you later?”
“See you later.” I wave as he saunters out the door. I am in love with his saunter.
Sammy giggles again, and her joyful laugh makes me feel like dancing, or maybe it’s the bubbles inside that I’m pretty sure came from bumping into Cole. I lift my arms and close my eyes in a half-squint. Pretending Cole is leading me across the dance floor, I sink into his imaginary embrace while feeling his cheek against mine. Slowly, I move toward Sammy.
Sammy jumps off the stool. “I want to try.” Today, her right denim overall strap is securely attached to her gold buttons.
I wonder if she changed clothes or slept in her overalls. When one of the kids at the Art Palace showed up in cowboy boots and a dress with green socks, the mother shrugged her shoulders and said, “I wasn’t going to fight with her.” Maybe Sammy’s mom thinks the same thing.
Sammy raises her arms, pouts her lips, and closes her eyes. She sashays across the floor.
I burst out laughing.
Sammy’s blue eyes fly open. “What’s so funny?”
I quickly stuff the laugh back inside. Sammy is trying to impress me, and it’s better than the glares and stares of yesterday. And I don’t want her to think I’m laughing at her. I remember mornings at the Art Palace when I was seven. Dad spent hours talking to the Director about teaching classes in digital photography. Sometimes I could hear his voice above the clamor of the classes. “But my daughter takes classes here. I spent thousands of dollars, and you won’t let me teach?”
I never heard the answer of the Art Director, but I felt like I wanted to crawl inside my painting after she came out of her office and spoke with the teachers in whispers behind cupped hands.
“Nothing,” I say to Sammy. “Keep dancing.” I hold my breath to see if Sammy follows my command, or if she turns into the angry little girl from yesterday.
Sammy closes her eyes and takes up a fast trot across the floor in the direct line of a yellow and gold vase. I exhale, jump across the room in ten quick strides, and curse my short legs. I can picture Sammy crashing into the stand and the vase flying to the floor. I grab hold of the black stand base as Sammy takes two more steps. I push her away just as Opal pushes the back room velvet curtain aside and calls out, “Good morning!” She balances a wood tray with fragmented glass pieces. “Did you notice the light on the water?”
I shake my head and grasp Sammy’s hands. “Let’s dance back together.” I turn Sammy toward the table. She’s a good distraction, and I don’t want to tell Opal that I was too busy noticing Cole to pay attention to the light.
“Light on the water is silver,” Opal says.
I hear Dad’s voice in my head. “Notice the light, Jas. If your timing is right, the light will guide your pictures. You can take the same scene but at different times of the day. It will never be the same picture twice.”
Holding onto Sammy’s shoulders and pushing away Dad’s voice, I guide her to the table and hold the stool for her as she climbs up.
Opal plucks a green apron off a wood
peg and drops it on the table in front of me.
“What’s this?” I rub my hand over the scratchy green cloth.
“To cover your outfit.” Opal looks at my shorts. She raises her right eyebrow.
“I’ll be okay without it.” I push the apron aside. I’m working with glass, not painting. I don’t need to cover my clothes from splotches. “But thanks anyway.” I try to smile.
Opal taps my bare leg. “Glass on your legs?”
“Legs will be under the table,” I say as I pull out the wooden stool next to Sammy.
Opal shakes her head at me. “Stubborn.” She hands the apron to Sammy. “For you.”
“She doesn’t have to wear one,” Sammy says.
Suddenly I’ve become a role model. I sit up straighter on my stool. I hope I’m doing a good job. But somehow I don’t think I am when Opal rolls her eyes at both of us. She pushes a gray strand of hair off her forehead. Her lips suck inward.
“No aprons, right?” Sammy asks.
I twirl my ring and think. I’m supposed to be a role model. If I fight Opal, then Sammy will think she doesn’t have to wear an apron. But if I say yes, Sammy will wear one. And I know Opal wants Sammy in an apron. How important is it? It’s not that important. I lift the scratchy green apron off the table and slip the knot over my head.
“Apron,” I say.
“But you said…” Sammy’s lips pucker.
“I changed my mind.”
Sammy slips off her stool and drags her legs in one gigantic exaggerated movement. She yanks the apron from Opal. I try not to grin. She is such an actress, and having her around in the stained glass shop will prove very interesting.
“Enough,” Opal says in a tone that tells me she’s tired of the apron game. “It’s time to make stained glass.”
I study the glass girl hanging on her wire from a hook above the table. It didn’t seem that hard yesterday, but now that I’m sitting at the table, nerves bounce in my stomach. Have I made a mistake? Maybe I shouldn’t have been so insistent. Maybe I should have started with one of those smaller ones. What did Opal call them? Suncatchers, or something. I grab a soft workbook lying on the table. Flipping through the pages, I study the printed pictures of butterflies, moons, suns, and flowers. It would be easy to cut and size four pieces of glass instead of twelve. But as I look at the small suncatcher patterns, I am reminded of a coloring book. I never liked coloring books, even though Mom’s friends always gave them to me. “For the little artist,” they’d say. Dad stacked all the coloring books on a shelf in his studio. By the time I was six, I could have opened my own coloring book store.
Stained Glass Summer Page 7