by Jill Jaynes
David pushed the door open and let her go into the open space first.
As she went in, she trailed her hand down his arm to his hand, and he stopped her for a quick kiss.
Guiltily she pulled away. She was here as a professional and should act like it. She smoothed down her blouse and pulled out her notebook; David followed her in and flipped several switches.
The studio brightened, and glass and enamel glittered and shone. Eric Clapton’s guitar rang out, his prowess on the covers giving the old songs their due. Songs written by tough men who worked in the red mud of Mississippi fields by day and played in juke joints by night. Songs she had heard performed in bars at home by raw, rough men and women, some of them friends, some of them clients.
“Delta blues. No better music to work to.” Or to make love to. She tucked that thought away and turned in a slow circle. The former warehouse had a high ceiling, and light streamed in from windows on all four sides, so it was warm and welcoming. A garage door on the street side probably made loading and unloading supplies and art a snap. More than a dozen sturdy wood tables and desks sat in groupings. Those along the walls appeared to hold equipment that needed electrical plugs, with an antifatigue mat in front of each machine.
An old refrigerator hummed evenly but noticeably, a relaxing sound like Puff’s purr. The harsh lemon scent of cleaning products lingered, echoing the citrusy perfume of the ‘citrosum’ geraniums sitting by each window.
“What a fantastic space for creating! I’m impressed, but I shouldn’t be. Of course you could turn a warehouse into a flexible, comfortable studio.”
“I’m glad you like it.” David beamed. “I was lucky to find the space. One of my customers told me about it and put in a good word for me with the landlord.”
“People often think of artists as messy, but you keep everything neat, tidy, and organized.” She turned around again. “You haven’t wasted money on new furniture, tables that match, or things you don’t need. You’ve got a good head for this part of the business.”
“Uh, thanks,” he said gruffly. “What would you like to see?”
“Everything! In whatever order you like.” Her face split into what she feared was a huge, goofy grin, and she rubbed her arms. “It’s as if I’m in a new chocolate shop. See, I’ve got frissons.”
“Frizzy whats?”
She tried to think of the English word. “Chill bumps.”
He shook his head.
“Goosebumps? Here, feel.” She unbuttoned one cuff and rolled up her sleeve.
“Goosebumps. That word I know.” He brushed his fingers over the frissons, and the bumps grew higher. “My grandma called them chicken skin.”
“Yeah, frissons do look like the skin of freshly plucked chickens. Not very romantic.” She let her arm drop.
“More like disgusting.” He stepped back. “If we get off track again, I think one of us should say, ‘freshly plucked chickens.’ Come, I’ll show you some finished stained glass.” The table he led her to had light boxes on it. “I thought one of my larger panels might look good standing at the back of your front display window, and another could hang in the side window.”
“Hmmmm.” She jotted some notes and walked to a display of small window hangings. “Are these what you sell most of?”
He nodded and clasped his hands behind his back.
As Leonie peered at the leading and copper foil on several pieces, she felt his presence behind her and then his breath on her neck. She returned her gaze to the suncatchers, doing her best to shut out the tingles running down her spine. “These I know I don’t want in the shop. They won’t appeal to high-end customers.” She tapped her pen against her lips. “You have good technical and compositional skills. I think you squander your talent going to non-juried shows. Their customers want bargains and knick-knacks.” She waved her hand over suncatchers in the shape of flip-flops. “These are cute, but why waste your time when you are capable of real art?”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He shook his head and walked to the wall and back. “I should be taking notes too.” He grabbed a notepad and pen from a desk and wrote on it. “As I told you yesterday, I do mostly enamelwork now. Do you know much about it?”
“I looked at pictures on Google Images and Pinterest last night and read several articles. My take-away was that enamelwork is an ancient art and that it’s not one technique but many, all based on decorating a metal surface with melted, colored ground glass.”
“Got it in one! Noriko Leonie Hamasaki, you’re a most amazing woman.” He brought his hand up to cup her cheek.
She leaned into his large, calloused hand. “You’re only just now noticing?” she teased. She turned her face to brush her lips across his palm and chuckled when he shivered.
She drew his hand down and laced her fingers with his. “What are you going to show me next?”
“Cloisonné.” He squeezed her hand and led her toward that area of his studio.
“Most of the pictures I saw were labeled cloisonné. Is it the most common enamelwork technique?”
“Probably the most common art technique. But overall, the similar champlevé method, in which the artist carves out the base metal instead of laying wire on top, is more common. Those little lapel pins you’ve probably seen thousands of use champlevé.”
She repressed a squeal. “I know those pins! I had a Terrebonne Tiger pin I wore every day in high school. I also wore him to gymnastic meets for good luck.”
“I was so gung-ho for my high school’s mascot, the cougar, that I had cougar emblems on half my clothes. I never had a champlevé pin to wear, though.”
“Do you still know all the words to your high school song?” she asked.
“Sure do. But you’re not going to hear me sing it.”
“Go on! I want to hear it.”
Grinning, he shook his head. “Once you’ve heard these lips mangle ‘Onward Cougars, Fight to Win,’ you’ll be too traumatized to ever kiss them again.”
She pretended to shudder. “You’re right. Don’t sing. I don’t want to take the risk.”
“You know, beautiful, you see only the differences between Louisiana and California. But our backgrounds aren’t as different as you think. They’re just different enough to make things interesting.”
Could he be right? Am I focusing too much on the things that separate us and not enough on what we have in common? One difference still left her ambivalent about his prospects as a boyfriend or lover. “I hate that I grew up surrounded by love, and you didn’t.”
He squeezed his eyes and looked away, letting go of her hand. His hands grew busy turning his pen and fiddling with the pages of his notebook.
Leonie felt his pain as a sharp needle in her heart. She took a breath before she continued. “One of the things I like best about you is you’re not too big for your shrimp boots. You can admit you’re wrong. You can make fun of yourself. Not many guys can.” She hesitated.
“So what’s the bad news?”
“I feel… guilty you became a modest, thoughtful person because your parents denigrated you. I hate that if your parents had brought you up right, you might be someone I couldn’t… like… as much.”
“Sweetie, you shouldn’t feel bad. My parents—” He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. His next words dripped out in globs like too-thick putty applied badly. “My parents thought they were helping a flawed child become… less flawed. But I figured out by high school I wasn’t defective. I was no more klutzy and awkward and careless than any other teenage boy. My parents’ standards were too high.”
More needles joined the one already piercing her heart. “What did you do?”
“I learned to shut them out. If I had to listen, I… listened as if they were talking about someone else, someone I didn’t know or care about. And now I avoid visiting them or talking to them.”
She clasped his hand and brought it to her heart. Through her shirt, she could feel his warmth and
how her heart beat hard against his palm.
“I can’t bear to think how much you hurt for years and years,” she said. “I can’t forgive them for hurting you.”
He kissed her forehead. “Would you be the same person if Jake had been part of your childhood? Can you forgive him for not being there?” he asked. “Childhood isn’t for wimps. One kid on my block was bullied. Another had terrible acne that left large scars. Two lost their dogs to heartworms. Three kids lost a grandparent. One kid was a teacher’s pet and so had no friends. If we wanted to make a complete list of the miseries of childhood, we could stand here all night.”
She leaned against him, silent. Her heart sped up its thumping against his hand. Her breaths bounced back from his neck, warm against her lips.
“Everything you say is true,” she finally said. “Pardon my saying it, but I reckon that I was tougher as a kid than you were. That I learned to handle things better and earlier. That your parents almost broke you.”
“The key word there is ‘almost.’” He stroked her hair. “You’re probably right you were stronger. I love that you’re so gutsy now. But maybe you made yourself tough so Jake’s absence would hurt less. Or so you could fight the kids who picked on a girl with no dad for backup.”
She trembled against him. “I never told you those things.”
“I guessed.” He paused, and she thought he was about to tell her something important. But then he continued his thought. “Some parents hurt kids by being gone. Some hurt them by being around. No parent is perfect, so every kid ends up broken, at least a little bit.”
She raised her head. “Kids are resilient. They don’t need perfect parents, just parents who love them.”
“What about us?”
“We’re not broken. We may have small cracks and dents, but we’re not broken.”
“Like the linen shirts with tags that say, ‘The slubs and imperfections in your new shirt are normal and enhance its natural beauty’?”
She stroked his back. “Something like that. You’re an artist. I’m a traiteuse. Did we turn out the way we did in spite of our upbringing or because of it? Does it matter? We do what we love and we make people’s lives better.”
“Interesting perspective. I like it.”
She stood on her toes and brushed her lips against his. “Why don’t we look at your cloisonné pieces and see whether their flaws enhance their natural beauty?”
He chuckled and took her to a table of cloisonné jewelry and other small items.
Leonie sucked in her breath. “Ooooh, shiny. May I touch?”
“Touch your heart out.”
She picked up an earring and placed it against her lower lip. The enamelwork was so smooth, even this sensitive part of her body could not detect where stone met metal.
She put the earring down and picked up a small bowl with a lid. She held it closer to the light. “Wow. Just… wow. I love it.” She swallowed. “Sha, how did you think of putting coral, straw yellow, and sky blue together?”
He opened a worn black notebook she hadn’t noticed for all the beauty. He flipped through Mylar pages of photos and showed her a picture of rock layers.
“I know that rock! We saw it today.”
He broke into a grin. “I wondered whether you’d recognize it. Good eye.”
She looked between the bowl and the photo several times. “What you’re doing is fantastic, fantastic. Marketable, too, if you do it the right way. Pen connoisseurs could use such a bowl to keep paper clips, sticky notes, or thumb drives at hand but out of sight. The Moonlight Cove connection makes it attractive as a souvenir of their trip here.”
“I have other pieces inspired by pictures I’ve taken here.” He showed her an envelope opener; a desk tray; lockets and pendants in several sizes; and pins shaped like shells, lizards, the Moonlight Cove lighthouse, and plants native to the region.
Leonie pressed her hand to her heart. “I know many of these things as well from today. They are beautiful, sha. I can’t decide which are my favorites.” She picked up a pin. “What is this flower?”
“It’s a Matilija poppy, but most people call it a fried-egg plant.”
“To me, the white, white petals look like ruched fabric. The orange center with its many… thingees… looks like a chrysanthemum in one of Jake’s books on Japanese art. I can picture a lady in her best blouse and a blooming mum pinned to it.”
“You definitely have a more poetic soul than whoever named them.” He stroked his index finger along her bottom lip. “Have any of the artists you know painted you?”
Heat rose from her neck to her face. “We shouldn’t waste the last of the sunlight.” Her voice was huskier than she intended. She grabbed the nearest pendant and tilted it to see the image. “What about these scarlet trumpets?”
“Hoary California fuchsia.”
She tilted her head. “You painted all these flower jewelry pieces with love. It’s so evident. I thought rocks were your passion.”
“I started drawing and then painting because I wanted to create flowers as pretty as the ones on our dinner plates. By the time I could copy those flowers, I had learned shading, the importance of white space, and some techniques to imply the curve of a petal and the crinkle of a leaf.”
His words did not make her think of petals or leaves, but of the curve of his lips, his brows, his ears, and the crinkle of his smile, of his work shirt when he made deliveries. She swallowed. “What do you think of making copies of your photos on cardstock and attaching each piece to the photo that inspired it? Your name would be on it, along with something like ‘Your little piece of Moonlight Cove.’ We could put the price, the technique, anything else you wanted on the back of the card.”
He rested his hand on the table. “You know better than me how to present them. But I like the idea a lot.”
“Good. What about your non-cloisonné enamelwork?”
He pointed to a table and went to it. “I’ve fooled around with techniques, but I always come back to painting in enamel on glass or ceramic.”
“Tell me about some of these pieces.”
David scanned the pieces and picked up a pendant. “I’ve made many pieces based on that warped sedimentary formation in our secret cove. I painted this particular pendant with enamels of the same colors as the rock with no effort to be precise. Rather, I wanted to emphasize the impressions and feelings the rock creates. Even the silver base isn’t a perfect oval.”
Leonie took it from him and held it up to the light. “It’s not perfectly flat, either. Amazing, how slight irregularities create movement.” A shiver went down her back.
David picked up another pendant. “Here, I’ve used the same photo and rendered it more formally. I’ve inset a rectangular blue topaz at the bottom and another at the top for the water and the sky. In-between, cloisonné details the swirls and folds, with the colors intensified for emphasis.”
He placed the pendant on her palm next to the other so she could compare. “And this pendant is a more affordable version of the second one. Still cloisonné, but fewer wires.” He placed the third pendant next to the others, grazing her palm with his fingertips.
His art made her shiver; his touch made her shiver. She felt as if she was about to jump out of her skin. She could not bear to look at him. She stepped away to study the three pendants and then looked at other pieces on the table. “You often render one photo in many styles and shapes.”
“I like to try new things, and customers have different tastes. Some like jewelry that’s subtle, soft focus, impressionistic. Others like sharp edges and bold colors.”
“But sha, what about your own tastes?”
“Each year I take thousands of pictures and winnow them down to thirty or forty favorites. My own taste shows in what I choose to photograph and which shot I pick. I work only with photos I love. I want to recreate the images in so many ways that everyone, no matter what their tastes, can share in their beauty.”
“Interesting persp
ective,” she quoted back to him.
He took back each pendant one at a time, grazing her palm with his fingers each time.
She leaned over the table. “The more I look at the pieces made from the same photo, the more I see—even though I saw the original rocks today. The different renderings enhance each other. I’d like to display these in groups of three or five so the customer can be enlightened in the same way.”
“You like some pieces enough to take them on consignment?”
“Yes, if you’re willing. You know I may leave. We don’t know when—or if—Jake is coming back.”
“I’m willing. It’s not as if other stores are begging me for pieces to display.”
“Great! Your pendants and pins should appeal to the same people who want a unique pen. The hard part is choosing which ones to take.” She rubbed her eyes and glanced at her watch. Look how late it is! My head is swimming from looking at so much splendor. “I can see your stained-glass work from here, but I want to look at it up close again.”
At the wall where the mirrors hung and other pieces lay on light boxes, she glanced over everything. “I still don’t want any pieces meant to hang in windows. But I would like some of the intricate mirrors. The copper foil in the stained glass echoes the wires in the cloisonné, so the pieces would resonate with each other.” Her shoulders felt heavier and heavier, and she yawned. “That one, that one, that one, that one, if you’re willing.”
“Yes. Certainly.” He took each down and set it on an empty table.
“Now let’s pick some similar pieces in the cloisonné and enamelwork.”
David’s long legs got him to the tables first. “Given the mirrors you chose and your idea for grouping pieces based on the same photo, I’d suggest these.” He pointed at pieces, setting aside the ones she nodded at.
“When would you like to bring them to the store?”
“Would tomorrow night be too soon?” David asked.
“Tomorrow night would be fine. Between now and then, think about how much money you want to make on each piece. We’ll mark each up a percentage for our commission.” She sighed. “There’s more to do, but we’ll talk about it later.” She ran a hand up her forehead and over her hair. It stuck out all over. The wind had tugged strands from her braids all day.