The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (19 page)

“Avoiding it, or running away from
it?” asked Mitch.

“Semantics,” said Abby as she
turned back toward the house.
 
“I’m
getting cold and I need to get back.
 
Will needs his truck this afternoon.”

They silently made their way back
over the rocks and across Willow Lake road.
 
When they started back up the drive,
both had their hands free and Mitch reached over to take Abby’s.
 
She let her fingers slip into his.
 
For a few moments she had been annoyed
with Mitch yet as soon as she felt his thumb caress the back of her hand she
melted.
 
A warm sensation cycled through
her body.

Abby felt that her body betrayed
her by wanting to be with Mitch.
 
She was not sure as to why he had more than once pointed out his
distaste for the city.
 
She wondered
if there was more to why he had come out to the lake.
 
She needed to sort out her feelings for
Mitch and why his situation bothered her so much.
 
Caroline would tell her what Mitch would
not.

When they got back to the pickup
truck, Mitch opened the door for Abby and she pulled her hand away.
 
Where speaking had come easy before now
things seemed awkward.
 
They
searched for words to fill the space where simply saying goodbye would do.
 
Abby wanted to kiss him and pull him
into the truck.
 
At the same time,
she wanted to just go.
 
She felt
that if she could just separate herself from him the building urges would calm.

Mitch wanted to say something grand
or poetic.
 
He wanted to reach out
to Abby and hold her.
 
Subconsciously he defeated himself, not even able to utter a word much
less anything that would reflect the significance of his feelings.

The two were like school children,
neither knew what to say, and the urges did not seem right no matter how
strong.
 
So Mitch just said he would
see Abby later, and she said, “ok.”
 
Mitch stood in the drive as Abby turned the truck around and they
politely waved to each other before she drove away.

* * *
* *

The light of the afternoon sun
filtered through the pines and maples along the road.
 
The truck was old yet the heater had a
strong fan that blew out toasty heat and the FM radio worked well.
 
A woman singing filled the truck with a
song about someone treating her wrong, yet the words were lost on Abby.
 
She tapped to the music as her mind
raced from Mitch to Will.
 
Abby had
decided to take her time to get to the village.
 
She drove around Mount Frisia before
heading north around the lake.

The awkwardness of Abby’s departure
from Mitch was not lost on her and the thought crossed her mind that maybe she
should take this as a sign and cool her urges a bit.
 
She had been spending a lot of time
thinking about Mitch lately and perhaps subconsciously she was sublimating her
actions with Mitch in preference to dealing with Will.
 
Perhaps she should not be thinking about
Mitch at all.
 
A list of questions
went through her head.
 
What point
was there to thinking about Mitch?
 
If he did not want to go to the city, ever, and she did not want to stay
out here, how could they ever make anything work?
 
Was there an anything?
 
Abby asked herself if she had been
reading too much into their time together.
 
If so, how was she defining that time?
 
How was she defining that relationship?
 
Those were really the cards on the table
after all.
 
They were each holding a
hand at the same table in the same game.
 
There was a relationship between them and the more she thought the less
she could deny.
 
A relationship was
not something she was looking for yet she had found one just the same.
 
Now she was unsure of what that
relationship was.

The afternoon with Mitch went so
well then ended so awkwardly.
 
The
movie was fun and what followed was passionate.
 
Then things started to become not quite
right.
 
Mitch had certainly been
into her.
 
By the lake, Abby felt
Mitch had become distant.
 
Did he
become distant because of her?
 
Abby
replayed the events in her mind.
 
Was she pushing him away?
 
Why had he been making advances and then, well then nothing.
 
He had put together the movie with
popcorn and champagne.
 
Champagne,
Abby thought that must mean something.
 
The signals that Mitch sent to her were now confusing her the more she
thought about them.

Abby picked up her cell phone to
call Caroline so that she could unload all of the thoughts racing around her
head.
 
The cell had hardly any
battery because Abby had not thought to charge the phone since she had been on
the lake.
 
Unsure the signal would
be strong enough to let her dial out while she was driving, Abby pulled the
truck over to the side of the road and dialed.
 
Caroline picked up and Abby told her
that she needed to see her.
 
She
could not say much more because the phone connection was weak.
 
Once Abby told Caroline that she wanted
to speak about Mitch, Caroline said to come right over.
 
Abby told her that she was literally on
the other side of the lake.
 
So, the
two decided to meet at the Stone tavern.

Abby felt relieved simply knowing
she would have her cousin Caroline, her friend since childhood, to listen to
her.
 
She pulled the truck back onto
the road and drove to the village.
 
She focused on what to say to Caroline, and what to ask her.

* * *
* *

“So I don’t get the problem,” said
Caroline.
 
She sipped her white wine
then continued, “You wanted to meet someone, a great guy, and hit it off and
from what you describe,
it
sounds like you found that
in Mitch.
 
What are you complaining
about?”

The tavern was empty apart from the
cousins.
 
They sat at a table with a
window that looked out toward the lake.
 
The outside was the only light to the interior.
 
Abby’s Chardonnay tasted smoky yet warm
so she dropped in an ice cube from her water glass that melted without cooling
the wine.

As much as Abby did not like what
Caroline said she knew the words to be the truth.
 
Mitch did exhibit all signs of the
suitor she was looking for.
 
Mitch
was a great guy and they sure got along, this afternoon proved that in some
intimate ways.
 
Abby did not think a
relationship could be that simple though.
 
She had peered into Mitch’s eyes at the lake and saw turmoil.

“Maybe he is falling for you?” said
Caroline, “That’s not the worst thing in the world.”

“He talks about the city like it
will kill him if he returns there.
 
I know there is something that he is not telling me, and I am pretty
sure it’s something you know,” said Abby.

Caroline’s forehead wrinkled at the
socially awkward accusation.
 
She
would have liked to dismiss the comment with a statement to Abby’s overreacting
then decided that would not be best.
 
Abby looked at her and waited for a reply.

“I thought enough time had passed
since I brought him out here.”

“Why did you bring him out
here?
 
What kind of baggage are we
talking about?”

“Well, where do I start?”

“Start with how you know Mitch,
then how he ended up in Willow Lake,” said Abby.
 
Abby began to wonder if her cousin
purposely withheld some piece of history, another ‘surprise’.

“What did he tell you?” asked
Caroline, unsure whether Mitch had shared too much.

“He told me he had a job in the
city and that things weren’t working out so you brought him out here.”

“Did he tell you about anything
before that?”

“Uh, yea, that he never really came
back from Prague…
 
Oh, don’t tell me
that this is all about this old girl friend floating around somewhere.”

“Nah, that was years ago.
 
What all did he tell you about her
anyway?”

“That they had split up and that he
had thought he could deal with it, but ended up chasing after her.
 
Only to find in the end that it was over
‘in the most romantic city in the world’ as he put it,” said Abby.
 
“I should have known he was still hung
up.
 
How long were they together?”

“Couple of years,” said Caroline.

“And?”

The conversation had turned to a
direction that Caroline could exploit, so she continued, “Mitch, Marcy, and I
went to school together.
 
We were
tight.
 
The short of it is that
Marcy decided overnight that she was too young to be tied down and needed to
see the world so she headed to Europe.
 
She asked Mitch to respect it, which he did at first, yet it wasn’t too
long that he was heartbroken.
 
I
mean it was sad to watch.”
 
Caroline
took a sip of her wine, “so, he finally went chasing after her and caught up
with her and her girlfriend in Dublin, followed her through London, Paris and
Prague, where she cut him loose.
 
She told him he needed to go.
 
He was devastated and stayed in Prague drunk for a season.
 
When he finally got back to the States
he found out Marcy was living with some guy somewhere in Morocco.
 
He tried to get back on track and, well
I think you know the rest.
 
He
essentially had a breakdown in the city.
 
It broke my heart to see him tear himself apart, so Brian and I brought
him out here.”

“Caroline, what am I supposed to
say.
 
That is so sad,” said
Abby.
 
“When you say broke down what
do you mean?”

“Helpless.”

“What about his family?”

“There’s no family, he’s somehow
the last of his people.
 
He never
knew his mom and his dad disappeared when we were in school.”

“I gotta say I’m touched but c’mon
Caroline.”
 
Abby felt insulted.
 
“You think I remind him of this
Marcy.
 
That’s just wrong.”

“I don’t think it’s so, it’s been
years,” said Caroline, she could see that Abby had been caught in the allure of
the story.
 
“He knows you’re going
back to the city and that probably just freaks him out in general.
 
I mean if there is really something
going on between you two that would make sense.”

Abby put her finger to her temple
and fixed her eyes to Caroline.

“And what’s this thing about the
city?” asked Abby.

“Mitch grew up in the city, simple
as that I think.”

“Ghosts are only where we put
them,” said Abby.

“What?”

“Something Mitch said to me that
makes more sense now,” said Abby as she picked up her Chardonnay and took a
drink.
 
“He literally keeps his
ghosts in the city, that way Willow Lake is free and clear.
 
As long as he avoids the city he’s
fine.”

“Sounds familiar doesn’t it.”

Abby smirked at Caroline’s
reversal.
 
“There aren’t just ghosts
in Willow Lake, Deary.
 
There are
plenty of ghoulies too.”

“I suppose there is at least one at
the studio.”

“Tromping around in the darkness,”
said Abby.
 
They both laughed and
then there was a silence.
 
Caroline
looked out the window.

“So what do you plan to do?” asked
Caroline

“What I planned to do, I am going
back to the city.”

Caroline looked out toward the lake
and back at Abby, “You didn’t tell Mitch when you plan to leave did you.”

Abby turned her head down to her
wine glass, “I didn’t see any point in complicating things.”

* * *
* *

The large acrylic brush coated the
two-foot urn with a now soft green viscous glaze.
 
After seasoning in the kiln, the glaze
would become a clear thick lacquer.
 
Nathan had four urns to glaze and this was his second.
 
Will hovered above coaching him not to
be afraid to ‘glop’ large amounts of glaze onto the urn.
 
Will had his glasses on so he could see
exactly what was happening.
 
His
energy was up today and he had been working at a good pace.

Abby was surprised to see Nathan
glazing.
 
“Didn’t take long to find
Nathan something to do other than just sweeping up,” said Abby.