The Potter's Daughter (Literary Series) (3 page)

Alone in his studio Will began to
sip from the paper cup.

* * *
* *

The party was a celebration for
Brian’s fortieth birthday.
 
Brian’s favorite
jazz music permeated every corner from the surround sound system.
 
Paper lanterns donned the stairwell and
were hung in strategic points of the house so that the fireplace and a few
scattered candles appeared as the primary light.
 
The twins had helped make decorations
and a banner that read ‘Happy 40
^th
Brian’.
 
Balloons were scattered across the
ceiling.

Caroline had borrowed a young
bartender from the Stone Tavern to pour drinks and a neighboring high school
girl to take coats.
 
Champagne
flutes were filled with peach or mango belinis and given to guests as they
arrived.
 
Proseco filled other
flutes for continual toasts to the man of the hour.
 
Bob Jensen, owner of the Stone Tavern
and close friend of Brian’s, walked among the guests with a bottle in hand
ensuring everyone was well provided for.

Brian looked ahead to each year as
something new and was pleased at forty as he was at thirty and would be at
fifty.

Abby was not sure she would feel
the same as Brian when she turned forty and thought that when her time came the
celebration would be a wake for her youth and vitality.
 
This party contrarily celebrated Brian’s
ongoing adventure and the conversations he was having with his guests reflected
as much.
 
Brian spoke of plans for
his home, his family’s cross-country vacation, and most of all planning for his
guests.
 
Some of the guests at the
party had Brian and Caroline design or renovate their homes and many more would
have liked them to.

If Abby was afraid that forty was a
tiresome ending point then Brian was there to assure her that he was still
peaking.
 
Listening to Brian discuss
architectural designs with the guests was exhausting to her.
 
So much so that she mentioned to
Caroline, “ How can you actually pull off all of those amazing things Brian is
talking about?
 
How can you do all
of that?”

“Ah,” said Caroline.
 
“There is someone I would like you to
meet.”

Caroline lightly pulled Abby’s arm
and led her across the room.

“You discovered our secret.
 
Well not so secret.
 
When Brian and I do a design, we
actually don’t do the magic by ourselves.
 
We call on a third,” said Caroline.
 
“Abby, I would like you to meet Mitch Carlson, the magician.”

Abby let her eyes
synch
with Mitch’s dark brown eyes and was charmed by the
quick to react curve of his lips.
 
His brownish black brushed back hair, a bit shaggy, went well with his
white-collar shirt that hung loosely outside of his blue jeans.
 
Abby guessed that Mitch was some type of
artist or craftsman by his dress and the relaxed air of confidence that shadowed
him.
 
She had grown up with two such
men.

When Mitch took Abby’s hand to
greet her, she noticed that his skin was tough like coarse leather yet his
muscular touch though firm was gentle.

“So you make it all happen?” asked
Abby.

“Well the building part, Caroline
and Brian handle the design,” said Mitch.

 
“You sell yourself short,” said
Caroline.
 
“If it weren’t for Mitch
we would be doing theory of design rather than implementing it.
 
Mitch has been working with us since we
got out here, every design has his mark on it.”

“I love you too hon,” said Mitch,
“You make me all gushy inside.”

“Seriously,” said Abby, “All of
these projects sound exhausting.”

“Excuse me, the Franks are just
getting here,” said Caroline as she stepped away leaving the two to talk.

“It’s not exhausting at all,
really,” said Mitch.
 
“Abby, you’re
the cousin from the city?”

“That’s me.”

“Your famous around here.
 
Working at the art museum, I love that
place!”

“Really?”

“It’s one of the only places I care
to see when I’m in the city.
 
There
and O’Malley’s,” said Mitch.

“Well of course O’Malley’s, there’s
days I’d rather be there than the museum.”

Both laughed and clinked their
glasses together in an ad hoc toast.

“El Greco,” said Mitch, Abby
interrupted, “—El Greco, yes!”

“El Greco,” said Mitch, “one of my
favorite exhibits a few years back.”

“That was a good exhibit, I was an
assistant curator on that one.”

“Well, I must say you did a good
job.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” Abby
paused, “You don’t know what I do there, do you?”

“Not at all,” said Mitch.
 
They both laughed again.
 
“Could you tell me what exactly a
curator does because I did sincerely find the exhibit both enjoyable and
memorable? ”

“Well in a nutshell a curator
manages or executes all of the effort to put on an exhibit.
 
There is a lot of research, planning,
gathering media and of course what needs to be exhibited, then there is
marketing, most people do not associate curating with marketing, let me tell
you, ” Abby nodded her head.

“So you organize the entire
exhibit.”

“The entire exhibit.”

“Where does the research come from
if you are already the biggest museum in the city?”

“We do have amazing archives.
 
We have to go through all of that
stuff.
 
Oh, we teach too
sometimes.
 
I taught a class last
year,” said Abby.
 
She took another
drink.

“How do you go about gathering
artwork from around the world?”

“That is a bit tricky.
 
You see most stuff comes from private
collections and --,” Abby stopped.

The sound of a revving engine and
breaking glass came from the driveway.
 
Some of the guests moved toward the atrium to look out the glass plate
wall to see what was going on outside.
 
Abby scanned the room for Caroline then saw her already walking toward
the window see what the disturbance was.
 
Caroline glanced back at Abby for a second, and then out the glass plate
wall of the atrium.
 
Then without
turning her head away from the ongoing action outside Caroline stretched her
arm toward Abby then wiggled her fingers.

“Excuse me,” Abby said to Mitch and
then walked to where Caroline was standing.

The loud revving truck engine could
be heard shifting gears and there was a clinking of glass bottles falling on
top of each other.
 
Abby looked out
the window and her teeth slowly started to grind.
 
She saw a 1961 blue Chevy pickup that,
because so many guests had already parked, had tried to park on the snow
covered edge of the driveway and had ended up on top of the recycling bins,
already half full of containers from the party.
 
The driver was making a loud awkward
unsuccessful attempt to correct his mistake.

Abby knew the pickup was a 1961
Chevy not because she was any type of auto aficionado.
 
Abby knew the owner of the truck and
what condition he was in behind the wheel.

“I’ll go get him,” said Abby.

Caroline was by Abby’s side as Abby
stepped out the door of the atrium.
 
The two women looked down the driveway from the elevated porch to the
truck.
 
The truck did not appear to
be stuck in the deep snow.
 
The
driver was relentlessly trying to find a parking space to his satisfaction and
was revving the engine to power through the snow.
 
The pickup was going two feet back and
then two feet forward and then two feet back again.
 
The recycling bins and landscaping
beneath the snow had fallen prey to the parking maneuvers.

“Will Bellen!” yelled Abby.

The truck was revving loudly.

“Will Bellen, get out of that
truck!”

The revving stopped.

“Will!
 
Turn off the key!”

The truck was now in a position
where the driver’s door was blocked by the pine trees that skirted the yard.

There was a pause and then the
engine of the truck stopped running.
 
The silence was peaceful.
 
Abby and Caroline gazed at the sleeping blue pickup sitting in the snow and
waited.
 
Against the snow in the
shadow of the pines, the truck took on a cerulean hue.
 
With a heavy creak the passenger door
opened.
 
Out into the snow climbed
Will Bellen.
 
He thrust himself
forward to make a couple of spry steps then teetered.
 
Will put one leg forward, unsatisfied he
thrust the same leg a little farther out into the snow then fell back on the
other leg finally coming to rest with a gentle sway.
 
Having achieved the great feat of
standing up Will flashed his crystal blue eyes at the girls and showed all of
his teeth in a grin.

* * *
* *

“Sorry I’m late,” said Will.

“You’re drunk!” said Abby.

Will’s eyebrows raised and his jaw
dropped open.
 
Abby’s jaw clenched
tighter.

“Are you Ok Uncle Will?” asked
Caroline.

“Couldn’t be finer.”

Will reached into the truck, pulled
out a bottle of wine, and then held the bottle into the air.

“I had two of these,” said Will,
“one seemed to dry up.”

“Your intolerable Will Bellen!”
snapped Abby.

Will was unfettered by Abby’s
reaction to his entrance.

“Well if you are not going to
invite me in, I’m coming in from the cold,” said Will and proceeded to the
atrium choosing to tromp directly through the deep snow covered yard rather
than by way of the driveway where the snow was clear.

Abby wanted to go back into the
party and let Caroline deal with her father.
 
There would be no speaking to Will
rationally.
 
Abby’s clenched jaw,
ironically a trait from her father, made speaking tough.

When Will got to the steps of the
porch he took them two at a time, though Caroline and Abby were not sure that
was his plan.
 
He stumbled, almost
dropping the wine, before setting the bottle on the top of the porch in front
of him.

“Whoa,” said Will.

The women reached out their hands
for Will then each grabbed an arm.
 
They pulled him to the top of the porch where he stood on his own
balance.
 
The odor of smoked camels
filled the porch and the women could see the purplish hue of Shiraz on Will’s
lips.

Will bent over, picked up and then
presented the bottle of wine to Caroline.
 
“So how are you this evening my dear Caroline?”

“Fine uncle Will.
 
Are you sure your ok?”

“Dandy.
 
What’s the weather like sunshine?”

“Partly cloudy, storm’s a comin’,”
said Caroline.

 
Will winked at Caroline, “So where’s the
Birthday boy?”

“You have some explaining to do,”
said Abby.

“He’s inside.
 
C’mon in, I’ll get him,” said Caroline.

Caroline opened the door and walked
through.
 
Will moved to follow her
and was stopped by Abby.

“Let me brush that snow off your
legs,” said Abby.

“Ok, ok.”

Will had caked snow around the
calves of his blue jeans tromping across the yard.
 
From the inside of the door, Abby
grabbed a small broom that was kept for that purpose and brushed the snow off
for him.
 
When she finished Will
lifted his cool crystal blue eyes to her and asked, “Are we ready now?”

“Yes, old man,” said Abby.
 
Her brows furrowed.

Will stepped into the atrium
followed by Abby.
 
In a low voice to
the back of Will’s ear Abby said, “I can’t believe you were driving drunk on
Willow Lake Road.
 
You’re crazy.”

“It was fine,” said Will, “no
unsafe conditions.”

Abby did not like him using that
term.

Winding twenty-one miles around
Willow Lake was Willow Lake Road.
 
Willow Lake Road many years ago had been a two-track road that after the
war became a two-lane dirt road and on the map became County Road
Twenty-Three.
 
Summer people did not
like stones chipping away at their foreign cars so a few years later County
Road Twenty-Three was coated with asphalt and on the map became Willow Lake
Road.

Each summer Willow Lake road had at
least one fatal accident, a motorcycle collision, or someone just driving too
fast around one of the many curves, usually not a local, and each winter there
were far more fatalities because of ‘unsafe conditions’.

Asphalt gathers precipitation,
moisture from the air, that when cold creates a layer of ice.
 
County trucks then put salt on the
asphalt melting the ice, ice that turns to water, water that is absorbed into
the minute cracks and crevices only to resurface when the effects of the salt
wear off forming yet a new layer of ice.
 
The new ice brings to the surface all of the oil and sediment that was
in the road creating black ice.
 
Black ice is slicker than normal ice, virtually invisible, and in a
word, deadly.
 
Since the asphalt had
been put down, the death toll rose and the blame is the layer of black
ice.
 
The police accident reports
give a simple explanation when the black ice is blamed not requiring too much
paperwork, ‘unsafe conditions’.