Josie
was trying to perfect a pitcher shape, flared a little in the middle then
collared in with a narrow neck and a rounded lip. She was on her third try of
the morning and this one was looking very good, but she kept shaping it just a
little more. She loved the smooth feel of the clay slipping through her hands,
the turn of the lip in her fingers.
“Don’t overwork the clay,” Su said as she
walked past.
Josie
looked up from her trance. It was the first anyone had spoken in half an hour.
“Oh-oh, look at the time,” Josie said. It was
ten minutes before noon, Kevin’s game time. Josie used her trimming tool around
the base of her pitcher, then stopped the wheel and pulled a wire under the
clay to release the pitcher from the plastic bat.
“That’s a nice shape,” Barb said. Josie lifted
the plastic bat and carried the pitcher to the table, which was fast filling
with her red earthenware pitchers and Barb’s large, white porcelain bowls.
Josie used one finger to pull a little spout into the rim of the pitcher and
smiled to herself at how perfectly the clay stretched into a rounded hollow.
“There,” she said, hands on her hips and a
smile of satisfaction on her face.
“Nice,” said Penny from the other end of the
table, where she was painting a second large Christmas tree. Aggie didn’t even
look up. She was lost in the delicate flower design she was making.
“Now I gotta run,” Josie said, pulling an
oversized T-shirt over her head to reveal her unsplattered short set beneath.
At the sink she washed her hands and ran a washcloth along her legs to wipe up
the red splatters. “I’ll be back in an hour to clean up my wheel,” she said.
“We’ll be here,” Barb said, turning her head
slightly to examine the shape of the bowl on her wheel.
“We’ll be cheering for Kevin to make a goal,”
Su added, peeking around the corner from the kiln room.
“I’ll be in the little girl’s room,” Aggie
whispered loudly, as she stood slowly and started her painstakingly slow
journey to the small restroom in the corner of the studio.
Josie
disappeared into the maze of greenware and out the front door into the almost
deserted street, where she had parked her car. As she slipped behind the wheel
she noticed a black man coming from the bar on the corner. So, she hadn’t been
imagining voices; there really were people inside that darkened bar at this hour.
As her
car turned the corner and sped out of sight, the man opened the door to the
ceramic shop and stepped in, the bell over the door announcing him.
“What
did you forget?” Barb hollered from the studio, and the women looked at each
other in silence as they waited for a response.
