by Claire Cook
I’d ordered it online about a year ago and didn’t remember the description having the word stroller in it anywhere. “Riley’s way off base. I don’t think this looks anything like a stroller, do you?” Boyfriend didn’t seem to disagree, so I unzipped the top and plopped him inside. He knew the drill and, avoiding the canvas-covered back half of the carrier, immediately circled around and got comfortable up front, where only an open weave of green netting stood between my cat and the world.
I put the bottle inside in case he got bored and needed something to play with, and pushed him down to the end of the driveway at a brisk pace. We bumped our way up to the sidewalk. “Maybe a little bit like a shopping cart,” I suggested, “or even a chariot.” I realized I was talking out loud to my cat in public. I was far too young to be a crazy cat lady, so I reined it in.
Possibly winged chariot was even closer, since Boyfriend and I practically seemed to fly along the sidewalks of Marshbury. It was dark already and the stars were twinkling away up in the sky. After a day of packing and cleaning, it felt good to move, and I was a little less stiff with every couple of steps. If I didn’t have Boyfriend, I’d probably be asleep already. I took a deep breath of the late spring air. “Thanks for getting me out tonight,” I whispered.
Even though Noah had been gone since this morning, I couldn’t quite shake him. All day long I kept starting to turn to tell him something, and then I’d remember he wasn’t there. So instead I’d tweak it around in my head a few times until I’d get it just the way I would have said it if he’d still happened to be around.
I always missed Noah right after he left. I knew I’d be okay after a night or two alone. I had some DVDs I’d rented and hadn’t even watched yet, plus I had orders from two local shops and was way behind on my earrings. I just had to let it all fade. He’d be back in a few days or a few weeks, and the longer he was gone, the less it would feel like it mattered.
Of course, the flip side was that why couldn’t a grown woman, even one pushing a cat along the sidewalk in the dark, shake off her inertia and stop by to visit her pseudo boyfriend if she felt like it? I mean, after all, hadn’t Noah just shown up at my door last night? Maybe I’d show him the empty bottle and tell him about my parents’ sand collection. It would be such a romantic story that we’d just naturally start planning a beachy adventure of our own.
Boyfriend and I came to an intersection. I thought for a minute, then took a left. Half a block later we were crunching our way along Noah’s crushed mussel shell driveway. Noah’s little beach house, one of the few on the block that hadn’t been ripped down and replaced with something bigger and trendier, was dark, but the studio he’d built in his backyard was all lit up.
I pushed the pet carrier on wheels up to the window so I could peek inside first. I didn’t really think Noah would be in there with another woman, but you didn’t get to be my age without a few jolting experiences in your life, and it never hurt to be sure.
Noah was alone. His glassblowing furnace was open and blazing. He must have just turned on his CD player, because a scratchy recording of Gregorian chants blasted out at full volume and made me jump. He was wearing jeans with huge, frayed white rips in them and an old T-shirt.
He leaned back against the wall, and then kind of slid down until he was sitting cross-legged on the floor. I was half waiting for him to start chanting along with the Gregorians. Or even to start wrapping duct tape around PVC pipe so he could have a swordfight with some elves or something.
He sat there for a little while, then stood up again and tied a washed-out red bandana around his head, tangling some of his hair in when he knotted it in the back. He reached for his sunglasses and put them on, and I waited to see something along the lines of one of his open studio demonstrations. Instead, he started to dance. It took me completely by surprise, and I stepped away from the window and pulled Boyfriend with me.
I peeked in again, from the side. It wasn’t quite a dance after all. More like tai chi or some kind of yoga in motion. Whatever he was doing, it was filled with long, graceful, continuous movements, and I could have sworn there was a little bit of imaginary swordplay in there, too.
He picked up a long blowpipe with a big knob of sea green glass on the end and clamped it across his workbench. Then he grabbed another smaller rod and dipped it into the furnace, and when he pulled it out he rolled the button-shaped gather of hot glass around in an old tin filled with crushed cobalt glass. He kept the first pipe spinning with his knee at the same time he twirled molten glass from the second pipe around the original blob of glass. Then he picked up some metal tongs and reached into the glass and twisted and pulled at it until it froze into a series of waves.
He stopped and put everything down, stepped back, and looked at the knob from all sides, gave it a spin, then he did some more almost dancing around the room.
He came back and unclamped the blowpipe and plunged the knob into the furnace. He placed it back in the clamp again and kept it spinning with one hand. With the other, he reached into another tin and pulled out a handful of something that might have been pieces of gold and silver foil and sprinkled them like confetti over the knob.
He put the blowpipe back into the furnace again, and sweat soaked through his T-shirt. He pulled it back out and dropped the glass end down until it almost touched the ground. The monks were still chanting, and Noah looked like he was lip-synching into the other end of the pipe. Maybe he was. Then he started to swing the pipe in a huge circle, crossing his wrists, as if he were twirling a fiery baton.
Finally, he lifted the pipe and placed his creation into the empty center of a sphere made from several lengths of copper tubing circled around and around and dangling from a clamp. He blew some air into the blowpipe and quickly covered the opening with his thumb. The blob of glass expanded slowly and magically until it filled up the copper orb and became some new kind of ringed planet.
Watching Noah like this was somehow more intimate than having sex with him. I felt like a stalker. In fact, I probably looked like a stalker. I glanced down at Boyfriend, and I had to admit that, even in the dark, the thing I was pushing him in was suddenly looking, well, strollery.
We bumped our way back over the mussel shell driveway and out to the sidewalk. I was trying to figure out what I was feeling. Number one, Noah was lost in his own little world. Number two, by the looks of things, he certainly hadn’t spent the day missing me. Number three, I really, really wanted to feel the intensity he was feeling, out in his studio all by himself, about something. But what? And, number whatever it was, why didn’t Noah feel that way about me?
It was just around the corner, and I thought about walking over to the beach to fill the little bottle with sand, but how pitiful would that be? I could just see the label now: GINGER ALONE WITH CAT, SCUTTLE BEACH. So, instead, I pushed Boyfriend through the starlit streets back to the garage, and then I carried him up the stairs.
I pulled out the sleep sofa. Boyfriend jumped up to his side of the bed, and I went into the bathroom to wash up. The shower curtain was open and I saw that my father had left me another garbage bag. Great. The perfect ending to a very long day.
I crawled into bed and fell almost immediately into a heavy sleep. When my alarm woke me up, it caught me in the middle of a dream about running into Noah. I was working behind the counter of a cell phone kiosk that happened to be sitting on the side of the road. It was so real I could even read the sign: SHE SELLS SEA CELLS DOWN BY THE SEASHORE. Noah was pushing triplets past me in a great big baby stroller, and walking along beside him was Allison Flagg.
Chapter 10
RILEY AND I WERE LATE GETTING TO THE SHARK SENSE Base Camp, but it didn’t matter, since it was taking them forever to get the first shot of the day set up. One of the ADs brought all the kids down to the edge of the water, only to send them back to the holding area a few minutes later. Then she finally told us we could all take a bathroom break and go raid the craft services table. I grabbed a bottle of
water and a handful of strawberries, but Riley was more interested in the joke book he’d brought along.
We sat on a big rock at the edge of the beach while he read, and I could tell by his squeaky laugh when he hit a good one. I finished the strawberries, wiped my hands on an inconspicuous section of my jeans, since I’d forgotten to take a napkin, and started rooting around in the sand for treasures.
When I’d first started making my earrings, I found out you could buy a whole color-coordinated bag of Authentic Sealike Glass, encased in plastic netting, for $2.69 or 2/$5.00 at Oceanside Craft Mart. I’d push my wobbly red cart up and down the aisles and throw in a spool of twenty-gauge wire and some hypoallergenic pierced earring wires. Then I’d fish through the piles until I found a bag of pale green sealike glass and maybe one of pink, which was even prettier than a color you’d really find on the beach. I’d add a bag of assorted color sealike glass, just so I’d have some variety. The stuff looked amazingly good, and I figured that anything it lacked in authenticity was more than made up for by the convenience.
But now I wasn’t so sure. Maybe there was something special about a piece of glass that had actually been tumbled smooth by waves pounding it into the sand until it became a treasure. When Geri and I were kids, we’d spend long afternoons at this beach, hunting for sea glass, and even digging shiny glass shards out of the rocks. I remembered how we’d fight over the cobalt pieces, and once Geri told me they were only hunks of old Noxzema jars, just so I’d give mine to her. I didn’t care where they came from. I just knew they were beautiful.
When the tide was out at Scuttle Beach, as it was now, it was way out. This surge in tidal flow meant that there was always a lot to find on the rocky shore. I kicked a sun-bleached lobster claw out of the way and picked up a tarnished, circular ring of metal. I looked around some more and found a small pumpkin-colored rock with little bits of white shell imbedded in it.
I’d locked my shoulder bag in my car, so I put them in my pocket and started walking the beach. I almost missed a perfect square of chocolate brown sea glass until the sun hit it and it sparkled right at me. Maybe this was how Noah felt when he saw shapes in liquid glass. Maybe I was finally finding my inner artist.
“CUT,” MANNY YELLED. He buried his head in his hands. “Why didn’t I just quit while I was a production assistant?” he mumbled softly.
I was close enough to hear him. It’s not like I was eavesdropping, but I’d been sitting on the sand and slowly sliding my way down toward the line of director’s chairs. I’d found a couple of really cool shells and an old watch with a fogged-out face, and so far not a single AD had sent me back to my place. Maybe I was low enough to be under their radar.
“Let’s take ten, everybody,” Manny said. He looked down at me. “You don’t happen to have a bat and ball, do you?”
“Sorry,” I said. “But I can go get one. We’re close to home.”
“Make that twenty,” he yelled.
Tim Kelly was suddenly beside me. “Want some company?” he asked.
The gaffer was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt today, and his sandy hair was already curly. I’d happened to notice it started off fairly straight in the morning but got curlier as the day went on. “No, thanks,” I said. “I’m all set.”
He shook his head. “Too bad. Is there a boyfriend I should know about?”
“Sort of,” I said. “How about you?”
“Nope. I’m pretty much heterosexual.”
“Funny,” I said. “But I meant girlfriend.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and I tried not to check out his shoulders. “Define girlfriend,” he said.
I had a better shot at defining trouble. Even though I wasn’t actually wearing a watch, I glanced down at my wrist anyway. “Well, will you look at the time,” I said before I walked away.
After I grabbed an old bat and ball from my parents’ garage, I headed up the steps to say a quick hello to Boyfriend. Sitting just outside my door was one of Noah’s vases. It was deep turquoise with long strands of sea green cording, and it was filled with purple lilacs.
“See,” I said to my cat when he met me at the door. “He really is trying.”
SINCE IT WAS RILEY’S BAT, he got to hit first. Manny was pitching, and I was catching. A bunch of the kids were out in the field, which was actually one end of the roped-off beach.
Manny threw the ball so wide I had to run after it. “I don’t swing at garbage,” Riley yelled to him.
“God, I love this kid,” Manny said. I managed to throw the ball back to him without seriously embarrassing myself, and he tried again.
I scooped up the ball, and Riley put the bat behind his head and twisted his torso from side to side. “We need a pitcher, not a belly-itcher,” he yelled.
“Let’s see you hit my knuckle curve,” Manny yelled.
Riley swung and hit the ball out into the water. He ran around the beach stone bases, pumping both hands up in the air, while Manny’s personal assistant waded in to get the ball.
Eventually, a worried-looking guy wearing a suit waved us all back to the set. “Bummer,” Manny said as he handed me the bat and still soggy ball. “Oh, well, it was fun while it lasted.”
Riley ran in from the outfield, and the three of us started walking back together. I could never resist this kind of opportunity. “You know,” I said. “I was just thinking, since I have to be here anyway. Just in case you need any more extras or anything. . . .”
Manny stopped. “Oh, no. Not you, too.”
“You can have my part, Aunt Ginger,” Riley said.
I put my hand on his shoulder. “That’s okay,” I said.
“My own mother even offered to use her frequent flyer miles to bring herself out here. ‘Just a small part, Manuel,’ she said. ‘Nothing anybody else would miss.’ ”
“Sorry,” I said. I held up the bat and ball. “I think I’ll put these back in the car. Just so we’ll know where they are.”
Allison Flagg followed me out to the parking lot. “You know,” she said, “I’m only saying this because the other mothers are starting to talk about you. They think you’re kissing up to the director to get some lines for your nephew.”
I threw the bat and ball into the trunk, then slammed it shut. “Guess they’re on to me,” I said before I walked away from Allison Flagg.
Maybe I didn’t have much of a life right now, but at least I had more than a stage mom did. And if I could just get focused, possibly I could have even more than that. I wondered if your ability to change had a shelf life, like your looks and your fertility, and even the amount of time you could live in an apartment over your parents’ garage before they sold it on you. I hoped not, but just in case, even I could tell it was time to use it or lose it.
“THANKS FOR TAKING me out a book on your card, Aunt Ginger,” Riley said beside me. “I needed some new jokes.”
“You’re welcome.” I put on my blinker and pulled into his driveway. The backseat of my car was piled with anything and everything I could find at the Marshbury Public Library about jewelry and jewelry making and beach art and found art. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was going, but for once in my life I was determined to stick with it until I figured it out. “Just don’t forget to return it.”
Riley pushed open the car door and jumped out. “I won’t,” he yelled over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”
“Hey, loser,” Rachel said as she came running out the door, “it’s your turn to set the table.”
For a minute, I thought she was talking to me. So much for personal growth. Then Riley stood on his tiptoes and punched her in the shoulder, and Becca ran out after her sister. “Yeah,” Becca said, “just because you’re shark bait doesn’t mean you get out of doing chores.”
“Mo-om,” Riley yelled as he ran past her.
Rachel came over and stood by my door until I rolled my window down. “Mom wants you to come in for a minute,” she said as she hiked up her jeans.
Be
cca peered into my backseat. “Cool,” she said. “Are you gonna make more stuff?”
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“I have some extra beads I’m not using,” Rachel said.
“I think I have some polymer clay in my room that hasn’t dried up yet,” Becca said.
I pushed my car door open. “Bring it on,” I said.
Geri was sitting at the kitchen island, and no surprise, she was immersed in her burgeoning birthday folder.
I walked over and opened her refrigerator. “Can I get you anything?” I asked politely. When she didn’t answer, I checked out some kind of as-yet-uncooked chicken thing to see if it was worth waiting around for, and grabbed a bottle of water. “What are you doing home, anyway? You haven’t put in eighteen hours yet today, have you?”
Geri ignored me. “What about this? I invite everyone to a party and tell them to wear black and white, and then I show up in red.”
“So, what, you can stick out like a sore thumb?”
“Never mind,” Geri said.
“Guess who left me flowers today?” I said.
“Hel-lo?” my sister said. “We’re not talking about you. I’m having a midlife crisis here.” She sighed. “Anyway, it’s the very least he could do. What do you mean, he left you flowers?”
“When I got home, they were waiting outside my door,” I said. “It was very sweet.”
“So, when are you going to see him again?”
“You know,” I said, “I really think we should stay focused on your birthday.”
I drummed my fingers on the table while Geri hunted some more.
“Will you stop that?”
“Sorry,” I said. Rachel and Becca were taking forever getting me their stuff. “What does Seth think you should do?” I asked as if I cared.
“He says we should go away for a weekend and you can babysit for us.”
