“What if instead of buying one of your sculptures, I broke in and stole one?”
She thought about that, rubbed her chin, narrowed her eyes and finally nodded.
“Not a bad idea. It would get my name in the papers. Art theft is a huge international crime. But I have a better idea. You tell me what to make and I’ll try to make it.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to. Making your menorah was the first time I’d felt real joy in months. Something about creating it for you, specifically for you, really got my juices flowing.”
He raised his eyebrow.
“My other juices,” she clarified. “I think you’re my muse. So a-muse me, muse. Give me an idea and I’ll give it a shot. Challenge me.”
Ian went silent for a moment. She’d put him on the spot but she didn’t feel bad about it. Inspiration often came in sudden flashes, sudden epiphanies. Of course those sudden epiphanies often resulted in weeks and months of grueling work turning those bolts from the blue into art, but it was worth it to her. The art was worth it.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. They hadn’t brought the bill yet so she couldn’t imagine why he’d need his wallet. He dug through a stack of cards and small papers until he produced a photograph. He held it out to her and she took it from his hand.
The picture was of a woman smiling at the camera. It looked posed, like a yearbook photograph. She was a beautiful young lady with wavy hair with Ian’s mouth and eyes. While the picture was posed her smile was bright and natural. She was a happy woman.
“This is Ivy? This is your mother?” she asked.
Ian nodded. “It’s the only picture I have of her. It was from her and Dad’s college yearbook.”
“You cut it out of the yearbook?”
“No, Dad would have killed me. I waited until he was out of town one weekend, and I took the yearbook to a copy center and had them make a copy of it on photo paper. Pathetic, right? I was eighteen and too much of a coward to ask my father to give me a photograph of my own mother.”
“That’s not cowardly,” she said. “It’s very sweet. It must be hard for you not knowing her.”
“It’s hard. I keep trying to work up the guts to ask Dad to help me contact my mother’s parents but I haven’t yet. It’s a real tender spot for him.”
“I can imagine,” she said. She knew all about parental sore spots.
“Anyway... I love the menorah. It’s perfect. But you can’t keep that up all year. What I’d love to have is something around to remind me of her.” He pointed at the photograph. “Something to honor her, I guess? Something to keep her present? She’s nothing but an outline in my mind. It would be nice to have something more than the bare bones, more than an outline. That’s probably too much to ask. You don’t know any more about her than I do.”
Flash studied the picture a little longer. This was a big challenge—creating a metal sculpture to honor Ian’s mother. She didn’t sculpt the human form. Nature was her subject—she made aluminum roses and orchids, copper sunflowers, cherry trees in bloom made of pure steel. But a woman? She’d never sculpted a woman before. Could she? Should she? She didn’t even know this woman. Or did she? This woman, hardly more than a kid, had eloped with her lover over the extreme disapproval of both their families, and she’d done it at the age of eighteen and had a baby all without any family support. The very thought of trying something like that terrified Flash. Whoever Ivy was she had a backbone of steel to do something like that.
A backbone of steel?
Yes. That. A backbone of steel.
Her brain lit up and her fingers tingled...images floated through her mind—lines, turns, light glancing off metal, curves...beautiful metal curves... She felt a rush of adrenaline. She wanted to dash home right now and get to work, but she knew better than that. The idea had to percolate a little more, coalesce, take form, bring itself to life and introduce itself. And as soon as it did, then she’d get to work.
Flash returned the photograph to Ian.
“I have an idea,” she said, looking up at Ian and smiling. “But I’ll need your help with it.”
Ian winced and looked immediately uncomfortable.
“I...I’m not really very good at the welding stuff. I’ve done it a little and—”
“Don’t worry. I don’t need your help making it. I can do that.”
“Then what do you need me to do?”
“I’ll need you to take some pictures of me—naked.”
Ian nodded. The waitress came to their table bearing their dessert. Ian smiled up at her.