5
Jamie
I’m just finishingmy final wipe down when I hear the rumbly engine of a car coming down the long drive. Oh gosh. My hands shake and I shove the handkerchief into my pocket.
Gavin didn’t want me here when they arrived. It’s like those old British dramas Granny watches. The aristocrats don’t like to see the staff. They like to pretend the beds make themselves and the dust magically disappears. Not that I mind. I don’t need to be seen, I’m covered in chicken gunk and wearing my dirty overalls. Nope. I’m happy not being seen.
My glass art can and should be what everyone looks at.
I look around the cavernous cabin for a back door I can slip out of. But for a great room that’s five times the size of my whole house, there doesn’t seem to be any door but the front door. Out the towering windows, a bright red sports car slows to a stop. The car’s gorgeous, it looks almost like a piece I made last year for Diedre’s Christmas present. I made it after a lick of bright red flame, dancing and bending in the fire, motion crystalized in glass. In the second I take to stare at the car, another pulls in, an old pickup—that’s Rusty Drukenmiller’s truck—and a woman climbs out and Rusty pulls away.
I should leave. I really should hurry and find that back door.
But…I’ve never seen anyone like this woman. Diedre, she’s gorgeous in an earthy, lush, sensual way. I’m used to her type of beauty. But this lady…I always thought those women in magazines and on TV were touched up and fake. That illusion shatters like glass striking the floor.
She’s beautiful like ice is beautiful. It’s cold, and flawless, and if you stick your hand against it too long, it hurts. She’s so pretty that looking at her feels like getting frostbite. She’s in a tight blue silk dress, one I never imagined existing but realize must be the height of fashion, and the way she moves is like a snowflake floating down to earth.
As Tanner would say, golly.
Diedre asked what she’d have to do to get a man that could afford this place. Well, here’s her answer. You’d have to look like that. I suppose, it should’ve been obvious.
Granny Allwright always says beauty never made the kettle sing, but I think she only ever said that to make me feel better. I’ve never been beautiful. Nobody would even consider me especially pretty.
I’ve known it my whole life. I’ve got a mirror, don’t I? My hair is too red, my eyes too big, my lips too wide. I’m too skinny, too fair, too everything. Maybe alone, each piece is pretty, but all together? I’m like a bird decked out for mating season—too, too much in every way. As an artist, I can appreciate my uniqueness, but beyond that, I know I’ll never turn heads. And it didn’t ever matter to me.
But when Bobby and I had our shotgun wedding, the good people of Hollow Creek wondered if I wasn’t maybe too plain to keep a man like Bobby at my side. Because Bobby, he was special. Everyone expected great things of him. Big things. City things, money things, beautiful wife things. They didn’t expect him to end up shackled to someone like me.
But Granny, shotgun in hand, toasted us at the reception. Drunk on her blackberry moonshine, she said, “You got yourself the best bride you could ask for. Don’t forget it. All you grumblers that say Jamie ain’t pretty enough for Bobby. I’ll tell you. Beauty never made the kettle sing.” And that was the last word on that.
I’m not pretty. But I work hard and everybody knows it.
Beauty has never mattered to me. But at this moment, I finally see what everyone meant all those years ago. This is the kind of woman they expected Bobby to marry.
I didn’t get it before. Now I do.
The front door of the sports car slams and I jump. I yank my eyes away from the woman, and there, stepping towards her is…
Goodness.
If the woman is ice, he’s the fire.
Suddenly I’m hot.
Real hot.
I pat my cheeks and know they’re burning chili pepper red.
Diedre was right, my lady parts aren’t out of commission. The evidence is there right now, because I’m heating up like the molten glass in my furnace. In glassblowing the tip of the blowpipe is heated and then dipped in the molten glass. I’ve never thought about how suggestively erotic that is until this very moment.
Because apparently, my lady parts wouldn’t mind Gavin Williams dipping his blowpipe into my furnace.
In the last six years I’ve never, ever, not ever experienced want, or lust, or even a spark of desire. Diedre would point out a man and say, if that doesn’t light your fire, then your wood must be wet. And I’d say, it’s wet, it’s permanently wet.
But I was wrong. Because my wood just combusted.
I shake my head. Get ahold of yourself, I scold. He’s engaged to be married. You’re…you. Pull yourself together, you’re here to drop off your work and get paid. And…you’re not to be seen!
Dang it!