Page 2 of Miami Ice

I glance up, pleased to see two elderly women and two younger women approaching my table. I smile warmly at them as they pause to peruse my items.

“Oh, what is this? I’ve never seen anything like this before,” a pretty, curvy brunette says. She turns to the girl next to her. “Have you, Abby?”

The other girl, who is tall and willowy, shakes her head no. Hmm. They might be sisters. They both have the same shade of brown hair and the same color of eyes.

“These are my hand-painted Mason jars, and the interior is painted, too,” I explain, smiling at them. The two elderly women step forward, and my gaze can’t help but go to the T-shirt the one woman is wearing.

It says, “Is That a Candy Cane in Your Pocket?” with two big glitter candy canes across the front.

I read it again to make sure I’m not crazy.

I’m not.

“I love your shirt,” I say, grinning at her.

Her eyes light up. “Do you?”

“I do.”

“You are obviously a fun woman.”

“And a talented one,” the shorter of the two younger women adds.

“Says the woman who set her napkin on fire during a decoupage project last month,” the taller girl says.

“Oh, that was a freak accident, would you stop?” she says. Then she looks over the jars and stops at the display where I have an LED candle in one. “Oh, how clever is that?”

“And you can’t set fire with it!” the taller girl says. “You should buy it!”

“I think I will,” the other girl says, continuing to look over my jars. “I like these turquoise ones for the living room.”

“Those are pretty” the other elderly woman says. That would be the one not wearing a shirt referring to candy canes in pockets.

“Can you do custom orders?” the naughty T-shirt wearer asks.

I smile. “Yes, I’d be happy to if it’s something I can do. Is there something you have in mind?”

A wicked glint appears in her eyes. I truly hope she doesn’t ask me to do a jar with an embossed penis or something.

“Can you paint a big jar like a candy cane?”

The other elderly woman looks sharply at her. “Where are you going with this?”

“I’m going to put candy canes in it, of course, then I’ll hang a sign on it that says, ‘It’s Not Going to Lick Itself.’”

Oh my God.

The younger women look like they want to dive under the table, the other older woman sighs heavily, and the naughty T-shirt wearer looks straight at me and grins wickedly.

“I’d be happy to make that for you,” I manage to say without laughing.

“Grandma. PUBLIC,” the taller young woman says.

So the naughty T-shirt woman is their grandma. That’s amazing.

I think of my two grandmothers, and I can’t see either one of them being like this grandma.

I move over to my laptop and take her custom order. The woman who set a napkin on fire buys three jars of different sizes, too. By the time they leave with their purchases, I’ve closed the gap to nearly breaking even.

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