Page 19 of Pucking the Grump

I sit back in the comfy leather seat, crossing my legs. “Sounds good.”

And…it does.

Weirdly.

Looks like Stone might actually be pretty good at this fun coach stuff.

As we drive out of the city, the stress of the day slowly eases from my jaw and shoulders. The warm evening sun filters through the trees along the highway, and Stone’s latest mellow indie playlist is really good. We chat a little about camp and my day at work, but mostly we sit in comfortable silence, enjoying the music on the way to Brookdale.

It’s one of those small Oregon towns that’s equal parts cutesy and hipster, packed with historic charm and barber shops selling artisanal beard oil. The Painted Lady Craft Collective is at the end of Main Street, in a converted Victorian house with a wide front porch and strings of Edison bulbs crisscrossing the yard. There are already several cars parked out front, and women in colorful, flowing dresses move around behind the large window on the first floor, talking and laughing.

“We’re not late, are we?” I ask as Stone kills the engine.

“Fashionably on time,” he assures me. “We should be able to breeze in and get right down to crafting, no awkward small talk required.”

I grin again. “You really do know me, don’t you?”

“Pretty well,” he agrees. “Let me grab our socks from the back, and we can head in. You don’t need your purse if you’d rather leave it here. I’ve already paid for the class and snacks.”

I perk up as I follow him out of the cab. “Snacks? There are snacks?”

“Of course, there are snacks.” He grabs a paper bag from the back before locking up and starting down the paving stones toward the front door. “And craft beer.”

Smiling wide enough to make my jaw hurt a little, I follow him, a spring in my step. Learning not to care about sucking at art is going to be a lot easier with beer and snacks.

Inside the Painted Lady, my eyes widen at the explosion of color and creativity. The former living room has been transformed into a crafter’s paradise, with mismatched vintage tables scattered throughout the space. Mason jars stuffed with googly eyes, buttons, and yarn in every shade imaginable crowd the surfaces, while clotheslines strung across the floral wallpaper showcase an army of sock puppets—some sporting wild yarn hairdos, others flashing felt fangs, all looking like they might come alive after hours.

“There you are!” A woman with a purple pixie cut and paint-spattered overalls bounds toward us. “Our last sock puppet power couple! Just in time. I’m Piper, your crafting guide for the evening.” She gestures toward a table by the bay window. “You’re right over there. Christina will bring you something delicious in a jiffy.”

Stone’s hand finds the small of my back, a light, warm pressure guiding me forward. The touch is casual, something he’s done a hundred times before, but tonight it sends another flutter through my stomach that I choose to blame on snack anticipation rather than anything more complicated.

I am pretty hungry. I worked straight through lunch and barely had time to throw a handful of nuts into my mouth between the gym and my next meeting.

“This place is fun,” I whisper as we settle in at our designated table. “I feel like I’m in a fairy tale. Or back in kindergarten, but in a good way.”

“That’s the point,” Stone says, looking pleased with himself. “All the fun of being a kid, with no one forcing you to take a nap when you’d rather go outside to play.”

Before I can confess that I was also a terrible napper back in the day—apparently, I’ve sucked at resting since I was a toddler—a server appears with a wooden board piled high with cheeses, crackers, pickles, and dried fruit, along with two amber-filled pint glasses.

“Northwest IPAs,” the woman, Christina, I think Piper said her name was, announces. “Brewed right here in Brookdale. Enjoy your puppet journey and happy manifesting!”

Stone lifts his glass, eyes dancing with mischief. “To crafting and creativity.”

“And manifesting fun,” I add, clinking my glass against his. The beer is hoppy with citrus notes, another solid local brew I’m excited to add to my list.

Piper claps her hands from the front of the room. “All right, my loves, let’s get started. Tonight, in an effort to invite more creativity into our lives, I want you all to embrace your inner weirdos. The theme is ‘Let Your Freak Flag Fly.’ I want to see puppets with personality, the more outrageous, the better! We want to tap into deep levels of artistic play, where anything goes.”

She demonstrates a few techniques for creating mouths and attaching features, but it’s clear the emphasis is on setting our muse free, not following any rules.

“White or colored sock?” Stone asks, holding up the two packages.

“Definitely color. And definitely green,” I say, digging the sock out after he pops the top on the rainbow package. “I’m going to make a dragon.”

“A dragon?” His eyebrows slide up as he nods. “Nice. Straight to the fantasy, no boring real-life animals for you. I like it.”

I shrug with faux swagger. “I’m wild and free. What can I say?”

He laughs as he takes the other green sock for himself. “Sweet. I hope you won’t judge me for making a plain old ordinary frog. Gotta pay my creative respects to my homeboy, Kermit.”

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