Page 33 of Edge of Ruin
“Fine. Let’s do that.” I got to work making the grilled cheese sandwiches, to have an excuse to keep my back to him.
He walked into the living room. I had been doing inventory, and my entire current stock was spread across the green velvet drapes on the floor: earrings; pendants; brooches; my compartmentalized boxes of beads; my stash of chunks of broken hand-blown glass, coils of silver and gold wire, hooks and clasps; my boxes of fun and colorful collected junk. The walls were decorated with hangings, paintings, drawings.
“Did you do these pictures?” Jack asked.
“No,” I said. “I’ve met lots of artists in the past few years, and I collected my favorite pieces. The ones I could afford, anyway. This is the first chance I’ve ever had to hang them up and look at them properly.”
Jack walked slowly around the room. “And your stuff?”
“There’s not a lot of my work here,” I said, feeling defensive. “Just what’s on the floor on the green velvet. My favorite mediums are bronze and blown glass, but you can’t do that kind of art in a camper van. I got sidetracked by my jewelry sideline, but I want to get back to sculpture. On a bigger scale.”
Jack leaned over the cloth and picked up a fine lacework of antique beads and colored glass. “You sit on the floor to work?”
“I cannot wait to buy a table,” I said fervently.
He frowned. “I could have found you something.” He picked up a green bottle adorned with onyx beads and a filigree of silver foil. “These are beautiful.”
“Thank you.” I was uncommonly flustered by the compliment.
“So, you’re tired of making jewelry? That’s too bad. Do you get tired of things quickly?” Jack said.
There he went again, poking his stick between the bars of my cage. I suppressed a flare of savage irritation. “No,” I said tightly. “I love designing jewelry. What I’m sick of is mass-producing for crafts fairs. That’s just assembly-line work.”
“Ah,” he murmured. “I see.”
“I have a good feel for what will sell,” I went on. “I study the colors and styles online, and in the women’s magazines. I make pieces to match, and they go like hotcakes. It was fine for a while, but I’m burnt out.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said.
“Then stop jabbing at me!” I flared. “God, Jack! You’re pissing me off!”
He put the bottle down. “Sorry,” he murmured. “If you’re not a jewelry designer anymore, what exactly are you?”
“I think I’m a sculptor, but ask me again in six months.”
“Who knows where you’ll be in six months?” He held a pair of malachite earrings up to the light, letting them dangle from his fingers to see them from all sides.
I did not dignify that with a reply. I just stalked back into the kitchen. He was not to be reasoned with. He’d made up his mind about me, and that was that.
I stuck my head around the door when the sandwiches were sizzling in the pan. “Lunch is on. Come get it while the cheese is gooey.”
Jack sat opposite me on the kitchen floor. We ate our sandwiches, and then the usual tense, charged silence fell upon us.
I stared at the crumbs on my paper plate. “Would you like a cup of tea?” I asked, with rigid politeness.
“No, thanks,” he said.
“Then excuse me while I make one for myself.” I put the kettle on and stuffed napkins and paper plates into the garbage.
“You’ve been talking to Margaret, I take it?” he asked.
“That’s right. She’s got some good ideas for possible locations for me.”
“For your shop. To sell your own designs?”
“Among other things,” I said. “I know lots of excellent artisans, after all those years on the circuit. And there’s money around here to support a business like mine. A gallery of wearable, usable art.”
“And aside from the danger issue, you think that’s a good idea?”
