Catherine Baker became a more frequent visitor at Reba’s studio. She could not explain why. Actually she could. The pots and plates, in their various forms of completion, represented an unfinished world, a world in flux, dynamic and evolving. As was Reba herself.
In Catherine’s settled environment, the game seemed over. Here, it was just beginning.
Catherine walked through the concrete hallway, high heels clicking. In her pink Gucci blouse and black Donna Karan slacks she represented a striking contrast to the candlemaker and flutist, visible through doorways in torn jeans and overalls, or the papier-mâché sculptor in his Urban Outfitters Genuine Afghani Keffiyeh Scarf, with tassels.
Reba, thank goodness, wore a common smock.
Rapping lightly on the partly-open steel door, Catherine walked into Rebel Pots. “Hello?”
Reba looked up from a potter’s wheel. “It’s four o’clock?” she said. “Already?” A half-finished vase turned in her hands.
“I can come back.” Catherine left her bag on her shoulder.
“Absolutely not.” Li-Li Feng, her assistant, stood watching in her own smock. “I was just showing Li-Li how to build a neck. You can take over, now,” she said to the girl. The wheel continued turning. Li-Li sat, dipping her hands in a bucket. She stuck her fingers into the pot.
“One finger, Li-Li.”
Li-Li shaped the neck. Reba took off her smock and washed her hands in a large sink. “What have we got?”
“Rosé.”
“Excellent.”
Catherine even had glasses. They sat at a broad wooden work table, on benches, watching Li-Li. Reba poured.
“How’s Li-Li doing?”
“Quite well.”
“Think she’ll be a potter?”
“You mean a good potter?”
“Yes, that.”
“Only time will tell. It took me twenty years.”
“That long?”
Reba sipped, then exhaled. “Oh yeah.” It was either a comment on the wine or Li-Li. One could not know. After business and money, the women talked men. What else is there?
Catherine asked Reba if Walt, her boyfriend, had bought a ring yet.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He has issues. We both do.”
“Thinking of trading up?”
“Catherine! Be nice.”
But Reba knew what she meant. Catherine Baker built her life on the aggressive exchange of commodities. When her mentor, John Schatz, no longer served her purposes, she got rid of him, resigning from Lock and Key. When her husband could not match her ambition, when he was slow to expand their company, he had to go. Even her two Pomeranians, Mollie and Greg, had to find new homes. They shed too much.
They watched Li-Li. The clay turned in her hands. Reba could see she drew the neck too long. The pot collapsed, going round and round, a misshapen glob. “Rats,” Li-Li said. She scraped clay from the wheel and stood.
Reba called to her. “Li-Li, darling. What are you doing?”
“Getting new clay.” She walked to the recycling barrel.
“Re-throw the old,” Reba said. “Pound out the air pockets and keep going. Remember, we’re artists. A few mistakes never hurt anything.”
She turned to Catherine, took a sip of wine, and winked.
Richard Donnelly lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Classic flyover land. Which makes us feel just a little… superior. He publishes a weekly column of essays on the writing life at richarddonnelly.substack.com