The Glassblower's Lesson

The bus dropped me off at the bottom of the hill and I nearly fell getting down the steps because I was so excited. Two years I'd known Julian Fitz, ever since the campus art fair where he'd blown a blue vase in front of a crowd of maybe six people and I'd stood there the whole hour watching. We'd been friends since. Good friends. The kind where you talk on the phone three times a week about nothing.

He worked part-time at the post office in Mill Hollow now, a town so small I blinked and missed it from the bus window. The building sat crooked on the corner of the main street, which was also the only street, and there was a faded sign for canoe rentals hanging off the porch railing. I'd been looking forward to this weekend for a month. River trip Saturday, cabin Saturday night, drive home Sunday. I was twenty-two and broke and this counted as a vacation.

Julian was sorting mail behind the counter when I pushed the door open and the little bell rang. He looked up and grinned. He was twenty-four now, taller than I remembered being okay with, forearms bare because he had the sleeves of his work shirt rolled up.

"Addison Muir! You actually came!"

"You actually answered your phone when I called this morning, that's how I knew this was real!" I dropped my duffel on the counter like I owned the place. "Where's the canoe? I've been talking about this river for weeks."

"Whoa, slow down. We'll get there." He came around the counter and gave me a hug, and I noticed he smelled like woodsmoke and something sweet, like melted sugar. That should have been my first clue about what was in the back of that building. It was not my first clue, because I am not a clever person before noon.

He locked the post office at one, flipped a sign that said CLOSED, BACK MONDAY, and led me around to the shed behind the building where the canoes lived. He pulled the tarp off one and there it was, red and shiny and perfect, and then he started digging through the pile of gear next to it.

And digging. And digging.

"Julian."

"Hang on."

"Julian, where are the paddles?"

He stood up holding exactly one paddle. One. He held it up like it was a game show prize and gave me a helpless look. "Someone rented them yesterday and took both. Or lost one. Or stole one, honestly, this town has a paddle crime problem."

"So we can't go on the river." I sat down on the tarp, because standing felt dramatic and sitting felt like someone who handles disappointment with grace. "I got on a bus for two hours, Julian."

"I know. I know, I'm sorry. The outfitter in the next town might have spares but they don't open till Monday. Look, we'll get out there tomorrow morning, I promise. Today we just..." He waved the single paddle around. "We make the best of it. There's the creek, there's the cabin, there's food. And there's something I've been wanting to show you anyway, if you're not too busy sulking."

"I am absolutely too busy sulking."

"Too bad. Come on."

* * *

Here's what I did not know about the Mill Hollow post office, and honestly what nobody at my college knew either. Julian had built himself a glassblowing setup in the back room, past the sorting shelves, in what used to be a loading bay. There was a furnace in the corner glowing orange, a bench with tools laid out neat as surgery, pipes racked along the wall, and a big metal table with finished pieces cooling on it. Little paperweights. A couple of tumblers. One lopsided vase he clearly loved anyway.

"You made all this?" I walked the table slow, hands behind my back because I know you don't grab cooling glass, one thing I did learn watching him two years ago.

"Every lopsided inch. Want to try?"

I turned around fast. "What, actually?"

"Actually. I've got a spare pipe and you've got two hands and I've got nothing but time until that outfitter opens." He was already pulling a pair of heavy gloves off a hook. "Fair warning, it's harder than it looks and you'll be bad at it and I'll enjoy that."

"Oh, so it's like every game we've ever played."

"Exactly like that. Sit here."

So that's how I ended up at a glassblowing bench on a Saturday afternoon, hands wrapped around a long steel pipe with a blob of molten glass on the end of it glowing like a piece of the sun. Julian stood behind me and to the side, one hand hovering near mine, not quite touching, waiting for me to ruin something.

"Okay, keep it turning. Constant. If you stop turning, it sags and drips and we both pretend that didn't happen."

"I'm turning. I'm turning."

"You're panicking while turning. That's different." He laughed, warm right at my ear, and I felt that in my stomach and decided not to think about it. "Ease your breath. Small puff through the pipe, nothing big. You're not blowing up a balloon."

I puffed. The glass swelled at the end, round and shiny, and I made an embarrassing noise of pure delight. "It's working. Julian, it's working, look at it."

"I'm looking. Told you. Now keep it turning while it cools or it'll..."

It sagged. It dripped. We both looked at the sad little pancake of glass on the table and then at each other and he lost it laughing and I shoved his shoulder with the glove, which was a mistake, because then I had molten-glass residue on my glove and he had to scrape it off while telling me about glove hygiene like a fussy old man.

We went four more rounds. He guided my hands on the third one, both his hands over mine on the pipe, and the glass came out almost round and for a second we both stayed silent about how close he was standing. Then he cleared his throat and said the color was coming out nice and I agreed very fast about the color.

Around the fourth try he disappeared into the corner and came back with a dusty black tape