to their mouths and looked around. She caught him staring and he glanced away. He shook his fist and the caps clinked.
She swayed toward the back of the studio. Bottle loose between two fingers. So this is the kiln she said over her shoulder. You say you put it in?
He rose from the wedging table and walked up behind her. Yeah, he said.
That’s cool, she said. She moved past him, up the back aisle of the room. He followed. She placed a hand on one hip and looked up and down. Now this thing looks like a giant spice rack, she said. What’s in all the jars?
Glazes, he said. Oxides. Whiting. That kind of stuff. She glanced over the mason jars labeled with dirty masking tape, at the smaller jars, at the bottles and bins, the sieves and mortar.
This the scale Cameron weighs his dope out on? she said, and smiled. She raised her beer to her lips. What did she look like without her glasses.
Cam told you about all that, huh?
Of course, she said. Lovers tell each other everything.
He rattled the caps in his fist. He said, I suppose.
What’s this thing? she said. She pointed down at the stand that held two metal rollers. The rollers were attached to an AC motor. She reached out and spun one of the rollers.
It’s a ball mill stand, he said. He pushed the bottle caps down his pocket and picked up a porcelain jug. Shook the jug and pebbles rattled inside. Ball mill, he said. For mixing glazes.
She turned and stepped over to the worktable. She said, Let’s see. This is a chisel and here’s a spoon and a penknife. Sandpaper. One of those dental scrapy things. Oo. What kind of a hammer is this?
He shook the pebbles in the ball mill and set the mill on the stand. It’s called a bouchard, he said. Bush hammer.
She swung the hammer a couple times. It’s weird it’s like a meat tenderizer. These points, she said, and rubbed her fingers over the face of the hammer. What’s it used for?
You use it to like. Wear away stone. It like, bruises it. Pulverizes. He drank his beer. She lay the bouchard on the table.
She said, I almost want to ask what you do for fun.
He shrugged and looked around the room. Whether it’s fun or not, I can’t really say. But this is what I do.
She tipped her bottle up and drank. She set the bottle down on the scale. Fumbled the balances left and right. Jesus how do you read this thing? she said and laughed. Shit. Never was any good at science or home ec or school for that matter.
So what do you do? he said.
For fun you mean? Anything and everything. Her eyebrows arched behind her horn rims. Not all at once of course, she said. Even I’m not that talented. She smiled at him. She spun and stepped around the worktable as though to measure the room. Her back to him she stared out the window. So when’s this party get underway?
Oh, whenever. When it gets dark, he said. The skin looked soft on the nape of her neck. The muscles stood out at the small of her back. He said, Bonfires are more pleasing at night, huh.
Well I guess we got some time to kill, she said. Got another beer for me?
Sure, he said. He finished his bottle. He came around the worktable to where she stood. He kneeled before the wedging table and pulled open the fridge. Here you go he said and twisted off the cap and held up the beer.
Thanks, she said. She took the bottle. Her fingers touched his fingers.
He put the empties in a box beside the fridge. He rose and opened his bottle and she was close beside him. He stepped away and rattled the caps in his fist. He stared at the plaster dust ground into his knuckles. So, uh. Cam says you two’ve been going out for a couple weeks.
More like a couple months, she said.
How long’ve you been in town?
About a month, she said. She took a drink and set her bottle on the wedging table. She nodded at the window. So you live over there?
He glanced out at the bungalow. Yeah, he said. I live over there.
I’d love to live in a place like this out in the middle of nowhere nobody else around no obnoxious neighbors fuck that would be so great.
It is, he said. It’s always real quiet. Nobody’s voice or footsteps. Just my own.
She said, So how did you end up here?
He watched her for a moment. She stared out the window. He looked to his left out the open door, at the sunlight across the parched goldenrod outside, at the butterflies and willowtrees. He took a drink of his beer and rattled the caps in his fist.
THE SKY SHOWED PINK THROUGH THE POPLARS AND WILLOWS. He led her down into the fen. Through rushes and stands of cotton grass, over dead trunks and around stiff brown stalks of fireweed, wildflowers going to seed. The ground sucked at their feet.
Yeah, this used to have a stream running through it, when I was a kid, he said. Dried up, oh. I don’t know. Ten, fifteen years back. There’s still patches that never dry, though.
And this is the shortcut, huh? she said behind him.
They climbed the embankment at the dogleg. Before them lay the harvested cornfield. Music fell from the sky. And the sun. From the center of the field the bonfire glowed. Bodies stumbled unseen around them, laughter in the corn.
Sounds like things’ve gotten underway, he said. He held his hand up front of his face he pushed through the stalks. Footfall and breath of the girl behind him. The moon a white wedge, and the stars.
They stepped into the clearing plowed at the center of the field. Bodies danced around the smoking bonfire. Bodies tossed stalks and lengths of wood and bundles of straw into the fire. Bodies lined up before fat silver kegs. The pigs roasting on spits. And dished up paper plates of meat and bread and corn. A large flatbed truck was parked at the far side of the clearing. The bed was buried under lights, banks of speakers, amps, cables. Cam shirtless in levis, cowboy boots, Cam’s hand thumping against his guitar, his boot heel on the flatbed. PLUTO’S DOG, a banner said, hung across the side of the truck.
He bent and untied his high tops. Pulled his socks off with his shoes. She watched him. It can get pretty muddy, he said. She shrugged and kicked off her sandals. They placed their shoes together, away from the others. The mud was cool. The mud felt good to his feet.
Let’s get a beer, he said.
They made their way to the kegs. Pushed past bodies, walked through the mud. Overhead the wedge of moon and shouts and laughter from the corn. Two big plastic cups raised above his head, he and the girl pushed their way back through the crowd, toward the flatbed.
Bodies danced before the truck. Cam bobbed his head and Cam stamped his foot and Cam smiled and sang. And the world.
The bonfire wavered the light around them. The girl drank from her cup. There was sweat on her throat. And bits of corn tassel captured by that sweat. He blinked and raised his beer.
She turned her head toward the bodies
