Snake in the Glass (2 page)

The bottom line was I wasn’t sure where Cam was at the moment: in San Diego, in Tucson, or somewhere in between. And much as I adored my brother, I really didn’t want to see him right away—because while I had left for Ireland with Allison, I wasn’t coming back with her. That should teach me to try to be nice to people: I’d made what I thought was a friendly offer to take Allison on an impromptu trip to Ireland, the country of her birth, which she hadn’t seen since she’d eloped as a teenager over twenty years ago. Allison had decided she wanted to stay on for a bit (length of time unspecified), and could I please tell my lovelorn brother that she might not be coming back? Allison’s decision to get to know the relatives she had left behind decades ago certainly muddied things. Not that I didn’t understand her need to reconnect, but I did resent her asking me to do her dirty work rather than telling Cam herself.

But right now I just wanted to go home and get re-acquainted with my pups Fred and Gloria (had I ever been separated from them for this long?), take a long shower, and sleep for a week. Maybe then I’d be ready to sit down and talk to him. Otherwise, in my befuddled, jet-lagged state, I was sure to say the wrong thing.

I pulled the car into the alley behind my glass shop, Shards. The building had formerly housed a small machine shop, and I had taken over the whole thing, fitting out a glass studio and sales area downstairs, and my living space upstairs. A tiny bit of guilt nagged at me: I really should check in with Nessa, my long-term shop assistant and friend, in the shop, to make sure I still had a business. But since the building was still standing and the windows were intact, I decided to assume the best, and instead I tiptoed up my exterior stairs and, inserting my key in the lock, braced myself for a rapturous welcome from Fred and Gloria.

I was not disappointed. Fred, a wire-haired dachshund with a Napoleon complex, made dashes at my feet, barking all the while. Gloria, a more substantial and dignified English bulldog, maintained a cool demeanor until Fred had worn himself out. Me, I dropped my bags and sat on the floor and wallowed in doggy love for several minutes. When we had all had our fill, at least temporarily, I struggled back to my feet and looked around. No sign of human occupation, which meant Cam was still somewhere else. I will admit to a small sigh of relief. But the dog’s dishes had been filled recently, so someone—probably Nessa, in whose care I’d left the doggies—had been here recently.

I spotted not one but two notes on the table in the kitchen area, weighted down with jars of salsa, which immediately started my mouth watering. Irish food was bland, and airline food was not food at all. But first things first: I picked up the notes. One was from Cam:

I sighed, relieved: I had a reprieve, even if it was only for twenty-four hours. I could gather my wits before I had to confront Cam. The second note was from Nessa:

I guessed I owed it to Nessa to tell her I was back, which put a damper on my plan to fall directly into bed. But food first. I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten, but it was definitely in some other time zone, or country, or both. The fridge held reasonably fresh bread and some nonmoldy cheese, so I threw together a sandwich, adding a bit of salsa to give it flavor. The dogs stayed no more than a foot from my feet. Was it love or the cheese?

Buoyed by my gourmet feast, I headed for the door, reassuring the dogs that I would be back very soon and then I wouldn’t leave them again for, oh, maybe twelve hours. They didn’t look as though they believed me. I clattered down the stairs and went around to the corner of the building and into my shop.

Nessa looked up from the catalog she had been reading and pulled off her reading glasses, breaking into a smile. “Em, welcome home! How was your trip?”

“I can say with assurance that Ireland is indeed very green.”

“So I’ve been told,” Nessa said wryly. “Did Allison enjoy the trip?” Nessa had worked with me for years and knew me well, and she must have seen something in my face. “What is it?”

The kindness of her expression made me want to throw myself on her and bawl. Definitely not my usual style. I must have been more jet-lagged than I thought. “Oh, Nessa . . .” I said weakly.

Nessa looked around the empty shop and then back at me. “I think we can take this upstairs, if you want to talk about it.”

“I guess.” I wasn’t sure if I really did, but I wanted an ally and a sounding board before I had to break the news to Cam. I watched as Nessa shut down the cash register, turned off the lights, and locked up. Then I led the way back up the stairs, and the dogs and I went through the whole welcome thing again, compounded now by Nessa’s arrival.

Inside, Nessa made a beeline for the stove. “You look like you could use a cup of tea.”

I’m not wild about tea, but I appreciated the gesture. What I really wanted was the mothering that Nessa so happily offered. “Sure. Hey, thanks for taking care of the dogs. I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient.”

“Not at all. You know I love them.” Nessa had filled the teakettle and set in on the stove, and was now rummaging around for mugs.

I tried to remember whether I even had tea bags. Apparently I did. I sat in a funk until Nessa had assembled the basics and set a mug of tea in front of me.

“All right. Tell me what’s going on.”

I decided I might as well jump straight into it. “Allison didn’t come back with me.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. Ah.” The bitterness of my tone surprised me. “And she didn’t have the guts to tell Cam herself. She wants me to do it.”

“Will she be coming back?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think
she
knows.” I sipped at my tea, trying to calm myself. “Look, I know it’s kind of a shock for her, going back to a place she hadn’t been in twenty-odd years, seeing all her relatives, all grown up now. It’s weird. It’s a pretty small town, in the middle of nowhere, and the place itself has barely changed at all, so I can imagine that she might feel she’s in some kind of time warp. I can certainly sympathize with that.” Especially because I had so few relatives myself, apart from Cam. “But I think she owes Cam something. Don’t you? I guess the fact that she couldn’t face him—even over the phone—makes me wonder just how committed to him she is.”

Nessa looked down at her mug, swirling the tea round and round. “I think that she has some catching up to do, learning to deal with the real world, without her late husband’s influence. But I also agree that that should involve facing up to her responsibilities and talking to Cam herself.”

“That’s what I thought. Oh, hell, Nessa, I know that Cam is kind of over the top about her. He’s never really been in love before, so maybe he’s been storing it up all these years. And if I were on the receiving end of that, I might run the other way too, even without Allison’s baggage. He can be pretty intense. It’s just that I don’t want to hurt him, and I guess I’m pissed at Allison for putting me in this position. It’s not fair.”

“It isn’t, but neither is life. Would you like some more tea?”

I looked at Nessa then and realized she was kidding me. “And sympathy? No, I’m good. And thank you for letting me vent. I must say I’m glad Cam won’t be back until tomorrow—I need time to think, when my brain isn’t quite so addled.” I swallowed the last of my tea. “Oh, by the way, we saw Allison’s Uncle Frank while we were in Ireland. He said he was coming to Tucson for the Gem Show, any day now.”

“Really.” Nessa’s serene expression didn’t change.

“Nessa! Did you know?”

Was that a blush? “He might have mentioned it.”

“Nessa, you sly dog, you. Carrying on behind my back.”

“I wouldn’t call a few letters ‘carrying on.’ And a couple of e-mails.”

I smiled at her. “Well, Nessa, old friend, you have my blessing. I like Frank, and I’m glad he’s coming back. Although how you two can manage any sort of relationship with several thousand miles between you is beyond me.”

“One step at a time. And I don’t see that proximity has made your relationship with Matt any easier.”

Matt Lundgren, Tucson’s chief of police, and I had had an on-again, off-again relationship for years—the “off” part came when his wife had returned from a so-called trial separation. The “on-again” part was the positive result of some unpleasant business that had taken place in my glass studio a few months back. “True. I should call him and let him know I’m back. I told Frank we should all get together while he’s here.”

“I’m sure we will. So, tell me all about Ireland.” A neat deflection on Nessa’s part.

“Cold! Most of the time I was wearing about seven layers of clothes, and it still wasn’t enough.” Nobody had bothered to tell me that Ireland in February would be freezing. And that they really weren’t into central heating over there. “Maybe cold alone I could have handled, but not the damp. Even the room at the B & B wasn’t a whole lot warmer than the outside.”

Em, you are now officially a Tucsonan.
I had missed my adopted hometown’s justly renowned “dry heat.” I might’ve grown up on the East Coast, but ten years in Tucson had changed my metabolism, and I just didn’t do cold and wet anymore.

“We put the stone on Allison’s mother’s grave—that’s why Frank was there—and had a nice service, and there were all these relatives. I gave up trying to figure out who was related to whom. Allison was kind of overwhelmed, at least at the beginning, but after a couple of days she seemed to slip right back into it.”

“Did you get to see anything else?”

“A bit. I went to Waterford to see how they handle glass—it’s a very different technique, and it’s not really my style, but it was interesting. And I spent a day or two in Dublin—some gorgeous collections in the museums there. That’s about it.” A wave of fatigue washed over me. “Listen, Nessa, I really have to crash. I’m sure there’s business stuff we should go over, but my brain is fried right now. I’ll be down bright and early in the morning, okay?”

“Not a problem, my dear. You catch up on your sleep. I’m sure things will look better in the morning.”

Half an hour later, the dogs walked, fed, and watered; myself scrubbed and tucked in, I was ready for oblivion. But my last conscious thought was,
Poor Cam
. . . .

I awakened before dawn—my internal time clock
was still operating on Irish time, which was hours ahead of Tucson. I tried to calculate how many and gave up. But at least I felt ready to take on the day and whatever came with it. When I stumbled out of my bedroom, I noted that there were more boxes stacked in the living area, so apparently Cam must’ve arrived while I was dead to the world. His bedroom door was shut, so on tiptoe, I did the necessary stuff, fed and walked the dogs, and went down to the studio, grateful for a chance to take a fresh look at things without distractions.

There was one big issue at the top of my to-do list. When I had first opened my studio, I had plowed just about all my available capital into buying the building, which I had figured would provide everything I needed—a roomy studio, a corner shop with good visibility, and living quarters above. Of course, the so-called living quarters had consisted of a single open space with brick walls and a poured concrete floor, but since it was just me living there, I could build it out as time and money allowed. The main living areas were still pretty much a single space, but I had carved out two bedrooms and installed a spacious bathroom between them. It suited me, and Fred and Gloria when they had come along.

Since money had been tight, I’d made do with a lot of secondhand glassblowing equipment in the studio. Some items were essential: a midsize pot furnace that held a crucible to melt and hold the glass at the right temperature, a couple of glory holes to work the individual glass pieces, an annealer to cool the finished pieces. A number of blowpipes, a pipe warmer. Benches to work at could be improvised, as could some of the other bits and pieces, like water buckets for the wooden tools. Some of the bigger pieces I had bought used, including the furnace. I’d replaced the relatively fragile pot inside the furnace more than once, but then the outer portion—the insulating castable refractory, to use the precise term—had cracked, and that meant it was time to replace the whole piece before things got any worse.

I’d had my eye on a larger, freestanding furnace, which would cut my energy costs, but it had seemed beyond my modest means. Then a nice little windfall had fallen into my lap, so for once I had some money in the bank. The trip to Ireland had been my treat to myself (and Allison); the new furnace was a business investment—a five-figure one. I had ordered it and entrusted its installation to Nessa’s oversight, but now it was up to me to break it in. Even if it worked perfectly, I would still have to get the feel of it, find out where its sweet spots were, and how quickly it heated glass. That was one of the reasons I had scheduled the installation for this particular time period: I knew that business would be slow—more like nonexistent—during the annual Tucson Gem Show, and I had planned to use that period as my break-in time.

The world-renowned Gem Show, or to give its full title, the Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase, is a wondrous event—if you are into gems, which I am not. The event, or rather, events, takes over the entire city for two weeks every year. There are hundreds of vendors and dealers who show up and occupy fifty or so venues, and snap up every hotel room for miles. And that doesn’t even include the visitors, or as they are sometimes known, treasure hunters. One might think that a small business person such as myself would welcome this influx of potential customers, but alas, they were all focused on gems, and not easily diverted. The net result was that business for the rest of us Tucson artisans was pretty much flat during the first two weeks in February, which is why I felt I could leave for a week to take a vacation of sorts, and why I could install and test new equipment. And the added benefit this year was that Frank Kavanagh was coming to see the show. I really liked Frank, an Australian diamond dealer and a real charmer. So, apparently, did Nessa.