I gasped. “What did you do that for?”
“It’s no good,” Aiden said. “I didn’t get it centered right.”
I held out my hand. “Can I try?” Aiden looked up in surprise. “I mean, if it’s okay with you.”
“Have you ever worked on a pottery wheel before?” he asked.
“No.”
Aiden hesitated and then got up from his seat. “Okay.” He scraped the mound of clay off the wheel and kneaded it for a few minutes, then handed it to me. I held it in my hands, trying to get used to the feel of it against my skin. It was surprisingly dry—and heavy. Not very pliable either. I could feel the muscles in my forearms flexing as I squeezed it, the tips of my fingers pressing until they turned white. “That’s it,” Aiden said as I worked it back eventually into a mound. “Now put it on the wheel and see if you can get it centered.”
I nervously glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and sat down on the little stool. My feet touched a corner of the magazine pile and the wheel was at chest height, directly in front of me. I reached out and pressed the clay down on the wheel.
“Okay, wait,” Aiden said. “You can’t just set it down all dainty like that. It’s got to be attached to the wheel. Really stuck on. Pick it up and try again. And this time, bring your arms up and really fling it down. Use your whole body.”
“Fling it down?” I repeated. “Won’t I break the wheel?”
He shook his head. “Nope. It’s built for that.”
I tried to remember the last time I had flung anything anywhere. Maybe a sneaker when I was learning to tie my shoes? The action was so foreign to me that just thinking about slamming the clay down on the wheel made me giggle.
“Come on!” Aiden said. “You can do it! Throw it!”
I lifted my hands tentatively. Bit my lip. Stared at the black marker in the middle of the wheel. And then I let my arms fall, hard. The clay hit the wheel with a dull thudding sound—and then stayed there.
“Awesome!” Aiden said. “Perfect. Now step on the pedal, get her started.”
The wheel moved much faster than I expected it to, and I shrieked as the clay began to wobble back and forth. “Lighten up on the pedal,” Aiden encouraged me. “And lean in with your whole body so you can get that clay in the middle of the wheel. There’s nothing pretty about this process, so don’t worry about looking all graceful or anything. Lean in. Give it your whole weight.”
He let me go through the process three times. Three times I flung the clay on the wheel and bent over it, trying desperately to push—and then keep—the clay into the center. Three times I failed.
But as I walked back to Sophie’s place a little later, I couldn’t help but smile.
The clay had a mind of its own. I could respect that.
chapter
32
It was early the next week by the time we finished priming the walls inside, and we were halfway through scraping paint on the outside. We worked until early evening on Tuesday, sanding and cleaning the floor. Walt had loaned Sophie his electric sander, which cut most of the work in half, but Sophie insisted that I do the corners with a small piece of regular old sandpaper. By the time the shadows outside had begun to lengthen and the sun had fallen behind the trees, my fingers were so sore I wondered if they would remain attached if I used them to do anything else.
“Why did you ask those Table of Knowledge guys to stop helping you again?” I asked, struggling to my feet.
“Because I want to do this on my own,” Sophie answered. “I like doing things on my own. Come on, let’s get something to eat and hit the hay. We’ve done a lot today. You tired?”
“Tired?” I repeated. “Try exhausted.”
She punched me lightly in the arm. “You’ll be okay after a good night’s sleep. Let’s find some grub.”
In my opinion, Sophie’s kitchen was the best thing about the whole house. With three brick walls—one of which framed a floor-to-ceiling window—real marble countertops (which Jimmy had found in a quarry), upper and lower cupboards, and a wooden pot rack dangling from a length of chain from the ceiling, there was not much else that needed changing. Sophie said she and Jimmy were still thinking about tearing out most of the cupboards to make room for another oven, but that was still up for debate. Now, she opened and shut the cupboard doors, looking for something to eat. “What do you feel like? I can make some pasta, some macaroni and cheese…”
I dropped down heavily on top of a stepladder that was propped against one of the brick walls, and leaned my head back. “Anything’s fine. I don’t know if I even have the strength to chew.”