She and Audrey walked toward their offices at the end of the hall. The dolly Audrey was pulling had a squeaky wheel, and the high-pitched sound grated on Michelle’s nerves.
“What classes will you be teaching?” she asked, working her way toward an apology.
“I’ve got two ceramics classes,” Audrey said, and there was that energetic enthusiasm again. In jeans and a red T-shirt, with her honey-brown hair pulled into a loose ponytail, she could still pass for a student. “And my personal favorite, Women in Art.”
Michelle exhaled roughly.Women in Art.The topic of her doctoral dissertation. Her passion. Her lifeblood. The class she proposed to the department chair year after year, only to be rejected every single time. “Women in Art?” she managed, hoping she sounded curious rather than furious, but the guarded look on Audrey’s face suggested she’d been unsuccessful.
“It’s a class I developed over the past year, showcasing some of the female artists who’ve been overlooked throughout history. It’s actually ... you’re the one who inspired me to look for those women, Dr. Thompson. This class is something I’ve always wanted to teach.”
Audrey spoke those words with such earnestness, as if she’d been waiting for this opportunity as long as Michelle had, when in reality, she was so young, so inexperienced. This was likely her first job, when Michelle had worked so much longer, so much harder, only to have the class she was born to teach given to a newcomer.
“Good for you.” Michelle intended the words to be neutral, hopefully even kind, but they came out harsh, tasting bitter on her tongue. She’d always been prickly when defensive, and right now, she was a porcupine rolled up in a ball, quills protruding to ward off predators ... or in this case, bright-eyed young professors.
Michelle knew she had responded badly, but there was no undoing it. Now she just wanted to retreat to the sanctuary of her office, where she could tend to her emotional wounds with privacy. “Have a nice day, Audrey.”
With hands that weren’t nearly as steady as they should have been, she unlocked her office and slipped inside, shutting the door behind herself. She leaned against it and exhaled, resting a hand against her stomach, which ached with disappointment.
Somehow, naive, eager Audrey would be teaching the class Michelle had been begging to teach for years. It was a slap in the face. A kick in the gut. And now she’d lost all motivation to prepare her office for the upcoming semester.
After spending several weeks in Cornwall over the summer studying the history of its artist colony, she’d been eager to get back to her office and begin updating her materials with some of the photos and data she’d accumulated in her research.
Obviously, that had been a mistake, but this mistake was easy to remedy. Without even setting down her briefcase, Michelle turned around and exited her office. She’d begin her prep work tomorrow. Right now, she just wanted to hide, both from the shame of treating Audrey so badly and the disappointment of having the Women in Art class snatched from her.
Michelle was going home.
Chapter Two
Audrey pressed her thumbs into the clay, exhaling as it slipped beneath her fingers, whirling in steady revolutions on the wheel. The process was called centering the clay, and she’d always found it a good way to center herself as well. This was her version of meditation. She could lose herself at the pottery wheel, her fingers moving by muscle memory as they reshaped an unremarkable lump of clay into something beautiful.
A work of art.
She hoped to accomplish something similar for herself here in Middleton, Vermont. Her academic career was still in its earliest stages, like this clay. She’d had a few false starts, an adjunct class here and there that she likened to her early attempts at the pottery wheel, times when her fingers would begin to transform the clay into a pot or bowl only to slip and have the whole thing fold.
But this job ... she meant for it to last. She would keep working, keep sculpting until she’d gotten itjustright. Today had been frustrating. Disappointing. Even a little bit painful. Discovering that her former mentor wasn’t as wonderful as she remembered? Yeah, that hurt.
Good for you.
Those words could have been spoken with kindness, but they weren’t. Dr. Thompson had sounded almost angry as she said them. But why? She’d been so passionate about the often-overlooked female artists throughout history. She was the one who’d inspired Audrey’s passion on the subject. She’d thought Dr. Thompson would be thrilledfor her. She’d had a lot of expectations for her first day on campus, and she’d been wrong about most of them.
Right now, she wanted to cry, but she couldn’t let today hold her back. She’d worked too hard for this.Nothingwas going to stop her. Still, a little support from her former mentor would have been nice ...
With a sigh, Audrey dipped her hand into the bowl of water to her left and then pressed two fingers into the center of the clay, creating an opening that would become the interior of the bowl. This was one of her favorite parts, watching the piece take shape beneath her fingers. Today’s bowl would be fairly low and wide, the type of bowl someone might use to display fruit on their kitchen island. After firing it in the kiln, she’d give it a frosty-blue glaze. Maybe lavender.
Although she’d chosen to pursue a career in academia, her art was still integral to who she was. One of the most important things about her, actually. This way, Audrey was free to pursue her art as a passion project. She could follow her muse without the pressure of relying on it as her sole source of income.
She had a website where she sold her ceramics, and she also participated in craft fairs during the summer months. Her bowls, vases, mugs, and other products brought in a nice side income, spending money for her hobbies and dinners out with friends. That income had kept her afloat over the past few years, when she hadn’t had steady income as a professor.
Even now, her ceramics would be a crucial source of spending money. Her starting salary as an assistant professor was barely enough to live on, especially after she factored in her student loan debt and the exorbitant cost of rental properties in the area. The little house she’d rented for the year hadn’t come cheap, but its location was perfect, within walking distance to the university.
The house itself was a bit run-down. Its appliances had seen better days, and the windows would probably be drafty as hell once winter hit, but it was functional and had plenty of classic New England charm.
She’d been puzzled by the crooked window in the attic, but the Realtor had cheerily told her that this was a uniquely Vermont feature called a witch window. It was set at a forty-five-degree angle to the rest of the house because apparently people in the nineteenth century believed witches wouldn’t be able to fly their broomsticks through such a tilted window, which Audrey thought was hilarious.
The guest bedroom served as her studio, and she was currently bathed in warm afternoon sunshine as she worked. The room had soft blue walls. She’d pushed the bed against the far wall and covered it in a tarp, then added a simple white bookcase to display her ceramics, everything from works in progress to completed items available for sale. The top shelf was reserved for her passion pieces, the ones so personal and beloved she was keeping them forever.
Today’s bowl was nearly complete. Once she was satisfied with it, she slowed the wheel while she used a sponge to soak up excess water from the surface of the clay. Then she stopped the wheel and used a piece of metal wire to cut the bowl off the wheel head. She wasn’t planning to etch any designs into this one, so it was finished for now. Later, she’d bring it to campus to fire it in the kiln before glazing.
The bowl had served its purpose. She felt calm, her mood buoyed. After she’d cleaned up the wheel—and herself—she checked the time on her phone and found a text from her brother.How did it go?
