Of course, the minute her voice came back online, her filter glitched out. “You too. I always love coming to your booth, and then this year I came with Ezra who just happens to know you, and—well, um, yeah, you make such beautiful things.”
“Thanks.” His eyes sparkled, a lighter clearer green than Ezra’s. “Just doing what I love.”
They walked up and down the tables, and like every other year, Willow coveted every piece of glass. Nathan’s series of marine animals featured an orange squid, a purple octopus, a maple-brown seal, and a mottled green-and-brown turtle. Even the shark, its gray skin and white belly, was somehow vivid. Beside this series was a flock of delicate birds, scaled smaller than the ocean creatures, equally bright. Behind Nathan, on a separate pedestal taggednot for sale, stood a red wolf with fur that seemed to ripple, its green eyes gazing past Willow’s shoulder at a faraway horizon.
She stopped to take in the entire exhibit. “You have a theme.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Animals, birds…” She nodded to another series, this one of butterflies and moths. “You don’t do abstract designs. Everything you make is real and living.”
“True.”
“But not only living. You don’t have any flowers or trees. So everything is…able to move. Run or crawl, fly or swim.”
“Huh,” Nathan said, cocking his head to study his own work. “I never thought about that element before, but you’re right.”
They lingered at Nathan’s booth. The easy friendship between the two men was obvious. After a while Nathan stepped out from behind the table and clapped Ezra on the back.
“Okay, go on, I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t want to bore your date here.” He grinned at Willow. “Nice meeting you.”
“You too.”
“I mean, I probably met you here last year, but this is different.”
She wanted to ask him if he’d met many other girls attached to his friend, but Ezra might be embarrassed by the question. Anyway she thought she knew the answer. Nathan seemed to regard her being here with Ezra as something monumental.
She wouldn’t get a better segue to ask the all-important question, the one Saffron would grill her about later. She waited until they had left the blown-glass booth behind, tried to make her question sound casual.
“Ezra, does Nathan live out on Lunar Lane too?”
Without a glance in her direction, he moved to one side of the aisle, out of the main traffic flow. And here she’d thought her tone had been disarmingly light. Ezra studied her, his mouth tense. If he were about to flip out…well, at least she would know to forego a second date.
Quietly he said, “Is that your real question?”
Willow winced. “Not exactly. I mean, it is a real question, but it’s not my ultimate question.”
“Ask that one.”
He was right. Hedging wasn’t her style, wasn’t fair. “Some folks in town think Lunar Lane is a little…well, culty. I’m not assuming they’re right.”
“But you’re wondering if they are.”
“Well…” She shrugged again, her cheeks warming. “Yeah, of course.”
Ezra gave a long sigh that caved his shoulders. “Of course.”
She had pushed the topic too soon, ruined their comfortable vibe. But…no. This question mattered now. Pushing for the answer was kinder both to herself and to him.
He glanced around, then motioned her to step between two booths, each of which had an out to lunch sign taped in a prominent place. They were still well within the sightline of anyone walking past, just not within easy hearing range.
“First of all,” he said, “definecultyso we know we’re talking about the same thing.”
Oh, good point. She scanned her mental file on controlling group behavior, a fairly large file thanks to many documentaries. “First I want to know if there’s a person or group you have to answer to for your behavior.”
“For my behavior?” His eyebrows shot up.
“Yeah, you know, like…how you dress, what you eat, what sort of work or recreation is acceptable, what sort of questions you can ask and what’s off-limits…things like that.”
