“Yeah, you’re right.”
“Can’t wait to meet her in person next week.”
“What?”
I blinked at him. “I’m your friend, aren’t I? I’ll come over and help unpack. Meet her and Kelly, was it? It’ll be a win-win, and you’ll have three extra sets of hands to help.”
Both of his eyebrows came down, his lips pursing. “You don’t have to do that, Moon. I just haven’t really gotten around to it, so there’s a lot.”
Shrugging, I pulled on the door handle next to me. “I don’t have anything else going on, really. We can head over there whenever, and I can help before then, too. I don’t mind.”
We got out at the same time, rounding the car until we met at the hood. “I’d appreciate that, actually. It’s been a bit harder than I expected.”
“That’s what friends are for, right?”
We walked into a small building, barely large enough to fit maybe a hundred people. There was a check-in desk right in the front, the man behind it wearing a huge, excited smile. “Welcome in! Are you two here for the intro to stained glass?”
Emerson nodded to him, looking around the small space. “Yeah, are we in the right place?”
“Yep! I’ll give you guys these pamphlets, and you’ll just head through those doors behind me to the greenhouse. Everything is set up out there. They should be starting in a couple of minutes.”
We looked at each other, seemingly both wondering the same thing. Why a greenhouse? The man at the desk handed us two identical brochures, each about the workshop itself. Beyond the double doors was a short path to a large greenhouse, which had its doors open.
Inside the greenhouse, there were multiple tables set up with all kinds of weird-looking equipment and cords leading to some kind of power source. Emerson and I looked around for a moment before choosing one of the tables, just a few behind the woman at the very front.
Emerson leaned closer to me, whispering. “This is a lot of stuff.”
I looked at everything on the table. “Yeah, do you think we’ll be able to figure it all out? I never claimed to be a smart cookie.”
“I’m sure we will. I may be an old dog, but I’ve still got some tricks up my sleeve.”
There was so much plant life hanging above us and all around us. On the ceilings, there were dozens of different stained glass pieces, some of them shimmering in the direct sunlight. They reminded me of the sun catchers my parents have in all of our bedrooms. We each had matching ones that coordinated with our names, right in the windows by our beds, so the sun could paint rainbows over us.
The woman at the front clapped her hands together. “Okay! Thank you all for coming today as we go over the basics of stained glass. You will all be working on one design with your partner today, following my instructions. There will be plenty of people around to help if you need it. They’ll keep checking in with all of you to make sure it’s going smoothly. First, I will have all of you put on your safety goggles and gloves before I go over each item on the table. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you of what they do when we get to each step.”
Talk about information overload. To get all the supplies to even start seemed like it was going to be at least a hundred dollars. “This better be some life-changing shit, Em. There is a lot of money on this table.”
“Don’t be so pessimistic already. Do you want to cut, or do you want me to?”
I stared at him for a second, in complete and utter shock at his question. Just this morning, I’d been wondering the same thing. Do I cut, or do I let something else inside of me take over to make it easier? “Um, I can.”
I placed the piece of glass with numbered stickers over it onto what the woman had called a waffle grid mat. It seemed easy enough—follow the lines with the glass cutter and then pull the pieces away with one of the three pliers laid out for us.
The sound was a bit grating, honestly. I wasn’t sure if I liked it very much, but the movement was relaxing. Smoother than cutting into my skin, that was for sure. Emerson helped with pulling all the pieces off with the pliers, placing them to the side. We did well together, working almost silently as we waited for instructions from the woman at the front.
My favorite part had been cutting and grinding the pieces to perfection. There truly was something so soothing about the motions. I couldn’t tell what the design was going to be until we put the copper foil on and pieced it all together, and suddenly,there in front of us was a gorgeous, green and blue leaf, waiting to be soldered.
Emerson ran his finger over each piece. “This is really cool, actually.”
“Yeah.” The blue swam with the green, swirling and mixing into something new and serene. I imagined myself right in the middle of them, finding myself almost feeling at home. “It really is.”
We were almost done with our first co-created stained glass piece. I let Emerson take over the soldering first, watching as he tried to keep a straight, even line along the copper foil.
The woman at the front’s voice boomed over all of us. “This is probably the hardest part, everyone. Go easy, go slow, and don’t get too worked up about mistakes. This is hard to master.”
Emerson shook his head and looked up at me. “Yeah, I’m about three seconds away from throwing this out the window. Wanna give it a shot?”
Shrugging, I took the iron and solder from him, lining both of them up before attempting my first line. It was weird how the metal melted immediately, no bubbling, no hesitation—it just melted. Right against the edges. My hands were still, not trembling like Emerson’s had been.
