The Friend Game (Games for Two #1)

Chapter 16

THINGS GOING WELL in my life the last couple of weeks: teaching, art club, the trajectory of my bank account.

Things not going well in my life the last couple of weeks: my waiting for Luke plan.

Or the friend game, as I’ve taken to calling it.

After Belinda called us out for being too flirty with each other, Luke made himself scarce. Outside of Wednesday chapel service (where he's up on stage, and I’m sitting in a chair so far away that he could get a restraining order against me and I’d be well within my rights to sit there) and the occasional hallway sighting, I haven’t seen him.

As we’ve been over: I get it, I really do. But also: it stinks. I’m choosing to focus on the good things, though. After all, not having a boyfriend affords me plenty of extra time to do important things like stare at the pottery wheel in my storage room and debate with my inner self whether or not to use it. And hoo-boy do those debates get heated. Presidential candidates would kill for the skills my inner self has.

Today there’s another art club meeting though, which means less time for conversations with my pottery wheel. I finish setting up the supplies for today’s project: Christmas wreaths. Thanksgiving was last week, so today seemed like a good day to hop into a holiday project. Or at least that’s what I thought.

The eleven students who file into my room ten minutes later couldn’t disagree more.

“We want to do pottery,” a fourth grader named Agatha announces, and her fellow art club members all start chiming in with their agreement.

“But it’s the holiday season,” I sing-song with false bravado. “Don’t you think it will be fun to make your own decorations?” I gesture to the metal wreath frames set up on the tables in front of them.

“My mom already has two wreaths on our front door,” Mia says with a shrug.

“Yeah mine too,” Agatha agrees. “And she had them made by an interior decorator, so I don’t think she’ll take them down to display one of mine.”

This is why I should have gotten a fake teaching job at a normal school. One where the kids have never even heard of an interior decorator.

“Please, Aunt Hannah.” This is from Ellie who’s sitting with her hands clasped in front of her, her lower lip jutted ever so slightly out. I’ve seen her use this exact pose on her dad. Now I understand why he usually gives in.

“What’s the point of having a pottery wheel if we never use it?” Caroline asks, eyes wide. And oh my gosh , did these kids plan this ambush or something? I feel like a penguin that just came head to head with a pod of orcas—I’m not making it out of here alive.

And I know that’s a very random comparison, but the other thing I’ve been doing due to my lack of boyfriend/social life is watching way too much of the Discovery Channel.

Note to self: go to the karaoke bar tonight and hang out with Brooke. Rejoin civilization.

“I don’t know guys.” I flap my little penguin wings in one last attempt to escape. “There are eleven of you and we only have one wheel.”

“We can take turns,” the matriarch orca, AKA Agatha, suggests with a flick of her tail, AKA her long brown hair.

“Yeah!” her pod agrees and down I fall off my icecap: their penguin dinner.

The worst part of it all is that I actually bought a ton of clay last week, because apparently I’m a penguin who likes to live dangerously.

And now I’m all done with my penguin and orca analogy .

“Okay then,” I tell the kids, “let’s do this thing.”

It’s probably just because their enthusiasm is catching, but as I open the door and approach the wheel my heart rate kicks up and my fingertips start to tingle.

“First things first,” I tell the kids as they file into the tiny room after me, “we need to pick some music.”

They all start cheering, and I hear choruses of Taylor swift and Miley Cyrus. Weird how the music choices haven’t changed all that much since I was a teenager. I ignore them all and select my Adele album, because I’m on edge and her voice transports me to another world where I too can belt out my emotions and find reprieve.

I have all of the kids put on aprons, then slip my own apron over my head. Next I walk them through the process of readying the clay for the wheel. Wedging it to make it smoother, then weighing it to ensure we’re using the right amount for our wheel. I give them each a ball of clay to play around with as I demonstrate all of this.

“Now can you show us how to use the wheel?” Ellie asks as I take my ball of clay off the wheel.

Right. No more delays. It’s go time. And I am totally in control of my emotions. Sure, my ex told me I didn’t have what it takes to be a professional potter and that my work had only ever gotten noticed because of him, but these kids don’t know that. They’ll be impressed just by the clay spinning around on the wheel.

Inhaling deeply through my nose, I sink onto the stool, adjusting my posture so that my knees are level with the wheel. I squeeze some water onto the wheel then drop my clay in the middle.

“Getting the wheel just a little bit wet is important so that the clay will stick to it,” I tell the kids as the ball of my foot finds the pedal and presses gently down.

And then to my utter shame, I forget all about the kids in the room as the clay starts moving between my fingers and a year of built up tension slides out of my body.

I’m home.

I start humming along to Adele as I shape the clay, completely lost in my own world. To help center the clay more completely I start by squeezing it up, a process called coning. The clay rises between my fingers, forming a tall dome-like structure. I’m about to lift one hand to press the tower down, when my Adele record cuts off abruptly, startling me from pottery haze. My foot slips off the pedal the sudden stop making the clay jolt in place, the top leaning slightly to the side.

I look over to see Lexie Stone standing by my record player with a disapproving glare on her face. Worse, standing on her other side is Luke. Who’s wearing an inscrutable expression that I’d have to be a mind reader to figure out.

Gosh, I wish I could read minds. Or at least his anyway.

“What is going on in here?” Lexie demands. “Are you teaching the children to make phallic art?”

Phallic art? I turn back to my pottery. What is she talking—oh. Oh yes, I see what she means. The coning process followed by the abrupt stop of the wheel has in fact given the lump of a clay a distinctly, uh, phallic shape.

Oh my.

That’s not ideal.

Although, c’mon. Does she really think I’m showing the kids how to make clay penises? “Of course not,” I say, determined not to let Lexie get the best of me. I’ve done nothing wrong here. “I was doing a pottery wheel demonstration for them, and molding the clay into a cone-like shape is part of the process. It centers it and gets rid of any particles in the clay that could create bubbles.”

“If making pottery requires you to turn clay into such obscenely phallic shapes then perhaps our students shouldn’t be doing it.”

“It’s only a temporary shape,” I tell her. “I was just about to show them how to smush it back down into a nice round hump.” She winces at the word hump as if I’m speaking in innuendos. Maybe I could’ve used a different term, but really— she’s the one throwing around the word phallic.

“Temporary or not, I don’t like it,” Lexie sniffs. “Mia,” she addresses her daughter, who is sporting a look of mortification, “we have to go now. We’ll have a discussion later about whether or not you’ll be coming back to art club.”

“Mrs. Stone,” Luke speaks for the first time, “don’t you think you might be making a little bit of a mountain out of a molehill here?”

Oh gosh. It’s so sweet he’s sticking up for me. Which is why I absolutely cannot laugh. My lip twitches. Don’t do it, Hannah. Do not laugh at him trying to make your phallic pottery situation better by talking about a molehill being enlarged into a mountain. Do not laugh.

Luke’s eyes find mine, and I have to start coughing to cover my giggles. What am I twelve laughing at my earth science teacher saying Uranus? Although to be fair, usually the earth science teacher wouldn’t be laughing in that situation whereas… Luke is very clearly also trying not to laugh. He must’ve realized his word choice wasn’t the best given the, uh, obscene pottery.

Speaking of which–surreptitiously I attempt to smush the clay down. Lexie is busy sputtering at Luke about how she never overreacts to anything, so I’m able to do it without her noticing. At least until Agatha pipes up .

“Is Mrs. Stone upset because the clay looks like the poop emoji?” she asks, gesturing to my new creation. Which does in fact have the same shape as the poop emoji.

Eh, that’s better than a penis.

Which is why I quickly say, “Yup, that’s why she’s upset, but I’m just going to–” I press the clay even further in on itself and, thank goodness, now it just looks like a lump. “There we go,” I brush one hand against the other, “all fixed. No more poop emoji. Problem solved.”

The power of Lexie’s gaze on me draws my attention to her. “Hardly,” she sniffs. “Mia, let’s go.”

Mia looks as if she wants to protest but then thinks better of it as her mother’s hand latches onto hers, tugging her forward.

I swear the whole room sighs in relief when they’re gone.

“Can we go back to doing pottery now?” Ellie asks.

“Uh,” I look to Luke, hoping for some direction. He’s got a worry crease on his forehead, which I take as a no. “I think we’re going to take a break from pottery for now.” I check my watch. “But good news– we’ve still got about twenty minutes left to work on those wreaths.”

There are a few groans, but eventually they all file out the door leaving Luke and I alone .

“I’m so sorry about that,” I hurry to say, because even though I disagree with Lexie Stone I’m fully aware that her opinion trumps mine here at Grace Canyon. And probably Luke’s too, if I had to guess. I may have just created a huge headache for him. Or gotten art club canceled.

“Hey, no, not your fault,” he assures me.

“Maybe not,” I agree, “but I think we both know an angry Lexie Stone is a dangerous thing.”

Luke’s gaze latches onto mine. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll handle it.”

My stomach flutters. He’ll handle it. What does that mean? And why did it sound so sexy coming out of his mouth in his big deep voice?

He turns to go and my heart sinks a little. I want to ask him to stay for the rest of art club, but I’ve caused enough trouble for him this afternoon.

And it’s all pottery's fault. I knew starting again would only lead to trouble. I am never going to sit at another pottery wheel again.

Luke pauses in the doorway, looking back over his shoulder at me. “Oh and by the way,” he flicks a finger between me and the wheel, “watching you work the clay on the wheel just now…” he trails off and I see his throat move as he swallows hard. “Breathtaking,” he finally says. And then he’s gone. Leaving me breathless. I clutch a hand to my chest and try not to swoon.

Okay. Maybe I won’t completely write off pottery after all.