Page 37 of The Five Year Lie

He immediately turns toward another raging fire, this onecovered by a sheet of metal except for a six-inch circle in the center. “I can’t believe you really call this thing a ‘glory hole,’” he says with a chuckle.

“You already owe a dollar to the dick joke jar,” she says.

“The... what?”

She points at a handblown jar on one of the studio’s cluttered surfaces. There’s a sharpied sign taped to the front:DICK JOKES $1 PER OFFENSE. “We’ve heard them all before, soldier. And spin that faster, or it will droop.”

“Yes ma’am. Wouldn’t want it todroop.” He spins the blob of glass on the end of the pipe and falls, if possible, a little further for her.

“Now we’re going to shape the mouth,” she says, and he bites back yet another inappropriate comment.

God, the things he wants from her mouth.

But there’s no time for daydreaming. Ariel attaches a metal rod to the opposite end of his work. Then she uses an ordinary metal file dipped in water to cleanly break the blow pipe off his glass object. Like magic.

She hands the piece back to him on the metal pole. It looks like a lumpy little shot glass now. “Back to the glory hole. Then we shape the neck.”

Fifteen sweaty minutes later, she’s helped him use an oversized set of tweezers to bully the rim of the tiny cup into shape. Using more of her trickery, Ariel breaks the piece off the rod and then uses an honest-to-god flamethrower to smooth out the bottom.

With the fire in her hand and a frown on her face, she looks like an avenging angel. His heart can’t take it.

When she’s finally satisfied, she grabs the tiny cup with a flameproof glove and opens the door of the annealing oven, where finished pieces rest. She sets his piece down beside the one she dashed off to instruct him, and he howls with laugher.

“What?”

“Lookat them.” He can’t stop laughing. One cup is smooth and symmetrical, curved to fit into the hand. Like a frozen teardrop. It’s the kind of thing a fine restaurant would produce if you order a shot of twenty-five-year-old whiskey.

The other is a thick-sided, misshapen disaster. A lump of glass with a volcanic hole in it.

Ariel removes her safety goggles with a smile. “Everyone starts somewhere. Now find me some ice cream. I’m desperate.”

They’re too sweaty for a real restaurant. So dessert is two milkshakes from the Duckfat take-out window, sipped at a picnic table.

“Show me some of your real work,” he demands as they trade milkshakes for a taste test. Hers is banana cheesecake, and his is strawberry. “I want to see what a professional can do.”

“Is this, like,Hey, baby, show me your sketches?” she asks, handing back his milkshake. The cup is considerably lighter than it was a minute ago.

“Maybe,” he says, his voice husky. “I think I have a competence fetish.”

Her laugh is joyful as she pulls out her phone. “I’m still an apprentice. But these are my current obsession—I’m making goblets. The shape is sort of medieval.”

He basically moans when he sees the photo—three beautiful glasses with broad tops that taper elegantly to a decorative base and a flared foot. The shape is historic, but the clear glass lends them a contemporary vibe. And they’re nearly identical. “How long does it take you to make these?”

“On a good day I can produce two or three. Each one of those sections of the base is another trip to the furnace. And most of my studio time is spent assisting Larri. She blows light fixtures for sale—that’s her bread and butter. For fun she makes elaborate bongs.”

“Artists are a good time,” he says, knocking her elbow with his.

“You know it. My father can’t figure out why I’d want to ‘waste my life’”—her fingers are air quotes—“in the studio, when I could learn to be just like him. He expends a lot of energy trying to think up ways to motivate me.”

“You’re plenty motivated,” he says. “How many hours have you spent making glass?”

“Thousands? Nobody ever said trust funds weren’t handy.” She props her hand on the picnic table and meets his gaze. Her hair is escaping its confines, and there’s a smudge of ice cream on her overalls. But all he can see is her bright, intelligent smile.

He’s never spent any time with rich girls. He assumed that privilege made people shallow. But she’s just the opposite—unflinching and unapologetic. And utterly addictive.

And still a terrible idea. She can’t help him do what he came to Portland to do. She can only get in the way.

That doesn’t explain why he leans in and kisses her right there. She tastes like strawberry ice cream and bad decisions.