High Strung: A Glass Bead Mystery (The Glass Bead Mystery Series) (3 page)

As Judy released the earring
, I pulled away as fast as I could.

“
I did.” I figured if I kept my responses short, maybe Tessa and I could get out of here before we turned another year older.

“
Right, I’ve got Jax,” said Judy putting a giant checkmark next to my name. “Oh, Jax, we don’t have a studio name for you.”

I
’d never really thought about an official studio name before. I’d always just used my name, Jax O’Connell, Jacqueline if I was feeling especially formal or fancy.

“
Ladybug Beads,” I said, knowing immediately what the name should be. It was a spontaneous decision, but it seemed like a good choice: I named my studio after my car.

I
’d bought the car when I was getting ready to leave Miami. I’d gotten a huge final paycheck when I left my job at Clorox—they paid me for all of the vacation time I hadn’t used. Since I’d never taken a vacation, it was a sizable sum. I took a big chunk of money out of my bank account, and bought a new car, having decided I didn’t need the beat-up old Honda Civic anymore. I went to the VW dealership and bought my dream car: a brand-new red Volkswagen Beetle with a black ragtop, which I christened “The Ladybug” with a bottle of Diet Coke at the side of the road during my move to the Pacific Northwest.

Judy looked up from her clipboard, and recognized Tessa
.
“Aha! Now, let’s see. Fremont Fire. Got it,” Judy said, adding another checkmark on her list next to Tessa’s name.

“
We brought Dylan’s beads. He’s White Mountain Design,” Tessa said.

“
Okay. And a big fat checkmark for him,” Judy said. “Let me show you the exhibit area. You can set up your necklace on the pedestal, and then your beads for the projects can go directly below it, so customers can select what they want to buy for the weekend’s classes.”

The gallery was beautiful
, with its deep burgundy walls and its matte silver exhibition pedestals. The jewelry and beads were going to be displayed on the top of each of the waist-high columns. The gallery was located next to a big side window so passersby could look in at the displays. Rosie had done a nice job of making sure the lighting was perfect for the exhibit. Glass jewelry needs to be lit properly in order to show off its shine and transparency.

“
You’ve each got a display bust to put your necklace on.” Judy was speaking so fast she sounded like a tape recorder put on fast-forward. The faster she talked, the squeakier she was. “We have some other forms available if you need them—for instance, if you have a bracelet to display. I may make some adjustments to the displays, and of course, we’ll make sure everything stays safe and secure
.

“Jax, here is your pedestal.” Judy patted the top of it, and wiped off some invisible dust, leaving a small trail of moisture behind. “And Tessa, you and White Mountain, your pedestals are right over there,” she continued, pointing to the opposite wall.

“
I’m glad you are doing this weekend of workshops,” I said.

“
You mean Weekend of Education, Enlightenment and Design?” Judy sounded proud of the clever name she’d given the weekend’s events.

“
WEED?”

“
Yes. I thought it was great. You know—our knowledge grows and spreads like weeds? I thought about WED, but I didn’t want anyone to think this was a wedding-oriented event.”

Instead, I thought, people will think this is a pot-smoking event, and not a bead event. Great.

“Okie dokie!” said Judy, as she went off to find the next person on her list. Then she was gone, swallowed up by the crowd of people milling around in the shop.

“
Judy needs to work on her acronyms,” I said to Tessa.

“
What, you don’t like JOWL or WEED?”

“
I can say without a doubt that both are terrible, but I bet you can’t do better.”

“
I’m up to the challenge. How about New Ideas in Beads?

“
NIB? Not great.”

“
Beadmakers United, Teaching Together”

“
BUTT? The worst!”

“
Okay, okay…so maybe it’s not that easy.”

Rosie found me a little while later, wanting to smooth things out. She clearly realized we’d witnessed her outburst with Tracy, and hoped to show her friendlier side. She was holding a small dog in her arms.

“
This is Tito,” said Rosie proudly. Tito was a tiny mutt, who looked like he was part Chihuahua and part wolverine. He was all black with a white blaze across his head, right above his enormous bulging eyes. The tiny bone-shaped dog tag was the only thing adorable about this dog.

“
What kind of dog is he?” I asked.

“
Mezcla. In Spanish, it means a little bit of everything.”

I reached over to pet Tito, putting out my hand slowly so he could smell it. I
’m not a dog person, but I thought this was what you were supposed to do when you met a new dog.

“
Hi, Tito,” I said quietly.

“
RRRAAAFFF!!” barked Tito, as he snapped at my hand. Fortunately, I have fast reflexes, and was able to pull it away before he sunk any teeth into me.

“
Oh, Tito, you bad, bad boy!” said Rosie, although it didn’t seem she took this bad behavior seriously. With a chuckle, she set Tito down, and he ran off and up the inside staircase to Rosie’s apartment—or, possibly to snack on the digits of some other unwary customers.

“
Are you doing okay? Do you need anything?” Rosie asked with a smile, trying to continue her sweetness.

“
Everything is fine,” I said, as I finished setting up my pedestal.

“
Oh, this pedestal is all scratched up. It looks terrible. We need to fix that.”

“
It’s okay, Rosie. I don’t mind if it has a little scratch.”

“
Well, I mind. Very much.”

“
Judy!” Rosie shouted above the crowd that was forming around the snacks and coffee Judy had brought in. “Get over here.” There was no “please” in this request, and I could hear Rosie’s fingertips tapping impatiently on the top of the pedestal.

Judy came bustling over.
“Yes, hi, Rosie. How can I help?” Her gray hair completely flat against her head now, she dabbed at her forehead with a tissue. Judy definitely needed a break to cool down.

“
The pedestal you’ve given Jax looks unprofessional. It is all scraped up.” Rosie pointed to the scratch running down one side of the platform with disgust.

“
It seems okay to me,” said Judy with a tense smile.

I tried to back
up Judy. “Yes, you know, I didn’t even notice it.”

“
Okay is not acceptable,” Rosie said, in a rigid tone, seething with impatience.

“
No one is going to notice,” Judy said, through gritted teeth, as she took hold of the side of the pedestal.

“
It is terrible like this.” Rosie locked eyes with Judy as she positioned herself on the opposite side of the pedestal.

“
No, really, the jewelry is going to be fine on this display,” I said, as they each started pushing. I didn’t want my necklace crashing to the floor if the pedestal toppled over.

“
This is
my
shop, Judy, please remember that.”

Judy dropped her hands from the pedestal.
“I’ll take care of this later. I’ve got to get back to the inventory,” she said, with a weak smile.

I looked down at the ground, not wanting to make eye contact with Rosi
e. She had come to show her congenial side, but she’d only made things worse as I’d witnessed a new conflict. Rosie didn’t play well with others. I glanced up and she strained a smile.

“
You’ll take care of the pedestal with Judy later?”

“
For sure,” I said, with absolutely no intention of doing any such thing.

And Rosie stalked off.

Tessa and I
found Tracy a few minutes later, in her usual spot at the front counter.

“
Does Benny still want to have a sleepover tonight?” asked Tessa.

“
It’s all he’s been talking about all morning. He’s ready and waiting upstairs. I’ll go get him,” Trac
y
sai
d.
She headed up the inside stairs into the apartment. This was a great setup for Rosie’s family, with their apartment right above the shop.

Moments later
, Benny came down the stairs, his little red rolling suitcase covered in cartoon cars bumping right behind him. Tracy followed him down, carrying a similarly decorated sleeping bag, and a car seat. Benny was an absolutely adorable child, all pink cheeks and wavy blond hair. Someday he’d be a real lady-killer. For now, I was swooning from his cuteness.

“
Hi, Benny. I’m Joey’s mom. You remember me?” said Tessa, as she knelt down to his height. At four years old, he wasn’t yet a very big guy.

Benny stood back, staying close to Tracy as he watched Tessa closely.

“I ’member,” Benny said cautiously.

“
Great! Do you want to come to my house to play with Joey? This is my friend Jax, and she’s going to give us a ride. Okay?”

We all held our breath, waiting for Benny to decide if this was okay with him.

“Yep!” said Benny.

And with a great simultaneous sigh of relief, we all headed out the door with Benny and his gear. After
fifteen cuss-filled minutes, trying to figure out how to install Benny’s car seat in the back of the Ladybug, we were off. We stopped and picked up Ashley at Babylon. She slithered into the backseat next to Benny. He looked up at her expectantly, and smiled. Until that moment, Ashley had been looking glum, knowing, I am sure, that her older sister was out driving around alone in her mom’s van, while she was sitting next to a small boy and a couple of middle-aged women. Until that moment—when Benny smiled at her with his sweet grin, full of all of those lovely white baby teeth and his green eyes glinting in the sunlight. Just like me, Ashley couldn’t resist his smile.

Ashley grinned back at Benny.

“What’d you buy?” Tessa asked her daughter.

“
I got a record by Abba and one by Aerosmith.”

“
Those are pretty diverse choices,” I said. About the only thing these two bands had in common was that they both started with the letter “A” and they both were famous in the 1970s. Ashley seemed thrilled with her purchase.

“
So, how are you going to play them?” I asked.

“
Oh, well, yeah. I didn’t really think about that,” Ashley said. “Mom, do you have that old record player still?”

“
I do,” said Tessa, “but I think it needs a needle.”

“
Needle?” Ashley looked puzzled. She was used to all the new technology, full of tiny microprocessors and hard-drives. To her, playing CDs, let alone records, seemed old school.

“
Yes, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth—” Tessa jokingly began a long speech.

“
Yah, right, Mom, I get it,” Ashley said impatiently, having heard this kind of speech before from her mom.

When we got to Tessa
’s house in Ballard, her minivan was sitting in the driveway. I was glad to see that Izzy, and the minivan, had made it home in one piece.

“
Don’t forget about your ‘date’ with Allen tonight,” Tessa said, getting out of the car.

“
First, it is not a date. Second, I have not forgotten,” I said. “See you tomorrow morning. I promise to be early.”

I headed home to get ready for my “not a date.”

I’d promised Tessa that Allen Sinclair could interview me. He was one of the “lifestyle” writers for the
Seattle Times
and was writing an article about glass beadmakers in Seattle. I’d invited him over to my house so he could see the studio, and I could give him an introduction on using a torch to make beads. When we’d talked about it earlier in the week, Tessa had assured me that Allen wasn’t an ax-murderer.

“
He doesn’t look like he has ever murdered anyone with an ax,” said Tessa.

“
Well, just because he doesn’t
look
like an ax-murderer doesn’t mean he is
not
an ax-murderer. I mean, I am sure there have been actual ax-murderers who didn’t look like ax-murderers,” I said, trying to be logical about this.

“
Can you stop talking about ax-murderers? You are giving me the creeps.”

“
You brought it up,” I added huffily. In the week since that conversation, I’d been reading some of Allen’s articles on the
Times
website. I’d also been doing some searching, trying to find pictures of him online, known as ogling, instead of Googling.

I did my best to pick clothes that looked nice for the interview
rather than the usual jeans and t-shirt. I thought I needed to come across as professional, but also artistic. Usually I end up just wearing black. That way, I don’t have to worry about matching, and the dark color covers up those extra pounds of “studio butt” I’ve accumulated from sitting down every day working at the torch. Today’s ensemble: black jeans and a black tank top. I added a pop of color with a lime green cotton cardigan over the top. For the interview with Allen, I picked a short necklace made of nine flat lime green beads covered with black squiggles and dots. It fit perfectly at the neckline of the sweater.

I did a quick scan through
the house to make sure it looked okay, since Allen would be arriving soon. I washed a few dishes, grumbling that someday I’d have a new kitchen with a dishwasher, and cabinets I didn’t have to duct tape together to keep from falling apart. At least I had decorated them with cute zigzag-patterned duct tape. Then I wandered around, doing those things people do when waiting for someone to arrive. Plumping the pillows on the vintage green velvet sofa. Straightening the framed watercolors my nephew had painted. Putting out the ingredients for drinks later, if he wanted one. Picking up a piece of cat hair. Picking up another piece of cat hair.

Allen rang the doorbell
at seven o’clock. Right on time. I really had no idea what to expect. Googling had not turned up much in the way of photos, other than the official one on the
Times
website. Nice, but it was hard to tell how many years out-of-date it was. For all I knew, the guy on the other side of the door would be seventy years old with a potbelly.

The person who stood on the doorstep pleasantly surprised me
. Allen was on the shorter side, but at least taller than me. He had curly brown hair, dark brown eyes, and the most terrific smile ever, revealing a set of teeth that must’ve cost his parents a fortune in orthodontia. He was wearing a tweedy jacket, a white button-down shirt, cords, and some stylish leather boots. I always like to check out people’s shoes. You can learn a lot about a person by looking at what they wear on their feet. Me, I usually stick to clogs in the studio, Mary Janes for dress up, and sneakers for the rest of the time. I’m not sure what this says about me, other than I’m practical and like to be comfy. But, for Allen, his footwear meant he cared about how he looked, and he didn’t mind spending money to buy something that truly pleased him. He looked at little preppy, but that wasn’t the worst thing he could be. For instance, he could be an ax-murderer, but I doubted it. He was older than me, I thought, by a couple of years.

I realized I was so busy assessing him that I had not invited him in. I just stood there with my hand clutching the doorknob. Allen made a slight move toward me, figuring
, I suppose, if I weren’t going to invite him in, at least I wouldn’t stop him from barging in. That small movement helped me gain enough focus to remember what I needed to do next.

“
Oh, please come in!” I said, hoping he hadn’t noticed my momentary lapse of graciousness.

Allen stepped inside.
“Okay, let’s see.” I was flustered. I felt like I didn’t know what to do in my own house. Do I offer him a drink? Do I see if he needs to use the bathroom? Do I give him a tour?

“
Okay, let’s see,” I said again, feeling like a record stuck in a groove. My palms were feeling sweaty, and I ran them down the front of my jeans. Now wasn’t the best time to start having hot flashes. I was pretty sure it was just nervousness, and not hormones.

“
Would you like something to drink? I could make you a cocktail, but unfortunately, I can’t have one until after I show you a beadmaking demonstration. Even a small amount of alcohol ruins my small motor skills.” I realized I was babbling, and couldn’t seem to stop. “But if you—”

“
I’m fine, thanks,” Allen said with a smile. “Perhaps we can both have one after your demo.”

His smile helped calm me down. He seemed kind, and that was a good start.

“Down this hall at the very end is the studio. Let’s head on back,” I said, feeling more confident.

We entered
the studio and I was glad I’d spent time to clean it up last week. My workspace looked professional, not in utter chaos as it usually is.

I pulled out some trays of beads.
The best ones were sitting at Rosie’s right now, but these would give Allen an idea of what I made.

“
These are the beads I make using a process called lampworking.”

“
Lamp
working? I don’t see any lamps,” he said, looking around the studio.

“
Early glass beadmakers didn’t have the high-tech torches we use today that are powered by propane or natural gas, and oxygen,” I explained. “Instead, they used an oil lamp and bellows to make a flame that was hot enough to melt glass.”

“
Is it the same as flameworking?”

“
Exactly, and sometimes you’ll hear it called ‘torching,’” although that wasn’t my favorite way of describing the process. To me, “torching” sounded like what an angry mob of people with pitchforks would do once they reached the door of a bad guy’s house, in one of those old movies.

“I’ll give you an overview of what I’ve got here in the studio,” I said, looking around and trying to think of an organized way of presenting information to someone who didn’t know a thing about a topic with which I’m deeply knowledgeable.

I brought him over to
the workbench.

“
This is a torch attached to the table. It’s called a Minor Bench Burner. It gets hot—I mean really hot, over 2,000 degrees, which is why I can melt glass with it. See these long hoses? This one attaches to the house’s natural gas line.” I turned the lever to open the gas line. I was happy I’d spent the money to have natural gas piped back to the studio. It meant I didn’t have to bother with propane tanks.

“Natural gas, isn’t
it dangerous?” asked Allen. “What if it leaks?”

“Natural gas has no smell, but an odor is added to it so you
can tell if there’s a leak. Anyone who works with it, or with propane, knows that if they smell skunk, it is likely a gas leak.”

“What do you do if that happens?”

“Open the doors and windows, turn off the gas, and get out of the building quickly if the room is filled with it. In the worst case, a whole studio can go ‘Kaboom!’”

I’m sure I’d startled Allen at this point, and he looked around the studio casually to locate the closest exit.

“Here’s the oxygen tank that, along with the natural gas, gives the torch a super-hot flame.” I turned the knob on the tank’s regulator to pressurize the hose that fed the torch.

Allen took a few notes as I continued.

“And here’s my kiln,” I said flipping its switch to the ON position so it could heat up to a toasty 940 degrees.

“
Now, over here is the glass I use,” I said, taking Allen over to the stacked tubes full of different colored, pencil-thin glass rods that lined both sides of the table. “They come in a zillion different colors, both transparent and opaque. The colors of glass are amazing, and the combinations you can put together are endless.”

“
I can’t believe there are so many colors.” Allen bent down to get a closer look at the sticks of glass. “How can you choose what to use?”

“
It’s a challenge, but it’s also part of the fun. Why don’t you go ahead and pick a few different colors, and I’ll use them to make some beads for you. Okay?”

Getting visitors excited about glass by allowing them to choose their own colors always worked for the Girl Scouts, and I hoped it would work on grownup
s too.

“
Wow, a challenge. How do I pick?”

“
I’d pick—”

“
That was a rhetorical question,” he said coyly, while he studied the colors. “I’ll pick purple, blue, and green,” he decided pulling out a couple of glass rods of each of those colors and handing them to me.

“
Nice choice.”