The Lake of Dreams - Kim Edwards [28]
This process was mesmerizing to watch, and was going on in various stages all through the room. The tour guide announced that there would be time for questions in a few minutes, and that afterward we’d be given a chance to blow glass, if we wished.
It was only then, when he plunged the blowpipe back into a vat of water, his motions fluid and precise amid the sudden burst of steam, that I realized the person breathing shape into the glass was Keegan. Yes, there was the triangular scar above his elbow, and those were his hands, emerging now from the heat-resistant gloves, steady and strong; hands that had curved around the handles of the motorcycle, hands that had slipped beneath my jacket on cold spring nights and traveled across my skin.
Keegan had been a tense and disaffected teenager, attractive in a brooding way, but now he moved with an easy sureness, comfortable with the ongoing dance of the workers and raging fires, calling out directions to the apprentices. The rebel with his leather jacket and his silence and his sweet, crooked smile was gone, it seemed, but the feelings I’d had for him all those years ago surged up as if I’d never left, never gone to college and graduate school and traveled the world.
Keegan took off his goggles and approached our group. His arms were muscled from all the work with glass. He was leaner than I remembered, and he seemed taller, too. I watched, fascinated, as he gestured to the furnaces and equipment, answering questions, but I wasn’t really paying attention to anything he said. Instead, I was remembering how it always was with us, Keegan waiting in the shadows of the parking lot while I locked the sandwich shop and stripped off the plastic gloves, the orange and brown polyester uniform. While I scrubbed away the smell of ham, the grease and salt of chips, while I shook my hair free from the hairnet and slipped into my jeans, a tank top, my black leather jacket. I crossed the parking lot and straddled the motorcycle, pressing the length of me against the length of him as we took off into the night.
People started lining up to take their turn at glassblowing, but I held back, watching. One by one, Keegan helped them each create an iridescent sphere. These were set aside to cool, and then the tourists were guided out through the gift shop. Finally, I was sitting alone. The assistant, a young woman dressed in a rust-colored coverall, her dark red hair cut short and her cheeks flushed from the heat, came over.
“Sorry, but we’re about to take a lunch break,” she said. “The gift shop stays open, though. You might want to check it out. There’s some great stuff.”
“Actually, I was hoping to say hello to Keegan. He’s an old friend. I haven’t seen him in years. If he has a minute?”
She studied me for a second before she nodded and turned, her gestures nimble and precise, stepping between the equipment to where Keegan stood by the furnace. When she pointed in my direction he looked up, nodded, wiped his hands on a cloth he’d pulled from his back pocket. I could tell he hadn’t recognized me, and I wondered if I’d changed that much. A few feet from the railing he paused and really took me in, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners.
“Lucy?” he said, his smile deepening. “Lucy Jarrett. Wow. What a surprise. What’s it been—a million years?”
“Hey there,” I said. So much time had passed that it was a shock as well as a pleasure to hear his voice. I felt it straight through my body, head to toe. “How are you, Keegan? How have you been?”
He stepped over the railing and sat