The Sweetness of Salt(45)

“Okay, wait,” Aiden said. “You can’t just set it down all dainty like that. It’s got to be attached to the wheel. Really stuck on. Pick it up and try again. And this time, bring your arms up and really fling it down. Use your whole body.”

“Fling it down?” I repeated. “Won’t I break the wheel?”

He shook his head. “Nope. It’s built for that.”

I tried to remember the last time I had flung anything anywhere. Maybe a sneaker when I was learning to tie my shoes? The action was so foreign to me that just thinking about slamming the clay down on the wheel made me giggle.

“Come on!” Aiden said. “You can do it! Throw it!”

I lifted my hands tentatively. Bit my lip. Stared at the black marker in the middle of the wheel. And then I let my arms fall, hard. The clay hit the wheel with a dull thudding sound—and then stayed there.

“Awesome!” Aiden said. “Perfect. Now step on the pedal, get her started.”

The wheel moved much faster than I expected it to, and I shrieked as the clay began to wobble back and forth. “Lighten up on the pedal,” Aiden encouraged me. “And lean in with your whole body so you can get that clay in the middle of the wheel. There’s nothing pretty about this process, so don’t worry about looking all graceful or anything. Lean in. Give it your whole weight.”

He let me go through the process three times. Three times I flung the clay on the wheel and bent over it, trying desperately to push—and then keep—the clay into the center. Three times I failed.

But as I walked back to Sophie’s place a little later, I couldn’t help but smile.

The clay had a mind of its own. I could respect that.





chapter


32


It was early the next week by the time we finished priming the walls inside, and we were halfway through scraping paint on the outside. We worked until early evening on Tuesday, sanding and cleaning the floor. Walt had loaned Sophie his electric sander, which cut most of the work in half, but Sophie insisted that I do the corners with a small piece of regular old sandpaper. By the time the shadows outside had begun to lengthen and the sun had fallen behind the trees, my fingers were so sore I wondered if they would remain attached if I used them to do anything else.

“Why did you ask those Table of Knowledge guys to stop helping you again?” I asked, struggling to my feet.

“Because I want to do this on my own,” Sophie answered. “I like doing things on my own. Come on, let’s get something to eat and hit the hay. We’ve done a lot today. You tired?”

“Tired?” I repeated. “Try exhausted.”

She punched me lightly in the arm. “You’ll be okay after a good night’s sleep. Let’s find some grub.”

In my opinion, Sophie’s kitchen was the best thing about the whole house. With three brick walls—one of which framed a floor-to-ceiling window—real marble countertops (which Jimmy had found in a quarry), upper and lower cupboards, and a wooden pot rack dangling from a length of chain from the ceiling, there was not much else that needed changing. Sophie said she and Jimmy were still thinking about tearing out most of the cupboards to make room for another oven, but that was still up for debate. Now, she opened and shut the cupboard doors, looking for something to eat. “What do you feel like? I can make some pasta, some macaroni and cheese…”

I dropped down heavily on top of a stepladder that was propped against one of the brick walls, and leaned my head back. “Anything’s fine. I don’t know if I even have the strength to chew.”

“I wish I knew how to cook better.” Sophie scanned the contents of another cupboard and then shut the door. “I can bake you into the grave, but ask me to put together a chicken dinner, and I wouldn’t know where to start.”


“Then just bake something. We don’t have to have a dinner-dinner. I’ll eat anything.” I watched through the window as a baby squirrel made its way up the trunk of a large oak tree next to the house.

“Yeah?” Sophie put her hands on her hips. “Okay, then. You feel like some biscuits?” I didn’t have to answer. She had already rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and was grabbing flour, baking powder, and salt out of the cupboard. She measured them into a bowl, reached for a pinch of salt and tossed it in. Next, she cut up a stick of cold butter into neat little cubes, poured in a measuring cup of milk, and mashed the whole thing in between her fingers, pressing and turning it inside the bowl. After a few minutes, she dropped a small, round mass of dough onto the flour-sprinkled marble countertop and began pushing it with the heels of her hands.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Kneading,” Sophie said. She lifted one shoulder, brushing a piece of hair out of her face. “You have to do this to make it soft and pliable. Otherwise the biscuits come out sort of dumpy.”

“Dumpy?” I repeated.

“Yeah, like big hunks of Play-Doh.” She rolled her hands against the now baby-smooth mound, pulling it back with her fingers. “You gotta give it some love, you know? Get all the rough edges out by pulling it a little this way, and then pulling it a little that way. You’ll see.”

My exhaustion faded as I watched my sister work. It was exactly the way I remembered, when I used to sit on the step outside the kitchen at home. Sophie’s fingers flew over and under and then on top of the dough. Finished with the kneading, she pulled and stretched it into a circle, and then started rolling it with a pin. When she got it to a thickness that she seemed to like, she dipped the rim of a water glass into some flour, then pressed it down into the dough, forming small, perfect circles. She brushed each biscuit with a coat of melted butter, and finished with a sprinkling of sugar, then placed the tray in the oven. Her confidence and the way she knew her way around her ingredients filled me with awe all over again.