Read Online Life's a Beach by Claire Cook - Free Book Online Page B

worked for this particular Boston rental car company had, like me, been told they were management track. And that I’d only moved Boyfriend and me into my parents’ garage apartment as a temporary thing until I could afford something more appropriate with my soon-to-be manager’s salary, but now it looked like I’d be there until I came up with something else to do. Or until hell froze over, whichever came first.

    Already I could see that Noah was one of those rare people who listened with full attention. His eyes didn’t dance around over my shoulders, on the lookout for something more interesting. When I finished, he picked up a paperweight, deep blue with an explosion of raised yellow swirls that reminded me of Van Gogh’s
Starry Night
. “What if you started making something?” he asked. He made it sound so easy.

    “Like what?” I asked.

    “I don’t know. Whatever interests you.” He handed me the paperweight, and I considered it like a crystal ball.

    “Too intimidating,” I said, though I was tempted by a quick vision of Noah’s sweaty arms wrapped around my sweaty body as he taught me everything he knew. “But how did you choose glassblowing?”

    Noah shook his head. “My father wanted me to be an accountant, but one summer I took a glassblowing workshop. Then I went back to school in the fall and figured out I could earn as much making bongs as I could putting on a suit.”

    I searched his table for drug paraphernalia.

    He laughed. “Don’t worry. I’ve become almost gentrified since college. But I still love glassblowing. It’s the greatest thing I could imagine doing. It’s my life.”

    Judging by the new Honda Element we loaded everything into, it looked like it must be pretty lucrative, too. At least by my standards. Or maybe he had a trust fund. “Can you make a living at it?” I asked.

    “Yeah,” he said. “If you work seven days a week and don’t sleep a lot. I mean, I’d do it for free, but it’s a lot more gratifying to make money at it. Plus, my dog likes to eat.”

    “You’d really do it for free?”

    “Sure. That’s the way it has to be. If you’re not really into something, you don’t put the time in, so you don’t get good at it. Passion is the key to everyone’s gifts.”

    I tried to remember that, so I could write it down later. Noah and Sage and I started walking along the street toward the water. Noah showed me a secluded little shelf of rocks between the big town pier and some private docks. As we climbed down there, I wondered if I should be more worried about the possibility of him being an artistic serial killer.

    But we just sat crimelessly on the rocks and looked out at the ocean, which was that really rich shade of blue it reaches before it gets dark out. Some early evening sailing was still going on just past the mouth of the harbor, and closer to me I could feel electricity dancing between us.

    Noah gestured with his head and said, “Look.” On the far side of the harbor, an amazing orangey pink sun hovered just over the lighthouse. We watched it sink slowly behind the tip of the lighthouse and peek out around the sides. Then, all of a sudden, it burst through the glass part of the lighthouse and lit the whole thing up, as if someone had flipped a switch. We watched without moving until it dropped behind the lighthouse and the light went out.

    I turned to look at Noah, and he was smiling as if he’d made it happen just for me.

    “Thanks,” I said, just in case.

    He laughed. “You’re welcome. But I’m not sure I can take full credit. My magic days are over.”

    “You were a magician?” I asked, mostly just to keep him talking.

    “I was pretty geeky all right, but I think I drew the line at magic tricks. I spent most of my formative years playing Dungeons & Dragons. Do you know what a larper is?”

    I was back in serial killer fantasyland again, and I took a moment to visualize my escape route just in case I needed one.