"My, we have an edge to our tongue today, don't we?"
"Pay no attention. This is 'I Hate Men Week.' Join me?"
"I'm not big on causes."
"At least that one? Well, that's a relief. I'd a notion things might be sticky in that department for you."
Mirelle smiled reassuringly. "There're always times."
"Hmmm," and the monosyllable was knowing as Mirelle brought the Sprite to a halt in the driveway. "I'll finish making coffee. I've only had one quart today."
Mirelle went back to her pig work and, when Sylvia brought down the coffee tray, they both admired her efforts.
"Now," said Sylvia with a drawl, cocking her head at the pig, "if it had jowls, an unshaven appearance and a more sardonic expression…"
"The very idea!" Mirelle leapt to the storage box and extracted a wad of clay. "To help Margaret, I'll make a Howell pig to remind him of how difficult he is."
"This I gotta watch."
"I used to make little animals for the children when they were sickabed. I developed a series of beasties, usually with obnoxious expressions, and just gave them hideous colors. Nick would be a blue mule when he wouldn't take his medicine. Roman was a yellow ostrich. He always burrowed under the sheets to avoid a shot."
"Can't say as I blame him. Nor would Howell."
Mirelle laughed, remembering his complaint. "The kids would play with the animals in bed, before I broke down and permitted TV in the house."
"Are there any left?" Sylvia peered at the back of the storage shelves.
"No. They were just hardened clay and friable. In fact, the kids used to smash them in victory when they got well."
"How quickly can you work?" Sylvia asked, her eyes dancing.
"Depends…" and she lifted the pig explanatorily. "This will take only a few minutes but I used to do a lot of such things."
"Because… you know what you might do for your church booth? Turn out small busts of the children there. Could you do a rough one in say fifteen minutes?"
"Well, yes, I could," and Mirelle's admission was reluctance itself, "but that isn't the way I like to work."
"Work, schmurk," Sylvia said derisively. "You could charge… how much does the clay cost in a piece that size?"
"A few pennies only. Firing runs the price up."
"Don't fire. I'm sure you'd sell a lot. You probably wouldn't have time to pee. The previous minister at your church used to do quick charcoal sketches for a dollar a pose at the Bazaar and he could've had all the portrait work he could handle."
"Sylvia, I just don't work that way."
"I know, I know. But I was thinking that the exposure might lead to more commissions of the kind you do want. I just hate to see your light under a barrel."
Mirelle laid a light admonitory finger on Sylvia's hand.
"I appreciate your partisanship but kindly remember that I have placed sculpture in a few museums."
"So you've told me. But you'd better start doing more. Look, Mirelle," and Sylvia warmed to her subject, "your kids are growing up. Soon they'll not see you for small potatoes unless you yourself are something. They'll go off to college and you'll be left with nothing to do in this big house. You're not an organization type like June Treadway and you're not politically oriented like me. You're an artist and you're going to have to create a market for yourself and find an outlet… Oh, God in Heaven, where's my memory?" Sylvia slapped her forehead in exasperation. "If 1 were more dense…"
"What are you talking about."
Sylvia leaned forward eagerly. "I haven't seen him for years, but Mason Galway and I were very friendly at one time. He now runs a very exclusive gallery in Philadelphia…"
"Sylvia, thanks, but there just isn't much demand for sculpture…"
"I keep telling you, you create your own demand. Make it a status symbol to own a Martin…" Sylvia noticed the change in Mirelle's expression. "What did I say now?"
"For one thing, I don't use Martin professionally."
"So?" Sylvia eyed her friend quizzically.
Mirelle got up and walked over to the window, scrubbing the adhered clay from her palms into a little scrap.
"Sylvia, one reason I don't aggressively seek commissions is because of the trouble it causes with my in-laws. Steve's parents."
"What trouble?" Sylvia's tone invited the full story, and Mirelle knew that evasions would not suffice.
"They don't understand about Ahrt, and they certainly have never understood my propensity for mucking about with kindergarten goo."
"All the more reason why a few respectable sales will make them change their tune. Nothing like money to sway the middleclass mind."
"It's not that, Sylvia. You see, I had established a little reputation as Mary Ellen LeBoyne and then my father died."
"Skeletons in your family closet?" Sylvia was delighted.
"Me."
"You?" Sylvia snorted. "You?" her tone was incredulous.
"My mother was an opera singer, Mary LeBoyne. She married a rich, if untitled, Englishman, Edward Barthan-More in 1920. She never gave up singing. In the spring of 1926, she sat for her portrait, as Tosca actually, for Lajos Neagu, an artist much in vogue in Vienna at the time. I was an unexpected bonus."
Sylvia's eyes widened dramatically in surprise at Mirelle's quiet disclosure.
"Barthan-More was terribly conscious of family honor and dignity…"
"Good old Victorian upbringing, no doubt."
"He permitted me to be raised as his child, although he never allowed Mother to have me baptised in the family church." Mirelle grimaced. Barthan-More's stricture had hurt Mary LeBoyne, a staunch Anglican. It had been one of the many mean little ways the man had had of revenging himself under the guise of magnanimity. "I was a blonde baby and there were blue eyes in the family. Unfortunately," and Mirelle tapped one cheekbone, "by the time I was six, it was painfully apparent that I was a… changeling."
Sylvia's face darkened with irritation for the unknown Barthan-More.
"In English families of his rank, no child is allowed out of the nursery so I was conveniently kept out of sight of the relatives. I was, however, permitted to accompany my mother when she sang on the Continent because it meant my Nanny had to go along." Mirelle could hear the change in her voice as she mentioned Nanny.
Sylvia caught the harshness. "How convenient to have an indispensable sort of spy."
"Yes, but despite her, Mother and I were very happy together. We could forget her at concerts and rehearsals. Nanny had no ear for music."
"A distinct handicap for an eavesdropper."
"Nothing to eavesdrop on." Mirelle shook her head sadly. "Mother never sought Neagu. Nor any other man."
"Pity!"
"I agree but I think she'd made a bargain with Barthan-More for my sake. At any rate, I never remember her speaking to anyone or of anyone. Backstage, she was known as the Untouchable, or the Icy Irishwoman."
"And all for one small fall from virtue." Sylvia let out a dramatic sigh. "Thank God I saw the light of day in enlightened times. So what happened to part the charming twosome?"
"The war," Mirelle replied with a shrug, "and me growing old enough to attend public school."
"Looking more and more Hungarrrrian?"
"Yes, and Barthan-More getting nastier and meaner. When the bombing started, my mother's dearest friend and former dresser, Mary Murphy, wrote from the States, offering to take me. Mother accepted."
"And…"
"Barthan-More bought a one-way ticket."
"He would."
Mirelle broke the clay fragment in two pieces. "Thirteen months later, Mother was killed in an air raid, singing to the wounded."
She couldn't help the tears that welled up in her eyes. Sylvia's small square hand patted hers gently.
"So you spent the rest of your childhood happily in the States?"
"Yes, with Murph. Five wonderful years."