A good crowd of women was already wandering around the booths in the halls. Mirelle chuckled at the sight of the colorful smocks, bows and berets. Under the circumstances indeed! As she got to her booth, set in the far corner by the stage, Mirelle noticed that quite a few of the figures were already gone. The pretty young girl who was also working in her booth was busy wrapping a purchase. Would the Martins also consider her shameless?
"Hi, there Mirelle, your Dirty Dicks are a hit," Patsy greeted her. She leaned across the booth to the purchaser and said in a mock confidential tone, "This is the sculptress… or are you a sculptor, Mirelle?"
"Either," Mirelle replied, conjuring a smile for the customer.
"I'd've sworn you'd used my nephew as a model if I didn't know he was in California," the woman said, cradling the Dirty Dick carefully in her arm. "This is just him to the life."
"Which one did you choose?"
"The Sunday school clothes one. I'm sending it to my sister. That is," she added hastily, worried, "if it's safe to ship?"
"The figure's been hard-fired so it should be all right if you pack it in styrofoam. And label it 'fragile'. "
"Are these more?" the woman asked curiously, noticing Mirelle stacking the blocks of clay.
"That's what the sign is all about," Patsy answered. She'd obviously just been waiting for an opening. "Mrs. Martin is going to do small busts of anyone who wants to sit for her."
"Really?" The woman was definitely interested. "I'd love to have one of my daughter. She's nine."
"At that age they can usually sit still… with some judicious bribery," Mirelle said, smiling.
"Do I make an appointment?"
"No, just bring the child in when you can."
"I might just do that very thing. After school. Oh, I'm so excited by the thought," and she walked off, murmuring to herself.
Such gushing could become wearing, Mirelle thought. Ah, well, all in the line of duty. She assembled her tools, put a block of clay on the board and sat down, looking about her, and realizing for the first time today that she was already tired by the emotional strain of dealing with the Martins.
Mirelle glanced up at the shadow-box shelves where her smaller finished pieces were displayed. She had acceded to the demands of Jamie and Sylvia. The yellow velvet did show off the horse, the latest pose of Tasso, the bronze pig borrowed from Tonia ("only to be shown, Mother, not sold or anything"), and on the top shelf, the face hidden by the shadow of the helmet, the Soldier. On a pedestal was the Running Child, backed by a vivid red velvet swag. Should she have risked the unfinished Lucy? No, but this assembly of her output for the last ten years didn't make much of a showing, no matter what the circumstances. Considered dispassionately, the head of James Howell and the Lucy were her most impressive work to date.
Patsy had ceased rearranging the displays of the Dirty Dicks, the Christmas creche animals and the mugs which Mirelle had thrown for the Bazaar. Now she stood, listening to the conversation on the Apron Line that was strung across the stage, perpendicular to their booth. For lack of something more constructive, Mirelle started to carve Patsy's features from the clay rectangle. She glanced at her watch to have a time check on sculpting a credible likeness.
"Do hold still, Patsy," she called as the girl started to turn.
"Ooo," Patsy squealed, "I'm being done."
"Patsy, just look back at Aprons. For a moment more. Fine. Now, if you'll just turn and let me have the full face…"
Mirelle was only peripherally aware that a small crowd had gathered. She could feel their presence and hear their muted whisperings.
"Oh, I'd no idea you were doing me, Mirelle. Oh, this is thrilling. I was just talking to Ann Mulholland in Aprons and when I started to move, Mirelle told me to stop."
Mirelle permitted a very small gentle sigh for Patsy's exuberant chatter but the work reabsorbed her and she forgot about the ceaseless babble that drifted harmlessly over her head, pausing only when Mirelle asked the girl to turn.
"Would a piano stool help?" June Treadway quietly asked at Mirelle's elbow.
"Indeed it would," and Mirelle gave her a quick smile of gratitude.
A moment later June installed a giggling Patsy on the claw-footed, swivel-topped stool. Mirelle could now reach over and turn the model whichever way was required. Finishing the little bust, Mirelle held it up for inspection.
"No, please don't handle it," Mirelle said, as Patsy reached eagerly for it. "The clay is still malleable. It'll need a chance to harden." She put it on one of the shadow box shelves and pulled a corner of the velvet behind it.
"Oh, that's so… so me," Patsy crowed, her pretty face glowing with pleasure. To Mirelle's astonishment, the girl hugged her in an excess of gratitude. "I'm just so thrilled. Wait til my Pete sees me." Then she turned to the watchers. "Now that you've seen what Madame Michelangelo can do, who'll be next?"
Mirelle smothered a laugh at the girl's instinctive salesmanship.
"I think I'd like my children done," said a woman, stepping forward from the crowd. "How long does it take?"
Mirelle made a face for forgetting to check the time. "About twenty minutes," she said in a quick approximation. "I don't like to work so quickly. I have to warn you, too, that there's a danger of losing the detail if the soft clay gets knocked about."
"For two dollars, it's all in a good cause."
"Could you do my baby?" A younger woman pushed through the crowd with an eighteen month old boy.
"If you can keep him still long enough," Mirelle replied, a little dubious. The child was already squirming in his mother's arms.
"I will!" the mother replied grimly and sat down on the stool.
Three people crowded the booth too much so the stool was placed between the stage and the booth and Mirelle proceeded with the sitting.
The baby wiggled, squirmed, bawled and fussed but Mirelle kept on doggedly, and though the result did not please her, the mother professed to be delighted. She readily agreed to leave the clay in the booth until it had hardened.
From then on, Mirelle was kept so busy that coffee brought to her turned lukewarm before she could take more than a sip. Though she could see gross flaws in the execution, everyone seemed so pleased, she abandoned self-deprecation.
Tonia arrived with Nick in tow and they both begged money for the food display and the Trade-a-Toy table. Roman rambled in later, quite willing to stand and watch her working. Nor was he in any way embarrassed for he announced to any cronies who wandered by that the lady sculpting was HIS mother.
Mirelle found that she was cutting her time down to 15 minutes with children. Then Patsy had an inspiration and gave out hastily printed numbers so that people could wander around to other booths until their number was called. If they didn't answer, one presumed they had gone home and she went on to the next number.
"We need more sculptures," Patsy said once to Mirelle in a fierce whisper. "I've sold nine of the Dirty Dicks and there's all of tomorrow to go as well as tonight. What'll we do if we run completely out?"
"Take orders."
"Now why didn't I think of that?" Then she sniffed hugely. "Doesn't that roast beef smell heavenly?"
"Now that you mention it, it does," and Mirelle paused to rub shoulders, stiff from her concentrated efforts. "I hadn't realized how hungry I was getting." As she rotated her shoulder blades to ease the muscles, she turned half towards the door and saw Steve entering with his parents. She bent to her table. She'd managed to forget all about that problem and resented its intrusion now.