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With that, I moved so that he could go to the dining room table. It seemed that he had no intention of joining me upstairs, which is what I had originally hoped he’d do.
“Let me grab everything from upstairs,” I said. “It might take me a minute to get everything.”
“Make the trip safely,” Jesse said.
It was the first time he’d said anything about safety to me. And I chose to believe that this was the start of a turning point in our relationship. Perhaps we wouldn’t end up being good friends, as I had originally hoped we would, but this at least meant that he was learning to open up to me. That I generally meant him no harm. What harm came about was because we couldn’t seem to communicate to save our lives.
I quickly hurried upstairs. There, I gathered the bracelets and earrings I had finished. I also grabbed my sketch book and my colored pencils. Sometimes, the best way to see a design was to sketch it out before I started putting beads together.
Chapter seventeen
Seventeen: Jesse
When Jade returned, I had finished my cookie. I appreciated that she had made something, but I hoped she hadn’t felt like she’d had to bake something in order to talk to me. However, when she started setting everything down on the table, I wondered why she had brought both actual jewelry and what she had sketched. Was she hoping that she could find another color scheme if I was sitting beside her? Helping her with the colors?
As much as I appreciated that she might have been on that path, I was learning that I needed to stop assuming things about Jade. So, I waited patiently for her to say anything about what she had brought down.
“Sorry,” she started. “I can be a little scatter-brained. As long as the clients don’t know that I’m this scatter-brained, they don’t realize just how much work goes into what I create. Now, here are some of the ones I’ve already made. And I’m hoping that we could come up with some better color schemes together. I’d hate for all of the fire fighters to be struggling to get a look at my booth. They all looked rather intrigued when we shared that we sell exclusively hand-made items.”
I looked at the jewelry she had brought down. It seemed that she had decided to tone down the beading for these because they were rather simple designs. These looked a lot better than the designs she had had on display in the shop.
“I already like the simplistic designs better,” I said. “I think jewelry looks best when it’s simple, and it accents your beauty or outfit instead of being so loud that all you can look at is the jewelry.”
Jade looked at me, her eyebrow raised. However, there was a hint of a blush on her cheeks that I noticed. Unbidden, I noted how pretty her face looked. I shook myself, I needed to stay focused. I owed it to her. Especially after I had practically blown up at her over asking me questions. I needed to show her that I respected her. Respect, after all, was given freely if it had been earned.
I hoped I would earn her respect if I showed her that I was willing to respect her feelings in the way I wished mine to be respected.
“How did you come to that conclusion?” she asked.
“I’ve met a lot of women who believe that the jewelry they wear should be the only thing you look at in an outfit – whether that’s a ring, a necklace, a bracelet, earrings, a watch, or some combination thereof – because it’ll keep a man’s eyes off of the rest of the outfit.”
“Well,” Jade smiled. It was a good smile. “Women tend to dress for themselves. If a woman you know has taken precautions to make sure eyes are drawn to her wrists or her neck instead of somewhere else, you should probably let her make that choice and not ask questions about why she’s decided that’s the best practice,” Jade started. “But, I’m glad you like the simplistic designs. I do, too. I thought they suited this idea better than the ones I usually do. And doing some earrings shaped like tiny flames felt like a bad idea to me.”
I nodded slowly. I guess she hadn’t really wanted to glorify fire with her jewelry. Tiny flames on earrings felt like a good idea if she was raising money for fire awareness. Something along the lines of ‘here’s a fire you can touch’ teaching with children.
“How long does it take you to make a pair of earrings like this?” I held up one of the earrings she had brought down.
It was clearly for those with pierced ears, as the post was more of a clamp that happened to go through the hole in the ear. Much like antique earrings, I supposed. I wondered why she had chosen to make it like this instead of adding a simple post on the back. Then again, this earring was somewhat heavy in my hand. Maybe a post wouldn’t have held the weight of the earring very well at all, while this clamp-like design seemed sturdier. It couldn’t fall out easily.
“It takes me about an hour to bead a pair like that,” she revealed. “I could even do it just watching television. The biggest labor piece with those is sewing them to the felt and making sure I leave enough room for the posts.” She shrugged. “I don’t make them very often because I prefer to stock unique pieces. But for a fundraiser where I don’t have time to make the unique pieces, these work well enough. I can make a lot while you’re away.”
I nodded slowly.
The bracelets and necklaces she had available for me to look at on the table all had strands of single colors. Either the bracelets were sold as a set, or she was planning to sell them separately. Some of the necklaces looked as though they were actually a fire burning with the effect of the light coming through the glass. It was unnerving to me.
“What’s your favorite design? I could use that again, but with different colors,” Jade said as I continued looking. “These glass beads always look so pretty against the skin. The skin, depending on what color it is, can darken the colors or make them a little lighter. Either way, they shine brilliantly under most lighting.”
I nodded slowly at that remark. I could see why she would be using the glass beads for the fundraiser, then.
“I think these are,” I said as I pulled the bracelet, necklace, and earring that I liked most out of the chaos around us. “They’re simple but really pretty. You know, if you did them in hues of blue and green, with a little bit of red and black at either end, you could say they were modeled off the hoses we use.”
“That’s… that’s actually a great idea. It’s a subtle enough design, especially on a necklace where those extra colors are up by the clasp, that not everyone would immediately understand it’s supposed to be a fire hose.” She smiled a little. “Thanks for that idea. What about for the colors in general? I… I want this to be easy for the fire fighters – all of them – to come look at.”
“From what I’ve heard, the firefighters who attend the fundraiser are usually there to make sure it runs smoothly and are too busy to look anywhere but the problems they’ve been presented with or the booth they’ve been assigned to run,” I mentioned. “Unless you’re going to make problems the day of the fundraiser, I think I spoke too soon.”
Jade looked up at me, her eyes wide. She seemed quite confused that I was able to admit that I had done something wrong. While it wasn’t something I did often, I could indeed admit when I was wrong. At the very least, I had to admit it to myself to fix mistakes that I made while alone. Otherwise, it was just to make sure that I was doing things right.
“Well, well. It seems you are capable of change, Jesse Delaney,” she teased me with a bit of a smirk. “I’m glad to know that. Now, I say we put on a movie in the living room. I can bead while we watch, and you can watch the movie or draw or whatever it is that puts your mind at ease. That storm sounds like it’s going to be raging for a while, and I don’t want to go anywhere in the rain tonight.”
