Chapter Ten

It happened slowly at first, and then all at once.

Ruth had finally managed to get Clay Soirée listed on one of those booking platforms that promised visibility, convenience and seamless customer experience, but mostly delivered a twenty-five percent commission, a three-month payout lag and a button that refused to link properly to the website.

I had hesitated. William sighed about digital middlemen. Ruth insisted.

Within days, the bookings began.

Then the trickle became a flood.

Saturdays disappeared first. Then Sundays. Before long, Clay Soirée was booked out for months.

The reviews arrived like little bouquets tied with digital ribbon.

“Best Saturday night ever.”

“Clay, wine, laughter — what more could you want?”

“Sally was chaotic but hilarious.”

I stared at the dashboard one night while Ruth peered over my shoulder.

“Five stars,” she whispered.

“Only because they don’t know how much of this is held together with tape and William’s wood shavings.”

The cracks appeared almost immediately.

I had four wheels.

Four.

And now twenty-four people were arriving at a time expecting to throw their own bowl, drink wine, laugh effortlessly and leave with evidence of transformation.

Finn stood in the middle of the studio one Tuesday, scarf thrown dramatically over one shoulder.

“Darling,” he said, “you cannot book twenty-four guests and expect them to share four wheels. What is this — Survivor: Ceramics Edition?”

“They take turns,” I said.

Finn closed his eyes.

“They won’t. People don’t take turns anymore. They expect an experience.”

“What do you suggest?”

“More wheels. More teachers. And someone who can clean up this catastrophe without crying.”

The someone arrived the following week.

Her name was Ebony.

She came recommended by Finn, though when pressed he admitted he had met her once on a tram. She had told him she worked with scouts, could tie twenty-four knots blindfolded and was good with kids.

I scheduled an interview.

Ebony walked in wearing black from head to toe, eyeliner sharp enough to imply consequences. She sat down, looked around the studio and said:

“I don’t like people.”

I laughed.

Ebony did not.

“Right,” I said. “But scouts?”

“I told them what to do. They listened.”

“And children?”

“Small doses.”

Then she looked past me toward the sink.

“Your clay trap’s leaking.”

That was the moment I understood she was not an instructor.

She was something better.

A technician. A fixer. Possibly a threat.

William passed behind her carrying half-mended chairs.

“She sees the world as it is,” he murmured. “That can be useful.”

Finn whispered, “She’s terrifying. I adore her.”

The first Soirée with Ebony on the roster began badly and improved from there.

Guests arrived already warmed by the wine bar down the road. Ruth ferried trays of dips past William’s lumber pile. Dawn struck a tuning fork to set the landing frequency. Finn floated between wheels, coaxing bowls from lumps of clay with operatic patience.

Ebony stood in the corner, arms crossed, watching.

Every time a pot collapsed, she wrote something in a notebook.

When someone dropped a sponge down the sink, she snapped on gloves, extracted it with surgical precision and held it up in silence.

The guests loved her.

They thought the scowl was part of the experience.

The next weekend she arrived early. Nobody had asked her to. I found her crouched at the clay trap with a wrench in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Blocked again,” she said.

She pulled out half a sponge and a small plastic fork.

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

“Your guests. They treat it like a wishing well.”

By the time the next group arrived, Ebony was stationed by the door, wordlessly pointing out the wet floor sign. Nobody questioned her authority.

Not all the feedback was perfect.

“Great fun, but the scary goth girl glared at me when I asked for another glass of wine.”

I showed it to Ruth in despair.

Ruth read it twice.

“That’s branding,” she said.

The same group booked again the following week.

Then came the hens’ night.

Twenty-two women in sequins arrived with matching bottles of pink gin and the energy of people who had already lost a shoe somewhere else.

Finn had begged me not to accept the booking.

“Darling, they’ll be feral.”

He was not wrong.

By the end of the evening, one guest had tried to spin herself on a pottery wheel, Ruth was guarding the hummus in the kitchen, and Dawn had retreated upstairs with her tuning fork.

Ebony dragged a mop across the floor.

“Animals,” she said. “Absolute animals.”

When someone asked if she would take a group photo, she held up the mop.

“This is all you get.”

The women screamed with laughter and tipped two hundred dollars in cash.

By the end of November, Clay Soirée was officially a thing.

We had reviews, repeat bookings and a feature on the platform’s Top Experiences page. The studio was no longer waiting to be discovered. It had been discovered, and now it wanted systems I did not yet have.

The spreadsheets multiplied. Invoices stacked on my desk. Finn wanted more wheels. Ruth needed food storage and an actual fridge. William began making hand-carved name tags for guests, which were charming, useless and time-consuming. Dawn wanted a meditation moment built into every evening.

Ebony reorganised the glaze cupboard without asking and drafted a three-page document titled Basic Hygiene Standards: An Introductory Guide.

Most nights ended at the kitchen table after midnight, laptop balanced between half-drunk tea mugs and school forms I had forgotten to sign.

I toggled between booking confirmations, refund requests, dietary notes and the backend of the platform, which crashed every time I tried to do anything involving money.

Someone emailed to ask if they could bring an emotional support ferret.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Then I whispered, “I have a PhD. I survived five teenagers. I should be able to do this.”

Immediately afterwards, I accidentally issued a six-hundred-dollar refund to a booking that had not paid yet.

The dream was real now.

That was the problem.

It had stopped being an idea and become a machine: hungry, noisy, adored, expensive.

And I had no idea how long I could keep feeding it.