Joy For Beginners by Erica Bauermeister

know what time it was anymore. Henry took one of her feet and pulled it to him, rubbing his thumb along the instep in time with the slight rocking of the water below them.
    “I love houseboats,” he said. “They remind me of my grandfather’s fishing camp. My family went there every once in a while. I would take a rowboat out to the middle of the lake and pretend I was fishing, but I would just sleep. I loved the way the water moved under the boat.”
    “Hmm . . .” Daria could feel Henry’s thumb working along the curves of her right foot.
    “So, what is it about octopus pots?” Henry asked.
    Daria’s head rested on the back of the couch. “When I was about six,” she said finally, “my dad took me to this museum. There was an exhibit of Greek artifacts, and they had this ancient octopus pot. I didn’t know what it was; I was a kid—it looked like a place to put your secrets. It was terra cotta, this amazing, warm orange. The base was so prim and fragile-looking, and then it just curved out, and closed in again. I wanted to put my hands on it so badly. When I started working with clay, it’s all I ever wanted to make.”
    She raised her head. “My mom always wonders why I don’t make something more practical. It doesn’t even matter to her that I make a living at this.”
    “Well, she has a point.” Henry gazed across at her, his face serious. “I can barely remember the last time I caught an octopus.”
    Daria shot a look at him and saw the lift at the corner of his mouth.
    Her eyes grew wide and she let loose a deep, full-throated laugh. “You know,” she said after a while, “I just never thought of it that way.”
    The room got quiet. The air was changing, the smell filtering out from the kitchen. Henry’s hands were warm on Daria’s foot and she closed her eyes, breathing in. When she spoke again, her voice was lower.
    “You know, when my dad took me to that museum—we went because, back when I was about five years old, my mom started kicking me and my dad out of the house every Sunday. She said she wanted to make bread and we’d be in the way.
    “So Dad and I would go to the museum, or a park, or a movie. I loved spending time with him. And at the end of the day we’d go home, and the house would smell like bread and Mom would just be all lit up. She’d even let me have a slice of bread, before dinner and everything. And each time I’d think, That’s it, she’s happy. She’s going to stay that way.
    “But by the next morning, she’d be all tight and angry and nothing I did was right. I remember wondering why she didn’t just kick me out every day and make bread. Dad finally gave up and left but Mom wouldn’t let him take me with him. I don’t know why not.”
    “When was the last time you saw her?”
    “I came out here to visit Marion after I graduated from college and I stayed. I went back once, for my grandmother’s funeral a couple years ago.”
    “Do you miss her?” Henry asked.
    “Who?”
    “Your mom.”
    Daria just looked at him.

    HENRY CHECKED HIS WATCH. It was still dark outside, the houseboat redolent with the smell of yeast.
    “Time to work the dough,” Henry said.
    In the kitchen, Henry tipped the bowl, loosening the dough from the sides with a thin curve of plastic and letting it fall onto a thin slab of marble where it lay, quivering, an inflated mass with the texture and color of cold porridge.
    Daria looked at the dough skeptically. She had been expecting soft, white, fluffy—the baby’s bottom everybody always talked about when they went rhapsodic over making bread. This dough looked distinctly like a papier-mâché project gone bad.
    “Doesn’t it need something?” she asked tentatively.
    “It’s fine. Just slip your fingers in from the sides.”
    The second she touched the dough it seemed to latch on to her skin, clinging to her hands, greedy and thick, webbing her fingers. She tried to pull back, but the dough came with her, stretching off the