Eva’s workshop smelled of sawdust and rebellion—oak shavings clinging to her overalls, jazz music battling the hum of her sander. Every piece she built was a quiet mutiny against ordinary. Clients didn’t just buy furniture; they bought whimsy they could sit on.“Effervescent,” her first buyer had called her—a word that fizzed in Eva’s chest for weeks. She’d painted it in gold letters above her workbench, a reminder to sparkle even when sanding.
When the designer called—the Lucian Vey, whose name opened doors like a skeleton key—Eva’s laugh echoed off the rafters. “Me? In your exhibition?” She gripped the phone, her palm slick with varnish.
But Lucian’s pause prickled. “Bring only your boldest work. The crowd expects… a spectacle.”
The words coiled around her ribs. Spectacle. Not craft, not heart.
That night, Eva stared at her half-finished “Muse Chair”—its backrest carved like a woman mid-laugh. Was it too much? Her usual clients cherished her quirks, but this crowd…
“You’re overthinking,” scoffed Mira, her welder friend. “Since when do you dull your shine?”
Yet as the exhibition neared, Eva sanded the chair’s edges smoother, blunting its laugh lines.
The gallery was a glossy beast—chrome and chandeliers, critics sipping champagne like liquid critique. Lucian greeted her with a kiss on each cheek. “Where’s the piece I saw online? The one with the teal lightning bolts?”
Eva gestured to her display: elegant, safe. His smile tightened. “Charming.”
Then—a clatter. Mira had “accidentally” unveiled a backup crate… containing the original, unapologetic Muse Chair.
The crowd clustered like bees to nectar. A journalist ran fingers over the chair’s laugh. “It’s like sitting in joy.”
Lucian sighed. “You hid this? This is why I called you.”
Eva’s chest fizzed. She hadn’t needed the spectacle. Just the courage to be effervescent.