The Price Of A Promise
Chapter 03 - The Price Of A Promise
I spent a week pricing everything.
Every class.
Every firing.
Every instructor hour.
Every bag of clay.
I discovered I was a terrible business owner in very specific ways.
I gave extra studio time because people asked nicely.
I replaced broken pieces without charging.
I discounted private lessons for friends of friends.
I donated gift certificates to almost every fundraiser.
None of those choices was individually fatal.
Together, they formed a business model based on avoiding the discomfort of saying no.
Erin had become the person who said no for me.
Then I resented her for sounding like the business instead of the friend.
That arrangement had been convenient for both of us.
I got to remain generous.
She got to remain necessary.
Neither was sustainable.
We created three lists.
What must earn money.
What could be subsidized.
What should end.
The community class stayed in the middle.
Not saved.
Not cut.
Unresolved.
Then I asked the participants to a meeting.
Not a fundraiser.
Not a guilt session.
A planning conversation.
Six came.
Marlene sat in front.
I showed the actual monthly cost.
No dramatic debt total.
Just the program.
Four hundred dollars on average.
I expected embarrassment.
Instead, people asked practical questions.
Could they bring their own tools?
Could advanced members help clean?
Could the class become twice monthly?
Could people who could pay more choose a higher rate?
I had spent months protecting them from the numbers as if information itself would humiliate them.
That was another form of control.
Marlene said:
“You keep deciding what we can handle too.”
The sentence landed.
Erin looked at me.
I almost laughed.
Apparently, everyone was learning the same lesson.
One participant, Luis, offered to teach hand-building once a month.
He had taught art in high school.
I had never asked.
Another participant said she could pay twenty dollars instead of five.
Not everyone could.
The group did not demand equal payment.
They asked for clarity.
We designed a six-month pilot.
Two community nights per month.
Sliding scale.
Suggested rate fifteen dollars.
Minimum zero.
Maximum forty.
Volunteer cleanup optional.
No person required to disclose income.
A separate scholarship fund would cover materials when class revenue fell short.
The fund had to exist in cash.
Not imagination.
Erin approved the numbers.
Barely.
Then I asked what her salary should be if we were honest.
The number was twelve thousand dollars higher annually.
The studio could not afford it.
Silence.
There it was.
Fixing one injustice revealed another.
I could not demand that Erin stay underpaid while celebrating a more ethical community class.
She said she could continue six months.
No longer.
Then she would leave unless compensation changed.
The deadline frightened me.
Good.
A real deadline.
I had spent years believing friendship would stretch indefinitely around the business.
Now it had terms.
The pilot community class reopened.
Marlene returned.
She paid fifteen dollars.
The next month, five.
The month after, twenty.
No one commented.
Belonging stopped being tied to one price.
Then Erin received a job offer from a larger arts nonprofit.
Full salary.
Benefits.
Normal hours.
She had not applied.
A former colleague recommended her.
She asked me what she should do.
The old Kayla wanted to say:
Stay.
The healthier answer was:
May you like
“What do you want?”
Her answer would change everything.
