Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) (12 page)

“And don’t think Mama didn’t give me hell for that when you paraded it all through the house.” Angelo pushed off his stool walked to the far end of the kitchen and back.

“Okay, Russell. We a-gonna talk ‘bout sometin’ else. Hokay?”

“Hokay, if you lose the stupid accent.”

“Hokay. I’m making a meal. I think about how I want the diner to enjoy it. Do I start with a light pesto pasta, go to a garlic chicken, and a plate of Santa Lucia cookies with decaf coffee? Or do I start with the same pasta, but with veal meatballs. Then I follow with Rabbit alla Campagnola, a tiramisu, and an aged port. Light and fluffy. Serious and solid. You with me?”

“I have no idea where you going with this, but I’m not stupid.”

Angelo slapped him upside the head. “You’re an idiot. Now shut up and listen to Angelo, your only friend in the world.”

“Hokay. But I might have to pay you back for that.”

Angelo rubbed a hand across his jaw and Russell shut up.

“Now. I tell you about another meal. Then you tell me ‘light and fluffy’ or ‘serious and solid.’ Deal?”

“Deal.” One of the burlier cooks swung by and stared at Russell to make sure he wasn’t getting out of line.

“My boyfriend invites me across the country for a holiday. Not any holiday. Valentine’s day. You probably greeted her with roses.”

“A dozen reds. Prickly bastards.”

“Shut up. I didn’t give you permission to talk.”

Russell closed his mouth.

“Takes her to nice restaurants. Has enough damn brains to bring her to the best restaurant in town where his best friend cooks for them like he never cooked before.”

“It was good.”

“It was a fuck of a lot better than good. Then a nice hotel.”

“The Sorrento. Penthouse.”

“Damn nice hotel. More roses?”

“More roses. Champagne. Strawberries.”

“Shut up.”

Russell shut up.

“Now, your boyfriend does all that for you, what are you thinking?”

“I pop him in the mouth. I don’t want a boyfriend.”

“Shit, Russell. I’m trying to help you out here.” For a moment he thought Angelo might return the favor by massaging Russell’s chin with a fist.

“Okay. Okay.” So, if he were Melanie, he’d be wearing a little— Yeah. Shaddup, Russell. If he were Melanie,
who had just received first class tickets, roses, scenic flights, penthouse suite…

“Oh shit!”

Angelo raised his hands to the sky. “There but by the grace of God go I.”

“I proposed to her.”

“But you didn’t.”

He closed his eyes. But he hadn’t.

He’d wanted her to come out Seattle and have a good time. To see that there was life beyond the city and maybe she’d want to go sailing with him. They’d have a hell of a lot of fun.

But they wouldn’t.

He would have the fun and she’d be miserable every single day.

He could see her eyes. Finally understood how she’d looked at him in the shower.

He lay his head down on the cool stainless steel of the counter. It burned against his flushed face.

Finally understood the expression in the photograph as she soaked in the hot tub.

Angelo rested his hand on Russell’s shoulder for a moment before going to finish closing his restaurant.

Of course he didn’t recognize it.

He’d never photographed love before.

# # #

There was no way to apologize. No way to say how sorry he was. He considered flying back to the city, but to what end? He didn’t want New York any more than Melanie wanted a sailboat. He wrote a letter doing his damnedest to explain what he had happened, and how much of an idiot he’d been. Then threw himself into fixing the boat.

He skipped the Ides of March party. Stabbing his lover in the back was a moment he’d rather not remember. It was three weeks since he’d punched Angelo and he was still trying to finish the head. He lay on his right side next to the toilet trying to cut the fiberglass cloth to wrap properly around the base for the shower floor. Nutcase was perched on his left shoulder watching everything he did, insisting on sniffing each tool he picked up to certify it as inedible.

The boat shifted as someone came aboard, but he sure wasn’t crawling out from under when he was this close to done.

Nutcase launched toward the entry leaving permanent claw marks burning on his upper arm. Her bright meow signaled that she knew whoever it was.

“Come on in,” he shouted loud enough to be heard which made his ears ring in the enclosed space.

“Thanks.”

“Angelo.” Russell swung upright and banged his head sharply on the counter for the small sink he’d installed. Which he shouldn’t have done until he’d finished the floor.

“Crap.” He crawled out into the companionway.

“You avoiding me, buddy?” Angelo looked some kind of pissed.

“No.” He rubbed where he’d banged his head. “Avoiding myself more like.”

Angelo mellowed instantly. “Well, I’d avoid you too if I had the choice.”

“Shithead.”

“Back at you.”

Angelo tossed a couple of white, folded-paper containers on the table. “You eat anything better than crap since I last saw you?”

“No, mother.” Then he smelled the food as Angelo started popping lids. He snagged a couple of Cokes and some forks.

He took a forkful of Egg Foo Yung right out of the box. Pork. It burned the roof of his mouth and tasted wonderful.

Angelo pointed at the various containers. “Shrimp Chow Mien, Twice-Cooked Beef with Snow Peas, Fried Rice, and I sat on the fortune cookies. Sorry about that.”

Russell stabbed a shrimp for the cat. “Forgiven.”

Nutcase took her piece of shrimp and they ate in silence for a bit, at least until the worst of his hunger was gone.

“So, what are you gonna do?”

“You won’t leave it alone.”

“I’m Italian. Sue me.”

Russell shrugged. “Can’t do squat. I’ve thought about it a lot, but I’m so done with New York and all that. If I never go there again, it won’t break my heart. And Melanie sure isn’t one to go cruising.”

“And…” Angelo waved his fork over the chow mien for him to continue.

“You shit. You are Italian.” He took a deep breath and felt about half as strong when he let it out. “And whatever I feel for her, which is a lot, it isn’t what she feels for me. So, I’m a total heel, like she wasn’t good enough for me or something, which isn’t true. It’s just not there. And she doesn’t deserve that, whether she wants it or not.”

Angelo offered another shrimp to Nutcase who took it with all the daintiness of a
six-inch-tall wild lion.

“You ain’t so dumb after all, buddy.”

“Worse,” Russell rubbed his hand over his face. “But I’ll get over it.”

“And who should come to your rescue, once again I might add, but the wonderful, magnificent, handsome Angelo.”

“And world class shithead.”

Angelo aimed a forkful of broccoli at him. “Keep that up and I won’t be helping you.”

“Helping me how?”

“Tuesday, April fourth, six days from now, you are having dinner at my place at seven o’clock. And you are going to be on your very best behavior.”

“This is my best behavior.” He brushed all of Nutcase’s fur backwards to prove his point, not that you could really tell the difference on the little fluff ball. She batted at him but was assuaged with a scrap of beef.

“Christ Almighty you really are sad. You screw this up and I really will stop talking to you. Just be there. And dress in clean clothes.”

“Why, what’s up?” Russell dug the last piece of Egg Foo Yung out of the container and ate it with relish. But didn’t have time to swallow it.

“You have a blind date.”

He choked and spit it back up on Angelo.

Clallam Bay

First lit: 1905

Automated: 1977

48.2645     -124.251

Clallam Bay is a small fishing village located halfway between the Cape Flattery and the Ediz Hook lighthouses. Named for a distinctive landslip on the face of the point’s rocky bluff, the U.S. Congress appropriated $12,500 dollars in 1900 to build the lighthouse, fog signal, and the keeper’s dwelling.

The dwelling was well back from the point. A long, elevated catwalk of wood plank was installed along the face of the cliff permitting the keeper to walk just above the waves’ fury.

“I’ve been robbed!” Russell pushed the tiller over and shouted, “Helm’s a-lee!” even though Nutcase was sensibly down below already, out of the heavy winds that were buffeting the boat. He’d rigged for rough weather before leaving Port Townsend this morning, reefing down the main to about half its normal size and trading out the big jib for the working foresail.

For what must be the tenth time, he cruised along the sun-bright shore as near as he dared. There were rocks close in and the seas were vicious but he held his course. The
Lady
repeatedly dug her bow into the waves and threw great sheets of water skyward as she rose free. The sharp cliffs of Slip Point plunged down into the mad surf that threw itself against the rocks with the anger of a pissed off rodeo bull.

He checked the chart again
, but there was no question about this being Clallam Bay. The chart didn’t report a lighthouse, a fact he’d overlooked on his way here. Instead, it had a marker for a bell buoy named “G” and sure enough, there it was. He’d sailed right up to the thing to check the designation, having to cover his ears against the frantic clang as it bobbed and pitched in the waves. It had almost whacked the boat in a surprise bob and weave.

But the calendar’s picture of a long, narrow catwalk snaking along the dramatic cliffs was nowhere to be seen. The lighthouse, a distant, narrow, white tower in the photo, should be right at the end of the point. Right… he scanned the shore carefully as the bow plunged and the stern lifted him high in the air… there.

The angry waves pulled back for a moment and the gray regularity of concrete foundations showed wetly for a moment against the dark slickness of the rock. Somewhere between the photograph for the calendar and now, the lighthouse had been taken down and the walkway ripped from the cliffside without any hint of where it had been. He continued northwest, scanning the cliffs for any sign of the catwalk.

The shore altered abruptly from sheer, soaring crags to the narrow flatlands of the bay. A large, white house stood there, it must have been the keeper’s house. It had the trademark whitewashed look with red roof.

His breath caught.

He was in the right place.

At the right time.

Standing just back from where beach met cliff and wave, was a woman in a red coat. He’d put his longest zoom
on his camera for this moment and snapped a quick succession of a dozen or so frames. Then another wave caught the
Lady
and threw his bow to one side. He came about unexpectedly, the main boom nearly cracking him on the skull as it slammed from one side of the boat to the other. The camera would have gone overboard if he hadn’t wrapped the strap around his forearm. He plunged it back into its case that was strapped by the tiller, slapped down the waterproof cover and scrambled to bring the storm sail about.

Even with so little sail, he rocketed most of the way to the next point on the far side of Clallam Bay before he had her fully under control. He brought her about and shot back down the wind.

“Please be there. Please be there.”

With the wind and the waves behind him, the
Lady
surged along incredibly quickly. The knotmeter’s needle pegged against the stop several times, which was probably eleven knots, well above the theoretical limits of her hull. Rather than her normal top speed of nine miles an hour, he was crossing thirteen. Full keel boats weren’t designed to surf, but that’s what she was doing. A wave would lift her stern and she’d fly down the face, the wave moving fast enough that they stayed together in long bursts of exhilarating speed. Followed by slightly terrifying plunges as she dug her bowsprit and her bow completely into the next wave face. But then she’d soar clear, shedding green water off her bows, ready to surf once more.

“I love this boat!” His shout blew ahead, flying past the masts and the bow, reaching ahead and clearing the way.

The ride was less rough going with the wind, so he pulled out the camera early. It took a moment to spot her, she was trudging back toward the parking lot which boasted only three cars. He snapped photos of her and the vehicles. One more pass and he’d get a picture of the lot with one car missing, then he’d know what she drove. Not that it would mean anything. But he’d know.

The wind whipped her hair. It caught at her bulky coat and pushed at her, but she moved with strength and grace.

Then she was gone. He flew downwind, she gone behind the white keeper’s house with its red roof.

Coming about, back into the teeth of the wind, he fought his way back to Slip Point. Maybe he could slip in close enough and get her attention. Then he could wave her toward the town and the small bay itself. There was a fisherman’s marina marked on the chart at the west end of the bay. Unless they’d taken that down too.

They could meet in town. There was bound to be a small café, if he could figure out how to bring the boat in by himself in such weather.

But she was gone.

Two more passes and still no sign of her.

And three vehicles were still there.

# # #

Cassidy peeled off her gloves and wrapped her hands around a cup of hot cocoa. The receptionist at the Coast Guard station was perhaps twenty and looked very sharp in her pressed white uniform. She had a enough stripes on her sleeve that Cassidy felt a little stupid being served by her, but the girl appeared glad for the company on a windy day, enjoying the chance to serve cocoa to a windblown tourist.

Cassidy was warm, except perhaps her cheeks and nose. She’d stood out in the howling wind and, oddly enough, not hated it. She was becoming quite the outdoorsy type, something she’d done her best to leave on Bainbridge Island along with her youth.

She’d stood out there for an hour, reveling in the power of it all, and then, right on cue, her sailboat had appeared. Only one person appeared to be aboard, thrashing about in the waves. She didn’t know what sort of a death-wish sailor would be out in such weather, but it would make a great photograph on her wall of the boat’s bow lifted out of the water and pointed toward the sky. The red bottom of the blue boat sticking quite far out of the waves. Spray showering in every direction catching the sunlight like a thousand dazzling diamonds.

Her GPS device had shown her that there was no longer a lighthouse, but she’d come anyway because it didn’t feel right to open her father’s letter while sitting in a Seattle condo. But no matter how she’d turned, the high wind had threatened to shred the paper. This office would have to be close enough. After all, the lighthouse keepers had lived here for almost a hundred years before the Coast Guard moved its offices in.

Yeoman First Class Natalie was on the phone and seemed quite involved.

Cassidy pulled the letter out of her coat pocket. It was much the worse for wear, beaten by the wind into a thousand wrinkles. She tried to imagine what was inside, what had her father thought to say to his thirty-year-old daughter as he lay there dying.

In the last letter, he’d been working the vines and met her mother. It had also included his stupid suggestion that she’d find the right man.

Well, it had taken her a week to call Jack James. She might not have if Jo and Perrin hadn’t pushed her. They met for drinks at the Metropolitan Grill in the center of downtown. He had his ridiculous martini “stirred, not shaken.” His idea of high humor, it was the opposite of James Bond. He had no idea how true that was. She’d ordered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc without even noticing the vintner. One sip told her it was a Washington white, and not one of the good ones. She’d pushed it aside.

She’d told the man with two first names that she was breaking it off. It was her, not him, she just wasn’t meant to be in a relationship. He hadn’t argued. Nor asked for a second chance. Nor even asked if there was another man.

“We had a good run, didn’t we, Cassidy?” He was about as deep as a puddle; one that had dried up three days before.

Yeoman Natalie excused herself, “I need to get at some of the files in back. Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” And she was. She didn’t miss Jack James, not even in that moment when he kissed her cheek and they went in separate directions on the sidewalk. She’d gone around a corner and spied on him, he never looked back.

The paper crackled as she opened the letter.

Dearest Cass,

We lied to you.

Yeah, about being legitimate. But they’d married right away, and stayed together until the day mama died. She’d forgiven them before she finished the letter. So why was the back of her neck prickling?

Your birth wasn’t easy. It wasn’t idyllic. Your mother went to the doctor one day, I was too busy in the fields to go with her. She came back in the doctor’s car. Enforced bedrest. She was allowed to get up only twice a day. I had to hire Dale’s wife to feed her, take care of the house. She lay there for two-and-a-half months to make sure you came out okay.

And colicky. Did you know they still don’t know what causes that? I just asked the nurse.

In that moment she was back in the hospital room. Her father lying there, tubes running in and out of him, discussing his colicky daughter with some nurse she’d probably never met. She was far colder than she’d been minutes before standing out in the chill wind.

Twelve weeks to the day you howled like there was a knife in you. I’d walk you for hours up and down the vineyards at night just to give your mama some rest. You’d howl like there was no tomorrow. And then week thirteen you just stopped. Like hiccups suddenly gone.

How could he hide that from her? She’d always believed they had the Hallmark family. The happy child, the close couple. That’s what her father always told her. That was the dream she wrapped around herself at night.

Don’t get me wrong. We couldn’t have loved you more. But as one part of my life made more sense, the other parts made less. The winery was growing well, but getting water for the vines was becoming harder and harder. New regulations forbade pumping from the river. I was about to dig a second well, the first wasn’t nearly enough, when one of the big boys in the area got a regulation through, no drilling new wells unless you had a creek on your land. I didn’t. Close, but not on.

The vineyards weren’t lost all at once, rather a piece at a time. I
and many others lost water rights due to one man’s maneuvers. I lost hired hands to some millionaire who outbid me for my best people. Soon even my middle people were going.

What I learned, was that when one part of your life closes, another one opens. Your mother, our Adrianne, was the only sanity in my life at that time. When you find that person, hold on for all your worth. And if they have half a brain, they will do their damnedest to hold onto you.

You’re great, Ice Sweet, and don’t forget that.

Ever!

Vic

“Are you okay?”

Cassidy nodded and wiped at her stinging eyes. Then she took a sip of the still warm cocoa to assure Yeoman Natalie that she was fine.

Just fine.

# # #

“You’ve got to get me out of this, Angelo.” Russell wrapped both hands around his beer bottle.

“What are you talking about?”

“This blind date. I’m not coming.” He scratched a fingernail on a small drip of paint that had fallen onto the settee table and hardened. It broke free and flew across the table landing on the piece of Brie in Angelo’s hand. He debated mentioning it, but decided against it when he saw the look on his friend’s face.

“But you are.”

“But I’m not.”

“Why the hell not? You fall in love in the last six days? You going back to Melanie if she’s stupid enough to take you?”

Russell wrapped his hands once more around the beer bottle, it kept him from wrapping them around Angelo’s throat.

“No.” Not really. He glanced over at the laptop tucked safely on the shelf above the table.

“Can you give me a good reason?”

He wanted to, but he didn’t have one. Well, he did have one, but it was too stupid to call good.

He shook his head.

Angelo pegged the piece of Brie at his face. He ducked, but not enough. It hit him in the forehead. Against all chance, the paint chip dropped into his beer bottle. He pushed the bottle aside.

“This is important, man. Not just for you. It is important to me. I need someone who can be a half-human dinner companion. I promised to introduce her to someone who was decent.”

“Find someone else.”

“By tomorrow night? What the hell, Russell? This isn’t like you. She beautiful. Funny. What more do you want? It was your idea anyway.”

“My idea?”

“Look, Russell, if I explained it, where would be the surprise. It’s a blind date. That means you go in blind. Unfair to give you an advantage. She doesn’t know you either.”

“You’re not going to back off of this one, are you?”

“Not without a good reason.” Angelo cut himself another piece of Brie, completely free of paint chips, and chomped down on it as if he were trying to hack through a tough steak rather than a soft cheese.

“Okay. There is someone.”

“Since when did that stop you from having dinner with another woman? Dinner, man. That’s all. I’d bet that not even you could get a kiss on the first date from this one, even if you tried.”