Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) (13 page)

“Frigid?”

“Lady. Real one. Outside your realm of experience. Don’t change the subject. What’s your lover’s name?”

Russell grabbed his beer and slugged back a big swallow. The paint chip slid down throat before he could stop it.

He slammed the bottle back on the table. He hit it hard enough that it released most of its air. It foamed out over his hand and dripped all over the cheese and the table. He mopped at it all with a rag that he’d been using that morning to clean up the new diesel tank under the pilot berth. It still smelled of the sharp tang of diesel. Long streaks of muddy black appeared across the white rind of the cheese. He threw the cloth over the whole mess and took another pull on his beer which was now much flatter than it had been.

“Name?”

“Go to hell, Angelo.”

His friend narrowed his eyes for a long moment and then he burst out laughing.

“You don’t know her name. Oh, this is too rich. What’s she like?”

“She likes the outdoors. Long dark hair.”

“Wow. Great description, man. Thanks. I can really picture her now. Clear as mud.”

“Asshole.”

Angelo just grinned.

Nutcase appeared from somewhere and started sniffing at the mess on the table.

Angelo grabbed the cloth with the cheese in it and mopped up the worst of the beer.

Russell ducked again, but Angelo turned and dropped it into the garbage bag full of sawdust that was drooping in the companionway. Nutcase dropped down to floor, inspected the bag carefully and then wandered back to whatever she’d been doing before.

“Tell me more.”

Russell wrapped his hands around the beer bottle so tightly he wondered if he could break the glass. But he couldn’t relax them even when he tried.

“You can’t?”

Russell grabbed the laptop and dropped it onto the table with a crash. He turned it so that they could both see it.

“West Point lighthouse.” He pointed her out squatting among the rocks.

“February at Alki.” He pulled up the next picture. “March at Lime Kiln. Didn’t even know she was in these photos until I looked at them just a few weeks ago.”

“She’s following the same calendar I gave you.”

“Duh. Figured that one out on my own, Sherlock. So, for April, I took my big telephoto with me. But the weather was really lousy. I could barely control the boat, much less make it ashore to meet her.” He toggled to the last spread of photos. Six of them. Long zoom close-ups. Snapped in rapid-fire succession when the stern of the
Lady
had ridden high up in the air to give him a clear view.

Heavy hiking boots. Slender legs. Body form hidden by the trademark bulky red parka. A flag of chestnut hair streaming in the wind just begging to have fingers run through it. Coat zipped up far enough to hide the neck. Nice chin, slender without being angular. And where her face should be, two delicate hands holding a small point-and-shoot camera. Aimed right at him. Almost clear enough to read the stupid brand name.

“Nice. When’s the wedding?”

“Give me a goddamn break.”

Angelo waved a hand at the screen. “She’s not real. She a phantom who appears only on the first of each month.”

“You couldn’t prove otherwise by me, but she feels real. More real than…” He should never have opened his mouth.

Angelo rested a strong hand on Russell’s forearm.

“Melanie was real. Is real. She just isn’t headed in the same direction you are. And the girl on this screen probably has a voice like a harpy and a husband and seven kids at home. I’m offering you dinner with a flesh-and-blood lady. Nice one. Single too, though you try to touch her and I’ll kill you, right at the table and serve you your own guts over a nice bed of pasta. Eating dinner and making nice conversation isn’t cheating on some lighthouse babe that you’ve never met.”

Russell nodded, as much to stop Angelo’s pestering him as anything else. He glanced sideways at the screen, studying how her hair appeared to move in the wind in the series of frozen moments of the photograph.

Angelo had missed two details. She was alone in every photo.

And the hands that held the little camera had no rings on them.

# # #

“How do I do this?” Cassidy knew she was losing it. Could feel her voice rising and tight. She perched on the impossibly uncomfortable green leather and stainless-steel, bar stool in Perrin’s Gallery.

The whole
shop was done in retro-50s diner. Instead of tables in the booths, there were mannequins wearing the latest designs. Instead of those music players, there were racks of clothes and accessories that would go with what the seated mannequins were wearing. Instead of a front counter, there were racks of other clothes. Instead of a cashier with gums and candies and pies of towering meringue in a display case, the glass cases held handbags, gloves, belts. Through the swinging doors there was no cook line. Rather there was a haven of shoes, boots, coats, and from the ceiling hung an unbelievable selection of umbrellas guaranteed to stand out in any crowd.

“When was the last time you had a blind date?” Jo had her lawyer voice on, the one designed to lull the obstinate into a sense of security, the upset into a pool of calm. Cassidy felt it working on her, and fought it.

“I dunno. Freshman year. And that was plenty.”

Jo glanced over at Perrin who shrugged. “How was I supposed to know Richie would take acid to get up his nerve?”

Apparently he’d been telling Perrin that he was really interested in her red-haired friend. Cassidy’d finally agreed to meet him. There’d been something strange about his eyes, a glassiness she hadn’t understood at the time. Naïve, sixteen-year old freshman from an island in the Pacific Northwest, totally flattered that an upperclassman had even noticed her. They’d had a nice meal at The Atrium, her favorite campus hangout. He was bright, interesting, and definitely enamored. But the way he kept staring at her was somewhere on the line between incredibly flattering and a touch creepy.

She’d finally had to ask.

“How do I look to you?” She’d put a great deal of effort into selecting nice colors that blended well together and shapes that showed off her figure. Perrin had even done her hair and nails for her.

Richie had gazed at her for a moment long enough to warm her cheeks. “The body of a goddess. A neck like a great snake. Your face would scare the hounds of Hell with its slavering jaw, massive fangs. No nose. Eyes of ice and hair of a mighty, writhing inferno.”

He’d tried to apologize for weeks afterward, swearing he’d never take drugs again, especially not hallucinogens. She told him it was okay, she’d sworn off ever being in his presence again.

She’d also sworn off blind dates, so how had Angelo talked her into this one? With a promise of great food and a charming man. She’d had enough of charming with
Jack James. What she needed was someone with some heart, with a little connection with his emotions.

“You need more confidence. Think of it like your wine-tasting. I’ve seen you do that with style and panache.” Perrin tossed back her head making her lime-green perm swirl about her head like a whirlpool. Impossibly ugly, except on Perrin it was so cute that it made every man under forty turn and go silent whenever she entered a room. Okay, every man of any age who still had a pulse.

“I’m not going to a man-tasting. I’m going on a blind date and I don’t know what to do. You’re my friends, you’re supposed to be helping me.”

“Send Jo. She’ll wow him.”

Cassidy buried her face in her hands. “I can’t. I promised Angelo I’d review his restaurant this time. He’s probably been preparing for a week.”

“I thought they weren’t supposed to do that.”

“They aren’t. They all do. But they’ve learned that I’m not above begging tastes from nearby tables. So if I get an exceptional meal, so does everyone around me.”

“There.” Perrin aimed the one finger not covered by her elbow-long, green gloves. “That’s the attitude. Remember that feeling, right there. Use that and you’ll be invulnerable. And the man will melt and die at your feet unless he’s a complete jerk.”

“Clothes, Perrin.” Jo spoke quietly. “She needs power-dating clothes.”

“Black.” Cassidy called out as Perrin started wandering around about the shop. “And no dresses.”

Perrin held out a black dress that had cleavage down to the navel and a swirly, pleated mini-skirt.

“So not.”

Perrin laughed.

By the fifth rejection Perrin had stopped laughing.

“You’re tricky.” She inspected Cassidy carefully. Turned back to her racks and then once more to face Cassidy. She disappeared through the swinging stainless steel doors into the back room.

Jo met
Cassidy’s gaze and arched an eyebrow on her rounded face. Neither of them were willing to guess what Perrin would come up with next.

She reappeared in with something definitely not black. “Put this on.”

Cassidy rubbed her fingers over the lush, red and orange fabric. “Cashmere. I love cashmere.”

“Don’t we all, honey. Now put it on.”

Cassidy headed for the dressing room, but Perrin called her back.

“Nope. You look incredible in that black turtleneck, just pull this on over it.”

She unzipped the front of the sweater and slipped it on. She zipped it partway up and moved to the triple mirror. The waist and the ends of the arms were such a dark red that they were as black as her pants. The sweater lightened upward from red to dusky orange and finally a dark gold the color of the inside of a pot of honey as it reached her neckline and the open zipper.

Perrin moved up behind her and looked at her in the mirror over her shoulder. She reached around and tugged the zipper a bit lower.

“I feel more naked than just the turtleneck.” The fading colors and low zipper gave her a plunging cleavage, without any exposed skin.

“It works. You’re fully covered, and he’ll be spending the whole time trying not to look at your breasts. It’s perfect. He won’t be able to look away. I’ll bet you another bottle of that amazing champagne we had. Besides, you have the nicest set of the three of us, time you flaunted them a bit.”

“I do?” She looked down, but they were just your average breasts in your average bra wrapped in a black silk turtleneck and cashmere.

“Mine are too flat, and Jo’s are a bit too much, though they suit her. Yours, with your figure, they’re just great. He’ll die. Trust me.”

She glanced at Jo over her shoulder. Again the raised eyebrow, with a tilt of the head that indicated there was probably truth there.

Cassidy looked at herself again in the mirror. She did look good.

“On a much later date, the one you want to have sex after,” Perrin pulled the zipper up halfway to her throat, “and lose the black turtleneck. He’ll remember the undressed look of the first date and spend the whole second date dreaming of pulling that zipper back down.”

“How did you learn this stuff?” The instant the words were out of her mouth Cassidy wanted to bite her tongue and kick herself. She met Perrin’s eyes in the mirror, suddenly wide and vulnerable like a little girl. She turned and wrapped her arms around Perrin’s stiff body.

“Screw them. Screw them both. They can’t touch you anymore. Ever.” She could feel her friend nod at last and Cassidy held her more tightly until she felt her relax a bit.

They stood back from each other but Cassidy held onto Perrin’s thin arms. She felt the anger that came over her whenever she thought about her friend’s parents.

“I love you just as you are, Perrin. I think you’re incredible. I’m so glad you’re in my life.”

“Really?” She wiped at her eyes.

“Really. This sweater is perfect. I couldn’t get through this without you.”

Perrin finally nodded again.

Cassidy kissed her on the cheek and then clapped her hands together.

“What’s next?”

“Come-fuck-me boots.” Perrin laughed even though tears still trickled down her face.

“Not what I was quite after.”

Jo came over, “Kick-ass boots, then.”

“Kick-ass boots. Perfect.”

They headed for the back room, arm in arm.

She started whistling the tune.

Jo started singing the words.

Perrin laughed and joined in though her voice was still tight. “We’re off to see the wizard. The wonderful Wizard—”

Cassidy stumbled to a halt after they pushed through the swinging doors. There it was.

She slipped her arms free from her friends and pulled the knee-length coat off the mannequin holding a hamburger spatula like a submachine gun.

The same length as the Michael Kors parka. The same red, but that’s where the similarities stopped. The soft, red leather had been finely tailored. She slipped it on, did up the three giant black buttons and tied the black belt of the same leather once over. Sixties retro gone high end. The broad lapels made her feel part secret agent and part superwoman.

When she turned, Perrin was nodding and the unflappable Jo made a show of dropping her jaw before starting to applaud.