Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) (19 page)

“You know we’ve been waiting over an hour for you two to come over.” She looked him up and down, predator trying to decide if the meat was worth dealing with the brain.

“Lady, if you want my advice—”

“She don’t!”

He elbowed Angelo in the sternum, who gasped as he lost his breath.

“If the two of you want to jump someone’s bones tonight,” Angelo smacked him hard on the back of the head, “you should both take him home.” He nodded at Angelo.

“He’s a much nicer guy than me.”

The woman signed her credit slip, with a nice tip he noted, and studied the pen for a long moment before returning it to the bartender without scrawling a phone number on a napkin. She brushed past him, her perfume like a cat in heat.

“You,” she whispered loudly to Angelo, “can smack him again.”

Angelo did and the woman was gone.

# # #

Russell
could breathe. Okay. That was a good sign.

He could open one eye. It was mostly dark except for streetlights reflecting off the ceiling. He placed his little boat among the
shadow-shaped ceiling continents and began wending it around to distant shores, shadows with mysterious ports of call. There’d be tropical dark women, towering men, exotic foods. Leaving the beams of light rising from the dark streets, he sailed toward the great round continent of the ceiling lamp.

Just as his boat arrived, the light blazed on and drove twin balls of fire down his optic nerves and into his brain. Which then exploded as if the sun had gone nova within the confines of his skull.

He dragged a pillow over his face and cursed roundly. The afterimage on his retina included an outline of Angelo.

“I’m gonna kill you, you turkey.”

Angelo started throwing some extra sofa cushions on top of him. Each made his body shudder with pain.

“You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

“Until I die? Fine. That’ll be fourteen minutes after I’ve killed you.” His pulse was pounding against the inside of his skull. Hard enough to crack the fragile bone.

“Oh, you really scare me, big man. All talk. No fight.”

Russell sat up, thinking he’d lunge at Angelo. It hurt so much that he let his momentum carry him right over to lie the other way around on the sofa.

“Just leave me in peace to die.”

“No, you made me promise.”

“Promise what? I was drunk. I release you from whatever foul deed I swore you to achieve.”

Angelo left him alone for a moment. He was almost back to sleep when a cold, wet towel was slapped against his face.

He let out a roar as he sat up but Angelo dodged back.

“You’re going to die, Angelo.”

“Someday, probably not today though. I doubt if a fly would be much scared of you in your present state. Here, drink this.” He shoved a glass into Russell’s hand.

“What is it?” He still kept his eyes closed against the painful light. He could still see every outline of Angelo’s living room from the tan walls and the vast array of family photographs, to the yellow and blue pottery, and the wall of cookbooks. The memory of every object was outlined in shimmering rings on his retina.

“Water. A tall glass of cold water.”

He knocked it back and nearly threw up. Three fingers of whiskey bored their way down his throat and spilled into his stomach to lie there and burn.

“Oops. Sorry. Wrong glass. That was the hair of the dog and brother did he ever bite you hard last night. Here’s orange juice and aspirin chaser.”

He forced open an eye to make sure it wasn’t sixteen ounces of vodka or gin. He sipped it carefully to get the aspirin down before setting it aside on the teak coffee table.

He opened the other eye. The room only spun a little. Even in his present state, it was cozy and comfortable.

“So. What was this damn promise you are so set on keeping?”

Angelo lounged back against a doorway, well out of harm’s reach.

“We’re going shopping.”

# # #

“Do you have any idea how hard this is to do with a hangover?”

“Easy as fish.” Angelo was holding a three-foot long salmon and bending it back and forth.

“How fresh is this one? It feels good.” He directed his question to the fish monger, a huge-armed man in his twenties. Someone Russell wouldn’t mess with hungover or in top shape. The man was shoveling buckets full of crushed ice and spreading them over his display counter as easily as Russell had tossed back shotglasses of tequila. Russell had seen this on one of those cute little news clips, but he’d never gotten up at five in the goddamn morning to watch it.

“I kept it aside for you from last night’s flight. Out of the water less than twenty-four hours.” The fish monger slapped the side of the fish like it was an old friend.

Angelo handed it back to him to add to the growing pile.

“And it will be on my dinner table in another twelve.”

He tuned them out as the other men, all equally biceped, began chucking more fish from the van. Twenty and thirty-pound salmon arced one after another through the air, so fast there was little room between them. They flew out of the back of the truck, arced high over the sidewalk, just skimming below the open eaves of the market. At the far end they were snatched from the air and dropped onto the ice in neat rows, sorted by type, slid deep into the waiting ice in a single smooth motion. Mesh bags of oysters, clams, squid, and worse followed, rapidly filling the iced tables. A four-foot shark flew by and the small crowd of hearty tourists who had braved the early morning air applauded. The sharp stench of raw fish not yet turning bad filled the air faster than the morning breeze could clear it.

Angelo was in position and took first pick of everything that landed.

Russell had seen enough and then some. If he’d had breakfast, he’d have lost it by now.

Angelo finally rescued him from the post he was slowly sliding down and shoved him farther into Pike Place Market.

“And I made you promise to abuse me this morning for what reason?” His head felt a little better, but his body felt as if he’d been in a brawl. Several brawls and all on the inside of his skin.

“You insisted that you wanted to change your life. See how the other half lived. Whatever that meant.”

“Sounds like a crock to me.”

“Me too. But you kept insisting you were a boat without a rudder. By the hundredth repetition I promised just to get you to shut up.”

He found a stool to sit on as Angelo attacked the produce stand. Clearly he was well known here, as once again the proprietor brought out a special stash.

“All organic. All fresh within the last two days.” Angelo sorted through the offering quickly and kept most of it. The few items he rejected were placed in the prime display spots of the lesser produce.

The market was starting to buzz. More restaurateurs were showing up and picking things over, but Angelo already had the best of it. The tourists, now that all the fish were thrown and their final flights videoed for the neighbors back in Wichita, had retreated to small cantinas perched on the outer edge of the market. There, they’d gather close around their lattes and cinnamon rolls and stare out at the rising sun lighting up the Seattle waterfront a hundred feet below.

All that were left were people living their lives. Fish and lettuce bought, they visited a butcher next. The baker across the street promised fresh bread that evening. Each going about their own life.
He and Angelo wended their way between the vans and hurrying morning people. Later the slower tourists would reemerge and clog the market until it was faster to walk in the narrow street.

The funny thing was, all these sellers and buyers and observers, you couldn’t tell who was a mess and who had their life together. They all looked so certain and purposeful in their little wandering roles.
Russell was half tempted to take a poll.

Was the young woman setting up the ice-cream stand looking tired because of a long night of amazing sex or because her two-year old had a toothache? Did the family in the Greek restaurant that filled the corner of a narrow, brick building always start the day with coffee that was so strong the airborne caffeine was enough to wake him up? Did the young Chinese couple know how odd their Mandarin sounded on American ears, pointing with long fingers at the end of outstretched arms to indicate each topic of interest and being a pedestrian hazard? What had drawn them here from whatever land they lived in, China, Taiwan,
or San Francisco?

Angelo dragged him to a small cluster of tables along Post Alley. They were the only ones outdoors, the morning was still cool and fresh though the day would be warm. Tourists were perched at tables inside. People were streaming by in suits and skirts in some frantic pattern they repeated every day, five days a week.

Some goddess, by the name of Jonas, set a double espresso, a huge cup of steaming, black coffee, and a gigantic muffin in front of him with a swish and a bat of the eyelids. He ignored the flirt and the muffin, scorched his mouth when he chugged the espresso, and felt much better for it.

“Okay.”

“He’s back, folks,” Angelo announced to no one in particular. “The man is back. Consciousness has returned.”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

“No, let’s. After you go out of your way to insult a beautiful woman who had the hots for you last night and, by the way, chasing away her terribly cute girlfriend who’d been eyeing me, I say let’s go wild.”

Russell searched around in his brain. A vague memory of long, dark hair swam through, but he couldn’t be sure who or what it was attached to. For some reason, his brain kept connecting it to a smack on the back of his head, but he couldn’t imagine making a stranger angry enough that she’d do that. Though lately, maybe he could.

“So,” Angelo sipped his café leche, “what is it with you and women now? They used to trail around behind you and melt into fluttery little puddles when you actually noticed one of them. Now, you’re toxic.”

His blood was toxic. It still hurt each time his heart tried to force some to circulate through his brain. He couldn’t seem to get the hang of Seattle women.

“Mr. Morgan,” Angelo held up half of his croissant like a microphone, “when did you decide to become a misogynist?” He aimed the pastry at Russell.

“Oh, I’ve always hated women. That’s why they can make me feel like such a shmuck.” Russell bit the end off the croissant. The act of chewing stung the side of his face right up into his temple. He sipped some coffee to soften it.

Angelo pulled his shortened breakfast back.

“Is that because you truly are a shmuck and they know it?” He took a bite himself and
continued around a mouthful. “Honestly, what is it with you lately, buddy?”

“I wish I knew, Angelo. I wish…” He’d been idly watching the world go by on the street at the end of the alley.

People were moseying down the hill on their way to the market. Or hurrying up the steep slope with briefcase in one hand and a triple-shot latte in white, carry-out cups of immense size clutched in the other.

And there she was. He’d know her anywhere.

A long red-brown ponytail slapping one side to the other. Tight Lycra that followed every curve of her runner’s figure exactly as he’d imagined. Better.

She was glancing over her opposite shoulder, checking to cross the street. He saw nothing of her face, nothing but the swinging ponytail. An armband held a music player and thin wires trailed from arm to ears.

Two strides. Three. Then gone. Past the end of the alley.

He stared for a moment, trying to register her in this reality. She was his lighthouse lady
and she was here in Seattle. No one else had hair quite like that. And her body: outdoorsy, athletic, and totally stunning.

“Hey!” Angelo grabbed for his coffee as Russell scrambled from the table and bolted to the end of the alley. He heard Angelo curse loudly but kept going.

No one. No sign of her.

He sprinted up the street, so steep they actually built lumps into the sidewalk for traction. He made it to First Avenue and nearly stumbled in front of a Metro bus.

Right. Left. Across the street.

Gone. Gone as if she’d never existed.

He stood for ten minutes, watching and waiting. Just in case she magically reappeared. She didn’t, of course.

Had he fallen for a ghost? Did she exist only in photographs of lighthouses and in Lycra among a crowd of suits?

The first he was aware of Angelo was a smack on the back of his head.

“You!” he turned. Of course.
It hadn’t been the long, dark, stranger lady he’d insulted last night. It was Angelo who had smacked him.

Angelo pointed at his khakis. A long coffee stain ran down one leg.

“What’s wrong? Pee your pants again? Thought you outgrew that in high school.”

# # #

“What is it with men?” Cassidy pulled the pin on the weight machine and shoved it back in ten pounds heavier. The weight machines were mostly vacant at the moment. That was one reason she and Jo worked out on Sunday mornings. Perrin, not a morning person at the best of times, wouldn’t be awake for hours. The rowing machines were moderately busy, the spinning cycles were the hottest new craze and there was actually a short line of men and women jogging in place waiting their turns.