Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) (32 page)

Harder.

Still nothing. But he heard a clink of glass, or something.

Harder still.

Now there was an echoing silence.

Then he heard it. A long, low moan. A moan of someone in pain.

He threw his shoulder into the door, there was a loud crackling of wood.

He hit it again, with all the force of his college linebacker days and the door blew inward.

She wasn’t in the kitchen or the bedroom-office. He raced into the living room and stumbled to a halt.

The table was littered with wine bottles and half empty wine glasses, but no Cassidy. A bottle of red had fallen to the floor and a long red stain spread across the white rug.

No one in the bathroom, nor the master bedroom.

The moan again and he dashed into the bedroom she’d converted
into a wine cellar.

There she sat, still in the jeans and shirt she’d worn to the lighthouse this morning
, but they no longer looked so pristine. Red stains dribbled all down her front. Her legs were splayed before her like a little girl and another twenty or more wine bottles were open around her. Most had a matching glass, some part full. Most empty.

She moaned again
, struggling to uncork yet another bottle. In no condition to do so, the corkscrew kept slipping from her fingers. The moan was part growl of frustration and part wounded animal.

He squatted down in front of her.
Russell considered removing the bottle from her hands, but decided that discretion was the better part of valor as she was wielding the corkscrew as much like a sword as a kitchen tool.

“What are you doing, Cass?”

“I’ve lost it, Daddy. I’ve lost it somewhere.” She looked about the room for a moment, ceasing her efforts to uncork the bottle. She didn’t turn his direction.

“Lost what?”

She bowed her head down over the bottle and stopped struggling with it.

“I can’t taste it. I can’t. I tried. Just like you taught me. But I can’t taste it.”

He slid the corkscrew and bottle with the mangled cork from her fingers and set them carefully aside.

“That must have been a hell of a letter.” Her Dad was really starting to piss him off. Next one, he wouldn’t leave until he was sure she really was fine.

He did his best to lift her clear of the nest of glasses. A couple fell onto the hardwood floor and rolled away as he got her in his arms, he’d have to deal with those later. Hopefully none of it would leak down into the ceiling of the nineteenth floor below before he could mop it up.

She kept complaining as he moved her.

“My life is over. Can’t taste anyting. All those years. So mussh work. Gone. Wasshted. Down the drain. Corked. Thas it. I’m corked. Just like a bad shwine.”

Their f
irst stop was the bathroom floor. She wasn’t steady enough to stand while he stripped her. He looked at the stains all down her front and decided to settle for expediency. He set her in the tub clothes and all, then cranked up the shower.

“Cassidy Knowles. Corked. Spoiled-ed in the bottle. So sad.”

Too drunk to even protest, she sputtered at the water a bit as it ran down her face, but that was all. He did his best to clean her up with a washcloth as the water ran over her. He aimed the spray off her face and trotted back to the other room. Four of the bottles she’d knocked over had corks partly rammed into them. The three glasses looked as if they been pretty empty. Either she’d been pouring less as she went, or drinking more. He threw a towel on the worst patch and decided he’d come back later.

The glasses in the living room were much fuller. She’d still been just tasting in here. The red in the living room was going to be a different cleanup problem. He righted the bottle. A 1969 Mouton Rothschild Bordeaux. That stain on her carpet was worth hundred
s of dollars. He let his eye range over the dozens of others open on the table. Thousands of dollars of wine. Damn! And he thought his studio parties had been extravagant.

A curse sounded from the bathroom and the sound of splashing. He hustled back to the more immediate problem.

# # #

Russell sat on the balcony off
Cassidy’s bedroom and watched the stars slowly turn over Puget Sound. Once she’d finished emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet, he’d showered her as well as he could and managed to get her to spit after he brushed her teeth for her. He’d tucked her into bed after forcing her to drink some water and take a B12 vitamin he found in her medicine cabinet. The best hangover cure, though she was still going to have a doozy.

The cleanup had taken a while. Handwashing thirty-seven glasses. Hard to believe she even had that many or the room to store them in the small kitchen. Dinner for eight, four wines for a meal, maybe not that hard to imagine, but it was still a lot of washing. The red wine stain answered fairly well to the old trick of club soda and salt, but she’d still need a
professional carpet cleaner.

Now he sat with a glass of the Bordeaux and some crackers and cheese. It was somewhere before dawn. The city lit itself, though the stars could still be seen, and some vague twinkling on the distant shores
, Bainbridge Island and off to the right, Kingston. What perversity had led her to get a condo facing what her father had lost?

Well, nothing to do by wait.

Wait for what? He must be more tired than he thought. He rubbed a hand over his face. There’d been something so urgent that he’d rushed over.

The future. Their future. Right.

Well, it was hard to go a whole lot farther without knowing what Cassidy was thinking. That in itself was kind of funny. He’d done a lot of growing this last year. Julia had pointed it out when he went back to New York for a visit last week.

He’d walked out on Melanie with no thought for her
and no awareness of her feelings. When their intensity surprised him, he’d gone to the West Coast anyway. Now… Now he was in limbo while Cassidy considered her destiny in California and Italy for Christ’s sake.

For the hundredth time he looked at the water-logged letter on the little wrought iron table. He had found it crammed into her jean’s pocket.

If I could wish anything, it was that you had stayed in the vineyards with me. Then I wouldn’t have had to sell my life’s work to strangers.

“Good thing you’re dead, old man. Or we’d be having some words right about now.” Hell of a burden for a dead man to place on his living daughter. As if we don’t have enough problems making our own decisions.

“Russell?” her voice trembled out into the darkness. He hadn’t heard her get up, even though he’d left the sliding glass door open for the purpose. The late night lull was past and the first sounds of the waking city had begun. Street cleaners, service trucks, the crazy, hyper-driven corporates, restaurant owners. Probably not all that long until Angelo would be awake and down at the market visiting the fish, produce, and meat vendors.

“Right here, Cassie.”

She came to him in the faint glow of the city lights. She lowered herself into the chair beside him with a hesitancy of movement that he knew well from past experience. Once she was settled, she took his hand. He held it lightly, knowing that everything must be hurting.

“I feel…”

“Shh. I know.”

“I don’t remember you coming in.”

“Good. Then you won’t remember that I splintered the frame of your door as I did so. My shoulder appreciates that you locked only the handle and not the dead bolt.”

“You busted down my door?”

“I panicked when you wouldn’t answer, but I could hear you. Sorry, I’ll fix it tomorrow.” He looked up at the sky. There was no light yet, but there soon would be. “Later today.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Don’t remember my tossing you in the tub? Helping you puke? Brushing your teeth for you?”

“I didn’t. Not really?”

“How I had my wanton way with you?”

“While I was drunk?” She sat up at that, though she froze and he felt sorry for what the sudden motion must have done to the inside of her head.

“Well, not the last, but all the other stuff, yes. I did shower you and towel you down. Though it wasn’t as much fun as usual.”

He reached his hand to stroke her cheek, marveling as he did every time how soft it was, how personal it felt. To be so close to someone he wanted to touch so much
ranked beyond marvelous.

“What do you remember?”

“I sat down to write my column. It was going fine. I was working on a little section about the effect of climate between California temperate, Washington temperate, and the new Piedmont vineyards that are opening up in the foothills of the Italian alps. But I couldn’t remember the taste of a Bainbridge Island Pinot Noir. I grew up with that wine, probably the first one I ever tasted.”

She was rubbing her forehead as if she could pull the memory out with her fingertips.

“I checked my notes, but I never wrote it down. Who could forget their first wine?”

Russell didn’t even remember his last wine the way she did though the dregs were still in the glass. It was far and away the best Bordeaux he’d ever had.

“So I opened a bottle. And I couldn’t taste it.” Her hand started to shake in his hand as the memory returned.

“My palate is gone.” Her voice grew shaky. “I opened a California Pinot, then a French Chardonnay. Nothing. None of them…” Her voice trailed off on a catch of breath. Her thoughts had finally caught up with her words.

“My palate is gone.” Her silence was echoing, punctuated by the sound of a Metro bus’ diesel roaring far below.

“Kiss me.”

“What?”

“Kiss me.”

“I’m telling you my life is ruined. That it’s over. My gift is gone after twenty painstaking years of study and practice and you want me to kiss you?”

Russell nodded, knowing she could see the outlines of his face in the growing light.

She huffed a few times and finally leaned forward to give him a quick peck on the lips.

“Um, thanks for helping me out.”

“You’re welcome. Now kiss me.”

She practically growled when she did so. She leaned in and really kissed him. Kissed him so hard that his body went electric. What had started as an attack quickly turned so sensual that it was hard not to drag her through the doors to the bed waiting only a few feet away.

He broke it off before she did.

“Now. Tell me what you tasted.”

“The ocean and the sky. You always taste like that.” News to him. He considered a moment and decided he could live with that, especially if Cassidy liked it.

“What else?”

She tipped her head sideways, in the way she always did when analyzing a flavor, whether a wine or a chocolate candy. It was the moment when she was most quiet and most stunning.

“Plum, eucalyptus. Bitter cherry. . . You inveterate bastard!” She punched his arm hard enough to hurt. To really hurt.

“Am not.” He rubbed at his wound as she shook her hand in pain.

“Are too. You didn’t ravage me. You ravaged my 1969 Bordeaux. That was a graduation gift from my Dad. I was saving it.”

“Yup. You were. For last night.”

That dropped her back in her chair. “Last night?”

“Most of it was in your carpet when I arrived. I got the worst of the stain, so I guess it’s in your sink now. I had a half glass while watching over you. I saved the other half glass for you.”

Her voice was very small. “I don’t think I could drink any wine now if my life depended on it.”

“How about kissing me again? To make up for punching my arm so hard.”

She leaned over just far enough to kiss him on the arm. “What else did I open?”

“I don’t know. I lost track somewhere after thirty bottles.”

“Thirty?” Little more than a squeak.

“Kiss me again.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he rose and helped her to her feet. He swung her up into his arms and headed back into the bedroom.

“I like proving that your palate is still just fine.”

Maury Island

First lit:
1887

Automated:
1978

47.3881
     -122.3746

The Point Robinson light  and foghorn is the principle guiding beacon between Seattle and Tacoma. Fog is an especial problem on this point of Maury Island. In 1897, the sole keeper, who had been asking for an assistant for years, had to run the whistle for 528 straight hours on his own. In those twenty-two long days he shoveled thirty-five tons of coal by hand to power the whistle.

His request for assistance was granted. But it was 1903, six years later, before one was assigned to the light.

“You didn’t ask her? Mama mia, you is an idiota!”

Russell
was, but that didn’t mean Angelo was going to get away with it. He dug around in the fridge for a couple Cokes.

“And have you called Jo Thompson yet?” He called out the hatchway to the man at the tiller.

“Low blow, my man. Low blow.”

“Have you?”

“Shit, no. What’s a classy, hot-shot lawyer gonna see in a lousy, Eye-talian servant’s son?”

Russell came on deck and shook the bottle hard before handing it to Angelo. Angelo groaned and slipped it into a cup holder unopened.

“She maybe is a big-time lawyer. But you is a big-time restauranteur.”

“Oh, yeah. One whole restaurant. That’ll really impress a lady like that.”

“Got news for you, buddy boy.”

Angelo just glared at him.

“Fisherman’s daughter.” He turned away and peeked under the sail as the light finally dawned over Angelo’s face.

“Lighthouse ho.”

There it was, right on cue. Point Robinson was a windy, god-forsaken spot known for its shrouds of fog.

He pulled out his camera and starting snapping photos for Cassidy. It didn’t feel right though. Without her here, the purpose was gone. No lady on the beach in her ridiculous, knee-length parka. No sassy wine-connoisseur lying back in his dinghy. No Cassidy cranking on a winch or teasing the cat. Even Nutcase seemed despondent without her, curled up in the cockpit rather than out on the boom.

“Did you know that some poor chump shoveled thirty-five tons of coal in three weeks to run the fog whistle here.” He ran the telephoto out and searched the beach. No, no woman on the beach. He could always hope, but she was at thirty-five thousand feet zooming from California to Italy. They were really courting her hard. She’d had a half dozen offers in the last fifteen days, sight unseen. She was going to end up in California, he just knew it. The Italy trip was only because she’d committed to go in the initial flush of excitement.

Angelo steered up into the wind a bit making him reset the sails.

“Why are you changing the subject?”

“What subject?”

“Why didn’t you ask her?”

# # #

Cassidy held the letter in her lap.

She’d promised Russell, but it was the first of the month and here it was in her lap. He’d insisted that she wait a week. He would come over after her interviews were done and they’d go and play along the
Amalfi coast for a week. He’d bring photos of the lighthouse and be there while she read the letter.

She knew he’d wanted to protect her from whatever the next letter held. And he’d insisted without throwing her last debacle in her face which was really decent. Forty-three bottles, almost six thousand dollars in wine, some of it irreplaceable. Worst of all, it had been days before she could face drinking any wine at all. By the time she could, everything she’d opened that night had gone bad.

No, she was stronger than that. She didn’t need to depend on Mr. Russell Morgan for strength, no matter how sweet he was about it.

She checked her watch. Ten a.m. west coast time. Just about right for Russell to be sailing by the lighthouse.

She tore open the letter. The scrawled hand was weaker and her heart twisted to imagine her father’s efforts to scribe even these few words. It was shorter than any prior letter. Even the sentences were shorter. As if he had to rest between each thought.

Dearest Ice Sweet,

There is a truth that I have learned. Be true to your passion. Your mother was true to her great love for family. I loved the vines. Each of us had full, complete lives. We were true to our passion, in whatever form it took.

Your passion isn’t the vine, it’s the wine. And the writing. Look at why you like it. That is the passion. I thought my passion was Knowles Valley. But it wasn’t. It was the vines. I was never happier than when I was walking the rows. California or Kingston. For me, it was the vines and you.

Love you Ice Sweet,

Vic

“I know what’s important, Daddy. Truly I do.” She would listen to what the Italians had to say, but she knew what was important.

# # #

Russell took his bottle of Coke and rolled it slowly back and forth between his palms. The cool glass felt good despite the fall day.

“She’s over the mid-Atlantic somewhere right now. A bit out of reach. I’ll ask her when I see her next week.”

“You know where you’re going yet?”

She was going to meet his plane at Sienna airport with a rental car. Poke along the Amalfi coast, or slide over to Monaco and the French Riviera. A whole week, just the two of them and Italy.

“I’ll know when the time was right. When the mood was right.”

Angelo swore loudly, waved for him to take the tiller, and went below. The
Lady
slipped along the shore, the lighthouse was a sweet one. All alone at the foot of the hill, the far end of a long, lonely beach road.

Angelo came back on deck after several minutes and shoved a cell phone into his hand.

It was active. He put it to his ear and it was ringing. He looked to his friend, but Angelo just took the tiller and focused on the way ahead.

“Uh, hello?”

“Hi, who is this?”

“You called me.” The voice was crackly and there was a funny lag.

“Cassidy?”

“How did you call me?”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. I was just sitting here and the phone that’s mounted on the headrest in front of me rang.”

“Uh,” Angelo was one sneaky, really good friend. “I miss you. Guess I just wanted to hear your voice. Ange. . .” Angelo kicked his shin. “Uh, I figured if you could call out from a plane, you could probably call back the other way.”

“It’s nice to hear your voice, too. I’ll be on the ground pretty soon, we’re over Sardinia now.”

“Cassidy, I was wondering…” He wanted to do this when she was sitting across from him, holding his hand or playing footsie under the tablecloth. Something.

“What?”

“If, ah…”

“You’re still coming next week?” The worry in her voice gave him confidence.

“Of course. Can’t wait.”

“I’ve picked some great places to go.”

“Wonderful.” Come on, Russell. Get your shit together. This was probably costing dollars per second. Of course it was Angelo’s phone, so why should he care.

“I—”

“We’ll be landing shortly,” a heavily-accented voice cut across the airwaves. “Please shut down all electronic devices and return your seat backs and tray tables to the upright position.”

He could just hear her as they repeated the instructions in Italian. “Thanks for the call. I’ll talk to you as soon as I’m settled. Bye.”

She was gone before he could respond.

“Wimp.”

“We were cut off. They’re landing. Thanks, Buddy. Thanks for the try.” He went to toss the phone back to Angelo, then noticed it was his, as were any call charges.

He grabbed his soda and twisted the cap. It exploded in his hands spraying foam and sugar all down his shorts and legs, dribbling into his shoes. Nutcase scrambled for cover, splashes of sticky foam all over her coat.

Angelo pulled his own bottle from the cup holder with a smug grin and opened it with a small “phsst.”

# # #

The Porsche roared up to the airport terminal. Angelo had promised to treat it nicely while he was gone. Angelo hadn’t even bothered to buy a car and Russell sure wasn’t going to travel with a bunch of smelly fish in the restaurant van right before climbing on a plane for a fifteen hours. Perry was going to take care of his boat and Nutcase. He really had nothing to worry about, so why was he such a nervous wreck?

Angelo whipped up to the curb missing an old lady by inches. Probably scared a decade off her life.

Russell started to climb out, but Angelo grabbed his arm.

“You gonna ask her?”

“Yes.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Okay, cause if you come back from the most romantic country in the world, and you haven’t, I’m a gonna whip your behind.”

“You and what army?”

“Me and Cassidy, that’s who. You ain’t gonna mess with her, are you?”

Russell climbed out of the car and signaled for Angelo to pop the trunk lid. He grabbed the duffle and his camera bag. Slammed the lid back into place.

Angelo pushed up in his seat and looked at him over the windshield.

“And you remember what I told you.”

“Cinque Terre. Get idea photos for your next restaurant, ‘Angelo’s Home Hearth.’ It ain’t your home, buddy. I keep telling you, ‘Umbrian Hearth,’ but hey, why listen to me.”

“It was for a thousand years before mama and papa came to America.”

“They were sixteen and ran away from poverty to the land of opportunity. Your home is Brooklyn, New York, America, the United States of.”

“Fine. That’ll be my third restaurant. Just get me some good photos. Hokay?”

Russell slung the bags over his shoulder.

Crap! Some romantic getaway. Now he was supposed to work, too.

Angelo dropped into gear and would have removed Russell’s kneecap if he hadn’t dodged quickly. His car and his best friend roared off into the distance.

Crap again!

# # #

Now this was class. Russell punched the accelerator and the car leapt ahead on the Autostrade.

What woman would have thought to rent a Ferrari Spider rather than a lousy sedan? Cassidy would. He could kiss her
, had kissed her. And it had been even more incredible than the first time. She was more confident and more sure of herself than ever before and that was about the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. She’d even rented them a hotel room at the airport so they didn’t have to wait more than the time it took to cross the terminal and go up two stories in the elevator. They’d almost done it in the elevator like a couple of teens, would have if there’d been a third floor.

She now lay back in her seat, a kerchief over her hair and large Italian sunglasses hiding those luscious hazel eyes. Her hand resting on his thigh as he ripped along, headed north out of Sienna. He was on top of the world, it just couldn’t get any better than this.

At Lucca she aimed him south toward Pisa. It was the wrong direction for Cinque Terre, but, screw Angelo, Russell just didn’t give a damn.

That’s when it hit him
, he really didn’t give a damn. For a month he’d been worrying himself sick about the Seattle City Trade Association contract and then the new offer from the Pioneer Square Association. He just didn’t care. That was the old him.

Russell Morgan the studio photographer who worried about contracts,
who sweated over jobs until they were perfect and then some. The new Russell didn’t give a damn about Pioneer Square or Seattle City. He sure as hell didn’t need the money so he’d only do what was fun.

I
f he took a big contract, it would be the next step on the road to personal oblivion. He knew the old networking routine, had turned it into a highly-profitable, multi-million-dollar business with dozens of employees once already. Hell, he’d had three people whose sole job was to hunt weird props that no one had ever used from trained tree frogs to the Smithsonian’s collection of every Medal of Honor left at the Wall of the Vietnam Memorial. Office manager, accountant, lighting grip, camera assistant, makeup artist, the list went on and on.

Cassidy pointed him to exit at Livorno.

He’d had fun doing the ads for Angelo, but that was for his best friend. The ones for Perrin were a blast, but that had far more to do with the three women than the work itself. Perrin had a sharp intelligence hidden behind her frivolous façade. And Jo had a wicked sense of wry humor masked with reserve and sophistication. Cassidy was just plain lovable.

There it was. She was just plain lovable.

He raised her hand from his thigh to his lips and kissed the back of her hand. When he released it to shift, she stroked his cheek just as he had hers. The tingle made him settle deeper in the seat, more aware than ever of the precious cargo he carried.

More directions now
, Cassidy led him down smaller streets. Italian drivers really were crazy, but they made some extra space for the slick, black Ferrari. Italians respected sports cars the way the French respected bicycles. He used the extra space to slip through the knotted midday traffic.

She led him past the scenic old city, past rows of businesses. They ran out to the beach and turned left. And there it was.

“Oh. My.” He pulled the car to the side of the road and shut off the engine.

“Hey, you’re only supposed to say that about me.”

He leaned over and kissed her until his lips felt bruised and the catcalls of passing drivers made his ears ring. But he had to look back.

“This is incredible! It must be ten stories high.”