Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) (8 page)

The floor was a surprise when she ran out of steps. Then she turned. There was just enough room to stand upright. She wanted to hunch down like a troll. The ceiling was high in
the middle, but sloped down to either side. The floor was a narrow strip running all the way to the front. The walls sloped outward from the floor. Seating was perched part way up the wall, making more use of the wider space. God, it was even smaller than her father’s trailer, may the old bastard rot in hell.

“I’m going to put the galley here,” he pointed to a couple cardboard boxes of groceries, an ice chest and a small camping stove.

“Pilot’s berth there.” A bed no bigger than a coffin, across the narrow walkway from the galley. How could you even climb into the thing? The deck was just two or three feet above the narrow bench.

“A settee that can be a dining table or collapse into a comfortable double bed right here across from this little woodstove.” He continued forward oblivious of the fact that all this meant nothing to her. Whatever he was calling a settee was now a card table and two folding chairs. And how that became a bed for two was beyond her and a place she’d certainly never be found.

A section of the flooring was pulled up and she half expected to see the ocean beneath it. Instead, about six inches down, was concrete and, she swallowed hard, a wash of blackish water running back and forth with each motion of the boat.

A loud buzz below her right foot made her jump. There were splashing noises and slowly the skin of water disappeared. The buzzing stopped with a sigh and a gurgle.

“That’s just the bilge pump.”

The smell of fresh cut wood and paint added to the queasiness in her stomach. The bilge pump, she did her best to catalog all of the strange words he kept using. Booms and tillers and hulls. Even something called a fang or a vang that he wanted to replace for reasons she’d never understand.

Again she focused on the curve of the hull. It had looked wider from outside. She peeked out one of the round windows and could just see the water. The floor was deeper than she’d thought, she was in the ocean up to her waist.

The “head” was next on the tour
.

S
he blinked twice but it didn’t go away. A porcelain toilet. With handles and levers that would make a dentist chair look safe. Sitting right there in the open on the floor. It was a good thing that he’d promised her a hotel room or she’d be on the red-eye back to New York.

He waved at a blank section of hull, “Books, maybe a bench seat that could double as a bunk. Don’t really know yet.”

The last of the tour was the forward stateroom. A fancy name for a double bed jammed into the pointy end of the boat. He was dreaming if he thought they were going to make love there. The place wasn’t as cold as a meat locker, by maybe five degrees but not by ten. She hadn’t roughed it since she and her mother had escaped the trailer park and she wasn’t about to start again now.

Tools were piled everywhere. Cans of paint and who knew wha
t. They smelled. It all smelled nasty.

He was waiting for her to join him at the far end.

Deep breath. Deep breath.

He was so damn handsome. And he’d never looked better. Standing with his legs spread like a sea pirate standing on his treasure. The work on the boat had flattened his stomach even more and his arms had a power that was stronger, safer than she’d imagined possible when they’d hugged at the airport.

Keeping her attention on his eyes, and where the hole in the floor was, she headed in his direction. When the boat shifted, she reached up and a small rail was in just the right place to grab. She could do this.

She was halfway there when something shot between her legs. She gasped and hung on to the too thin rail with both hands.

Russell casually reached down with one hand and scooped up… a kitten. A calico kitten with shaggy hair and outrageously long whiskers.

“This is Nutcase. She has absolutely no fear. She sticks her little nose in the strangest of places. One day she fiberglassed her tail and it took me an hour to trim it off because she wouldn’t hold still.” It climbed up his chest to perch on his shoulder.

“You can see where it hasn’t grown back yet.” He pulled the long tail from around his throat and one side was indeed shaved.

A cat.

When she was just starting out, her career was almost aborted by a cat. Right before a shoot when she was ten, she’d tried to pet the photographer’s cat. It had swiped her with its claws and left a long red scratch down the side of her finger. They had to get another hand model.

Her mother had been furious.

Melanie didn’t sleep for four days as she watched it to make sure it healed. Skipped school and rubbed in salves and moisturizers to make sure there was no unsightly puckering. Finally wept herself to sleep with relief when she could no longer find exactly where it had been. She turned down every shoot with a cat since then.

There was no way she was going to pet Russell’s cat.

“She’s really quite sweet. She likes being scritched under the chin like this.” He demonstrated and Nutcase purred loudly.

How badly did she want this? How badly did she want him? She’d never told him the cat story. Never told anyone that she could still feel the outline of her mother’s slap on her face that had shone for days, as livid a red as the cat’s mark
, that still burned though her mother was long dead.

“She won’t hurt you.”

How many tests did she have to pass? Clearly there would always be another. But she hadn’t reached her limit yet. She’d manage this one.

Melanie extended her finger until the cat had to lean forward to sniff the black leather. After a careful inspection, it’s pink and black nose wiggling like a tiny bumblebee, another of her fears, the cat leaned even farther out and rubbed its chin along her finger. Russell was right. She was gentle.

But there was no way she was taking off her gloves.

# # #

“No, it cannot be.” Jo Thompson insisted in her best lawyer voice.

Before Cassidy could add her own protest, Perrin continued on, excitement rippling off her in high-energy waves.

“Uh-huh! Way! Could I make something like this up? Well, I could, I guess, if I wanted to but I’m not.” Perrin spoke loudly enough that half-a-dozen heads turned in their direction despite the noise level in Cutter’s.

The lounge was hopping and it was barely six o’clock. Another hour and it would really be rolling. The décor was simple and modern in a plush-chairs-around-knee-high-glass-tables motif. The air smelled of exquisite seafood being served in the restaurant beyond the tinted glass wall.
The wrap-around windows revealed the tail end of an awesome winter sunset over Puget Sound.

Cassidy had learned from long practice that it wasn’t worth the effort to quiet her friend. Perrin didn’t mind being shushed, but ten seconds later she’d be bound to forget and her volume would climb once again.

Everything about Perrin Williams was loud. She’d dyed her hair half chrome-blue and half the black of India ink. And not side-to-side or front-to-back, but in diagonal stripes three-inches wide spiraling down from the high part. The stripes followed the line of the sloping haircut that started well down her bare left shoulder and rose shorter and shorter to the line of her jaw on the right. The clothes following the line of the hair from bare shoulder to a high collar on the other side. It was quite striking once you got past the strangeness of it.

Cassidy hoped that maybe it was wig, but it was always hard to tell with Perrin because she did her fashion statements so perfectly.

Her clothes matched the shocking blue and her accessories the black. Fashion was her life, her shop was as much gallery as boutique, but there was a streak in her that had never left sixteen behind. She giggled merrily at the effect of her news.

“Pamela and Janice? But I thought they each had long-term boyfriends.”

Perrin nodded and took a gulp of her Cosmo.

“I kinda set them up, though I didn’t know at the time I was setting them up, I just kinda did it. Separately I sold them those cute blouses. The ones that were mirror images of each other You know the ones, by Georgie. Who would think such a good designer would be living over his parent’s garage in Duvall, Washington? Anyway, I showed them to you the last time you were in the shop. The green velour with blue silk sleeves and the other blue velour with the green silk sleeves. Isn’t there a song about that somewhere?”

Jo nodded and Cassidy followed suit even though she didn’t remember the blouses or the song. They’d both learned long ago to never stop Perrin in the middle of a story or she’d sidetrack and you’d never get the ending.

“Well, two best friends dating two guys who were also best friends. I thought it would be cute. You know, the mirror twins on a double date. Sure to make the guys eyes pop. That’s what I thought. How was I supposed to know they’d decide they were a set and they’d take a trip down the other side of the street? They came in a couple days later to buy the matching pantsuits.”

Cassidy could remember those. Everything switched, which side of the jacket buttoned over, which lapel had been cut on a different slant, which breast had the pocket kerchief, opposite swirls of the slanted pinstripe. She could picture Pamela and Janice, the Swedish-pale and the Jamaican-dark, both very tall, both very curved, an unlikely pair. They probably looked amazing together.

Jo was laughing and Cassidy joined in just a moment late, a moment off beat, but neither of the others noticed. No other revelers in the lounge noticed. None of the pretty women
nor any of the business-suited men. Thankfully most of her little screw-ups were invisible.

“How about you, Jo? What adventures in the wondrous world of law? Huh
? Huh? Come on, something juicy,” Perrin begged like a puppy dog eager for a new toy.

“
Don’t let Perrin be the only one with good gossip. I hate that I always have the best gossip.” She cocked her head sideways and her hair swirled back and forth in a hypnotic spiral. “No, actually, I don’t mind. I kinda like knowing more than everyone about everything. So give me some juicy law stuff to add to my collection.”

Jo brushed back the long, black hair
that her half Alaskan-native heritage had mad as naturally dark as Perrin’s dyed locks. That half-heritage had also granted her a scholarship from the state. Law undergrad followed by corporate law grad.

Her heritage
had also given a broad face that always looked as if it had a nice tan, and round brown eyes that welcomed you in. She brushed some imaginary dust off the navy blue pantsuit that made her look terribly professional and immensely sexy at the same time. There wasn’t a male judge who didn’t smile when she entered their courtroom. Nor an opposition lawyer who didn’t groan.

“I made partner, does that count?”

Perrin screamed loudly enough to turn every head in the place and then raised her Cosmo in a toast. Cassidy’s merlot and Jo’s Irish Coffee followed.

“That’s great! Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Cassidy sipped her wine, they really needed a better house red than Ste. Michelle. Nice enough
at the price, but limited. Overly fruity.

She flagged a passing pretty-boy waiter, “Could we have three flutes and a bottle of Moet and Chandon? The Brut Imperial ’99 if you have it.”

He scribbled a note and left without saying a word. Clearly he had no idea what it was.

“Ooo, Cassie’s ordering. This should be good.” Perrin knocked back her Cosmo and then rubbed her hands together in excitement.

Jo set aside her Irish Coffee and nibbled on one of the crackers. Being Cassidy’s roommate in college for four years had taught her about clearing her palate. Perrin had been the wild girl down the hall who had taken Jo and Cassidy under her wing to make sure they didn’t stay too straight through all those years together. They hadn’t.

“I found out this
just a few hours ago.”

“Tell us. Tell us.” Perrin’s hair swung about as she bounced in her seat.

The bottle arrived and he presented the label. She nodded, exactly right.

The sommelier was going to be pissed when he found out that a hundred plus-dollar bottle of champagne had been opened from his collection without his being present. Opened as casually as a ten-dollar Cook’s.

He uncorked it well, with a restrained pop beneath his cupped hand. He just dropped the cork on the table and she picked it up for a sniff. Warm and bright with just the hint of wood she remembered. Never much in a champagne cork, but she liked them for that.

Three baseless flutes that looked like picked flowers were resting at a tilt in a tall, curved vase. Before she could stop him, he began pouring. The flutes were colored, making it impossible to see the wine’s hue. Then she noticed Jo and Perrin’s reactions to the glasses. They were oo’ing and ah’ing about how much they looked like flowers.

She let it go.

Perrin laughed after she sipped, “It tickles.”

Jo took her taste and blinked as if she’d just woken up.

“Cassidy, that’s wonderful. Thank you.”

She took a sip herself. The wine effervesced strongly, releasing its flavors. Pear and citrus. Balanced. No real shift. She swallowed. Almond. She waited for the hint of toast, but the aroma of garlic bread and steamed clam appetizers arriving at their table made her miss it.