Where Dreams Reside

by M. L. Buchman

  She was nervous. He’d never seen her nervous. Frustrated at work, out of place and confused in Alaska, but never nervous.

  “I’ve been in the air for almost sixteen hours with only three hours on the ground in New York before turning back around. I had really lousy connections coming back, but it was the fastest I could get here.”

  “Fastest?” He didn’t dare to hope, squashed the glimmer of it as well as he could, wrapped his arms tighter across this chest.

  She pulled out one of the stools from under the prep table and sat down on it.

  Angelo kicked one loose and sat facing her. A glance showed that most of the line was watching them surreptitiously, except for his mother who was making no bones about what she was paying attention to. He was glad the patissier station was at the far end of the cookline. The kitchen had never in two years been so quiet while a meal was in progress.

  “I’ve had sixteen hours to think about something you said. And you were right, Alaska would kill me. Another multi-year lawsuit would do me in, too, even if it made my career. By the end I would be bitter and angry. I don’t want to be that.”

  “That, uh, that sounds good. Does that mean that you’ll—” He couldn’t finish the sentence, but Jo nodded anyway.

  “I called Renée Linden last night just before I got on the return flight. You are now talking to your new managing landlord, the Executive Director of the Pike Place Market. Still sounds crazy when I say it. Well, I’ll have some time to get used to it as that will take most of a month to switch over. She’s informing the board of her retirement right now. Muriel and I have to go meet them in fifteen minutes but Renée assures me that’s just a technicality.”

  “Jo. That’s incredible!” Angelo wanted to shout. He couldn’t think straight. He’d now have time to court her. She wouldn’t be running out of his life to a place filled with bad memories for her. He wanted to reach for her, but it was too much. He rested his hands firmly on his thighs and clamped them there.

  “And you’re closed Mondays and Tuesdays still, right?”

  “Uh, right.” That was a real problem he hadn’t been able to solve. Maybe he could shift some of his hours somehow so that he could see more of her. But he hadn’t come up with a solution yet.

  “New restaurant, too? Same hours?” She was switching over to that Counselor Thompson role that had so captivated him.

  “Hadn’t thought that far ahead, but, uh, sure. Probably. Why?”

  “Good. I only have,” she checked her watch, “twelve more minutes and I have a bit of ground to cover.”

  “Okay. You’re in Seattle. You’re quitting your job as an attorney. Are you okay with that?”

  She reached out and touched his hand for a moment. A contact that rippled up his arm so powerfully it made his breath catch in his chest.

  “Bless you, Angelo, for thinking of me and my feelings. It’s not something I’m very good at. Actually, the Market’s business is so complex now, that being an attorney is a distinct advantage. Apparently it is one of the reasons Renée first considered me. I’ll still be practicing law, I will simply be doing it on a more reasonable schedule. Speaking of schedule…”

  “I can—”

  “Shush! Ten minutes to go.”

  She simply slayed him when she was in this mode. There’d never been another woman like her.

  “The Market has a number of vendors who only work on the weekends. I’ll be telling the board that my hours are Wednesday through Sunday. I’ll have Monday and Tuesday off as well. I’m not sure what I will do with a career that fits into only five days a week, but that’s a different issue.”

  Angelo couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms about her in a quick hug. He’d be able to see Jo. They’d share weekends.

  Wait! That was if she wanted to keep seeing him. Well, she was here, wasn’t she? Talking to him. Had cancelled her meetings back East. He held her a moment longer, reveling in the magical scent that was Jo Thompson, praying he was even partly right about what was happening.

  All his anger, all his hurt was sliding toward the floor drain like old dirt in soap suds. And if he was wrong, he’d go right down the drain after them. That cooled down his heart a bit.

  He managed to sit back, but felt like an overeager little boy. He kept reaching out a hand to touch her knee, or her hand where it rested on her thigh, just to prove to himself that she was here, real, and so warm.

  “Seven minutes. Well, I’ve spent most of the last seven hours practicing this.” He saw her take a deep breath then she whispered to herself, “I can do this.”

  Clearly, whatever was next came hard. He took one of her hands in both of his.

  “You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met, Executive Director Jo Thompson. You can do anything.”

  She nodded several times as if slowly building layers of reassurance like a layered torta.

  “Melanie told me I could.”

  “Melanie?”

  She waved his question away for another time with a perfect flick of her fingers.

  “Would you come with me tomorrow morning after you finish your shopping for the restaurant?”

  “Of course—”

  Jo held up a hand to cut him off. He couldn’t help himself, he kissed her fingertips. She actually caressed his lips and he almost wept with how good it felt.

  “I’d like you to come with me to go see my mother.”

  He couldn’t be prouder of her if she were a new restaurant. It was a shock, not what he’d been expecting her to say, but it was still fantastic.

  “Yes, of course I will go with you.”

  Then she took another deep breath, glanced at her watch, then glanced down the now silent cookline toward his mother.

  Maria Amelia Avico Parrano nodded some silent answer to whatever Jo’s silent question was.

  Then Jo turned back and took both of his hands in hers and held them tightly.

  “I was thinking… If we like my mother… I was thinking we could invite her…” Another deep breath. “We could invite her to the wedding.”

  “The wedding?” Angelo’s ears were ringing. “Whose wedding?”

  “Well, Perrin made me this absolutely killer wedding dress. It would be a waste not to wear it, especially as you claim that you love me.”

  “I do,” Angelo couldn’t believe his ears. “Oh Jo, I love you so much I don’t know what to do with all the feelings inside me. I’m like a potato in a microwave without enough vent hol—”

  She leaned in and kissed him as a roar of applause rang through the kitchen. Pots and pans were banged with ladles, the butts of knives were pounded against cutting boards.

  She shifted back just a little, just enough for him to see her lips as there was no chance of hearing her over the cheering.

  “I love you.”

  It was all he needed to know.

  If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy:

  Where Dreams Are of Christmas (excerpt)

  A Where Dreams Seattle Romance

  Maria Amelia Avico Parrano sat at the take-out window of her son’s restaurant in the heart of Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Outside her window, the morning bustle of Post Alley would just be starting. Inside, the kitchen sounds of the busy prep crews of Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth were already echoing behind her. Manuel, Angelo’s sous chef, was pushing his new assistant Nora to see if he could make her panic. Maria smiled to herself, no luck yet.

  Luisa and Graziella were rehearsing the new menu items for the daily fresh sheet. “Black sea bass poached in a Piedmonte Roero Arneis, that’s a slightly sweet white wine of northern Italy, with a rub of basil…”

  Maria let the words drift into the background. Served with a surprise pairing of a young Barbaresco red, it would be an innovative pleasure on the palate. The other noises were starting to sound so familiar, it was if she’d never been anywhere else. Six months she’d been in Seattle since her retirement. Retired at forty-seven, it still made no sens
e.

  But the couple she’d cooked for the last three decades in New York had retired and didn’t need a resident chef any more. They had rewarded her most comfortably and now she had a place here at her son’s restaurant. And it was time.

  She flicked on the heater switch, in moments a warm wash of air blew onto her legs. When she slid up the kitchen window to face the chill first day of December, the cold wasn’t bad. Russell, her son’s best man at the beautiful fall wedding, had installed another heater over the outside of the window to radiate a wall of warmth down onto the customers and an awning to keep Seattle’s December rains at bay.

  Russell was such a sweet man, she really didn’t need that much protection. She had helped raise both Angelo and Russell, her son and her former employer’s boy, so of course they saw her as old and frail. That was their role in life. Youth was supposed to think that way. But she didn’t feel that way. Not even a little.

  Besides, she had far too much fun selling coffee and pastries at her take-out window to stop merely because of the weather. Already some of her regulars were loitering on the wet brickwork of Post Alley and quickly clustered around the window as soon as she opened it.

  “Good morning, Maria.” The near chorus was music to her ears.

  “Hello Clara, Joseph, and William. I don’t see you as much as I do when the weather is nice. Don’t you love your Maria any more?” She handed William his cappuccino first to soften the tease. He dropped a five dollar bill in the jar she’d set out. She’d made a decorative tile with “Breakfast $5” worked in lavender against a yellow glaze at one of those paint-it-yourself pottery places. “The price,” she would tell people, “she is fixed in stone.” Then she gave William a fresh cornetto.

  “What’s in it this morning?” he took a big bite without waiting for an answer. “Oh my blessed heaven!” He managed to mumble with his mouth full, a smile on his face, and crumbs clustering on the lapels of his sharp lawyer’s suit.

  “It’s a sweet Prosciutto di San Daniele with a fresh, tangy Robiola Bosina cheese.”

  By that time Clara had bitten into hers and had her eyes closed, as usual, to relish the tastes. Joseph went for the cappuccino first, still looking more asleep than awake. Other regulars had queued up as they paid and chatted, only moving to the edge of the awning and the radiant heat as others pressed inward.

  The milling, happy crowd attracted other Pike Place Market tourists. Inside of five minutes there were more people that she didn’t recognize than ones that she did.

  Henry came over from the fish market and she refused his money, as she had a hundred times before, but he always offered. Henry always held back the best of the day’s catch for Angelo or Manuel each morning, today it was the black sea bass.

  “Maria, when are you going to marry me?”

  “I could never marry you, Henry. You always smell of fish. I could no marry such a man.” He of course knew that was a little joke. His fish were always so fresh and he kept everything so clean. He was a vendor, and a very smart one, not a fisherman.

  “I’ll give it all up for you.” He flashed her one of his smiles.

  She was half tempted to at least date him. He was such a nice man, and good looking, even if a bit round in the belly. His graying hair would go silver and make him a very handsome older man. But, though she liked him, there was no spark.

  Maria wanted spark. She wanted electricity, lightning bolts. She only hoped that she hadn’t waited too long and missed her chance.

  She served and chatted with a dozen more tourists after Henry left. Her son had found lightning. And Russell too. The two boys were so cute in married life it was hard to credit that they were men grown, always doting on their wives while trying desperately to appear the strong men they couldn’t help being if they tried. Their wives, Jo and Cassidy, were both such exceedingly competent women, they made her feel out of her depth. All she had ever done was cook and raise the two boys.

  But she’d felt that spark once in her life. She’d felt it right to the very core of her being. A love for a no-good, useless man who had walked away after taking her virginity and leaving her pregnant with a son. Maria had been forced to come to America to hide the shameful pregnancy of an unmarried Italian Roman Catholic girl. She’d never gone back to Manarola for more than to visit.

  She wanted fire. She wanted someone who made her blood burn and her heart race. For an hour, perhaps two, she smiled and teased and enjoyed herself immensely. It had become her contribution to her son’s success. He was the great chef, but she knew how to charm the people.

  The morning always went too quickly; another dozen cornetti and she’d be sold out for the day. She made her usual bet with herself. Today she guessed that nine, perhaps ten of the people she’d served would be back for an Italian lunch when the restaurant opened. Even one additional customer would pay for the minor loss she took on each breakfast she sold.

  She served a young Chinese couple who didn’t speak a word of English, or Italian either. It didn’t matter. She helped them figure out which bill to put in the jar and they left ready to explore the waterfront with their breakfast in hand.

  A man drifted to the take-out counter window during a momentary lull.

  Maria Amelia recognized him. Lately, he’d often wandered by in the mornings, slowing down but never stopping. He always appeared to want to, but never quite managed.

  Her greeting elicited little more than a friendly nod. A shy one. He wore old sneakers with white socks, dark-brown khakis that had started to fray where the hems scuffed along the ground, a red flannel shirt under a faded jeans jacket, and a baseball cap with some computer-looking logo. The whole outfit had clearly been worn several years too long, probably from a Goodwill store. He didn’t have a beard, but needed a shave badly. It was long enough she could see it would have a little salt in the pepper if he let it grow.

  For all that he was quite the handsomest man she had served that morning. Not the prettiest, so many of the young men were pretty. Those fresh clean faces that thought they knew the world while having seen none of it.

  This man had seen much of it. Perhaps too much, perhaps not, but it showed on his solid features and in the soft brown eyes that didn’t skitter aside despite his unease, or downward despite her low-cut dress. She wouldn’t mind much if they did, after all, why was a woman built the way she was if not to share it a little bit. But she liked that he didn’t go there.

  He stopped uncertainly several steps from her window, just at the point where she could see the rain dripping off the awning, splashing onto the brim of his hat, and trickling off the brim and into his open jacket.

  The man pulled out a wallet, made a back-and-forth motion with his fingers as if searching for money, then shoved it back in his pocket.

  As he turned away, Maria called to him.

  “Don’t go.”

  He stopped, this time with the drip falling down the back of his neck. When he looked back at her, his nice eyes looked just a little wild. Fear that he couldn’t afford to pay even so little for a breakfast.

  “Here, it’s my last. You should have it.” She held out a cornetto and cappuccino.

  He hesitated, so shy it was almost painful to watch.

  “I always save the best for last. So these must be for you.”

  The man came and took them, careful not to touch her as he did so. His nails needed trimming, but the hands were good ones. He didn’t use them for manual labor, but they showed a man who had used them for more than office work his whole life. A few small burns and nicks she recognized as someone who cooked, and wasn’t very good at it, which only made her like him all the more.

  He almost managed a smile before turning away and hurrying into the rain.

  His cheeks burning with shame, Hogan Stanford hurried down Pike Place Market’s Post Alley until he was out of sight of Maria’s window. Then he circled around to the antiques place at the corner of Post and Stewart and peeked back toward Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth.


  It was a gray, drizzling December morning, freezing water was trickling down his back, and he was a complete and total idiot.

  He hadn’t been able to say a word.

  He’d first noticed her from his condo’s window which faced Puget Sound. Watching the tourists mob up and down the four short, bricked blocks of Pike Place Market had become one of his favorite pastimes. Even if he didn’t like to join the fray, it always seemed so full of life.

  And in the midst of it all there had been a flash of color, of sky blue and gold that had glittered in the crowd. That was what had finally drawn him outdoors to wander the streets of the Pike Place Market. On his third outing, he’d spotted her again. It had been a warm day for December and she’d worn her tan camel hair coat open. That day she’d been wearing a red skirt, a vivid orange blouse, and a sunny yellow kerchief over her dark, curling hair, like a flower in bloom. But he had no doubt that it was the same woman. It simply had to be, there couldn’t be two women in the world who glowed so brightly.

  He’d been so stunned by her beauty that he’d lost track of her when she must’ve ducked into a store. It took him another week to spot her again, though at least now he had a face to go by. This time she sat in the window at Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth Ristorante, framed by the wood-and-brick window frame, like a Botticelli.

  Today she’d been dressed in brilliant blues as she served up breakfast and charm in equal portions. She shone like a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark world on this dreary December day. At least he was pretty sure it was December now.

  He peeked again around the brickwork corner and back up Post Alley. She was bantering happily with another customer. Leaning her elbow on the counter and resting her chin on her hand, she looked as if she could happily visit away the whole morning. It was an ability he had never understood. He didn’t know whether to be impressed by how natural she was, or be nervous that she would talk everyone to death and be a bore. Yet she never appeared to bore anyone, though he had watched her many times. He decided that she had an uncanny awareness of the mood of each individual she met.