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 black 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 as livid a red as the cat’s mark for days—the 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, its 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 Cutters.
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. 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. You know, the mirror twins on a double date. Totally cute and 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 one else in the lounge noticed—neither the fashionable women nor any of the business-suited men. Thankfully most of her little social ineptitudes were invisible; she’d gotten good enough to hide them even from her closest friends.
“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 made 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 her 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 appealing 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 be
en the wild girl across the hall who had taken Jo and Cassidy under her wing to make sure they didn’t stay too focused through all those years together. They hadn’t.
“I found out 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-dollar bottle of champagne—at retail—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. She couldn’t detect any 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.
“You earned it. So, how did it happen?”
“You are aware that I recently beat that Class Action suit against the Alaskan fisheries? The partners called me in, all three of them so serious.” Jo drew her face down into a frown. “ ‘Well, Ms. Thompson. We, with our most recent victory in Alaska, are now the most sought after corporate law firm in the Pacific Northwest. So, we’re going to have to make a change.’ He pulled a blank piece of letterhead out of his portfolio and pushed it across the table toward me.”
Jo brushed her hair back over her shoulders.
“First of all it was not their win, it was mine. And second, if they thought I was going to write my own letter of resignation, they could go…”
“Fuck themselves!” Perrin filled in. Gave her a thumbs up. “You go, girl!”
Jo tipped her flute in Perrin’s direction, “Exactly my thoughts, though I was preparing to express them differently. Then I looked at the letterhead. You look at something like that a hundred times a day and it just disappears. But there was a change. It didn’t take me long to discover the alteration. My name had been added to the letterhead.”
“Cool!”
“To our Jo.” Cassidy raised her glass and clicked it with the other two. They all knocked it back and she refilled their flutes. Leave it to Jo to make partner two years ahead of any normal schedule.
“It gets better.”
“Better?” The second flute had lost a bit of the effervescence but none of the brightness. This time she caught the toast in the smooth finish.
“By the time I left the boardroom, my name was gold-leafed onto a corner-office door and everything moved in for me. When I left this afternoon, parked right where my old Toyota should be, sat one of those new BMW roadsters I’ve been lusting after. The one I showed you in that ad. Right down to the red rose on the front seat.”
Cassidy remembered the ad, it wasn’t one that you could miss. Something about it leapt out and grabbed you by the…well, clearly she’d had too much to drink already.
“I get first ride,” Perrin giggled and topped off all of their glasses. “Let’s get smashed tonight. Tomorrow you can take me for a drive.”
“I’ll take seconds…I guess.” Long time since she’d done that. Funny thing about being back with them. It was almost like being in college. Perrin always so loud and wild, attracting all the worst boyfriends of course. Which were the ones Perrin always fell for: wild flings, roaring breakups, and a heart that was permanently broken…until the next one. She remained that way still.
But Perrin also attracted the best, yet she never kept those. Cassidy had learned to wait for the ones who recovered quickly from Perrin’s dazzle. Some of them had been quite interesting and she’d never have had a chance at them if they hadn’t flocked first to her friend’s light.
Jo dated the same guy for all four years of college. Where Perrin was long and elegant, Jo was voluptuous and sure of herself in a way that an unsure, sixteen-year-old freshman Cassidy had done her best to copy. Jo so quiet and studious, college valedictorian, summa cum laude. Cassidy had always been second, finishing as the salutatorian.
Cassidy had some good boyfriends, but none who were four years steady nor even near worth that. She’d forgotten all that, right until this moment.
She’d had enough seconds to last her a lifetime. That was one of the few good things about having left New York. There, she’d been relegated to the second tier of reviewers as well. She was so done with that, too.
She’d been casually watching the people parade through the door when one caught her full attention. A tall blond of such perfection that she looked right out of a magazine. The noise in the bar dropped by a third as every man, as if on some hidden cue, turned to watch her walk down the side of the lounge toward the restaurant.
Had her companion been any less striking, he would have been invisible in her presence. He wasn’t all that handsome. Okay, she had to admit to herself, not as handsome as Jack James for example, but he made up for it in a breadth of shoulder, a confidence of motion, and an easy smile making him impossible to ignore.
Cassidy recognized him from somewhere. A nouveau riche software guy on the news or some such.
Perrin stuck her pinkies in her mouth and let out a wolf whistle. The bar broke into self-conscious laughter. The girl smiled and moved past the tinted glass partition. The man faced their table directly for a moment.
A jolt of recognition pounded against her champagne-befuddled memory.
Where had she seen him?
Recently.
Close, very close.
It was the eyes; she remembered his nice eyes. Okay, forget that. She remembered his unbelievably amazing eyes.
Jo tapped her on the shoulder. “Cassidy. Earth to Cassidy.”
“Um, yeah?” He was gone and she sipped her champagne but didn’t notice anything except that it was wet in her suddenly dry throat.
“ ‘Yeah,’ she says. Good. Articulate.” Jo waved her flute toward the entrance. “Didn’t know you had a penchant for women.”
“I don’t. What woman?”
“Miss Playboy centerfold. Miss Cover of Vogue, Elle, and practically every other magazine out there.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I was noticing her companion.”
Perrin craned her neck around but they were out of sight. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy. Man.” Definitely man.
Perrin looked again. “I missed him. I don’t usually miss the guys.”
“Then why did you whistle?”
“Every guy here wanted to whistle at the girl but was too inhibited. So I did it for them. It’s just the kinda helpful person I am.”
Russell had ordered dinner and the first hors d’oeuvre had arrived, seared bay scallops with a brandy glaze, before he noticed that Melanie was unusually quiet. When had she changed? She’d been a little tentative on his boat, but she’d opened up to Nutcase. Silly pest did have its uses.
When they’d arrived at the restaurant, she gone quiet. He hadn’t planned to make quite such an entrance.
“You okay, Melanie? You want to get somewhere else where they don’t whistle at you?”
She sipped her diet Coke and shrugged. “I get that everywhere.”
“Huh. Guess you would.”
<
br /> “Though that’s the first time it was by a woman punker.”
“Punker?” Russell hadn’t noticed a punker.
“Sitting at that table, three dykes all together, all so buddy-buddy.”
All he’d noticed was that wine reviewer Angelo was so hyped up on. Now that Melanie mentioned it, there were two other women at the table. He could see them as clearly as a photograph in his mind’s-eye. Not punk and he doubted the dyke remark. They weren’t dressed for each other, they were dressed to be looked at: all three very high-end, very city. Her companions were really attractive, but neither matched the russet-haired reviewer once again in her tight black turtleneck and designer jacket. The woman had a clear sense of what looked good on her.
He brought his attention back to Melanie.
“Well, I guess I’m just not used to it is all.”
“That’s because you’re where you don’t belong. Back in our crowd they know me. They knew you. Beauty isn’t as big a deal there as it is out here in the sticks. Don’t you miss it?”
He dipped another scallop in the mango-pineapple sauce and popped it into his mouth. Other than Angelo’s, this was rapidly becoming one of his favorite places to eat. He didn’t usually face the Friday night crowd; late Wednesday lunches were more his speed. Sometimes there were less than a dozen diners and those were business people. He always brought a good book, but spent most of the time watching the amazing view, the ever-busy Seattle waterfront bustling with ferries and freighters and sailboats, and the shifting light on the permanent snowfields atop the Olympic Mountains. All that was lost now in the winter evening’s darkness.
“No. I’m sorry, Melanie. I really don’t miss the life. I miss you.” Far more than he’d expected. Flying her out for Valentine’s Day was about more than being together tonight at the Sorrento. It was more than that. But he hadn’t given much thought to what more.
“I don’t miss the city or the studio at all.” That last was a surprise. He stabbed the last scallop while he thought about it. He really didn’t miss it.
The Complete Where Dreams Page 7
