She maintained her silence until she had completed several trays and slid them into the large ovens ranging along the wall. With a quick swipe, she cleaned off the prep table, then sat on the stool across from him. Taking a bruschetta and her coffee, she finally looked up at him.
It wasn’t a look he’d expected. There was no judgment, that he was too much of a loner or what was wrong with him that he didn’t have any friends. It was a look of sorrow.
“I talk to everybody.” Then she studied the darkness above the worktable lights for a long time before facing him again.
There was just the two of them and the single light. They both sat in the shadows on opposite sides of the table. Mostly what was visible was her hands and her white porcelain cup shining beneath the light.
“But other than three woman I know, I think I too may be as alone.”
Hogan couldn’t imagine how that could be possible, but he didn’t question it either. She was clearly a thoughtful woman. She had noticed what he had not, that he had let his life be defined by his past.
“I’m going to return the favor,” he raised his coffee mug as if proposing a toast.
“What favor is that?” Though she raised her mug to share the toast.
“I will agree to not speak about, well, you know who. And you will agree to call on me any time you need someone to really talk to. It doesn’t have to be about anything, and it can be at three in the morning.”
“A new friend?”
He shrugged, “We all have to start somewhere.”
After a long moment, that smile lit her face. Really lit it, her eyes shining from the shadows.
“Have to start somewhere? But where does that mean you are heading?”
Huh! He didn’t have an answer to that one. He was still surprised that for the first time in a long time, he was really looking forward to spending time with someone.
“I guess we’ll have to find that out along the way.”
Chapter 6
Hogan’s door buzzer snapped him out of his morose contemplation of the terrible programming on television for the night. He’d been at a loss all day. His attempts to follow Maria’s directive not to think about Vera only seemed to have thrown his past into the forefront of his mind. By now it was making him totally crazy. At least he hadn’t scorched the chowder pot at the shelter again. Of course, they were having minestrone tonight which didn’t burn unless you did something too stupid for even his present state of mind.
He opened the door and almost fell back in shock. There stood Maria Parrano, lovely in a dark blue dress and the same red woolen coat as this morning. Muted with the contrasting blue, she appeared mysterious rather than as a flame under this morning’s streetlight. Mysterious was certainly appropriate, as it was a complete mystery as to why she was tolerating him, never mind seeking him out.
“May I come in?” Her voice teased him for his gawking and fumbling, but did it with a kindness.
“Of course.” It was only as she entered, that he noticed the two flattened moving boxes under one arm.
“What are those for?”
“Hogan Stanford,” she stopped and looked up at him. “There are several things you need to learn for us to be friends. The first is to greet me, the second is to be a gentleman and offer to take my coat.”
He fumbled his way through that. She set aside the boxes without explanation.
“Do I get a tour? Or do we remain standing in your entry hall?”
He slapped his forehead with a loud smack. Get your act together, Stanford. He took a deep breath to calm himself and then offered her his arm. She took it lightly as he led her in.
The short hall opened onto a living room that took Maria’s breath away. It wasn’t the furnishing, which was nice enough, if a little sparse. It was the view. Hogan’s home was far lower than Jo and Angelo’s condominium with its magnificent view from high above Seattle. Hogan’s view was no less stunning, but it was also intimate in its closeness to the scenery. The ice-capped Olympic Mountains towered in the dark orange of the evening sky. Elliot Bay was spread before them as not even Cutter’s Bar had shown it off last night. And, as they came up to the glass, she could see Pike Place Market spread at her feet. It made the world look like it was the inside of a jewel box.
“Why Hogan, this is fantastico.”
“Uh, thanks. Why are you here?”
She could hear that he hadn’t intended it to sound offensive. Maria considered teasing him about it, but decided that a man so unaware of how he was communicating perhaps cared very much about what he was communicating. So, rather than skewering him like a kebab, she answered his question honestly.
“I’m here to help. Why don’t you fetch those two boxes while I admire the view a bit more?”
He moved to comply and she turned to inspect the room. The living room had a soft brown leather sofa and matching chair that looked well lived in. That would be his preferred spot. They faced the view more than the television, which she would take as a good sign. There was a neatness that was surprising for a man so casual about his attire.
The low coffee table sported only the television remotes, a book, and a couple of magazines, Wired and Cook’s Illustrated. Leave it to a computer guy to enjoy the terribly quantitative approach to cooking. She herself had few written recipes, primarily following her instincts and her taste buds.
Another amusing observation that she’d keep to herself were those two magazines. The first was heavily thumbed, a dozen different pages with the corners folded down; clearly topics Hogan wanted to think about and consider more at a later time. Cook’s was almost pristine. A small crease indicated that it had probably been read, but it didn’t inspire.
Beyond the sofa, a long oak table and formal chairs defined a dining space, but looked not just unused, but wholly uninhabited. It should be crowded with friends and family. A jovial gathering place for coming together each week and remembering life’s joys in the company of others. Well, it was not her place to suggest such things in another’s life, but if she lived here, it would look as well used as Hogan’s chair, not like a museum piece.
The space itself was interesting: the view to the front, a long wall of books to the side, a somewhat barren wall backed the dining table, that should be covered with photos of friends and adventures, but perhaps he didn’t have any to hang. The doors to the other side wall must lead to kitchen and bedroom.
Hogan returned with the boxes, and Maria fished a roll of packing tape out of her purse. In moments they were assembled.
He was clearly restraining his questions. Perhaps he had learned that she would only answer them as she saw fit. Meant he was smart about people, whether he communicated that graciously or not.
“Now, my friend Mr. Stanford. You are going to go through your apartment. Everything that was a gift from, or reminds you in any bad way about the woman, who you still aren’t allowed to speak of, you will hand to me, and I will pack it away.”
“Then what?”
“Then we will put these boxes into storage somewhere. Later you may decide if you ever want to open them again. I’m hoping that you have enough good sense that two boxes will be enough. If you have held onto too much, we can get more boxes. You should also feel free to simply throw things out as well.” She went back to the coat rack by the front door and retrieved a couple of black plastic garbage bags from her coat pocket. “You don’t even have to touch anything. You can just point and tell me box or bag.”
Then she began to wonder again about the magazines. She walked over and picked up the issue of Cook’s Illustrated. Maria held it up as a question.
Hogan stood frozen, riveted in place in his own living room by the steady gaze of a woman half-a-head shorter than he was. How had she known? He was interested in cooking, enjoyed the editor’s opening story and the science behind what they did.
It hadn’t been Vera’s magazine, but rather one she kept gifting him year in and year out even though he never cooked any
thing from it. Yet another little guilt trip he hadn’t recognized? Perhaps.
Then he eyed the woman holding the magazine for his decision.
His first instinct was that Maria was trying to be controlling, as Vera had been. Then he winced, knowing he wasn’t supposed to be thinking of her, an almost impossible mandate. Contradictory. How do you stop thinking about someone you’ve been told specifically to be aware of every time you thought about her? A tautological conundrum at best, at worst…absolutely impossible.
It was also a depressing shock quite how easily Vera entered his thoughts though the last of the divorce-related tasks was over six months past.
Knowing his first instincts were not to be trusted in anything to do with Vera, he decided that there were two other primary possibilities as to what Maria was up to. First, Maria could be trying to clear any Vera remnants out of his condo to make way for herself. Since she’d thought he was a bum until this morning and he’d not told her how well off he truly was, he thought that unlikely. Second, maybe he should take her statement at face value. Perhaps she was simply that kind.
A feeling ran through him that he was having trouble identifying. A part of him wanted to wrap his arms around her and simply weep.
She didn’t wait for him to respond. Reading his expression, she tossed it into the garbage bag. He’d have to remember to cancel the subscription. If he renewed it later, it would be at a later time on his own for his own reasons.
Maria turned once more to await him patiently. Now he had an image of doing something other than weeping on her shoulder.
Not trusting himself to speak, he turned to the bookcase and took down a small brass elephant bookend. It was nice work, but every time he looked at it he could see Vera cooing to the French merchant in Lyons. Bent forward, cleavage very much on show, “her best bargaining position” she always called it. Had she slept with him too? He cast the thought aside and handed the elephant to Maria.
No longer supported, several books fell over. He flopped the first six books on their side and shoved them over as an impromptu bookend.
“What’s next?” She returned to stand stalwartly at his elbow.
It was a slow process at first, but one that picked up pace quickly. Box and bag. A lot of bag. A small oil painting in hideous colors that had matched only the hideous price tag. Book gifts he’d never wanted to read to begin with started the “to sell without waiting” box. The runner on the oak table. Knick knacks. Where had all of the knick knacks come from?
Then he started at the front door and began working his way toward the picture windows along the other side of his condo. The office was purely his, no, there was that stupid picture. He was the only one in it, but he could feel her behind the camera. In the bathroom, the toothbrush mug.
How had she insinuated herself so far into his life? Fifteen years of marriage, the last three apparently rife with adultery, was how.
The bedroom, with its view of Queen Anne Hill to the north, was fairly clean. Some old hangers, some ties that he’d never wear again if his life depended on it, and a girlie lamp on the other side of the bed, all pink and fake Victorian.
Each item he identified was whisked from his hands before it could burn his fingers, gone.
He was hardly aware of Maria anymore. She had become an extension of his own thoughts, and a focus for them. With her beside him, he felt strong, able to deal. And with each item they removed, he felt a layer stripped clear. As if Maria were paring him down, peeling off the hard rind to expose…something. The question of what might remain after the last Vera layers were gone was one he wouldn’t contemplate at the moment.
Last was the kitchen. The only part of Vera that was here, other than a few more mugs he could hardly bear to handle, was the espresso machine. A good one. It had been a Christmas gift, in a good year. He used it every day.
He turned to Maria and she must have seen the confusion on his face.
“Was it a good memory?”
He could only nod, a tightness in his throat had cut off any words. He’d lost so much. He’d lost his image of a happy family and a happy home. Worse, he’d lost any hope of a happy version of himself. But the espresso machine was from before that time. Vera had given the machine to him when they couldn’t afford it, by scraping together an entire year’s worth of a dollar per day stuffed into a jar. He’d bought her a used DVD set of some British comedy she’d liked, and she’d given him one of the best home espresso machines made.
What was he supposed to do with that? So much gone. This too?
He slumped back against one of the cabinets and slid down to sit on the floor. Tired. It had been too much, like a knife driven into his guts. It might hurt, but to remove it would hurt even worse.
Maria settled to the floor beside him. It was jarring. He thought of her as so beautiful and such a lady. Yet, other than her dress forcing her to sit with her legs folded neatly to one side, she was probably younger than he was. She said she’d had Angelo when she was young. That meant before twenty. He was newly married at thirty. Maybe she was a year or so older than he was, though that was wholly impossible to credit. She looked and acted so much younger than he felt. Either way, he was sitting on the floor but it still felt strange to see her do so.
She bumped a shoulder against his. As if she were simply offering support. Which is exactly what she’d been doing for, he glanced at the kitchen clock, for almost two hours.
“I’m such a total mess.”
“You are.”
He laughed, “At least you could not agree with me so readily.” He could smell her, without even turning to face her. Warm and spice. Like a winter cider but fresh, so fresh. Like mint or apples on the air.
“I hate to tell you this, Hogan, but you’re human. So, you’re a mess.” Her tone was completely matter of fact.
“But,” he didn’t know how to express it. “But you’re so perfect.”
“If you think that, Mr. Hogan Stanford, then perhaps it is time I was going.”
“No! You can’t. I need to figure this out first.” He scrambled around in his brain for some way to not admit out loud what an utterly ridiculous pedestal he had her on. Of course she was human, he just hadn’t thought it through until this moment. But he knew absolutely that he didn’t want her to leave.
“It’s a disguise right?” He turned to her and they were face-to-face only inches apart. The closeness did nothing to change his opinion of her. Her dusky complexion, her thoughtful dark eyes, her outrageously thick hair were all as real as they’d been when she sat in her window like a painted Venus.
“What’s a disguise?” Her voice was a little more than a whisper.
“Your perfection. You certainly had me fooled. Here I was thinking you were the perfect woman, which is, as you’ve pointed out, of course totally impossible. So, I figure you’re an alien in disguise. Am I right?”
She eyed him suspiciously, but couldn’t fight back the smile that tugged at those full lips.
No longer able to think while this close to her, he leaned in and kissed her.
Maria knew she should be shocked. She was, but not in a bad way. She’d been watching Hogan carefully as she helped him clear the apartment of the unwanted portion of his past. He was decisive. Not bull in a china shop like Russell or driven like Angelo into high-energy flurries that left her and everyone else around him, except apparently Jo, utterly exhausted. Hogan was steady, made decisions quickly with little fuss.
Maria would have said his movements were elegant, but that wasn’t quite right. What they were was immensely efficient. Never carry one thing when you could carry three. No returning to clean up what was left behind as pieces were removed, but rather fixing the space immediately. She’d have purged the place, then gone back and tried to figure out what to do with the mess she’d left behind. Hogan’s condo looked as well organized as the moment she’d come in; no sign, except in the mounds covering the dining table, that there was substantially less of it
.
What shocked her about Hogan’s kiss was how good it felt, how natural. She barely knew the man.
For that matter, she barely knew the woman who slid a hand up to tickle her fingers through his hair. Not even with her boyfriend Angelo, the one who had seduced and left her before she was seventeen and for whom her son had been named, had she been so forward. And the men she’d chosen since coming to America, she’d chosen carefully and rarely.
Hogan eased back without pulling away.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” she whispered, her voice surprisingly husky.
“I’m not, trust me.” His voice was in little better condition. Then he kissed her on the forehead. “Surprised, yes. At both of us. But sorry, not one little bit.”
“Oh,” Maria was a little surprised at both of them as well. She waved a hand toward where they were sitting. “You appear to have swept my feet out from under me.”
“That too appears to be mutual. Heck of a place for a first kiss.”
“Yes. Years from now we’ll be able to say, ‘Well, we always had the kitchen floor’.”
He laughed, a warm, deep sound that welcomed her in.
“You know,” he kissed her forehead once more slowly. “You’re doing a lousy job of ruining your disguise of being perfect.”
“I’ll have to work on that.” But she wasn’t going to work at it too hard. Not with how good it felt to be leaning up against him.
Chapter 7
“And what then?” Perrin leaned in close and eager.
Maria wasn’t quite sure why she’d called Perrin for lunch. It was Monday and the restaurant was closed. She also hadn’t expected Jo and Cassidy to show up as well, though she should have. They were so close that you couldn’t call one without calling all three. Perrin’s shop was nearby, Cassidy’s office was in her home just a few blocks from the Market, and Jo was the Market’s Managing Director, even if it was technically her day off as well.
The Complete Where Dreams Page 57
