Josh still couldn’t understand the echoing emptiness that had so recently been his cozy home. That had included his wife. Worse, she’d known for over half a year but had delayed telling him because she couldn’t figure out how to approach the subject without hurting him.
At least she didn’t have a girlfriend yet, she’d always been true to him just as he had to her.
One thing was clear, he needed a fresh start.
A completely fresh start.
And he could afford one. With his half of the money from the sale of the condo and furnishings, added to his half of their savings, he was set for a while. For several years if he was careful.
Josh pulled out his phone as he stood there at the door with his computer bag over his shoulder, his only constant companion. He’d left a dozen or so boxes, mostly cookbooks, with a storage company that would ship them if he ever figured out where they should go. His other belongings hadn’t even filled the trunk of his BMW waiting for him downstairs. Perhaps he’d been too severe in shedding his past, but that was done now too.
He hit speed dial on his phone. When Shirene answered, he kept it simple.
“I quit.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Joshua. You can’t. You’re my senior editor. Your prose is part of what makes Gourmet Week hum.”
“You have my four emergency articles already on file in case I was sick or something went wrong. Well, it’s gone wrong. Consider them and my unused vacation as my thirty days’ notice.”
“No, Joshua, my friend. For ten years you’ve dedicated your life—”
“To reporting about food. And it was fun. But it’s not what I set out to do in the beginning. It’s not what I want to be doing ten years from now. Call Elric, he’ll come aboard happily and do a great job for you. Give you a fresh viewpoint.”
“But Joshua—”
“I’m so done, Shirene.”
There was a long silence before she finally responded, “If you ever need a job in the industry, I get your first call?”
“You do.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“And if you need a friend to talk to, you call me anytime, day or night?”
“You’re the best, Shirene.” A friend to talk to. That finally gave him an idea of where he was going. “If you’re ever in Seattle, give a shout.”
“Seattle? Whatever is in Seattle?” Spoken like a true New York publisher.
“Me. Bye.” Josh hung up, tossed the keys on the counter, and closed the door behind him without looking back.
“Josh, buddy! What in the world are you doing here?”
Josh had chosen a quiet corner in his favorite restaurant, Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth Ristorante in Seattle.
“Eating lunch? How about you?”
“Cooking it. Rush is over now, so I’m taking a break before we switch over to dinner prep.” Angelo scanned the last few occupied tables and dropped dramatically into the opposite chair as if totally wrecked with exhaustion, which he belied a moment later by sitting up quickly and asking, “Why didn’t you come in the back?”
Graziella, the pretty woman who ran front of house, had suggested the same.
Josh shrugged. He’d wanted to just sit. For two years he’d been coming here each time he was in the city. He’d seen it when it was a typical upscale restaurant, and again after Angelo and Russell had transformed it into a Tuscan hearthside with gas fireplaces, understated décor, and Russell’s photography of cliff-side vineyards and quiet donkey-wide Italian streets. Angelo’s cooking had been the only other element needed to rocket the place into the restaurant firmament. His own reviews had been a part of that process.
“Just wanted to sit and enjoy this wonderful place you’ve built.” Tomorrow he’d start his novel. He was gambling his life savings on his ability to pull it off. But he’d give himself one day to just sit in a corner and pretend that he belonged somewhere. Maybe he could pretend, at least to himself, that he was here to review the restaurant like old times.
Old times.
One of the last four articles he’d kept on file with Shirene was a fresh take on this one chef’s influence on the entire country’s standard for Italian-American cuisine and the impossibly high bar Angelo had raised. He’d titled it “The Gauntlet” for the challenge of excellence and creativity that Angelo had thrown down before all other chefs. It was probably coming out this week.
“So, how long you in town?” Angelo signaled Graziella as she swept by and asked her for a bowl of pasta. “Long enough for me to roust the others for a meal? Might take a bit, you missed one heck of a wedding party I threw night before last for Perrin and Bill.”
Josh actually felt the world spin. It was a little disorienting. In the past he would be in Seattle for just twenty-four to forty-eight hours with Gourmet Week’s corporate travel department making the travel and hotel arrangements. He never stayed longer because he always wanted to get back to his wife. His ex-wife. Now his car, not some rental, was parked three blocks away with all of his life stuffed into it.
“Uh, sure, long enough to arrange a meal. Anytime. This week. Next. Whatever.” He knew he wasn’t making a lot of sense, but ten days ago he’d still been in a Chelsea condo on Manhattan’s Lower West Side. Now, he didn’t even know where he’d be sleeping tonight.
Angelo looked at him a bit strangely.
“Hey Angelo,” Russell barged in through the kitchen door carrying a bowl of pasta. The last patrons startled under the abrupt assault of his big, deep voice. “Josh! When did you get in? Missed all the wedding action.”
“I already told him.”
Russell dragged over a chair from another table and sat on it backwards. He took a big forkful of the pasta that had probably been for Angelo. Angelo didn’t look the least surprised, he just waved a hand at Graziella as she came out of the kitchen and then indicated Russell eating his pasta. She rolled her eyes and doubled back into the kitchen.
Josh realized that he hadn’t done much damage to his own serving though he’d been sitting here for some time. He took a forkful, but didn’t really taste it.
“I took photos of the wedding buffet for you,” Russell spoke around his food with the skill of much practice. “You know, in case you wanted to do a write-up but were too late to see it all pretty. But you never showed. You did RSVP, didn’t you?” He turned to Angelo, “He did, didn’t he?”
“He did.” They both turned accusing gazes upon him, as if he hadn’t been busy losing his mind all month.
“I’m not with Gourmet Week anymore.” Okay, there was something he certainly hadn’t intended to say out loud anytime soon. It still surprised him.
“For heaven’s sake, Angelo. There goes one of your biggest fans. Now we’re going to have to break in someone new.”
Angelo just shrugged. “So, who are you writing for now?”
“No one.” He couldn’t breathe; it felt like he’d just jumped off a cliff into nothingness. It was supposed to get easier to say these kind of things.
“You’re kidding? That sucks!” Russell almost choked on his spaghetti and booming exclamation combined.
Angelo and Josh both glanced around the dining room, but the last of the midday patrons were gone.
“Did they fire you? Jerks. There’s way too much of that going around.”
Angelo shrugged when Josh glanced at him for clarification.
“No,” Josh paused as Graziella came up.
She set another bowl of pasta in front of Angelo and smacked Russell on the back of the head which only made him smile.
“I quit.”
Graziella had been headed away, but stopped and turned back to look at him.
“Fed up with it?” Russell grinned at his own pun. “Food reviewing gone sour?” He clearly thought he was on a roll.
“Something like that.” The bitterness on his tongue only supported Russell’s teasing.
Angelo and Russell nodded as if that explained everything, which w
as fine with him. There was plenty of explaining he’d rather not do.
Graziella on the other hand, looked immensely sad. She held up her ring-clad left hand for a moment out of sight of the two guys. It took him a moment to realize that she’d noted the white tan line on his ring finger.
He jerked his own left hand under the table, he still felt naked without the simple circle of gold.
She rested her hand over her heart for a moment and looked incredibly sympathetic. He had told her on his last visit about his wife and how much he loved Constance. He and Graziella had been seated side-by-side the last time he’d been out for a meal and he’d stayed to close the place.
Then she walked up behind Angelo and Russell, smacked them both on the back of their heads at the same time, before returning to other tasks.
While the two guys rubbed their heads and looked after her curiously, Josh did feel rather better.
Chapter 2
Melanie sat in Perrin’s design studio because, sadly, she had nowhere better to be early on a Wednesday afternoon.
It was soothing to at least be surrounded by the process of fashion design: her high stool at the green rubber cutting mat-topped table, the sewing machines lined up along the wall, the wall of cubby holes filled with hundreds of fabrics all neatly folded and organized by the rainbow, the bright steel rolling rack of designs in progress, and the small changing area behind a gaudy Victorian screen. Even the designer sitting across from her doodling away at her sketchpad made it feel so normal when her world was so impossibly not.
Perrin looked elegant, she always did. No matter how crazy her designs, the tall slender blond made her clothes look exquisite and alluring. And Melanie had not missed that the two of them looked enough alike that what looked enticing on Perrin looked good on her as well. Melanie had a bit more chest and a couple of inches in height, but they were much the same. She’d worn a number of Perrin’s pieces that had garnered attention, including the fabulous gown for the opening night of Carlo’s opera just four weeks before.
Perrin looked far better than Melanie felt: dressed in a French peasant blouse, a modern-sleek skirt, and mid-heel sandals, she looked so alive and youthful. In that outfit she shouldn’t, but she did. Was it the simple headband the same color as the skirt? Or the contrast of the styles? Melanie wasn’t sure. But this look that no designer in their right mind would put together was light and fresh.
“You would have made a good model, Perrin.”
Perrin vibrated with a vivacity that would play well on the runway.
“No. As much as I enjoy being a spectacle sometimes, I actually don’t enjoy being in front of crowds like that. I like to grab their attention at a restaurant or on the street, but what you do…” she made a mock-shiver with her shoulders, “I’ll leave that to someone else.”
Melanie had always liked the runway. Enjoyed knowing that she could absolutely command the space so that viewers were dazzled and unable to look elsewhere. Some walkers felt they should be merely perfect “hangers” for the clothes they were paid to display. Melanie didn’t agree. It was her job to make a designer look so exceptional that the show ended with people lined up to place orders.
“I like that énergie of throwing myself into the walk. It is the magic of a twenty-second declaration of power and control. There, I can unleash that which I must hold under such careful control in the rest of my life.” Though she was grateful that she had no show at the moment. Or a shoot. One of the reasons she was so marketable was that she could take that twenty-second runway energy and provide it on demand throughout an eight-hour session in front of the camera. Right now, she didn’t know if she could even bring that energy up for a candid.
She felt as if she never would again. As if… The next images were so morose that Melanie really needed a subject change. The last thing she wanted was to impose on her friend.
“You know to throw me out if I’m in your way?”
“Why would I ever do that? You’re always welcome here. Actually, I’d love to work on some designs with you again. That dress we made for you for the opera opening, that was so much fun.”
“It was,” Melanie agreed. Perrin had made her the smash of the opening. And, in turn, Russell made sure that the dress received national attention as part of his marketing support for the opera and for Perrin.
“Besides, you aren’t bothering me at all.” Perrin began drawing a sketch of something that might have been a large hamster. “I just can’t focus to save my life. I never thought I’d be married at all; not really. Always figured I’d find a way to mess up any relationship before it really stood a chance. Now, suddenly I have a husband, two kids, and a dog. I now can’t imagine how I lived without them all these years.”
Dog. That’s what the sketch was. “Un peu alarming, n’est-ce pas?”
“More than a little bit. We’re having such a fun time settling in that the kids are almost melting down. And me too. We all just have to keep our head in the game. Bill has one more opera before the summer break. Once it’s over and the kids are out of school, then we’ll get our honeymoon.”
“South of France? A Caribbean island?” Melanie had done many shoots in both and wasn’t sure which she’d prefer.
“We were thinking of Disneyland. The kids haven’t been in years, not since their mom died, and I’ve never been. It sounds like fun.”
Melanie laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Perrin made it sound fun, and, of course, it would be with her involved. She pictured Tamara charging around Disneyland with her brother. And her parents. Melanie had only been a few years older when she landed her first magazine cover. Teen Vogue had offered her one great prize in addition to the exposure; it had shifted her thoughts into plotting her escape from her mother. Disneyland. How different their worlds were. How glad she was for Tamara.
“Perhaps I shall stow away in one of your valises.”
“Nah, all dark and cramped in there. You wouldn’t like it.” Perrin’s smile made Melanie feel welcome and as if she belonged here. Which she did as much as anywhere. She should be getting out of Carlo’s hotel room—she really didn’t want to spend another night there—but she had nowhere else to go except back to her apartment in New York. There was nothing to do there either. She’d blocked out a long window of time for the swimsuit issue and now had nothing to take its place. But that didn’t mean she should impose.
“I should leave so you can work on something other than a dog coat.” Melanie began to rise but Perrin waved her back down.
“I’m interviewing a seamstress in a few minutes anyway, several of them I think. I just can’t keep up. Before the success of the opera we were already selling stock far faster than I could sew. And with a family now, it’s completely overwhelming. I won’t miss sewing the same thing over and over anyway; I’d rather design. But the business side and marketing and everything else is so overwhelming I can’t think. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give up some control, but I hate doing that.”
So did Melanie, yet another thing they had in common.
Melanie enjoyed watching the interview. She started as an observer. But she could see Perrin hit a wall far too soon. So, Melanie asked a question, eliciting Perrin’s near-panicked relief. After that, they both ran the interview.
Karissa was smart, quiet, and loved to sew. She knew her own limitations, had tried designing and simply not taken to it, but she loved the feel of a well-crafted garment and appeared to know what that meant. Her interview dress was a piece of immaculate construction of her own doing, but not much imagination.
Melanie too knew her own limitations. She’d only ever loved one thing, the business and process of modeling. Some models enjoyed nothing more than the clothes. Others wanted the fame, going for the bad press with wild flings and parties when they couldn’t generate the good press.
She’d tried, in the safe seclusion of her Upper East Side apartment, to both design and sew. The Sudanese supermodel Alek Wek had done just that and
created her fabulous line of Wek handbags, one of which sat at Melanie’s feet. While Melanie had managed some bit of skill, neither had held her interest nor sparked her imagination.
Perrin was all set to hire Karissa on the spot, but Melanie suggested one last step. Karissa was sent to the fabric racks and then the other end of the big cutting table to reproduce one of Perrin’s designs, but in a size four instead of a size two—using no pattern but the dress hanging before her.
Raquel, Perrin’s store manager, had lined up four candidates who arrived at half hour intervals. The next two seamstresses didn’t make it as far as the sewing test: one due to poor skills, and the other one had irritated them both so much that they’d simply shown him the door. Even Karissa had sighed quietly with relief from her assigned sewing machine when the bombastic East European was gone.
The last one, a young gay man named Clem, arrived in a flamboyant suit that bordered on the ridiculous, jacket lapel points almost up to his ears and Capri-length suit pants in dark pinstripe with white socks and cordovan shoes, but the construction was amazing even if the taste level was a bit bizarre. He landed at the machine beside Karissa to create a size six. In moments they were chatting and teasing each other, despite the competition of the interview.
“Do you need two?” Melanie had taken Perrin aside after she watched Clem ask for guidance from Karissa and how easily they each gave and took direction.
“I don’t know, really. Let’s go out front and ask Raquel.”
The front of Perrin’s shop was such a treat; a 1950s diner of chrome and red leatherette, populated by amazingly well-attired mannequins. Melanie always made a point of spending time here each trip to tour the display booths. Everything had changed once again. Prohibition was back, and she’d added Cotton Club and speakeasy posters to the décor. Glam flapper dresses, updated with modern colors sat next to Zoot suits rethought for women.
The best of it were the two booths at the end where she always did her wedding displays. There, snuggled together, looking as if they were waiting for their ice cream, were the sleek wedding dresses. They had the lace shoulders, sleek profiles, and tea-length hemline of the 1930s, and the elegance of Perrin’s Glorious Garb. A mannequin poised as a waitress was shockingly attractive in the demure pink satin that didn’t feel the least bit demure.
The Complete Where Dreams Page 86
