A Dream to Cling To

by Sally Goldenbaum

  She half-smiled and took a tentative sip of the coffee while she walked over to the counter. She looked out the window, then walked back again.

  Dr. Frank settled his short lumpy frame behind the desk and studied her over the rim of his glasses. “So, my lovely heiress, what’s on the schedule for today and what pulls you from beneath the downy quilts an hour early?”

  She glanced at the schedule she’d plucked from the desk and tapped her fingers briskly on the desktop. “Lots to do today, Dr. Frank. Thought maybe I’d get a head start. Some of the Petpals animals need baths. And I’ve made out a list of those that need your attention.”

  He groaned good-naturedly. “I could close down my own practice and work full-time keeping this Petpals outfit going.”

  She threw him a grin. “Well, why not? You know you get just as much satisfaction out of this as I do!”

  When she had approached Dr. Frank with the idea of starting Petpals a couple of years ago, he’d jumped right in, helping her put together a trust to fund it, finding wealthy donors, and providing an office for her above his back kennels. It was a delightful enterprise for both of them: she could leave her old job with Trust and Foundations and throw herself into something that involved direct contact with people every day, and he had the satisfaction of helping bring some sunlight to the folks at the rest homes.

  She glanced at Dr. Frank and saw he was looking keenly at her.

  “What’s on your mind today, love?” he asked.

  “Oh, this and that,” she hedged.

  “Does the that have anything to do with the urgent messages your lovely mother kept leaving with me yesterday about you being on time for a family get together?”

  “You know my mother.” Brittany leafed through the papers, jotting down brief notes that said nothing. She attached her anxiousness to the note-taking, to the day’s schedule, to the dogs that needed vaccinations. And only finally, when the front door breezed open with a windy, swishing sound, to Sam Lawrence.

  She spun around.

  “Hmmm, too early for patients,” Dr. Frank said as he pulled himself from the chair.

  “Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you—” Brittany began, but Sam’s long strides brought him to the inner office before the sentence could be ended. He wore the same corduroy pants from the day before, but kept off the chill with a heavy fisherman sweater. And there was something new, she thought, glancing at his hand. He was holding a fine-grained English pipe.

  “Hello,” Sam said. He smiled at Brittany, his gaze lingering, enjoying the tilt of her head, the natural blush that marked the graceful curve of her cheekbones, the snug fit of her jeans. She was less refined, more earthy today. And the casual Brittany Winters was every bit as lovely as the other. Reluctantly, he turned toward the white-haired gentleman and extended his hand. “I’m Sam Lawrence. And you must be the veterinarian who handles Brittany’s brood.”

  Frank smiled and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you. You’re a friend of Brittany’s?” He lifted heavy brows over his bright, hopeful blue eyes.

  “Oh, no, Doc,” Brittany said quickly. “Sam’s been hired by my mother.”

  “Oh? A body guard?” Frank chuckled, and Sam joined in. “Lord knows it wouldn’t be such an awful idea, as pretty a young thing as Brittany is.”

  It had never bothered Brittany before that, although she was nearly thirty years old, Dr. Frank still had trouble allowing her to leave her teens. Today it irritated her.

  She slapped her notebook down on the desk and attempted to take control. “Not a bodyguard at all, Dr. Frank. Mr. Lawrence is a … a …” Lord, what did you call someone who made games about people anyway?

  “Game designer,” Sam said with a broad smile, tapping the air with his pipe. “At least for today.”

  “Well, now, that’s great!” Frank pumped Sam’s hand harder.

  “Sam’s doing some work for Dad’s company. And Mother wants me to help him with some information. That’s all.”

  “Well, that’s just fine,” Frank said. “You run along and take the day off, Brittany, and I’ll have the receptionist call the senior citizens homes and have them reschedule your visit.”

  “Oh, no, Doc!” Brittany said.

  “No, please,” Sam agreed solemnly. “You see, Dr. O’Malley—”

  “Frank.”

  Sam grinned. “Well, Frank, Brittany and I have an agreement that she’ll help me as long as she can carry out her job, which is only fair, after all. I’ll just follow along and gather what information I need, Brittany will do her thing, and everyone will be happy.”

  “Fine arrangement,” Dr. Frank agreed. “The folks miss her and the menagerie when she doesn’t show, you know. Those pets help put some life back into the long days. And Brittany here does a damn fine job of it. She’s the best.”

  Brittany brushed aside his praise and handed Dr. Frank her list of things to do. “These are the Petpals animals who need checkups. The rest I’m taking with me.”

  “With us,” Sam said.

  She eyed him warily. “Are you sure you’re up to this? I’ll understand if you choose to go back to your office. I can meet you there later.”

  Sam noticed the tinge of hopefulness that laced her words. “Not on your life, lovely lady. Natural settings, casual tête-à-têtes—that’s where I find the meat for my games. I’m looking forward to today.”

  Dr. Frank leaned back in his worn leather chair and smiled at the two of them as Brittany shrugged into her jacket and headed wordlessly for the door. Sam was only an inch or two behind. “It’s a great day, you know,” he philosophized to their backs. “The fusion of autumn and winter, a time to—”

  Brittany spun around and stared at him, a tiny smile pulling at the edges of her mouth. “Dr. Frank, what are you trying to say?”

  He smiled and lifted one shoulder, then looked at Sam, who had also turned. “Say, do you play chess, Sam?”

  “Sure do.”

  Dr. Frank nodded slowly, a pleasant, knowing grin spread across his wide face. “I thought so. We’ll have to play, you and I. Now, off with you both. And have a grand day.” He pushed his glasses back in place and leaned forward across his desk, shuffling papers.

  Brittany looked at him for a moment, then shook her head resignedly and walked out the door with Sam a heartbeat behind.

  Sam helped Brittany load her animals, then settled into the lumpy front seat of her van and checked over his shoulder for possible loose animals. All except Dunkin were confined in small cages, with rabbits and kittens sharing habitats, and multicolored puppies yelping from behind silver grids.

  “Fasten your seat belts, pals,” he cautioned them. “Looks like we’re ready to launch.”

  With a lurch Brittany pulled the van out of the gravel parking lot and out onto the main thoroughfare. She often had company on Petpals visits, she thought. A fair number of volunteers from the local community came on a regular basis. So shape up, she scolded herself silently, and stop acting as if this is unusual. Treat this for what it is: a rather unorthodox business meeting.

  “You’re going to have to ask me questions, I suppose,” she murmured, her eyes focusing on the road. “I’m not very good at coming up with things to talk about.”

  Sam examined her profile carefully, her soft words lingering between them. She tried to smile away the hesitancy in her voice, and when she did, he noticed the dimples that appeared on each side of her mouth. Something stirred inside him, and he fought the urge to touch those dimples, to trace the slight curve of her lips as they turned into a smile. Instead, he pulled a brown paper bag out of his briefcase and slipped it into her lap.

  “Don’t worry about talking, or questions,” he said. “It’ll all come when it should. Here, this is for you.”

  She looked down at the package for a second, then back at the road. “What’s this?”

  “A gift for letting me impose on your day like this.”

  When she stopped at a red light, she opened the bag a
nd pulled out a large hardcover book. The fine glossy cover pictured a beautiful walnut door set against a pure white background. The title, Come In, was printed in beautiful script down the side. “Oh, Sam, this is the photo study you mentioned.”

  “Pure coffee table stuff, but fun.”

  “It’s beautiful! So you really are an author.”

  “I take pictures. The doors speak for themselves. They really didn’t need me to write much about them.”

  She ran her fingers over the smooth cover, admiring the purity of the photo. “A photographer,” she said softly. “And a game designer. And I wonder what else you are?”

  The words were spoken almost to herself, but Sam picked up on the question and sat back in the seat, his fingers laced behind his head, smiling as he mulled it over. “Hmmm, that’s a toughie. A dreamer, I guess, a romantic. Someone born in the wrong century my mother used to tell me.”

  “Oh? Were you too early or too late?”

  “Well, Madeline Lawrence, bless her, thought perhaps I would have been happier earlier in time.”

  “The ancient Greeks, perhaps?” Brittany could easily see him as a Grecian scholar, white robe draped dramatically over that wonderful body.…

  He laughed. “Well, Renaissance, actually, although I’ve also been accused by that same lady of living with one foot stuck in tomorrow.” He shrugged charmingly.

  Brittany nodded. Yes, she could see that too. Sam Lawrence was a Renaissance man of sorts. So very, very appealing. Yes she knew about restless dreamers.…

  Sam noticed her pensive look. “A penny for your thoughts.” Instinct compelled him to smooth away the mood before it rooted. “I know. You’re falling asleep listening to my life story, that’s it. And I can’t blame you a bit.”

  “No, no, Sam. I have a feeling your life is very interesting. Tell me, does your mother live here in Maine?” A blaring horn behind her told her the light had changed and she shifted the van into first gear.

  Sam shook his head. “She died a few years ago, not long after my father. They lived their life together in a tiny twenty-square-mile area—going together to the store, their church, the VFW club. And my father going to the post office, where he worked. Their whole existence was wrapped up tightly in those few blocks. After he died, my mother’s life was so shattered and she missed him so much, she wanted to join him.”

  Brittany nodded. She’d often thought the same would happen to her own parents, should one lose the other.

  “But to tell you the truth, Brittany, I’d much rather hear about you.” He rested one hand casually on the seat back, his fingers falling idly onto her shoulder. “After all, that’s why I’m here.”

  “To hear about my father,” she said quickly.

  “Right.” He shifted in his seat, amused by the sudden knowledge that he’d talk about shelling peas if it meant sitting here alongside Brittany. “Okay, Gordon Winters. There’s a lot to talk about there: Business mogul par excellence. Windemere’s Man of the Year. Listen, Brittany, I’ve been doing some reading about your dad, and I’ve pieced together a structure I’d like to run past you. Okay with you?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Tell me what you think now.” He kept his one hand near her shoulder while the other moved in the air in front of them, as if parceling it out into a game board. “Except for his business, Gordon Winter’s life is project-oriented. He moves from one project to another, completing each with incredible success. It’s almost an art with him, as I see it. Whether it’s organizing events for the Children’s Hospital, or collecting those wonderful antique cars, planning things for the family, or whatever. I’d like to formulate the game around that fact. Am I on target?”

  She nodded again, more enthusiastically this time. Sam was amazing, she thought, and insightful. “You’re right, Sam. And even when he was younger, he’d plunge himself into things, forming clubs, or devoting himself to a friend’s political campaign.” She laughed. “And usually, the candidate he backed was the most outspoken, controversial guy around.”

  Sam pulled out a long yellow pad while Brittany was talking and started to jot things down. His smile was hidden as he listened and wrote. Besides delighting him by just being beside him, Brittany was going to help him create a terrific board game. And she didn’t even seem aware that her opposition to the game had drifted out the window about two miles back.

  She continued, her voice lifting and falling with humor and love as she spoke of her father. “He’s even project-oriented with us, wanting us to climb up the ranks in scouts, for example.” She laughed and her eyes sparkled happily. “Dad always says one of his concerns is that there’re two projects he’s not completed. He never became an eagle scout.”

  Chuckling, Sam pulled his pipe out of a pocket and tapped down the tobacco. “And …?”

  She shook her head and sunlight caught in the wavy, wayward strands of reddish-gold. “And the other he’ll never give up on—to see his girls ‘married and settled,’ as he puts it.”

  “Well, Sara has begun that little project.”

  “Yes, and Dad’s thrilled about it. He shakes his head at me, though.”

  “You’re not the ‘settling’ type?” Sam watched as a thoughtful look clouded over her beautiful eyes.

  “Oh, I am. I’ll marry sometime. But it needs to be just right.”

  He laughed. “And what, lovely Brittany, is ‘just right’?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. The essentials—deep feeling, love. But in addition, I’ll only marry someone who is very solid and dependable. Always there.”

  Commitment, he thought. Of course, Brittany would demand that. And deserved it. There was an unusual strength and conviction lacing her words that made it clear she’d settle for nothing less. “In other words, not a drifting dreamer, right?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  His fingers tapped across her shoulder playfully. “You should have told me that before I fell beneath your spell, dear Brittany.”

  His husky laughter wrapped around her and Brittany savored the wonderful feelings he spun there in the old van. She forced a light laugh. “Oh, Sam, I’m sure you’ll survive. What are your feelings on the blessed state?”

  He drew on his pipe and became serious, but she noticed laughter still lingered in his eyes. “My feelings are that it is a blessed state. And that I’m not among the blessed. I’ll never marry.”

  She shot him a quick look. Beneath his crooked smile she could see he meant each word.

  “No ‘Que sera sera’?”

  “Nope. Marriage means permanent address in a way that causes all my essential functions—breathing, heartbeat, and so forth—to cease. Strangles me.”

  “You’ve tried it?”

  “No. When Socrates told me to ‘know thyself,’ I took him seriously. And I know what a person like me would do to another person in a dependent situation like marriage. Both parties would suffer.” He smiled slowly. “But I never, ever talk about things like that.” His fingers pressed into the soft skin of her shoulder, kneading lightly.

  “Back to the game …” she suggested wisely.

  “Yes … the game.”

  She shifted in the seat and sped on down the highway. They had gotten so personal, she and this man she suspected she should hold at bay. But what frightened her the most was the growing awareness that a part of her didn’t really want to keep Sam Lawrence at bay at all.

  And that thought was so perplexing, she almost missed the turn through the wide pillared gates of the Elms Senior Citizens Home. Only Dunkin’s barking and large paw indelicately flopping over the back of the seat saved the turn.

  “Dunkin, thank you,” she said as she pulled the van to a stop in the wide drive.

  “May I presume Dunkin has brought us to the Elms?” Sam teased. “We zipped through the gate so quickly, I missed the sign.”

  “Yes, this is it.” She opened her door and hopped out. “And this, Sam, is my unofficial favorite among the seven or
eight places we visit. I have volunteers who help with the program, but I selfishly keep this stop for myself. It was my first, and I guess I’m attached …”

  He looked around at the wide porches and rolling green lawns. “It has a nice, friendly look about it.”

  “It’s wonderful,” she said. “I come here twice a week—sometimes more if I have time. Most of the places we visit on a semi-monthly basis, but the Elms would have us every day, I think, if we could fit it in. It’s sort of a haven for me—saves me from ever needing an analyst. Come on, you’ll see!”

  Her enthusiasm was fresh and contagious, and twisted its way right into Sam. “Delighted,” he said as he swung himself, from the van.

  Carrying cages and with Dunkin padding excitedly beside them, they climbed the wide steps to the front door.

  Inside the elegant home the excitement Petpals generated floated like a refreshing mist through the freshly scrubbed hallways.

  “Ah, there she is! Hello, Brittany.” An elderly woman, her thin hands grasping the rungs of a walker and holding her frail body straight, moved toward them. “Where is my Piggy?”

  Sam watched from behind a cage of kittens as Brittany patted the elderly woman on the arm and quickly pulled from a cage a tiny dog with a black ring around one eye. The woman’s eyes grew bright.

  “Piggy’s been pining away for you, Mrs. Henderson. Let’s head for the lounge and find a snug place for her to settle.”

  The woman dutifully followed Brittany into a bright sunny room filled with comfortable chairs, plants, and half a dozen wheelchairs.

  Sam watched as Brittany moved gracefully from one expectant resident to another, distributing dogs and cats into waiting, willing arms. The expression in her eyes was warm and caring, and her smile revealed her sincere affection for each person as she chatted with them.

  Her gestures, he noticed with his photographer’s eye, were gentle but filled with strength and conviction. She moved with a relaxed, comfortable rhythm here, where she’d carved a niche for herself.

  Brittany was intriguing.