Where Dreams Reside

Chapter 3

Chapter 3Muriel, Jo’s legal assistant for over five years, carried the towering woven-wicker basket into Jo’s office and set it on the corner of her broad oak-wood desk with a thud.

“s**t!”

Muriel stopped and stared at her, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse.”

“Sorry. You can just take that right back out.” The thing was huge, brimming with flowers and sausages, bags of coffee and wedges of cheese. It was monstrous enough that there could be an entire ham hiding beneath the cheery multicolored cloth. It was late morning, only a little before lunch, and the waft of fresh-baked bread made her stomach growl. That woke up her whole system which then insisted on its desire for a deeply fatty and high-caloric lunch that it certainly was not going to receive, even if it filed a motion for summary judgment in state court.

Jo tried to look back down at the benthic map of the Arctic continental shelf that showed all of the undersea topographic ridges and valleys she’d been studying. The wicker basket’s base covered from Ivvavik Park in the Yukon clear over to Prudhoe Bay and well out to sea.

“Don’t you even want to know who it’s from?”

“An arrogant Russian who does not know the meaning of ‘just get on the plane and go home’.” Suddenly Jo had far more of her assistant’s attention than she wanted. Suddenly her personal life was spinning out of her control and she was in over her head as if she were being pulled down a whirlpool. This was a not-familiar and highly-uncomfortable feeling. Normally it remained in the same perfect control as her career and her workout schedule.

“Sorry,” Jo rubbed at her eyes. “Bad date last night. What part of ‘No!’ don’t men understand?”

“Oh, they understand it just fine, except for its meaning and how to spell it.”

Muriel Mendenbaum, despite her name, was sassy and youthful. Only a year younger, she somehow embodied a vitality that Jo kept committed to her career. The woman was also a gift in Jo’s life, they’d been through hell and back over their years together.

Jo wished she was more like Muriel, so confident in all aspects of her life. Muriel talked easily about men and boundaries and good dates and bad. Jo merely felt awkward and so made a point of moving slowly. That had labeled her as overly choosy or, at times, arrogant. Neither was right at all, except perhaps for the choosy part.

She’d hit college at sixteen and been lost in all of the flirting and s****l confidence of the eighteen-year-old’s world. She’d found a decent guy and latched onto him for safety. Latched on so hard that she hadn’t figured out how to let go of him except by graduating four years later and moving across the country. Richard had been decent, but not exciting, definitely not a keeper. A decade gone and he still e-mailed her occasionally, especially after a bad breakup, which she studiously ignored.

Muriel stood now with her short, dark hair tucked behind her ears, a pink cotton sleeveless blouse with lace shoulders, and a smart black skirt with a flirty hem. She also had her hands fisted on her hips. Jo knew her assistant well enough to know that Muriel would plant herself by Jo’s desk until she had the whole story, or at least enough to satisfy.

“Whereas I see you have a date tonight.” Jo tried to turn the subject with the compliment to her nice clothes.

Muriel just shook her head no. Not no to the date, but no to Jo’s lame evasion.

One of the newbie associates rushed in. She’d hoped for a reprieve, but all he needed was a signature on one of the smaller research matters she’d subbed out to him. He was gone almost before he arrived.

Jo would like to claim she had to get back to work, but Muriel knew Jo’s workload better than anyone, frequently even Jo. They both understood that the large map spread across her desk only meant that the first files hadn’t started arriving yet. She needed to get the lay of the land, but there was no rush.

Even looking out the corner office windows over Elliot Bay and the Seattle waterfront didn’t offer any nice distracting topics. Where was a blizzard when you needed one, who cared if this was June?

“Let me simply say that the meal was not good. Then I almost had to deliver a slap to force him to back off at the front door of my condo.”

“Maybe you should have taken him to that place you like so much. The Italian one.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She wasn’t going to mention that she had. The entrée at least had been marvelous, almost as good as the meals she’d had with Cassidy attending. And dessert had finally swept Yuri’s attention from her to his food, he couldn’t stop saying how deep and rich the chocolate torte was and how the brandy was the perfect match.

Her espresso had been scorched to sludge and the Sweet Ricotta and Meyer Lemon over Amaretti had been so sour she could still feel the dry pucker at the back of her throat. She’d have liked to taste Yuri’s dish just to be sure it was okay, but by that time she hadn’t wanted the implied intimacy and begged off as being full.

When she didn’t eat even a second spoonful of her own dessert, he teased her about it. She’d considered digging out a bit of the amaretti cookie, but they were too soggy to make it worth eating one to shut him up. He’d put the final nail in his own coffin with some remark about her girlish figure. She knew she was a full-figured gal, he didn’t need to hammer on the point.

“It was Yuri, from Ketchikan.”

“Ooo, good-looking Russian.” Muriel almost chortled then caught herself. “But you didn’t drag him into your lair.”

Jo actually laughed at the image. She’d never “dragged a man into her lair.” But the way Muriel said it, perhaps she should try it someday. She made it sound fun.

“No, I didn’t. I sent him to his hotel and wished him good travels. He was deeply shocked. Why do men assume that a pleasant meal is always a coquettish invitation to crawl into a woman’s bed?”

“Sure, guys are like that. They go from having a sure-thing-with-an-incredibly-hot-and-voluptuous-high-powered-attorney fantasy one moment, to boring-sexless-night-all-alone-and-not-understanding-or-willing-to-admit-why reality the next. For some reason, it’s always a shock to their system.”

“Anyway,” Jo glared at the basket towering above her. “The last thing I want from him is a gift basket.”

“Well, how convenient that it isn’t from him.”

Jo held out her hand and Muriel dropped the card into her palm.

“PPM.” Calligraphied on heavy ivory stock. The paper looked like one of those artisanal, handmade cards. “Nothing else?”

Muriel shook her head, though clearly she knew something more, she wasn’t going to give it over that easily.

Jo puzzled at the card for a long moment. “I’m assuming that the Presidential Pet Museum is not soliciting my services.”

“Nor the Progressive Party of the Maldives,” was Muriel’s comeback.

Jo wondered if she’d Googled that just to have it ready, or if the woman had already known about it, or made it up. Jo decided it was better not to know. Muriel’s smile said she was clearly enjoying her boss’ confusion.

But even as Muriel opened her mouth, Jo made the connection. She stood up and looked down into the basket. Whoever had assembled the basket had raided every shop in Pike Place Market. Okay, there were something on the order of two hundred of them, so they’d raided a quarter of the shops, still the bounty was amazing. The cloth covering the gifts wasn’t just a remnant of fabric, it was a splendid piece of local weaving. A pound of Market Tea. A salami from the meat merchant, traditional cookies from the Italian grocery. The treats kept going as they probed the contents.

She hoped there wasn’t a dead fish somewhere in the depths. She pulled back the corner of the cloth. Actually, there was a dead fish, but it was a teriyaki-and-ginger smoked salmon which sounded delicious. Fresh bread from the French baker’s stall had been the cause of her stomach’s growling.

It was a bounty on a glorious scale. Even splitting it fifty-fifty with Muriel, this was going to last a while. Maybe they should bonus some of it to the junior lawyers she’d be chewing up on the Alaska case to ease their upcoming pain.

“No other note?”

Muriel shook her head. She reached down and pulled out a local artisanal chocolate bar, seventy-percent dark with Bing cherry and marzipan filling.

“It’s never too early for chocolate,” Jo nodded for her to open it. They broke off squares and tapped them together like champagne flutes. They shared a moment of respectful silence as the flavors bloomed in their mouths.

“Damn!”

Muriel’s soft exclamation echoed Jo’s feelings exactly.

“Now, what the hell do they want?” Jo noted her own curse and ignored Muriel’s pretend shock.

“Maybe the Market’s administrators are just being freakishly nice?” Muriel dug around some more and held up a coupon from the Parrot Store for a free parakeet. “After all, you redid their lease agreements for them.”

“That was months ago.”

They uncovered several more stunning delicacies and a really nice pair of earrings that they joked about arm wrestling for, which Jo resolved by putting them on. But no further information.

When Jo’s phone rang, Muriel answered it. After listening for a moment, she handed it across the desk.

Jo met Renée Linden at the Maximilien French Restaurant for lunch. The Executive Director of the Pike Place Market had deftly avoided Jo’s queries on the phone as to the lunch’s purpose with a skill that was easy for a trial attorney to appreciate.

They were seated at an immaculate table set on the restaurant’s second story, nestled up against the glass that fronted much of this side of the Market. Beyond lay the spread of the Seattle waterfront. From the giant Ferris wheel to the south, past the ferry docks in the foreground, and West Seattle rising like an island in the midst of Puget Sound. Beyond the docks lay the sweeping expanse of Elliot Bay and the majestic Olympic mountains still sporting their glittering white glacial caps despite the June heat. It was one of the finest views in Seattle and Jo let herself be swept up by it.

“I’m so glad you could join me on such short notice.”

Maybe Jo shouldn’t get swept up too easily. This was Renée Linden across the table.

Jo’s Friday lunch plans had transformed and her stomach was going to get what it asked for after all. She’d planned on a cup of soup and a workout at the gym, a rare midday luxury that only happened briefly between cases when her schedule had a little flexibility. Now, she would be power-lunching over a three-course French meal. It was almost as well that her dessert had been awful last night, at least she’d saved those calories. Tonight she’d have that cup of soup and gym workout to balance this splurge.

Renée Linden.

Jo had researched her further in the half hour she’d had between shooing Muriel and much of the contents of the basket out of her office, and this lunch. She’d worked with Renée before and knew what a powerhouse the woman was on the Seattle scene.

What Jo hadn’t known was that Renée had been behind the revitalization of Pioneer Square in the ‘90s. A formerly dangerous district, that lay in the original heart of old-town Seattle, had been turned into a tourist Mecca of edgy theaters, fine galleries, exceptional dining, and bars that featured hot bands instead of Saturday night brawls. She’d also been on the board for the creation of Westlake Center, which drew tourists and shoppers into the heart of the business district.

A key player, and donor, to both the new Symphony Hall and the complete renovation to the Marion Oliver McCaw Opera Hall only a few years later. The list kept going until Jo had closed the bio abruptly and turned to stare blankly at the Arctic map until it was time for the meeting. Jo still couldn’t puzzle out the meeting’s purpose.

They split an order of Escargots à la Bourguignonne over a glass of Vouvray from Château Moncontour and Renée remained elusive. The woman spoke only on light topics.

Jo followed right along with the informal prelude. This was a business lunch and that was at the center of Jo’s skill set, barely a step down from the courtroom.

Renée told of coming to Seattle after re-meeting her husband, now the President of Boeing’s business jet division, at a tenth-year college reunion at Oberlin.

“I never would have dated the man in college. He was fantastically brilliant, which I found to be quite daunting.”

Jo declined to mention just how humbled she felt in Renée’s presence. Her circum vitae was enough to set even the most aggressive overachiever on her heels. Jo regretted looking up the details. It was leaving her a little tongue-tied, which hadn’t happened to her in years. Often no knowledge at all was a better strategic position than too little.

“But by that time we were in our thirties. I found he had, if not mellowed, grown deeper and richer with time. He really is like a good wine, though a red rather than this white. This is far too light on the tastebuds. I’m the Vouvray to his Burgundy.”

“You are at least a Beaujolais or a Bordeaux.” Jo spoke before she could stop herself. That this amazing woman would think herself as of so little consequence. Why, that would leave Jo as what, grape juice?

“I had hoped that would get a rise out of you.”

Jo blinked. She took another of the decadently buttery escargots to buy herself a moment.

Renée declined to explain, but the tone of the lunch shifted as if she’d passed some test.

“You did a wonderful job on those leases for us. You understood the fine balance we must strike between making money from our more successful lessees yet nurturing our start-ups and struggling entrepreneurs. And be equally fair to all two-hundred plus of our tenants. That really captured our attention.”

“Our?” Jo hadn’t missed the word choice and rather suspected that Renée was not using the majestic plural.

Renée merely smiled and selected the second-to-last escargot.

Jo return the smile and finished the dish.

Well, that meant that this was indeed a business luncheon. One most likely sanctioned by the board of the PDA, the Preservation and Development Authority responsible for running the Pike Place Market.

When they’d wanted help with the leases, there had been an interview in her own office followed by several meetings in Renée’s office. Then Jo had done the job and presented the significant changes before the full board. She’d quite enjoyed the project in retrospect. There had been many interesting facets to consider.

Now, two months later, the basket and the luncheon.

After a brief debate, she decided to forego the Smoked Salmon and Dungeness Crab Salad in favor of the Bouillabaisse.

They were clearly courting her for something. Her hand froze halfway to her glass of wine as the waiter cleared the escargot plate. They wanted her on the board. It was a terrible, double-edged sword.

All PDA board positions were volunteer. It was for the wealthy semi-retirees who cared heart and soul about Seattle, not for a working woman gearing up for a multi-year litigation on the Alaskan North Slope. Yet serving on the PDA board also carried immense prestige. The position opened every door among the true movers-and-shakers of Seattle. Those connections would make her career.

Was she willing to trade what little free time she had, plus probably a fair bit more, for the opportunity? Not as if that particular question mattered. She clearly didn’t know what to do with free time on the rare occasions she did have it. She’d been naïve enough to think that being on a date with Yuri Andreevich was going to be a constructive, or at least pleasant, use of her non-working hours.

Jo Thompson knew she wasn’t exactly “owning the jury” when it came to her personal life.

“Mama!” Angelo had to blink to be sure. But there stood Maria Amelia Avico Parrano at his open kitchen door as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She’d only been to his restaurant twice, once at last year’s opening and again last week for Russell’s wedding reception.

He rushed over and gave her a hug.

“You don’t need to be so gentle!” She hugged him back as fiercely.

He laughed and squeezed her harder until she’d have laughed if he’d left her enough air.

He finally let her go and just looked at her. “You look wonderful.” And she did. She’d always been a beautiful woman. He and Russell used to wonder that some man hadn’t hounded her into marriage after Angelo’s father died while Angelo was still in the womb.

Her black, curling, shoulder-length hair had started to gray, and she’d let it. Her figure was generous, but looked amazing on a woman barely five-foot-four.

“It’s retired life. It agrees with me.”

“Una pensionata?!” His thoughts blanked.

If Graziella hadn’t put a hand on his back at that moment, he’d have fallen to the floor.

“Hi, Mrs. Parrano, so glad to have you back in town.” Graziella made sure Angelo would remain on his feet, before taking his mother’s hands and kissing both cheeks.

“Bella bambina,” she patted Graziella’s cheek as if she were a twelve-year old girl and not a twenty-eight-year-old master of the front of house at one of Seattle’s finest restaurants. Graziella hurried back to her job without appearing to hurry, one of the traits that had made her Angelo’s first hire even before he opened the restaurant. The customers always got the impression she was spending ample time with them, even when it was only a moment.

“Retired?” The word choked on its way out.

“Is an old woman allowed to come in?”

That finally got a laugh out of Angelo’s constricted throat. He gathered up the suitcase she’d set in the doorway and led her to the side prep table, not presently in use.

“Are you hungry, Mama?”

“Good boy,” she patted his cheek. “Just a little pasta and red sauce to get that airplane food out of my tongue.” Her accent slid about him like home. Thirty years since she’d come to America to cook for Russell’s parents, the Morgans, and she still frequently mangled idioms, which just added to her charm.

He hurried to the line, glad for a moment to collect himself. A quick glance at the order tickets and then down the line showed that they were running smoothly once again, as if last night’s debacle had never occurred.

He made two bowls of pasta, sliced a little Biroldo sausage into the sauce, grated some Asiago on top, and carried them back to the table to join her.

“Retired, Mama?”

“Yes.” Then, just to make him crazy he was sure, she forked and twirled up some of the linguini and took her time to chew and swallow. She nodded.

“It is good. A little paprika would bring it to life, but it is good.”

“But…” Angelo bit his tongue. Paprika wasn’t Italian. It was Hungarian or sometimes smoked for Spanish cuisine, but not Italian. However, he had never won a seasoning argument with Maria Amelia, and he wouldn’t now, so he left it be.

“Retired. Yes. My Julia and John, they have retired and are going to travel for a while. They will probably sell the big house unless Russell wants it. They say they will travel until they find where they want to live.”

Angelo couldn’t imagine the Morgans selling the sprawling mansion from which four generations of the family had run a global shipping empire.

“Wait, they fired you?” Angelo felt it bind in his gut. They may have helped raise him, and Russell might be Angelo’s best friend, but they couldn’t fire his mother. She’d been their cook for over thirty years. She’d—

“I quit.”

Angelo dropped back on his stool and did his best not to look shocked.

“You…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“Angelo, sweetheart.” She patted his cheek with almost a slap. “You know like I know, there is the point where three becomes the crowd. They were horrified when I give my notice but they were also relieved. It was perfetto solution. To make up for relief, they give me part of company, enough that I can do what I want for many, many years. I also make good savings.”

Angelo had to look away for a moment and inspect the line. He could see the smooth flow, the pattern of two dozen lunches moving simultaneously through different stages in the kitchen. Manuel had it well under control.

And he could see Julia and John Morgan making sure his mother was taken care of no matter how long she lived. He’d bet they personally drove their cook to the airport for this visit with her son. He brushed at his eyes. They had taken in a single, pregnant Italian country girl with little English, sent her son to college, and treated her like family. He would find some way to repay them. He couldn’t imagine how, but he would. He turned back.

“That’s good, Mama. That’s good.” He took a deep breath to regain his composure. “So, now that you can afford to do anything, what are your plans?”

She merely smiled as they each twirled up a forkful of pasta. He bit down on his, agreeing that perhaps his mother was right about the paprika, the sweet, not the hot. Just enough to accent the Biroldo—

“I’m going to live with you,” her eyes twinkled as she paused. Then her smile turned ever so slightly wicked. “And help you cook in your ristorante.”