Where Dreams Unfold

Chapter 1-2

“Where’s the designer?”

“Why?” The woman pulled down her winter cap as if to shield herself.

“We’re here to see her for reasons that wholly escape me.” Up close the girl wasn’t so much of a girl. She was a woman, long and sleek. Her hair a long, thick, pale blond that looked too substantial for so elegant a neck. She looked him nearly in the eye despite, he checked, bare feet.

The hat of garish orange wool, with ridiculous ear flaps, had been pulled down almost far enough to hide her eyes, but they shone brilliant blue past pale lashes.

“Why?” Her voice was soft.

“Why what?”

“Why do the reasons escape you?” There was a real “duh” tone to her voice as if he were the one being exceedingly dense and not the other way around.

“Wilson wants to hire her and I want to tell the woman to her face that there’s no way in hell I’ll work with her.”

She regarded him with those bright blues for so long that he had to fight to not look away. There was a mind behind those eyes. And a force of personality all out of balance with the crazed attire and flighty first, second, and third impression.

“Boy, it’s going to really suck being you.”

“Why?”

“Because Director Wilson Jervis of the Emerald City Opera has just offered me the contract to design the costumes for Ascension, your next opera. And because it sounds like fun, I,” she turned briefly to Wilson, “thank you Mr. Jervis, yes” then she turned back to him, “have as of this moment decided to accept. Perrin Williams at your service.”

She held out a hand and shook his numb fingers strongly when he held them out in shock like a trained puppy.

She was right, it was going to really suck being him.

“Wilson, you can’t do this! What are her credentials? What productions has she designed for?”

Wilson lounged back in one of the booths next to the hot poodle-pink business suit. He propped his feet on the opposite seat next to a mannequin sheathed in a dress of tiny mirrors, like a human disco ball. As Wilson landed his feet there, it shimmered. Rather than the expected heaviness, it was a light fabric that moved easily, catching and changing light. Every breath the wearer took would be dramatic and impossible to look away from.

“Ask her yourself, Bill. She’s standing right in front of you. This rude chap is Bill Cullen our Stage Manager. Getting the show up is his responsibility. Picking the right people is mine.”

Bill turned to look down at her. Except, it still wasn’t down. It was across. And she was no longer on the verge of disappearing into her hat. Now she was very present, watching him. He couldn’t quite tell, but she almost looked amused.

“Sorry if I was rude, but—”

“No, Mr. Cullen. I’ve never designed an opera. I’ve never even been to one.”

All he could do was gasp. He held out his hands to Wilson and the damn man just did one of those seraphic smiles of his. The same smile he’d confronted Bill with four years before when he stole him from San Francisco for the Emerald City Opera.

“Further, Mr. Cullen. I have designed for no movies, plays, dramas in the park, or poetry readings. Though I have attended all of those.”

Bill reined himself in. He could hear the disdain in her voice, carefully tempered to slap him back with his own attitude. She’d have made a fine dramatic actress, no use to him on an opera stage, but still a precisely balanced performance.

“Then…” he took a deep breath and felt not the least bit better, no matter how much his daughter insisted it would help him. She’d also told him to try using “please” once in a while. “Then, please, tell me why you think you can do this.”

“Would you prefer a list of prior creative works, a sworn deposition, or a demonstration?” She was definitely mocking him.

“A demonstration? What are you talking about?”

“This way.” She turned and walked away as if he was just expected to follow along.

He looked at Wilson who simply worked his way back to his feet and moseyed along behind her. Bill cursed under his breath and brought up the rear. She led them through the dimly lit shop and through what had once been the doors to the kitchen.

The shadows were deep here. The only light source was the morning sun, reflected off the tattoo parlor across the street and shining in through the front window and the cook’s window.

The mannequins in front of the stove looked so real that he thought they were alive for a moment. Dramatic designer coats indicated this was where the outerwear must be sold. One was an apparently typical black leather coat except for massive red buttons as big around as his palm. There was something odd about the cut, but he couldn’t tell in the dim light. The other wore the cape that clearly went with the mirrored gown. It would swirl and flutter and draw every eye until the moment it was removed to reveal the mirrored spectacle form-fit to a woman’s body.

There was a theme here. Bill didn’t have it until he was following the other two into the walk-in freezer lined with shoes and accessories, and then through another swinging door into the design space beyond.

The common theme was that this woman designed for people who wanted to be noticed. Every single piece of clothing was an absolute attention grabber. On the right woman, they’d be irresistible.

Again, Bill imagined the golden bridesmaid dress on the woman who was now waiting by her cutting table. That would be a vision to behold.

“Tell me about your opera.”

Bill looked around the room. He’d been in near enough a hundred of costume design studios over the years. From this woman he’d expected chaos and disarray. Instead, it was one of the neatest and most organized spaces he’d ever seen.

The cutting table was large and immaculate, topped with a green self-healing cutting mat marked in standard one-inch squares with thin yellow lines. Two top-of-the-line sewing machines, a long-arm embroidery machine, and a five-thread serger were lined up along the back window. He almost missed an old Singer Featherweight sitting to one side on a small oak desk with the black, curlicued, wrought-iron base. Not only did it appear well cared for, it was the only one that hadn’t been tidied up, as if it were the latest used.

He turned and was confronted by a wall of fabric neatly stored in cubicle shelves that ranged floor to ceiling down the long wall. Whatever else this woman might be, she was serious about her work space.

Bill kicked free a stool from under the edge of the cutting table and sat down next to Wilson, across the table from the designer.

“Well, it is an entirely new opera, not just a new mount.”

He saw her confused expression. Great. Time to get remedial. They didn’t have time for this. But when he looked at Wilson, the man merely c****d his head in her direction and he was left with no choice but to continue.

“Operas are typically done one of two ways. A packaged opera is one that has been previously designed. We pull everything from storage: sets, costumes, props, and so on. Or we rent someone else’s. Sometimes we’ll mix it up; rent a set from Houston, but use San Francisco’s costumes. All we have to do then is adjust, fit, and perhaps replicate a couple pieces that are too worn or too drastically the wrong size. Then there’s a new mount. All new sets and costumes. That’s expensive and takes a lot of planning.”

“But you said this one was more than that.” She had remained standing and he had to look up at her. He wasn’t complaining. Despite her incoherent taste in clothing, she was fine-featured and very nice to look at. When was the last time he’d really looked at a woman? There had to be someone in the four years since Adira’s death, but he couldn’t think of one at the moment.

“Yes. A new opera is a new mount with many additional nightmares because no one has ever staged this opera before. We will be the first to present the work which has been in development for over two years. We will be making a statement that will enter the repertoire of dozens of opera companies—or that disappears quietly taking several million dollars of investment with it. Now you see why you aren’t acceptable. You make nice clothes, but that is a whole different matter from costuming a new and successful opera.”

Perrin wasn’t really listening. Wasn’t even worrying about the gauntlet she had cast at his feet of a “demonstration” whatever she’d meant by that. She was too tired to make much sense of what Bill Cullen was actually saying.

All she knew was that the page on the sketchpad she’d dropped before her on the cutting table was still blank. A square white hole in a sea of green cutting mat. She started looking around the table for a Yellow Submarine and then stopped herself. Not tired enough to hallucinate…yet.

She didn’t care that he kept saying she wasn’t qualified, that kind of statement only ever made her that much more determined. Too many years of proving her parents wrong about her, that lesson was deeply ingrained. Up until now repeating himself appeared to make him happy so she’d let him do it. But she needed more.

“You still have told me nothing about your opera. An opera must have a setting, a place, a feel, a story, or it would just be noise. Clothes are the same. Without the story, they are just coverings.”

“Yes, Bill. Do get on with it.”

Perrin liked Wilson Jervis. He was a generation, or even two older than she was, but he had an easy-going manner that was totally belied by his well-known success. She’d never been inside the Opera House, except once to hear an Indigo Girls concert during the Bumbershoot music festival. But Perrin had been commissioned to make enough opening-night-of-the-opera gowns to know of him and what he’d achieved.

And wasn’t part of Jo’s new job being on the opera board? Or maybe it was Cassidy. One of her two best friends… Or maybe both? Again, brain cells too tired to remember or care.

Bill Cullen she hadn’t quite figured out yet. He studied her through narrowed eyes, wary and suspicious. He was like Jeffrey, a bulldog she once knew—all rough and grumpy. She wondered if he also had a mushy heart beneath that bristly exterior, or if he was irascible to the core.

He was certainly far prettier than Jeffrey. Bill Cullen stood six feet tall. He wasn’t all shoulders like her friend Russell, not that there was any fat on him. He was simply built of a squarer stock. His dark brown hair and disdainful expression, combined with his strong features, lent itself to two different avenues of expression.

She flipped open her pencil set and selected a simple gray to start with.

He began describing a dark adventure. Part Jules Verne and part Hobbit, evil staff of power. He talked about it being quite different in character from Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” which meant nothing to her. Somewhere in his explanation he mentioned a tragic love story. It was his voice that caught her attention. It was a good voice, expressive, clearly practiced at storytelling. She let herself simply enjoy the tones and emotions he wove.

Perrin sketched two side-by-side figures. One stern and foreboding, one the romantic hero. She began adding color and lines to both, letting his deep voice and evocative words wrap about her as she sketched. To the left, grays, browns, boots, and towering shoulders…high collar. To the right, purples and blues of royalty and inner majesty, thin lines of white to promise hope. The valiant savior riding to the rescue. But the trim was in darkest red to suggest that heart’s blood would be shed despite the nobility. The white hope quite in vain.

Her hand ached by the time she pulled back enough to again be aware of her surroundings. Dozens of colored pencils were scattered about the table. The room was silent. The cramp in her hand told her she’d drawn for twenty, perhaps thirty minutes without interruption.

As she flexed her fingers, she inspected the drawing before her. The same man, twice presented. The Dark Overlord, and the forsaken nobleman doomed before his time to a tragic end. They would work well at a distance. The overemphasized shapes of one and the powerful colors of the other. She would never make street clothes like these, far too depressing. She wanted clothes that made people smile, or want to get married in. But designing to embody an individual’s power itself was intriguing.

She practically yelped when she became aware of the two large men flanking her. She’d forgotten they were there.

Bill Cullen was leaning in, studying her drawing intently.

Wilson Jervis smiled at her broadly after little more than a glance.

“Ooo, she’s seen right through you, Bill Cullen. You absolutely nailed him, Ms. Williams. We’ll have a contract for your review by tomorrow.”

Perrin turned back to see Mr. Cullen’s reaction. He was no longer studying the sketch. He was studying her, from mere inches away. She could practically see the thoughts churning in his head. His dark brown eyes, the way two vertical lines appeared on his brow when he was concentrating, the unexpected laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, as if he did that a lot… She knew she would be able to draw his face from memory.

“But can you execute your vision?” His voice was still rough.

She waved a hand to indicate the room they were standing in.

“Actually, Bill,” Jervis stopped the man. “Her contract is to design. Any costumes she actually constructs earns a bonus but is not required by the contract.”

Cullen’s expression slowly shifted to one of chagrin though he didn’t look away.

“Tomorrow. Nine a.m. At the—”

“Tomorrow at nine a.m.,” Perrin interrupted him. “I will still be asleep. I’ve been awake for four days for one of my best friend’s weddings. I might be up by noon. Maybe.” She knew that she couldn’t let him have control. He struck her as the sort of man that once he had control, he’d never let it go.

“Would tomorrow at two in the afternoon be satisfactory?” His growl didn’t sound all that different from Jeffrey the bulldog’s. She couldn’t decide whether to be deeply peeved at his tone, or amused at how cute he was at being all male and growly.

“That… ” she almost said it was fine, but changed her course just to push him and see what he would do. “Would be far more likely than nine a.m. Do people get up at nine a.m.?”

“I have kids. My day starts at six.” He nodded curtly and the two men showed themselves out.

Perrin felt a surge of disappointment that she didn’t understand. She hung onto the edge of the cutting table, weaving with exhaustion while she tried to figure out the source of it.

Kids. Bill Cullen had children and was married. She hadn’t noticed a ring, but she was so tired she could easily have missed it. Some men didn’t wear them, but she didn’t like men who did that.

Perrin dreamed of a man who was so glad to be with her that he’d want to wear a ring so that he could brag about her. He would need to feel the connection between them even when they were apart.

And she wanted the same for herself.

She’d seen her two best friends find it. But she also knew that such dreams would never be reality for Perrin Williams. With her past, why was she the one who ended up being the romantic among her group of friends?

That still didn’t explain the disappointment. Perrin had long ago learned to chase down her emotions until she understood them. When she was younger, her acute reactions and reckless actions had been sources of grave personal danger. The ride down that path had only been averted by meeting Cassidy Knowles and Jo Thompson on the first day of college, and a million very careful steps since.

That was it. She’d taken a step without being aware of it; a step she took far too often with men, her great weakness. Because while she knew it would never come, she still wanted the dream of true love. That feeling of let-down could be traced back to the fact that Perrin had liked Bill Cullen despite his irascible self.

But he was married. He’d also scoffed at the only thing she did well, had ever done well, which didn’t earn him a lot of points. She gazed back down at her drawings. The dark and the tragic stood side by side. Wilson Jervis had been right. She had captured Bill Cullen.

Without being aware of it, she’d drawn both men with his features and build. And the two images… The Dark Overlord who had so carefully inspected each of her designs, appreciated them, yet deemed her unworthy. Him she’d been far too aware of from the moment he entered her shop. And the Tragic Prince who only showed through when Bill Cullen wasn’t so busy being himself.

She took up the lead pencil and clarified a few of the details on his face. The way his hair shaded his eyes: not with its length, but with its rich darkness. The least bit of curl that she hoped his wife appreciated toying with.

Then she began sketching a third image. The face was less clear…a woman’s face? A woman’s body. Yes. Tall. In her mind’s eye, the clothing became clearer.