The Complete Where Dreams - Volume 2 of 2

Chapter 4-1

Chapter 4

Perrin would have liked to have someone to call. But with Jo’s wedding over and the week-long closure of the restaurant, everyone was gone. Even Maria had taken the opportunity to go on a belated honeymoon with her Hogan. They were taking some extra time and had rented a sailboat for two weeks to cruise along the Amalfi coast of Italy.

She wasn’t even sure why she wanted someone around at this moment. She was fine on her own for days at a time. Especially when a challenging design tackled her. It wasn’t that she wanted to talk to one of her friends about anything in particular. Perrin just wanted to be around them for a time.

They were her sanity benchmark. She sometimes needed reminding, even now at thirty, that she was okay—a good person and not some product of her childhood. That people liked her who weren’t merely looking at how to use her.

So, she sat by herself at Cutters Crabhouse, just her untouched iced tea, some focaccia, and her sketchbook. It was mid-afternoon. Through the towering windows the Seattle waterfront lay spread out below her. Pike Place Market, a close bustle of tourists and hundreds of cool little shops perched on the cliff edge. Out of sight on Post Alley, Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth Ristorante with its “Closed for Honeymoon” sign on the door. Below, the long piers of the waterfront reached out into Elliott Bay. The sun glittered off the water and the snowy Olympic Mountains loomed high in the west on the far side of Puget Sound.

This was as close as she could be to her absent friends. This is where they usually gathered, in Cutter’s upscale bar. All dressed to the limit, shimmering together around a too small, wood-and-steel table, perched on high-leather stools, and teasing waiters far and wide. This time, instead of too much alcohol and too many appetizers and laughing until her sides ached, she sat by herself and ordered a cup of chowder and half of a hot pastrami on rye.

It was still a bit early for the after-work crowd, so the bar was uncharacteristically quiet. It would be hopping in a couple hours, but for the moment there was mostly just her, a few stray tourists, and the wait staff.

At the Opera, after they’d all finished the cleanup and the kids were tucked into handy cubicles outside his office, chipping away at their homework, Bill had told her the opera’s plot again. He also gave her a script.

“No,” he corrected her. “It’s a libretto not a script, everything is sung.” Even in The Sound of Music Julie Andrews didn’t sing everything. Singing meant the clothing needed to provide room to breathe even more than room to move.

He’d shown her photos of the lead singers. The Empress was okay, the lead tenor singing the Tragic Prince was a big guy. The Dark Overlord, a rare true bass singer, even bigger. Now she understood some of Jerimy’s comments on construction. These were people who made their livings with their chest and gut muscles. Making the proportions balance out would take some doing.

“There was a great tenor,” Jerimy had informed her. “Whose chest grew so massive and his legs so out of shape that it actually ended his career when he could no longer stand through a whole performance.” She’d stepped through a door into a whole other world.

She’d read the libretto, doodled a little, but she still didn’t have any ideas flowing. Perrin wasn’t worried, yet. She was supposed to go see the final performance of the current production of Turandot this weekend. Bill had assured her it would have a happy ending. Cassidy would be back by then. She’d agreed by e-mail to go with Perrin and Russell had begged to not be forced to go, so that should be fun. A mini girls’ night out.

Tomorrow, she’d see the sets and the first rehearsal of Ascension, opening in just over five weeks. That’s what she was counting on. The libretto gave her plot, but it still told her so little of the world and the people involved.

She doodled quick images of the three designs she’d already done as thumbnails across the top of the page as a reference.

The chowder and sandwich arrived. She ignored the waiter’s mild flirt and paid attention to the smells of the sandwich, rich pastrami and tangy sauerkraut. The first taste didn’t disappoint in the slightest. She tried to savor it as Cassidy would savor a wine—the interaction of the caraway-seed rye bread and stone ground mustard—but instead found herself just chewing it. Food kept her body running. So many of her friends were foodies that some appreciation had rubbed off on her, but eating alone didn’t make it fun enough to be worth the effort.

There was a benefit to ignoring the waiter and paying some attention to food that she usually saw as merely sustenance. If she did those things with the front of her mind, she didn’t pay too much attention to her sketching, shutting out that inner editor. She’d continued to idly doodle more ideas to go with the first three as she ate.

Powerful colors, but simpler.

Less complex than Prince and Empress.

More hopeful, brighter lights. But understated.

Costumes to match the character rather than enhance them. To let the person show through without declaring the role outright, avoiding the dynamism of a chosen mantle that so overshadowed what nature had provided. That choice to cloak one’s self was so adult. Use the greens and golds of nature. The simplicity of youth.

Youth.

The children. There they were, smiling at her from her sketchpad, clothed like the parental Overlord and Empress. But they didn’t have their older brother Prince’s tragedy imprinted yet on either them or their costumes.

She paged open the libretto and inspected the cast of characters. There was a younger daughter, a child soprano. But no little boy. Well, they could just go ahead and add a non-singing boy-child role who could follow after his older sister.

That actually gave her drawings for one whole side of the cast, the Empress’ lineage. But what of the other side of the house, the marriage-sworn Princess and the Tragic Prince’s True Love? Before tomorrow’s rehearsal, she could start building the prototypes for the children’s costumes.

Jerimy had assured her that they could build whatever she drew, or create patterns from anything she’d sewn. Though he had seemed less sure about the Empress’ outfit. But she always finished her design concept while doing the construction. That was her creative process. She’d have to build all of the major pieces at least once herself.

Models. Jaspar and Tammy. Maybe Bill would let her borrow his kids as models. That would really help. She hadn’t done children’s clothing since her own first efforts, and those had been to hide, blend in, be invisible. Back when—

“Perrin!”

Perrin startled from her dark thoughts and almost dumped her cup of untouched chowder over her now-cold sandwich.

“Josh! Come here, cutey. Give your Perrin a hug!” Josh Harper was so handsome. Totally safe, but fun and funny. Tall, with wavy, light brown hair and an easy smile.

He gave her a big hug that she let herself be lost in for just a moment that washed away the last of her uncomfortable memories.

“How are you, my love?” he teased her.

“Still pining away. Waiting for you to throw over that woman you’re married to.”

“Yes, I know. If only I didn’t love her so much. Alas, we’re never meant to be.” He gestured for permission then took the seat across from her.

“I could take out a contract on her. I do know some really scary guys. Ones who would, like, do anything for me. Maybe, I dunno, Russell.”

“Oh, now I’m really scared.” Josh wasn’t in town very often, but he, Russell, and Angelo had become good friends at first meeting. It didn’t hurt that Josh was a senior food-and-wine critic for Gourmet Week magazine and had consistently raved about Angelo’s restaurant both in print and on-line.

“But what are you doing sitting alone, my love? Why is there no suitor begging at your feet? And where the heck is everybody? ‘Restaurant Closed for Honeymoon.’ It was my fifth anniversary, so I couldn’t make it to Jo and Angelo’s wedding. I went by to pay my respects and it’s closed. You have to tell me everything!”

Perrin, glad for a friend, closed her pad and pulled her lunch in front of her while Josh ordered. Then she settled in and filled him in on all the details of Jo’s wedding, especially teasing him about the great food he’d missed.