She took a breath and blew.
THEA AND TRISH STOOD at the valet stand, the last two waiting for their cars.
“So how are things?” Thea asked her. “You look happy.”
“I am.” A smile bloomed across her face, slow and beautiful. “I never realized I could be, not like this. I know that sounds goofy but it’s true. I keep thinking it’s all a dream and I’m going to wake up but I think it’s real.”
Thea admired her, the luminous skin that glowed against the red hair, the loveliness that Trish had hidden for so long. Until she’d met Ty. “It doesn’t sound goofy. It sounds nice.”
“I wish I could bottle it and give some to everyone I know.” Trish paused. “I wish I could give some to you.”
“I’m all right,” Thea said.
“Are you?”
“Better every day.”
Trish looked at her and nodded. “I almost believe that. You seem different tonight. I don’t know how, but different.”
“Spring fever.”
“Not spring anymore,” Trish corrected. “We’re in June. New season, new life.”
“We’ll see.” The valet drove up with Trish’s car, a sporty convertible. She traded tip for key and leaned in to hug Thea. “Happy birthday, sweetie. Here’s hoping this is your year.”
“My year for what?”
“For getting it all.”
She got in and drove away with a wave, while Thea watched. Here’s hoping this is your year.
Thea’s cell phone rang as the valet pulled up with her Prius. She flipped open the handset. “Hello?”
“I need your moves,” said the person on the other end.
Thea blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I need you, now.”
“Is this an obscene phone call?” she demanded.
“You wish,” answered a voice she recognized.
Thea handed the valet his tip. “You’re a sick woman, Waller.”
Robyn Waller, one of the few true friends Thea had made in New York. They’d met in a dance class Thea had taken to keep sharp. Since then Thea’s dance dreams had been channeled into amateur ballroom dancing and Robyn’s had been rescaled to owning a dance studio in her Portland, Oregon, hometown.
“So what’s going on? Why do you need my moves? Assuming I feel like giving any of them away, of course.” Tucking her tongue into her cheek, Thea got into her car and buckled on her seatbelt.
“Well, are you still working one of your McJobs, or do you actually have something you care about?”
When your retirement was already in the bank, earning enough for most of your income besides, a career became optional. “I’m working at a nursery.”
“Babies?”
Thea laughed. “Plants. Why, you want to come down for a visit?”
“Just the opposite. What would you say to coming up to Portland for a couple of months, teach in my studio?”
Thea snorted and pulled out into traffic. “I’d say it’s a long commute for a temp job.”
“I’m serious, Thea. I need you, if you can do it.”
There was something in Robyn’s voice, she realized. An urgency, an anxiety. “Robyn, I’m not qualified to teach,” she protested.
“Oh, come on, you know top level figures for all the Latin and smooth styles and you’re the best amateur Argentine tango dancer I know.”
“For the women’s parts, not the men’s. I’d need that to teach.”
“You can learn.”
“What happened? Why the panic?”
Robyn blew out an impatient breath. “My lead instructor’s husband got transferred to Chicago. She’s leaving in a week. I just found out today.”
“Ouch. There have got to be more qualified people up your way, though.”
“If there are, I haven’t had any luck finding them. And there’s a little thing called my vacation.”
Thea’s eyes widened. “Oh no! Australia.”
“Yeah, Australia. Everything’s already paid for. Three weeks Down Under. My cousin and I have been planning this for a year.”
“Three weeks?”
“Three and a half, actually. It costs so much to get there and it takes so long, it hardly makes sense otherwise. Plus, there’s so much to see.”
“Yeah, but wow, the timing’s bad.”
“Tell me about it.”
Thea slipped into the left turn lane. “Can’t your instructor stay a bit longer?”
“She’s got a two-year-old and a four-year-old. They’ve all got to move at the same time and that’s got to be soon.”
“I guess that’s a ‘no.’”
“That’s a no,” Robyn agreed.
“And you can’t find anyone?”
“No one I want to leave with my business, lock, stock and barrel immediately after they start, anyway.”
Thea turned with the yellow light, zipping across just ahead of a speeding Nissan Maxima. “I guess I can kind of see your point.”
“I leave next Friday. If you can get up here in a day or two, we’d have time to get you up to speed. You can stay at my place. Darlene will keep you company while I’m gone.” Darlene, Robyn’s irrepressible pug. She and Thea had become fast friends on earlier visits.
“You’ll have my car to get around.” Robyn paused. “Thea, I really need you. I know it’s a lot to ask, but will you do it?”
To get my life in gear. A chance to get out of L.A., a chance to teach dance instead of potting plants for a living. A chance to help Robyn out at a crucial time, Robyn, who’d been there for her once, long ago. A chance for…who knew?
“I won’t need your car. I’ll drive up,” Thea said.
“You’ll drive up?” Robyn stopped. “Does that mean…”
“Give me two days so I can stop and see my sister in Sacramento. I’ll be up Thursday.”
“That gives us almost a week. That’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve finally realized that,” Thea said.
2
“WHY DO I FEEL LIKE I should have a hall pass?” Thea asked Robyn as they walked down the broad hallway of the Lincoln School. Eighteen years had passed since she’d graduated from sixth grade, but the black-and-white-tiled floor and the glassed-in display cases on the walls brought it all back. All she needed was the beaded metal chain from her I.D. tag to use as her hopscotch marker and she’d be set.
“Just wait,” Robyn said.
“Tell me you’re not going to take me to the principal’s office.”
“Nope. Someplace better.” She stopped before a wooden door with Cafeteria emblazoned on its frosted glass insert.
“Let me guess. You’re taking me out for sloppy joes?”
“If you’re good,” Robyn promised and swung the door open.
It reminded her of her elementary school cafeteria, only homier, friendlier. Butter yellow walls, black-and-white tile and polished chrome, in a room buzzing with conversation and laughter. Straight ahead lay the counter with its row of stools. Waitresses in thirties-style diner uniforms circulated with laden trays. Behind the counter lay not only the window to the kitchen but a full bar with a dizzying array of taps; on the far wall, copper-clad brewing tanks gleamed.
Thea turned around with a broad grin. “This is the coolest place I’ve ever seen.”
Robyn laughed. “I knew you’d love it. Wait until you see the bathrooms. It’s just like you remember from being a kid, only better.”
They threaded their way to a table that overlooked a playground mostly occupied by the staked green rows of a kitchen garden, but still boasting a swing set and slide off to one side, and yes, a hopscotch grid on which a trio of animated girls hotly contested the lead.
“They grow a lot of their own vegetables right here,” Robyn explained, taking the menu the hostess handed her. “About the best salads you’ll get in town, even at the farmers’ market. Although you can also get a sloppy joe.”
Thea shook her head. “It’s brilliant.”<
br />
“It’s the McMillans. Brilliance is their specialty.”
“A chain?”
“Brothers,” Robyn explained. “They’ve got a string of places. Some of them are just brewpubs, some are pub hotels, or even spas. But they pick up these quirky themes—one of the places is a decommissioned jail, and they converted the old county work farm. Oh, and then there’s Suds n’ Celluloid. It shows old movies. You kick back on sofas and old chairs and waiters bring you beer and food.”
“Now, that’s what I call civilization,” Thea commented. “They’d clean up in L.A.”
Robyn grinned. “Sorry, they’re pretty much a Portland-only gig. When everything you touch turns to gold, you don’t have to go far. I should be so lucky,” she trailed off.
“Business tough?” Thea asked sympathetically, after they’d ordered.
Robyn moved her water glass around. “It’s going well, just not fast enough. It’s always hard the first couple of years, I knew that getting into it. I’m hanging in there.” She squared her shoulders and rearranged the cutlery.
“You know, if you needed a loan—” Thea began.
“Yeah, I know,” Robyn said and gave her hand a brief squeeze. “I don’t want to go there, though. I’m already asking enough of you by hauling you up here on zero notice. You walked away from your job.”
“My McJob,” Thea pointed out. “I’ll find a new one.”
“Even so.”
“Robyn, you were there for me, remember? There’s no way I can ever pay you back for that.”
“That’s what friends do.”
“Exactly,” Thea said. “You have to go. You’ve been talking about going to Australia someday for as long as I’ve known you. Besides, you need time to yourself, time to recharge. Just think, in a week you’ll be flying off to do just that.”
“What about you? When do you recharge?”
Thea grinned as the waitress brought their beer. “Shoot, I’ve spent the last eight years recharging. I’m powered up, now.”
“Yeah, I buy that.” Robyn raised her glass. “To being powered up.”
“To being powered up,” Thea echoed, and the ring of their toast echoed out. A moment later, Thea blinked. “Wow, that is some seriously wonderful beer,” she said. “Maybe that’s what you need to do, set up a microbrewery in your dance studio. Robyn’s Tango Ale. Just like the McMillans.”
“Honey, there’s nobody like the McMillans. They’re a force unto themselves.”
BRADY AND MICHAEL STOOD on the threadbare carpeting and looked around the Odeon Theater. The seats had been upholstered in plush red velvet some seventy-odd years before. Now the worn fabric was faded to a rusty dun color, mottled with stains. Overhead arched a trompe l’oeil ceiling, bordered by gold-leafed carvings. The stale air smelled faintly of cigarette smoke.
Michael scanned the rows. “Don’t really want to think about what’s on those seats.”
“Given that the last movie they showed here was Horny Coeds Going Wild, that’s probably smart.”
“They all come out, first thing,” Michael decided.
“Probably smart, too.”
“It’s a great space. The question is, how do we turn this into a brewpub?”
Brady began to amble down the aisle. “Same way we did with the jail and the Lincoln School. Think outside the box. The two floors above here will be the hotel. This is the common area. We add a bar at the back, take out a lot of the seats and put in tables. Leave in the box seats.”
“And what, show movies here, too?” Michael followed Brady to the stage.
“Naw. We’re already doing that at Suds n’Celluloid. We need to do something else with this.”
“Such as what, idea man?”
Brady boosted himself up onto the chest-high wood platform. “I dunno.” He stood staring around, hands in his pockets. “We’ll figure it out.”
“It’d be nice to figure it out before we pop a couple million buying and renovating it,” Michael said dryly.
“Yep.” He could see it, Brady thought, even through the shabbiness. It had been built in the heyday of the thirties movie palaces, with the sweeping curves of gilded wood, the opulent carvings, the private boxes that rose along the walls. High overhead soared the crenellated wood arch that framed the stage. Heavy gold velvet curtains, now falling apart under their own weight, hid the wings. He could see it cleaned and painted and polished, hear the laughter and the buzz of conversation as the tables of diners held their beers and looked up at…
What?
“We’ll figure it out,” he said again.
At the sound of a throat clearing, they both looked up to see the seller’s agent standing at the top of one of the aisles. “Have you gentlemen seen everything you wanted to see?” she asked, making a show of checking her watch. She had better things to do at eight o’clock on a Friday night than show real estate, her posture clearly telegraphed.
Brady and Michael glanced at each other and nodded. “Yeah, I think so,” Michael said. They started back up the aisle.
Outside, the air was warm in the last light of a summer evening. “Where are you parked?” Brady asked.
“By the Cascade Brewery,” Michael said, naming their flagship brewpub on the other side of the downtown.
“Me too.” They ambled along to turn onto Front Street. “We’ve got a great entry area,” Brady said. “Classic old-time theater. We keep that the same. Maybe have someone in the ticket booth to take people’s names.”
“Stuck out there in the middle of that coved entry area? Is that going to be practical?”
Brady shrugged. “We find a way to make it practical. It’s like the Lincoln School, we keep as much of the vibe as we can. Make up sheets that look like movie posters advertising the specials and seasonal beers, mix ’em in with pulp movie posters, sheets pushing whatever the entertainment is.”
“Yeah, whatever the entertainment is,” Michael echoed with a sidelong glance at him.
“You can’t push creative brilliance,” Brady said mildly.
Michael laughed. “I’ll remember that. Lindsay keeps telling me we’re nuts.”
“The woman’s going to be giving birth to your kid for the third time—”
“Kids,” Michael interjected. “Twins, remember?”
“Kids. And she says we’re nuts?”
“She says the hormones make her forget what labor’s like.”
Brady snorted. “It’d take a lot more than hormones for me.”
“You’re right about the property, though, it is a great property. Not that it shouldn’t be, for that price.”
“Hell, we convert the levels above the hotel floors to lofts and offices, we can probably make most of the mortgage off the rents.”
“Possibly.”
Brady shook his head pityingly. “You’re a pessimist, Michael.”
“And you’re way too much of an optimist.”
“One of my many fine qualities.”
“It’ll cost to renovate the office space, too, you know,” Michael reminded him. “We won’t get to it right away and there’s no way we’ll rent them all.”
“That’s okay. We’ll start small, give the place a chance to get hip, generate some buzz.” Brady grinned. “We can put signs up by the bar, ‘If you lived here, you’d be home now.’ Hell, I’d live there.”
“You’d live anywhere that was close to your beer.”
“You know, that’s not a bad idea. I could read it bedtime stories before I went to sleep.”
“There’s something twisted about you,” Michael muttered.
Ahead of them, the broad swath of the Willamette River bisected the city on its way to join with the Columbia. The lights of the Hawthorne Bridge glimmered in the fading light. On the broad sweep of the waterfront park that paralleled the riverbank, a crowd of people were gathered. Music floated across on the night air.
“Oh, gee, let me guess,” Michael said, “another festival.”
“The jo
ys of culture. Maybe we’ll be lucky and find out it’s a beer festival.” Brady hooked his hands in his back pockets.
“You really are an optimist.”
“They’ll have food, anyway. I’m starved.”
“You just ate dinner two hours ago.”
“Exactly. Time enough to get hungry again.”
It wasn’t about eating, though, he saw as they crossed the street to skirt the edge of the park. It was about the sound, the motion.
It was about the dance.
Moonlight and Tango read a banner. Curious, Brady wandered closer.
“Thinking about auditioning for ‘Dancing with the Stars’?” Michael asked.
Brady grinned. “Never know. I might need a backup if the theater doesn’t work out.”
Piano and strings, the slow, insistent thud of percussion. The exotic rhythms of the music whispered of passion, of dim, intimate cafés where couples embraced in the dance. Paper lanterns dangled from the trees. Ahead, people clustered around a spot in the open, watching. And beyond them, he glimpsed motion, color—a couple, dancing.
Something about the music intrigued him. Something about it had him wanting to see more.
“We don’t have all night,” Michael reminded him.
“Relax, will you? You can head out, I’ve got my truck. I want to see this.” He ignored Michael’s grumbling and moved closer. And when he got near enough to look past them, he saw.
She wore red, a narrow dress slit all the way up the thigh on one side to reveal a long, sleek leg jackknifed up to the hip of her partner. A matching red blossom was tucked into the dark hair gathered at the nape of her neck; her back, her arms were naked.
Brady swore that his heart stopped, or maybe it was just the music. When she moved again, with an almost catlike grace, he gulped oxygen out of self-preservation with the same rush of adrenaline he felt when shooting the rapids in his kayak.
He stared at her as the pair moved through their intricately choreographed…seduction. It wasn’t one of those artsy dances with all the feathers and floaty dresses. Dark and driven, it was a dance of lust, pure and simple. The woman prowled around her partner—her lucky, lucky partner—with a sort of predatory sexuality, every line of her body, every movement eloquent of heat and demand, every glance one of temptation.
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