He strode out, not a wisp of that sunny hair misplaced by the spring breeze, not a speck of dandelion fluff daring to cling to the knife-sharp crease of his gabardine trousers or the broad expanse of his suit-coated shoulders as he passed by the shop window. Tall and sturdy rather than elegantly lean, Axell Holm strode down the street with the arrogant certainty of his place in the world.
Maya admired the surety of his stride as he passed, then smiled as he stopped on the corner to examine a foil kite displayed outside the corner drugstore. That Aquarian curiosity would be his downfall, she predicted.
Patting the restless stirring inside her abdomen, she relaxed against the chair back, reprogrammed the sound system, and let the aria from Man of La Mancha carry her away from this time and place. Music was supposed to inspire the unborn child, increase their intelligence and awareness, and she wanted her child to have all the right advantages. She breathed in the crescendo of “The Impossible Dream.” Impossible dreams were the only kind she knew.
She had no money, a stack of bills higher than her sister’s inventory, and no real job to speak of, but wherever her heart was, was home. She could pack up and leave anytime she liked — after Cleo got out of jail.
***
December, 1945
The night you walked into the bar, I thought you were the most amusing thing that had happened in a long time. The joint stank of beer. Pete had passed out at his usual table. The piano player was more interested in one of the guys at the bar than what he was playing. Then you walked in with your shiny new church suit and spiffy fedora, trying to look as if you walked into dens of iniquity all the time. You were irresistible.
I was half way to drunk when you looked at me, but I sobered up quick. God, you were one good-looking fellow. Why am I telling you this? You damned well knew it all along. You probably got through the war on your looks and charm. I’ll sober up in the morning and rip this letter to shreds, so it doesn’t matter what I say anyway.
Or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll mail it and hope it poisons your two-timing heart.
You had eyes that seared the soul and set my jaded heart thumping. Even Pete wasn’t amusing anymore. I didn’t want you to ignore me, so I walked right up and caught your tie between my fingers and led you straight down the path to hell.
Or maybe I hoped you’d lead me out. I never was very smart.
Two
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
“Maya, is that you? We’ve got problems, girl.” The lilting Southern accent drifted down the darkened hall through the office doorway, sounding more bemused than worried.
Maya kneeled and hugged the five-year-old clenching her hand. “It’s all right, sugar baby. Selene makes jokes. Everything’s going to be just fine. Why don’t you turn on the lights and check on Mr. Pig?”
The solemn little boy with her sister’s bright green eyes nodded his shaggy head. She really needed to get his hair cut. Maya ruffled the dark strands and kissed his forehead. Maybe pregnancy was magnifying her emotions, but his solemnity tore at her heartstrings. Except for his eyes, he didn’t even look like Cleo, but she saw her older sister’s worried frown in his expression now. He might be only five, but he carried the world’s burdens on his shoulders already. And just like Cleo, he frequently rebelled at the weight. He still didn’t entirely trust Maya to carry the burden.
“I bet Mr. Pig missed you today. Pat him nicely so he knows you care.”
Matty smiled shyly. “I will. Can I have a chocolate milk?”
“May I,” she corrected. “Sure thing, sugar dumplin’. Only one, though. We’ve got to have enough for everyone.” Maya bit her lip and watched with a sob in her throat as her nephew ambled down the long hall toward the school’s main workroom. That poor child had lived through hell these last few years. She cursed Cleo and turned to find Selene watching her from the doorway.
“That boy will be just fine. Kids bounce back fast. It’s you I’m worried about. Get yo’self in here and put your dogs up.”
“Don’t give me that cotton-mouth, girl,” Maya mocked, following Selene into the office to drop onto a shredded couch that was one step ahead of the garbage heap. “I may be white trash, but you’ve got upbringing.”
Selene’s grin spread across her face. “You’re the one with the education, not me. I’m just here washing floors.”
“Scrubbing.” Maya arranged her expanded belly comfortably on the sagging cushion and put her feet up. “One scrubs floors and washes dishes. Shows how much you know about real work.”
With a more serious expression, Selene inquired, “You heard from that sister of yours yet?”
She sighed. “Going cold turkey hasn’t made Cleo any more communicative than before. She won’t take my calls.” Just the topic of her sister made her nervous. She hadn’t seen Cleo in years, had barely exchanged more than a dozen phone calls with her since Cleo had reached the age of eighteen and fled the series of foster homes they’d grown up in.
Still, Maya treasured memories of her street-tough older sister rescuing her from childhood dragons, and she figured she owed Cleo. She just couldn’t rely on her. For that, she had her wealthy partner.
Except today, Maya felt dumpy and dowdy beside Selene’s tailored ivory linen magnificence. At five-ten and barely a hundred-forty pounds, Selene could scarcely disguise her elegant carriage. Pregnant women weren’t supposed to be elegant, Maya reminded herself. Still, it would have been nice if she’d felt a little less like a mushroom around a man like Axell Holm. Not that Norse gods noticed insignificant white trash.
“Earth to Maya, earth to Maya, come in, please.” Selene had taken her chair behind the desk and waited patiently for Maya’s return to the world. “You get any ditzier, girl, and you’ll have that baby and forget where you left it.”
Maya grimaced. “Don’t remind me. It’s one of my nightmares. Now what fascinating problem do we have besides the mayor’s desire to run a highway through our kitchen?”
Selene looked impressed. “My, you do have your signals tuned in for a change. Where did you pick up that one?”
Selene had grown up in the little town of Wadeville, North Carolina. Her father might have started out as the token black in the local bank, but he’d moved up in the corporate world until he currently occupied a spacious corner office high in the bank’s uptown Charlotte headquarters. Selene had hated city life, and dropped out of high school to waste several years playing at local fashion model before discovering she had an aptitude for investing her earnings.
Few people realized she had inherited her father’s financial acumen. She accepted the town’s prejudices by hiding behind a shield of silent partnerships and displaying her party-girl charm in public, letting the community believe she lived off her father’s generosity. Maya had seen through that disguise the day they met. Geminis could frequently do two things at once. Selene managed three or four.
“A little birdie in the form of a Nordic god told me. It’s hard to imagine poor little Constance with a father like that. No wonder she has an inferiority complex.” Maya relaxed into the sofa cushions as Selene answered the phone, switched on the computer, scribbled a note, and sent her a glaring look, all at the same time. She couldn’t have found a better partner, financially or otherwise.
Selene slammed down the phone and switched on the answering machine before stabbing her pen in Maya’s direction. “You talked to Axell Holm? You? My stars and garters, heaven help us. What did you say?”
Curling her fingers behind her head, Maya shrugged. “What could I say? I know nothing about it. I just flattered his daughter and offered an invitation for her to join us this summer. I’m not a complete airhead, you realize.”
Selene sighed and dropped back in her chair. “I know. You’re the one who stuck out the grind and got your teaching certificate. I still don’t know how you did that.”
“Slept with the teachers.”
“Oh, don’t get all touchy on me, woman. Get a gr
ip. I just figure you got too much brains to stay with the program. College is for those with no imagination.” She waved her hand hastily at Maya’s glare. “I know, without the degree, we wouldn’t have the school. Don’t rub it in. Just tell me everything Holm said. And why the hell did he say it to you?”
“Because I’m the licensed owner and administrator and you’re the flunky?” Maya suggested. “He hasn’t figured out I’m just the figurehead yet. He said the mayor favors the plan to build that shopping center over the hill. They want Mr. Pfeiffer’s land for parking lot access and apparently, they’re asking the state to condemn the property and pave a highway entrance through here.”
“Yeah, that’s what I just heard too. Pfieffer never said anything about it when he signed our lease.” Selene stared gloomily at the blinking phone lines. “Reckon old Mayor Arnold heard about me financing this place? Surely the man wouldn’t hold a grudge since high school.”
Hearing the arrival of cars in the driveway, Maya groaned and lowered her feet to the floor. “I don’t know what you and the mayor have to do with each other, but I knew what Pfieffer was doing. His aura was definitely ambiguous. If you’d just let me read your cards, Selene—”
“Oh, hush. I don’t know why I got myself mixed up with no honky mind-reader. You must have done a spell on me,” Selene mocked as she released the answering machine and jammed her finger on a blinking phone line. Her sculpted features reflected only pleasant concern as she waved her partner out of the room, and her trash talk dissolved into perfectly enunciated accents to the client on the other end of the line.
“’Cause this honky mind-reader knows a soft touch when she sees one,” Maya called as she departed, knowing full well Selene would hear her. Geminis were like that.
With a smile, she turned to greet the first student traipsing in for the day. “Boffo butterflies, sugar. Did your mommy put those in your hair for you?” She hugged the beaming little girl and forgot about all the other problems waiting outside the door.
***
“Constance, you ought to be dressed by now. You’ll be late for school.”
Harassed by an early morning call from a constituent, Axell wiped his sleep-blurred eyes and struggled for patience with his eight-year-old daughter. Still in her pajama top, her mousy hair a tangle of snarls, she stood in bewilderment before a closet full of the finest clothes money could buy, arranged in a neat row at a level she could reach. He’d thought organizing her closet and drawers would help her to get ready faster in the mornings. Apparently, the choices only prolonged her indecision.
He couldn’t see anything of himself in Constance’s dainty features and fragile bone structure. Constance’s mother had been petite, but she’d always been elegant. His wife’s brown hair had been tipped with golden highlights and her lovely face had been awash with color and life. Axell slammed the door on that memory. Angela’s highlights had been artificial and the color, cosmetically applied. Female emotion might forever be a mystery, but he’d learned about feminine artifices the hard way.
There was nothing artificial about his daughter. Her wide-eyed silence tugged at every heart string he didn’t possess. He had no idea how to reach her.
“Let’s wear the blue dress today, shall we?” he asked hopefully, pulling out a denim jumper.
Constance regarded the jumper doubtfully but began unbuttoning her pajama top. Wondering if it was healthy for a father to help dress an eight-year-old daughter, Axell turned and searched her drawers for appropriate underwear and socks. He had to crawl under her bed and dresser for her shoes. Finding only one ballet slipper, a pair of bunny slippers, and an ancient tennis shoe, he combed the closet for a complete pair of anything. A clunky pair of Nikes in hand, he turned to see how far Constance had progressed.
The shoulder straps of the blue jumper hung loosely on her bony shoulders. It definitely needed a shirt underneath. Frustration mounting, Axell grabbed a red blouse from the closet rack. “Here, put this on — under the dress,” he amended, remembering another morning when she’d worn the shirt over the top. Didn’t girls automatically know what clothes to wear and how to wear them?
Through it all, Constance remained silent. She never spoke unless absolutely necessary. Some days, he wished she would chatter to fill the silence of their monstrous house. Since Angela’s death, it had echoed hollow as any tomb.
He didn’t know how to fill the silence any more than he knew how to reach his daughter. She was growing up like one of those forlorn waifs from the hideous velvet paintings his mother used to collect. He wished his mother were here to guide him, but she had died when he was twelve. All the women in his life had died and left him. The knowledge drained Axell’s mouth dry as he watched his frail daughter reach for a brush. Should he lose her...
Rubbing his face, he stopped those thoughts. Constance was just going through a stage. The new after-school program would bring her out of it. He didn’t have time to run her to ballet classes and music lessons and tennis lessons every afternoon as Angela had. The after-school program was just what she needed. He had to find some way of preventing the mayor from shutting the school down as well as forcing that airheaded school administrator to recognize the seriousness of the situation. Those were things he could accomplish easier than persuading his daughter to talk.
Recalling the auburn-haired gypsy from the New Age shop, Axell wondered if he just shouldn’t start shopping for a new school.
***
Glancing at his line-up of blue phone-message slips, organized in order of priority, Axell crumpled the one he’d just answered, and dropped it neatly in the wastebasket at his feet. He scribbled a corresponding note in his day-planner, then sat back in his chair as he recognized the brisk knock at his office door. There was no need to tell the visitor to enter. From long acquaintance, he knew Katherine would enter whether he wished it or not.
His assistant sailed in, impeccably attired, as always. He’d often been told they’d make a good pair: they were both tall and blond with a fashionable sense of style and a similar desire for order in a disorderly world. However, no matter how much he admired Katherine’s leggy good looks and sensible attitude, she stirred no interest other than whatever bit of news or information she carried with her. The exchange of gossip was the main basis of their relationship.
Networking, people called it, but in the good old days of his neighborhood bar, it was plain gossip. Axell crossed his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair as she threw several more message slips on his desk. “You’re early,” he commented without inflection. His talent for hiring perfect hostesses was half the reason his restaurant was such a success. He certainly didn’t possess the necessary bonhomie to greet his clientele.
In a red mini-dress and high heels that would have the eyes of his male bar patrons popping out and rolling on the floor, Katherine prowled his office, straightening a picture here, dusting invisible specks there, drawing his attention to the spartan furnishings. She’d helped him find the sleek modern furniture, and hired the decorator who’d added the black and white engravings to match the ebony lacquered desk and white leather chairs. The splash of red stalking back and forth over the black-and-white interior amused him, and for the first time, Axell wondered if she’d planned it that way.
Remembering the rainbow clutter of the little shop he’d visited yesterday, he wondered if there was some pattern between a woman’s choice of color and her personality that might aid in his understanding of her behavior. He almost jotted a note to himself to study the matter when Katherine finally spoke.
“The mayor just offered me a position in his office.”
On your back? was the first thought that leaped to mind, but Axell had learned long ago to suppress his often irreverent humor. People seldom appreciated it and never expected it. “And you replied?”
She swung around and glared at him from beneath her stack of blond tresses. “You’d let me go without a protest, wouldn’t you? My God, Axell, just exa
ctly what are you made of? We’ve been together from the start.”
The start of what? was his next question, again suppressed. Keeping his mouth shut was a habit he’d acquired from his father, but in Katherine’s case, one of necessity. She had an unfortunate tendency toward dramatics, and he disliked scenes. Lowering his arms, Axell steepled his fingers across his chest. “Katherine, I value our relationship as much as you do, but if you think the mayor can open doors for you that I can’t, then in the interest of friendship, I can’t stand in your way.”
Her angry expression turned to exasperation. “What doors can the mayor of a two-bit town open? Can’t you look beyond the obvious? The two of you are at constant odds. What have you done now that he’s attempting to buy my favors?”
Axell raised his eyebrows, but she raised a healthy question. He rocked his chair back and forth, then shrugged. “I objected to his decision to have the state run a highway through the Pfieffer property, but then, I objected to the shopping center development as well. The list could probably go on for months. I don’t know where you fit into any of it.”
“The Pfeiffer property!” Her eyes lit with recognition. “The old man is second cousin to my uncle or some such. The whole family thinks he’s cracked to hang on to that crumbling old mansion.”
“He partially restored it while his wife was still alive,” Axell reminded her. “And the land itself has been in the family since the beginning of time. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found a couple of Cherokees on the family tree and discovered burial mounds or whatever on the grounds. Not many people can hold onto land that long. I don’t blame the man for trying to preserve his heritage.”
She shrugged the padded shoulders of her bolero jacket and paced the carpet at a more leisurely rate. “The city is expanding in this direction too rapidly for property like that to go undivided. The price of land is skyrocketing. Those may have been rural roads ten years ago, but the Pfieffer property stands directly between two major traffic arteries now. A connector road through there is inevitable.”
Impossible Dreams Page 2