The Complete Where Dreams

by M. L. Buchman

  It just took the right kind of woman. Maybe he’d find one. If not, he’d go and trust to his journey. He’d know the right one when she showed up.

  Funny to have a boat now. As a kid he’d always dreamed of sailing around the world. The streetlights that had shown up through his Upper West Side Manhattan bedroom windows had painted a map of shadow and light that he had peopled with pirates and discovery.

  In all his boyhood dreams, he’d never pictured a woman on the boat. Of course he hadn’t hit puberty then either. At first, he’d imagined he and his grandfather sailing together. After he’d died, Russell had always pictured himself solo without really thinking about it. Once puberty hit, he’d thought about women and not sailboats. He hadn’t remembered the boats until Angelo heaved the calendar at his head. He tried to mentally place Melanie aboard, but it wouldn’t stick. And that was far more likely than Angelo’s wine lady. There was a laugh.

  Solo. Why had he always pictured himself sailing solo?

  “Careful what you wish for, buddy, you’re gonna get it,” he muttered under his breath.

  Maybe he could wish for this. A couple dozen people all crowded together. Nothing more important to do than spend some time with each other. Thank heavens no one sidling up to discuss the next shoot, no one after his parents’ money. He definitely wouldn’t miss someone barfing while they held themselves upright with a palm in the middle of one of his ten-thousand dollar photographs.

  He’d given his whole cursed art-photo collection to MoMA on permanent loan. Pete, the head of the art handling team who’d come to cart it off, had practically cried on his shoulder. His diminutive wife actually had—oddly enough at a tiny tintype self-portrait by a young Bourke-White.

  Russell was already closer to Dave and Perry than he’d been to most of the people at the final studio party. The people here from Perry to Dave and even Teri were more real than any of his former…associates—except perhaps Melanie.

  He looked back at Perry and Dave with a shrug, “I’m just gonna sail.”

  Dave looked a bit unsure but didn’t say anything.

  Perry poured another short whiskey and rolled the glass back and forth between his callused palms. The surface rippled with golden light in the heavy cut glass.

  “Pictures.”

  He and Dave faced the old salt who continued to study his glass.

  “Pictures? I dunno. Boats and port towns?” Russell offered. A real yawn once spoken aloud.

  “Quiet streets and pretty women?” Dave added. That was a little better.

  Perry slid back into his silence, but Russell would swear there was a smile going on somewhere behind that bushy mustache.

  “What?”

  The old man just shook his head and sipped his whiskey. With a wink, he took a couple of Russell’s Ritz crackers.

  Russell woke when his boat shifted. Someone was aboard—without knocking on the hull first. Someone was breaking the first rule of boat etiquette.

  Teri. Oh no. Teri was coming on board. She’d been eyeing him toward the end of the party last night. Did she have a late night welcome ritual for any new single man on the dock? Certain parts of his body were indicating they wouldn’t complain about that sort of welcome. But no way.

  He scrabbled about for his pants, knocked his head sharply on a deck support he’d been meaning to wrap in foam rubber. He was going to give himself a permanent crease in his skull pretty soon.

  “Don’t be dumb, Russ. It’s just been too long since you’ve been with a woman.” Not since Melanie had jumped him Thanksgiving morning before he’d had a chance to tell that he was leaving for Seattle in a few hours.

  She hadn’t stayed after the studio closing party that he’d flown back for a week later and he couldn’t blame her. Others had offered to stay, but he wasn’t that crass. Or, now that he thought about it, that interested. It hadn’t been a cheerful bash though it had all of the catering and blues band trappings of a good go.

  The bright flashes before his eyes eased and he struggled into his pants as the boat rocked again. Then there was a step thudding back down onto the dock. He tried to think if there was anything to steal up on deck.

  The forward porthole showed no one; no one crossing past the bow toward land. Who’d be up in the middle of the night prowling around the marina? He’d better stop them before they hit a boat that had something to lose.

  He ran down the short companionway, the wood shavings and sawdust were prickly against his bare feet, and threw open the rear hatch. The cold hit his bare chest like a slap. He looked along the dock and could just make out a broad figure in a dark coat with white hair.

  “Perry?” he half-whispered sending a puff of steamy breath out into night.

  The old man waved a hand over his head, but didn’t turn around. He continued toward his battered old tug.

  That’s when Russell heard it, the faintest sound at his feet.

  He looked down.

  Perry had left a cardboard box.

  Russell shivered as the chill air wrapped around his body.

  The box moved. There was something inside.

  And then the box mewed.

  Alki Lighthouse

  Alki Point, West Seattle

  First lit: 1868

  Automated: 1970

  47.5762 -122.4206

  * * *

  Alki, the Washington State motto, means “by-and-by” in Chinook, a local Native American language. In 1851 the first white settlers in the area landed at the present day location of the lighthouse. They named the settlement New York-Alki.

  A few years later a young entrepreneur named Doc Maynard was made unwelcome there and moved on to found another settlement a few miles from the inhospitable point. It is one of the ironies of his life that in his last years, a near destitute Maynard lived very close to the lighthouse where New York-Alki had long since succumbed to Doc’s city, which he’d named Seattle.

  FEBRUARY 1

  Cassidy parked the car and pounded a fist against the steering wheel. The horn blared and she’d have jumped out of the seat if it hadn’t been for the seat belt.

  Once again she glanced at the GPS. The “current position” and “destination” coordinates were superimposed. The coordinates matched the numbers on the envelope sitting beside the stick shift. She looked out her windshield. No question, that was it. The Alki Point lighthouse stood barely a dozen yards off the main beach road. She’d even found a parking spot right in front of the gate. Over two thousand dollars of hiking clothes and hour upon hour learning how to use the GPS in case she ever got lost again.

  And there was the lighthouse in plain view down a little garden path.

  She tossed her stupid alien-manufactured rain pants over the stupid GPS and climbed out of the car. Maybe if she left it unlocked, someone would steal all of the great-outdoors garbage and she could pretend this was just a bad dream. Deep breath, Cass. Take a deep breath. She pressed the button and the car sealed everything safely inside with a contented chirp.

  She pushed on the gate and the lock rattled, but it didn’t open. A bronze plaque was bolted onto the fence.

  “Winter hours: Sat-Sun 12-3. Mon-Fri closed.”

  Today was Saturday, the first of February. But it was nine in the morning which meant three hours to wait.

  She kicked the gate.

  Hard.

  Well, that was one advantage to her new light-hiking, all-weather, waterproof boots by Vasque, which sounded like a plaque rinse more than a boot. They gave her the ability to kick a solid iron gate and not break her foot.

  She couldn’t even get a decent snapshot from the road, too many trees had grown up in the gardens. The expensive houses were packed side-by-side and she couldn’t see any passage through.

  She returned to the driver’s seat and glared out at the neighborhood. Pounding her feet on the floormat made her feel a little better. She started the car and popped the clutch badly enough to stall the engine.

  “Okay, Cassid
y, you can do this. You know how to drive a stupid car.” She hadn’t needed one in New York, so it had been something of an adventure to drive one when she returned to Seattle. She’d learned on a stick, but after a decade in the city, it hadn’t come back as quickly as she’d expected.

  She was glad she hadn’t invited Jack James along; she was in no mood for a date. At least not if she wanted it to go well. And Jack’s everlasting calm would just irritate her more. He never engaged his emotions in anything. Not in anything at all, now that she thought about it.

  Once again: start the engine, in gear, ease out the clutch. She rolled out of the parking spot and down the street looking for a place to turn around. Fifty feet farther on, a little sign was posted on a rusted fence.

  Two words.

  “Beach Access.”

  “Yes!” Lighthouses were on beaches.

  She checked the rearview mirror. Someone was pulling into her spot.

  “That was mine, mister.”

  The next one she could find was halfway around the bay over a quarter-mile away according to her smug GPS. She considered taking the instrument with her to throw in the ocean but resisted the urge.

  The wind was at her back as she walked back to the little flight of gritty concrete steps down to the sand and rock beach. There was no park ranger to refuse her a parking pass, she’d have an easy walk along the water’s edge on a bright blue winter’s day.

  At the bottom of the steps she turned right along the sandy verge and was confronted by a much bigger sign.

  “Residents only beyond this point.”

  Well, her car was parked in the neighborhood, sort of, so she was resident here at the moment. Besides, she formed the argument in her head, the sign was faded and was badly broken in one corner. “Broken sign, rule no longer valid.”

  Finally she rationalized that no one would be out on a day like this to care anyway. It was blowing stiffly, though not like last month and the air was definitely cold enough to snow. Thankfully the sky was sparkling blue, not a white, puffy cloud in sight—very little danger of a soaking rain today.

  She strode past the sign warm in her red watchcap, her knee-length Michael Kors parka, and her Vasque hiking boots that could definitely climb this beach, which was much less steep than any of those seven peaks.

  The view was once again spectacular. The bay curved away to the left, the tall hills of West Seattle towered behind, dotted with beautiful houses and massive pine trees. In front of her, almost too vivid to be real, floated Vashon and Maury Island. Beyond them, soaring up into the sky were the Olympic Mountains; the Brothers peaks postured—each striving to raise his rugged, white-capped shoulders higher than the other.

  The sand disappeared and she was forced to clamber over huge rocks that had been piled up in front of the houses as a breakwater. In addition to the breakwater each house had a massive seawall of concrete. She could see over the top of one to the array of kayaks and children’s toys in the narrow back yard. The next house had a crane with a dock actually dangling from the end of it. It must be able to swing out and drop into the water on calmer, warmer days.

  The third house had a tall tree that blocked her view of the house and looked as if it blocked the owner’s view of the Sound. Well, that certainly made no sense. This view was so valuable the land here was probably sold by the square foot.

  Then there was the lighthouse. The same angle as it appeared on the calendar. Maybe the photographer had come on a day when the front entrance was closed as well. A small yard of perfect grass surrounded the old keeper’s house, set back among the gardens.

  The lighthouse itself was perched on the edge of the massive boulders, just feet above the sea. All around its base were small white stones, as if the building were afloat in its own little white sea of foam. The Alki light lacked the rigid stoutness of the West Point lighthouse. Rather than squat and powerful, its red-capped light soared three stories into the blue sky. The white paint shone so brilliantly in the sunlight that it was painful to look at. Maybe she should have bought a pair of those polarized, glacier-expedition sun goggles.

  She tugged out her camera and snapped a couple of photos. Only after the last shot did she notice that a sailboat had sailed right into the picture on the far side of the lighthouse. Cobalt blue hull, red sails. If there hadn’t been a photo of the first lighthouse with that same boat framed on her condo wall, she’d think she was losing her mind.

  She took another picture just so that she could prove later that it was real. Maybe this was a trademark in Seattle and lots of sailboats looked like that. Though she couldn’t imagine why. It was as if the last month hadn’t really happened. Or was happening again.

  Sitting down on a moderately flat rock, she watched the waves for a while, without the slashing spray this time. She tugged the Michael Kors jacket over her knees and almost down to her ankles. The watch cap pulled down over her ears kept her head reasonably warm.

  “Becoming quite the adventuress, aren’t we, Cass?” She felt strangely light, as if the breeze that was making her nose and cheeks sting with the cold could lift her up and she’d just fly away. Unfettered. Bound to no one.

  Except a couple kajillion readers. That slammed her back to earth and she could feel the cold rock against her behind despite the jacket, her leggings, and the woolen underwear that she just might start wearing year round it was so warm.

  She pulled off her heavy gloves and dug out her father’s letter. Nothing new on the outside of the envelope. Just a destination point for this month’s crazy journey.

  Dearest Ice Sweet,

  His voice sounded in her head. He wrote the same way he spoke. Warm, friendly, his letters were always an intimate conversation.

  We made it to the second lighthouse. Alki, by-and-by. That’s what it means. Maybe you remember that from school; it is the state motto after all. I always sat on the south side of the ferry just to watch for this lighthouse.

  “I remember, Daddy.” He must have pointed it out to her a thousand times, on every single trip to Seattle, both directions. He’d said it so many times that it had lost all meaning, just words that were a part of the day like, “Good morning.” or “How was school?” Ignored, forgotten.

  Suddenly she was a child in the big ferry boat once again, hundreds of people milling about, trying to find a way to be comfortable on the hard plastic seats for the half-hour crossing. Children racing up and down the aisles waving their Gameboys or Walkmans. Tourists snapping photos through the salt-stained glass that would never come out the way they pictured them; the journey a blur of half-forgotten images of a place they’d never been and could barely remember.

  Things really do happen by-and-by, especially the good things. We were working the vineyard. A couple of the guys had drifted off, and one had slashed his leg so badly with a rototiller that he’d gone into the VA hospital after coming out of the war unharmed. Strange, I can’t remember his name. Don’t even know what happened to him.

  We made some of the worst wine you can imagine those first years. But we got better, figured it out the hard way. It was still a brutal amount of work, but it was drinkable by the time your mother first came by.

  She was a tourist, vacationing in California after getting out of school. Came to the coast to check out Berkeley for graduate work. She and a carload of girlfriends were doing the vineyard circuit. I opened a bottle of our Merlot for them to taste. Our very best. Hadn’t meant to do that, but your mother always had the ability to turn me into a bumbling fool, right from the first time I saw her. She came back the next weekend with one friend, the week after alone. Soon she was helping in the fields. The rest, as they say, is history.

  “Pretty slick, Daddy. Hitting on a college girl on vacation.” She remembered the story. Daddy always told it exactly the same way, as if the tracks of it had been burned forever upon his heart. Unchanging, unchangeable over the years.

  This lighthouse always made me think about the strange course my life has t
aken. The wanderings that took me to a place I’d never been or imagined going. That gave me a family, a wife and daughter, and a place to be in the world. Looking back, everything happened as if there were some great master plan. From the past looking forward, it was the most haphazard series of choices and chance.

  Remember, Cass, pursue your dreams, but don’t expect them to follow that straight and narrow path that you see so clearly in your head.

  Life happens in its own fashion. At its own pace. I learned not to second-guess it. All that is good in my life came to me “by-and-by.”

  Vic

  “Ha!” There was another memory she’d lost track of. That’s what he’d said every single time he saw the lighthouse. “It’ll come to me by-and-by.” She glanced back over her shoulder.

  The lighthouse stood there looking down at her.

  “By-and-by, huh?”

  It didn’t answer.

  “Good thing I didn’t wait for by-and-by, Daddy. I’d never have gotten here.”

  Or would she? Mama went to Vassar in economics. Cassidy attended her mother’s alma mater and got her degree in marketing, most of it done as an independent study.

  While other students were partying, she was taking courses at the CIA. The Culinary Institute of America was less than a dozen miles up the road after all and it was too good a chance to pass up. No big surprise, what with being her father’s daughter, that she had an exceptionally well-trained palate. By the time she’d graduated from high school at sixteen, she’d read a hundred books about wine. She’d graduated from both Vassar and the CIA at twenty. Columbia School of Journalism had occurred by chance as much as conscious choice. The class assignment to write a review of the Punk and Wine Bistro had led to her first sale and she’d never looked back.