And now, for the two miles of the longest climb in the route, she’d just hunker down and think of something else while her legs earned their keep and knocked off the excess calories from yesterday’s lunch, and the cheese, salami, and wine dinner she’d fixed from the depths of the Pike Place Market basket.
Her mind had shifted to a place of denial. Even if she had heard the unstated offer correctly and Renée was offering her the position at Pike Place Market, why on Earth would Jo be interested? The last big Alaska case had made her partner in one of the country’s elite maritime law firms. That had earned her not only a very nice salary, but also a significant share of the law firm’s yearly profits. She wasn’t the most junior partner in some thousand-attorney firm, she was the fourth partner in a very elite, very specialized, very highly paid boutique firm. And the North Slope case could easily set her up for many years to come, assuming she won and didn’t go off buying jet planes or something equally stupid.
Yes, it would be several years of every waking minute, but she could do that. Her father had just cruised through life, the perfect counterexample. The weather was rough, he stayed in his shack, at least until the bar opened. If he didn’t feel like fishing that week, he left the boat tied up. Yes, it had probably extended his existence, but was it worth extending? He was lazy, his wife had left him before Jo’s first memory, and his daughter had been gone by sixteen, too young emotionally for college but with the grades and scholarship to get out and not care one whit about the consequences.
Executive Director of Pike Place Market couldn’t pay a quarter of what she was making now, or a tenth of what she would make. It wasn’t even a reasonable offer. It made no sense.
So clearly, she shifted down another gear as her legs tired, she had misunderstood Renée Linden’s unspoken message. Perhaps she was asking Jo to help her select the next Executive Director, maybe head up the search committee which would have good prestige and connections in its own right. Or maybe Renée wanted to make sure she’d be willing to work for the new director on legal issues despite her high profile cases. She’d be glad to, if she had the time. Her offices were at the edge of the Market, she ate most lunches there, and enjoyed doing part of her shopping in the various stalls.
She heard Angelo puffing up beside her. She shifted to the right edge of the shoulder, if he wanted to pass her on a hill climb she had no ego about it. At least not until the moment his wheel edged one inch past even, then she’d upshift and dust his behind if she could find the reserves.
Jo glanced over as he pulled up beside her. She knew she was perspiring, the band inside her helmet was barely holding back the tidal wave of sweat from her eyes.
Angelo looked positively fresh, as if they’d just spent the ten minutes on the flat, or coasting downhill. He’d be very easy to hate in this moment.
“I’ll meet you in the park at the foot of the hill. I’ll catch up with you.”
Before she could even nod, he dropped back and was gone. She twisted her head and saw him turn into the parking lot of a grocery store right before the crest of the hill.
She considered circling back, but then she’d be stopping with the last hundred yards uphill still to go. Forget that. She wasn’t going to intimate that she needed a rest in order to beat this hill.
Jo rolled over the highest point of the whole ride and began adding back gears.
She hit the downhill slope going fifteen miles an hour. By mid-descent, she was in a high gear, spinning hard in a full racing tuck, and going fifteen over the twenty-five mile-an-hour speed limit. Praying for no police, she hammered down the hill. Fifteen minutes of grinding work uphill, turned into a three-minute flash down into the heart of Kirkland and straight on into the park.
At nine on a Saturday morning the waterfront park was already busy with professionals and families. The small park jutted out into Lake Washington so that it was surrounded on three sides by water. Early cyclists and joggers packed the park. The shoppers at the boutique shops which wrapped around the bay wouldn’t be hitting for another couple of hours.
She rolled out to the very point, past the gazebo, and dropped to the grass.
A quick check on her cycle computer made her do a double-take. They’d chopped fifteen minutes off her best previous time. She wouldn’t admit it to Angelo, but she’d driven herself up the climb from Juanita Beach like never before. The cardio settings said that she’d killed off the worst of yesterday’s excesses and was making a good dent in whatever ones she’d find for today.
“Chocolate or vanilla?”
She looked up at Angelo as he pulled two supermarket-freezer ice cream cones from the back pocket of his shirt and presented them with a flourish for her consideration. She didn’t ask, she just snatched the chocolate one.
He settled beside her as they both peeled the paper wrappers.
When she sank her teeth into it, the cold smacked her overheated body. This wasn’t some healthy, demure dish of frozen yogurt. This was a high calorie, fat-turbocharged treat of chocolate and nuts on cheap chocolate ice cream in a really crappy wafer cone, just like all good pre-wrapped freezer cones.
It tasted sooo good.
“Oh... My!” Her mouth still half full of ice cream. She turned and kissed Angelo right on the lips. “This is wonderful.”
It was only as she faced back out over the lake and took a second bite, despite the possible risk of serious brain freeze from eating it too fast, that she realized what she’d done.
Two ways to deal with it. Ignore it or risk a sly look from behind her dark sunglasses to gauge his reaction.
Her brain chose a third. She turned and shot him a chocolate-laced grin, then stuck her tongue out at him.
He laughed and, much to her relief, did the same through vanilla-covered lips.
Chapter 6
Angelo’s legs were shaking by the time he got back to his condo in Pioneer Square. A hot shower, a high-carb lunch, and then he’d have some chance of surviving Saturday night service. He’d never ridden the Loop of the Lake so fast, or had so much fun doing it. He felt simultaneously exhausted and supercharged.
They’d barely spoken during the three-hour ride, no way to really do it while riding. But it was as if they didn’t need to. He never knew what to say to someone so smart and beautiful as Jo Thompson anyway, but doing the ride together had been easy and fun.
In the park they had eaten their cones and laughed about the Thursday night disaster. Who knew he’d ever be able to find the least morsel of humor in the situation, but Jo somehow made the impossible possible.
His mother wasn’t at the condo, maybe she was out exploring Seattle. He’d have to remember to take fresh clothes into the bathroom with him. Thankfully his new place had two baths, so they could each have their own. There’d be at last some privacy.
He was halfway through his shower when he remembered where his van was parked. At the Fremont Bridge.
Angelo stuck his head out of shower to check the clock on the bathroom counter.
Great. Just great.
Not only did it mean getting back on his bike, but by the time he got there, if the Seattle Police were operating at their usual level of efficiency, he’d have a parking ticket as well.
Forty-seven dollars.
Angelo was out the cost of a good bottle of wine and now, as he tried to park behind his restaurant, the one space reserved for his own use had been taken by some useless tourist. Well, he was going to get their behind towed and cost them a serious chunk of change and irritation. Perhaps it would mitigate some of his own.
But it wasn’t some tourist. It was his own car, parked in the van’s space.
This was Pike Place Market on a Saturday afternoon. There’d be nowhere to park for blocks around that didn’t cost at least half as much as his parking ticket. The traffic was suicidal and it took him forever to escape.
He drove down to Pioneer Square and pulled into the secure garage, hauled his bike upstairs, and then set out on his
usual walk back up the hill. By the time he was done, it had taken him almost two hours to reach his own restaurant just six blocks from his condo.
Okay, the bike ride had been good. He’d stay focused on that. He had finally found an interest in common with Jo and they’d had a good time. That ranked as a good date. Didn’t it?
He’d like to have discussed his mother descending on him. It would be nice to talk it through with her. The thought surprised him a little. He would have liked to hear Jo’s opinion. Angelo wagered that it would have been well considered and thoughtful. But the subject hadn’t come up and then she’d blanked his brain.
He’d been too surprised to react to the chocolaty kiss, and was glad she’d given him an excuse to not do so by sticking out her tongue at him. If he’d had a moment to think about it, he’d have found some way to mess it up. Instead, he’d laughed at the momentary image of the ever so proper attorney Ms. Thompson sticking her tongue out at a jury if she didn’t like their decision.
Angelo walked down the half block of Pike Street that led from First Avenue into the heart of the Market. The uneven brick was as packed with people as the sidewalks. Woe to a tourist stupid enough to attempt to drive on this street. He ignored the fact that he’d fallen into just that trap an hour before while attempting to park his van.
It was warm and sunny. The gelato merchant’s success was evident in dozens of people’s hands, bright globes of pure, glistening color perched on thin cones stood out among the kaleidoscope of summer attire. Bags held everything from fish and produce to soaps and trinkets. A woman wearing strike-you-dead-with-lust perfume brushed by him, her arm full of dahlias, her hair a bright chop of blond and chartreuse.
Left Hand Books was so crowded that people were visible through the window, doing the very slow shuffle step among the shelves. Henry shot him a friendly salute from the big fish stall right before flinging a twelve-pound salmon through the air toward the cashier for wrapping and sale.
He tossed a couple of dollars to Uli at Frank’s Quality Produce and snagged a basket of strawberries to eat as he headed along.
At Mr. D’s he gave the rest of the strawberries to Demetrios and his family and turned up Post Alley careful not to look in the Sur La Table display windows. He always heard tourists complaining that they, “really didn’t need anything more for the kitchen, but how could they resist” as they staggered out with the overstuffed trademark brown and maroon bags. For a chef, the place was a nightmare. Add on the commercial restaurant and Pike Place Market vendor discounts, and the place was beyond dangerous and often downright lethal.
He was, despite his best efforts, being drawn by the glistening copper Zabaglione pot in the window. His were getting pretty battered with use and some nights having only two caused timing problems.
That’s when he noticed the snarl of people up near his restaurant. At first he hoped it was the Perennial Tea Room across Post Alley, but it wasn’t. He hustled along and almost got clipped by a car as he crossed Stewart Street.
The day, delightful and warm a moment before, slapped him with a latent heat that had him sweating. People were milling around beneath the discreet Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth sign. Another disaster.
He’d apparently dodged the first crisis. No bad reviews had come of the Notorious Thursday Night Fiasco, as Jo had named it. But by the size of this crowd he was too late to recover from whatever was happening this time. They were between services, yet the crowd was massive. Kitchen fire. Or worse.
He resisted the urge to shove his way through the crowd, instead nudging and begging-his-pardon through the claustrophobic horde toward his own door. He’d almost made it inside when he spotted his mother.
She stood with a great smile on her face. Clad in a floppy sunhat, she wore a floaty blue summer dress with a deep cleavage that would have been totally inappropriate on a woman of her age if it didn’t look so good on her. A shawl of nearly transparent floral chiffon graced her shoulders. Daisies, she’d always had a soft spot for daisies. Her dark hair flowed to her shoulders and a tray of bruschetta balanced on one of her hands.
His avocados and artichokes.
He slid up beside her and gauged the crowd. They weren’t upset. They were smiling. Laughing, chatting, bantering with his mother, and enjoying themselves. They formed a line into the restaurant.
That was it. Service had crashed and was far too slow, and his mother was taking care of entertaining the crowd while they waited.
“Oh, there you are honey. Everyone!” She called out to the crowd and conversations hushed. “This here, he is my son. This food, it is his. Isn’t it wonderful?”
A round of applause burst forth that didn’t make any sense for people stuck waiting in line. Why would there be a line at two in the afternoon anyway? There were always some patrons in the restaurant even on Saturday afternoons, but never a line out the door between the two main services.
“I think,” Maria Amelia leaned close to him and spoke softly, “that perhaps Manuel would like it to have you in his kitchen.” She stuffed a bruschetta in his open mouth. “Close your mouth, chew like a good boy, now tu vai!”
He went.
Even as Angelo chewed and went, the flavors began to bloom in his mouth. The lush richness of the avocado, the smooth balance of artichoke heart, a sliver of lemon-cooked swordfish and a chiffonade of fresh basil on toasted, thin-sliced Ciabatta bread was remarkable. It unfolded and unraveled, revealing layer upon layer, leaving him desperate for more.
“Angelo!” Manuel called out as he entered the kitchen. The man practically wept with joy. “Hurry, an apron, three orders of the Cioppino and I will marry you and bear your children.”
Angelo grabbed an apron and three bowls. With a rescue operation underway, you didn’t ask questions. After five orders of the Cinghiale, braised boar meat over pasta, and a half dozen more of the Stuffed Chicken Picatta al modo di Angelo’s, he began being able to see the flow of orders. There were no holdups. In fact, he’d rarely seen the team move food more quickly.
“What’s the problem?” He tossed some more pasta with olive oil as a bed for his Braised Venison in Marmora Red Sauce.
“The problem is your mother,” Manuel gasped out between commands to the grillardin to refire the duck breast and start another three orders of swordfish.
Angelo really didn’t need this. Was his mother going to destroy him?
“She saw the lunch rush fading,” Manuel talked between plating orders and yelling for Graziella to put some hustle on it even though she already was. “It was a good one for June, especially on a day when most people want to stay outside in the fine weather instead of sitting in a gourmet restaurant. Next thing I know, she takes a tureen of that chowder we were making for dinner, and a couple dozen spoons out the door. Before I can breathe, the restaurant, she is packed solid. When that ran out, she makes this bruschetta. You tasted it? Estupendo, eh? And she is gone out on the street again giving that away too. We’ve never had a Saturday like this one.”
Chowder gone. He needed to start a soup base for dinner service to replace that. He yelled for Marko. The boy came running, wiping the soap suds from his hands. Angelo dug into his wallet and pulled out whatever cash he had.
“Go. Buy green beans, baby ones, none bigger around than a chopstick, more artichokes, fresh parsley, and another thirty pounds of swordfish. Go, don’t gawk at me, tu vai.” It felt good to order someone else to jump on it.
Marko went at a dead run.
“If they’re out of swordfish,” Angelo yelled after him, “tell Henry you need twice that in fresh tuna.”
“Hope he heard you,” Manuel muttered. “Now I need at least a dozen more batches of fresh pasta dough. Go.” Angelo knew better than to mess with the flow sliding through and around Manuel’s station.
He went.
Chapter 7
Jo answered the pounding on her door. Only one person ever pounded on her door, and never like this. She found herself near to running acr
oss the charcoal deep-pile carpet of her condo and yanking the door open.
Perrin practically collapsed into her arms. She looked as if she’d been in a battle and lost badly.
“What happened? Are you okay? Should I call the police?”
“Oh,” Perrin leaned on her and allowed herself to be led into the apartment. “Thank all the gods and goddesses you’re home. Take off your clothes.”
From anyone other than Perrin, Jo would have been offended and made a sharp riposte. But with Perrin things always made sense, eventually.
“You look awful. Can I get you some food or something?” Her slender frame was actually weaving with the effort to remain standing. Her hair was a frantic mess and she wore no makeup, revealing an abnormally sallow complexion. Both were so unusual for Perrin that Jo again checked her friend for cuts and bruises. Perrin was always immaculate in how she presented herself to the world. Outrageous, often, but always perfectly presented and attired.
Perrin braced herself against Jo’s cherrywood coat rack almost taking herself and Jo’s coats to the floor. “I’ll be fine once you try this on.” She wiggled a white dress bag she held slung over one shoulder that Jo hadn’t noticed.
“When was the last time you slept?”
Perrin waved one of her fine-fingered hands. “I dunno. Cassie’s wedding? Maybe a couple nights ago? What day is this? Never mind, don’t care.” She shoved Jo toward her bedroom. “Now go get naked and try this on. And if you look in the mirror before I tell you, you’re dead.”
Jo started down the hall toward her bedroom. Perrin followed close behind leaving palm prints in the middle of the glass of more than one of the framed pictures as she stumbled into walls. When Jo reached out to steady her, Perrin simply slapped her hands aside and nudged her along.
Once in the bedroom, Perrin hung the dress bag on the back of the door and collapsed onto the quilted white bedspread. But in seconds she was back on her feet and vibrating with energy as she opened the bag.
The Complete Where Dreams Page 35