“Oh. Perrin, she must use this one.”
“She’d can’t afford your rates, Melanie. And she never takes charity, not even from her friends.”
“Nonsense. You tell her I have already taken payment for this, I never gave her back the green dress. I like it too much.”
Jo’s attempts to thank her were lightly brushed aside.
“It is done.” To prove her point, she tossed the ad using the two of them for the Market into the reject pile.
“Now, what are these?”
Jo looked down at them and blushed. It was her and Angelo. Jo in her power suit and Angelo in his immaculate charcoal dress shirt sat shoulder to shoulder, sharing Panna Cotta. They had lifted their spoons at the same moment as if they were about to feed each other, though Jo knew they hadn’t.
“This one, it sizzles. It makes me feel hot all over.” Melanie fanned herself with her hand.
Russell had faded the table under the text. The walls were a soft haze. All that remained in focus were the identical desserts, the identical espresso cups, and the identical expressions.
“No,” her mouth was dry and a sip of Coke did nothing to ease the sensation. “We can’t use this one.”
“Why not?” For just a moment, Melanie’s voice took on a Lower West Side grind.
“It’s… I don’t know. It’s just…”
“It is lovely,” Melanie insisted, her soft French firmly back in place and a slight blush on her features that Jo tactfully ignored.
She tried to look at it and see the two people on a date, not herself and Angelo, but couldn’t manage it.
Melanie picked up a cherry tomato and bit down on it.
“There is a photograph that Russell took of me. He is such an imbécile that he does not understand what he took a picture of, until much later. Then he sent me a copy with a very nice apology that cut like a knife in my heart.” She reached over to her purse and slipped it out of an inside pocket, then slid it across the table.
Jo had seen Melanie look many ways in many ads. Tantalizing, distant, teasing, voracious, but this was different.
It was a close-up of Melanie’s face, her features lit from below by the bright blue of a bubbling hot tub. No bathing suit straps where her perfect shoulders rose just above the water. A vase of red roses the color of Melanie’s lips floated nearby. Her eyes were wide and her smile soft.
“It looks like…you’re in love.” Jo regretted it the moment she said it, but that’s how it looked.
“Oui.” Melanie agreed sadly. “And so I was, with the imbécile behind the camera. He is such a good man.”
Then she put one finger on her much-handled photo and slid it across the table next to the ad Russell had made of Jo and Angelo eating dessert together.
Jo’s gaze drifted from Melanie’s photo to the ad.
She looked at both of her and Angelo’s expressions. Now it was easy to see what showed there.
Chapter 35
Angelo kept his attention divided between his sauce and the woman auditioning to be the new aboyeur. As the expeditor, she would direct all communications between the tables and the cook line. A single mistake could snarl the entire line and cause a cascading wreckage of service that could take hours to recover from. However, a good expeditor could improve the line’s efficiency dramatically.
He’d given Graziella a free hand to at least test an assistant. She’d been working as hostess, head waitress, and expeditor. Far too much for one person in a busy restaurant. She was very social and enjoyed the front of house, so she’d brought in Luisa to try out for aboyeur. Luisa could almost be Graziella’s twin. They were both tall, sleek, and dark haired with classic, straight Italian noses gracing their pretty faces. The main difference rapidly became apparent. Graziella always asked and cajoled, even pleaded in a pleasant tone. Luisa got flirtatious, funny, caustic, whatever it took to get what she needed to make everything run smoothly.
Angelo liked her already. If Manuel approved her after today’s test, he’d hire her on a two-week trial. She’d just moved back to the States from two years studying in Italy. Rather than spending time in cooking school, she’d worked restaurants in different regions for three months at a time. She knew food well enough, but it appeared that she understood restaurants intimately.
Her Italian, she admitted, had remained fairly miserable. But when Angelo had pretended to totally botch an order to gauge her response, she’d proven her command of at least the invective portion of the language. She could swear better than Russell, and she made it sound much more pleasant. For one thing, Russell’s accent sucked.
His mother came over for a taste of the new sauce he was fooling with on the side. She let it roll on her tongue for several long moments.
“That is for the seafood linguini at the new restaurant?”
He nodded.
“So, you decided to go Piedmonte without asking your mother?”
Her tone no longer struck fear into his heart. “Piedmonte and Lombardia. They’re close. I still need to work on the name. Angelo’s Nord Italiano Hearth or maybe Angelo’s North Italian Hearth.”
“The second one, your patroni are in America. The sauce, it’s good.”
She turned back to her pastry station where she was making chocolate biscotti for dipping in a thickened vanilla-coffee cream she’d created.
Angelo waited for the other shoe. For the “a little soy sauce would make that nice” or “maybe if you added a bit of elk meat.” But she didn’t.
“Love you, Mama,” he called to her.
“You only love me because I no insult your beautiful sauce,” she shot back and they shared a smile.
A smile that froze on his lips when he looked up and saw who stood at the kitchen door. The kitchen volume dropped by half as his staff spotted his reaction and then its cause. They might not know the whole story, but Angelo supposed his own rocketing and crashing emotions had been hard to miss.
“Jo.” It wasn’t even a whisper, but it was all he could manage. He hadn’t seen her since they’d parted in stiff silence at the airport to find their separate cars. It hadn’t even been a whole week and yet it felt like a year.
She wore the power suit, but the jacket was open, the floopy bow tie missing, and the blouse open just one button. She looked exhausted from travel and nervous to be in his kitchen. He’d never brought her back here and felt suddenly very self-conscious. She looked so incredible, standing there shifting from one foot to the other. A small, practical, wheeled suitcase rested beside her, her briefcase in her hand.
“I thought you were in New York.”
“I was.”
“I thought you were supposed to be in meetings all day.”
“I cancelled them.”
He opened his mouth but closed it with a snap that nipped the end of his tongue painfully when his mother poked his ribs with the handle of a wooden spoon. Before he managed to turn on her, she gave him a shove that almost sent him stumbling into Marlys. His grillardin stepped out of the way and let him pass down the line and around the end of the cook stations until he stood close in front of Jo.
“Here. You’ll get run over if you remain there.” He took the suitcase and rolled it under the side prep table, its little plastic wheels making loud thumps on the seams between the tiles, so loud they seemed to echo about the kitchen. The table was presently covered with piles of vegetables and iced filets of sole to prep for the dinner service. She slipped her briefcase under the table as well.
“This is out of the way for the moment.” A waiter came through the swinging door they’d just cleared, bearing an armload of dirty dishes. Graziella didn’t believe in trays and tubs on the floor and Angelo agreed. The waiter delivered them to Marko with an ear-ringing clatter.
Angelo glanced over and saw that Manuel had shifted to cover his position on the line and had turned down the heat under his sauce as well. Good man. Now he had to face Jo.
“I’m sorry to interrupt. You’re busy and
—”
“Look, I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. I wasn’t thinking. It just came out.”
“Did your mother or Cassidy chew you out about that?”
“No.” He glanced toward his mother. “Were they supposed to?” He waved the question away. It meant she’d told his mother and…he turned back to Jo with a shrug.
“They didn’t have to. I sort of figured it out slowly on my own.” It had taken him most of the last four days, but he wouldn’t mention that. He tried to read her expression, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Counselor Thompson, he could read her pretty well. And when she was Jo, everything was so obvious on her face that they could have whole conversations without a word. This woman standing before him, he was less sure of.
He wanted to shout out how much he’d missed her, but he couldn’t. It would simply kill him.
He’d drifted through the week, shopping, cooking, sleeping, and then doing the same thing again. It was as if someone had dropped him in a vat of gelatin that was slowly setting to solid around him. He kept struggling against it because he didn’t know how to stop. Now that she stood in his kitchen, it was as if the gel had never been and he’d come back to life.
“I shouldn’t have said it and I wanted to formally apologize.” He folded his arms over his chest to keep his hands still. He knew it sounded stiff, but it was the best he could manage.
She waited, shifted again.
What more was he supposed to say? Cast his pathetic heart at her feet and watch it be stomped again like a tiny grape?
Jo looked around her, but not as if she was seeing anything. Her hands, those beautiful, elegant, calm hands that could drive his body to such distraction…weren’t calm. They were practically fluttering about her lap.
She was nervous. He’d never seen her nervous. Frustrated at work, out of place and confused in Alaska, but never nervous.
“I’ve been in the air for almost sixteen hours with only three hours on the ground in New York before turning back around. I had really lousy connections coming back, but it was the fastest I could get here.”
“Fastest?” He didn’t dare to hope, squashed the glimmer of it as well as he could, wrapped his arms tighter across this chest.
She pulled out one of the stools from under the prep table and sat down on it.
Angelo kicked one loose and sat facing her. A glance showed that most of the line was watching them surreptitiously, except for his mother who was making no bones about what she was paying attention to. He was glad the patissier station was at the far end of the cookline. The kitchen had never in two years been so quiet while a meal was in progress.
“I’ve had sixteen hours to think about something you said. And you were right, Alaska would kill me. Another multi-year lawsuit would do me in, too, even if it made my career. By the end I would be bitter and angry. I don’t want to be that.”
“That, uh, that sounds good. Does that mean that you’ll—” He couldn’t finish the sentence, but Jo nodded anyway.
“I called Renée Linden last night just before I got on the return flight. You are now talking to your new managing landlord, the Executive Director of the Pike Place Market. Still sounds crazy when I say it. Well, I’ll have some time to get used to it as that will take most of a month to switch over. She’s informing the board of her retirement right now. Muriel and I have to go meet them in fifteen minutes but Renée assures me that’s just a technicality.”
“Jo. That’s incredible!” Angelo wanted to shout. He couldn’t think straight. He’d now have time to court her. She wouldn’t be running out of his life to a place filled with bad memories for her. He wanted to reach for her, but it was too much. He rested his hands firmly on his thighs and clamped them there.
“And you’re closed Mondays and Tuesdays still, right?”
“Uh, right.” That was a real problem he hadn’t been able to solve. Maybe he could shift some of his hours somehow so that he could see more of her. But he hadn’t come up with a solution yet.
“New restaurant, too? Same hours?” She was switching over to that Counselor Thompson role that had so captivated him.
“Hadn’t thought that far ahead, but, uh, sure. Probably. Why?”
“Good. I only have,” she checked her watch, “twelve more minutes and I have a bit of ground to cover.”
“Okay. You’re in Seattle. You’re quitting your job as an attorney. Are you okay with that?”
She reached out and touched his hand for a moment. A contact that rippled up his arm so powerfully it made his breath catch in his chest.
“Bless you, Angelo, for thinking of me and my feelings. It’s not something I’m very good at. Actually, the Market’s business is so complex now, that being an attorney is a distinct advantage. Apparently it is one of the reasons Renée first considered me. I’ll still be practicing law, I will simply be doing it on a more reasonable schedule. Speaking of schedule…”
“I can—”
“Shush! Ten minutes to go.”
She simply slayed him when she was in this mode. There’d never been another woman like her.
“The Market has a number of vendors who only work on the weekends. I’ll be telling the board that my hours are Wednesday through Sunday. I’ll have Monday and Tuesday off as well. I’m not sure what I will do with a career that fits into only five days a week, but that’s a different issue.”
Angelo couldn’t help himself. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms about her in a quick hug. He’d be able to see Jo. They’d share weekends.
Wait! That was if she wanted to keep seeing him. Well, she was here, wasn’t she? Talking to him. Had cancelled her meetings back East. He held her a moment longer, reveling in the magical scent that was Jo Thompson, praying he was even partly right about what was happening.
All his anger, all his hurt was sliding toward the floor drain like old dirt in soap suds. And if he was wrong, he’d go right down the drain after them. That cooled down his heart a bit.
He managed to sit back, but felt like an overeager little boy. He kept reaching out a hand to touch her knee, or her hand where it rested on her thigh, just to prove to himself that she was here, real, and so warm.
“Seven minutes. Well, I’ve spent most of the last seven hours practicing this.” He saw her take a deep breath then she whispered to herself, “I can do this.”
Clearly, whatever was next came hard. He took one of her hands in both of his.
“You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met, Executive Director Jo Thompson. You can do anything.”
She nodded several times as if slowly building layers of reassurance like a layered torta.
“Melanie told me I could.”
“Melanie?”
She waved his question away for another time with a perfect flick of her fingers.
“Would you come with me tomorrow morning after you finish your shopping for the restaurant?”
“Of course—”
Jo held up a hand to cut him off. He couldn’t help himself, he kissed her fingertips. She actually caressed his lips and he almost wept with how good it felt.
“I’d like you to come with me to go see my mother.”
He couldn’t be prouder of her if she were a new restaurant. It was a shock, not what he’d been expecting her to say, but it was still fantastic.
“Yes, of course I will go with you.”
Then she took another deep breath, glanced at her watch, then glanced down the now silent cookline toward his mother.
Maria Amelia Avico Parrano nodded some silent answer to whatever Jo’s silent question was.
Then Jo turned back and took both of his hands in hers and held them tightly.
“I was thinking… If we like my mother… I was thinking we could invite her…” Another deep breath. “We could invite her to the wedding.”
“The wedding?” Angelo’s ears were ringing. “Whose wedding?”
“Well, Perrin made me thi
s absolutely killer wedding dress. It would be a waste not to wear it, especially as you claim that you love me.”
“I do,” Angelo couldn’t believe his ears. “Oh Jo, I love you so much I don’t know what to do with all the feelings inside me. I’m like a potato in a microwave without enough vent hol—”
She leaned in and kissed him as a roar of applause rang through the kitchen. Pots and pans were banged with ladles, the butts of knives were pounded against cutting boards.
She shifted back just a little, just enough for him to see her lips as there was no chance of hearing her over the cheering.
“I love you.”
It was all he needed to know.
Where Dreams Are of Christmas
Chapter 1
Maria Amelia Avico Parrano sat at the take-out window of her son’s restaurant in the heart of Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Outside her window, the morning bustle of Post Alley would just be starting. Inside, the kitchen sounds of the busy prep crews of Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth were already echoing behind her. Manuel, Angelo’s sous chef, was pushing his new assistant Nora to see if he could make her panic. Maria smiled to herself, no luck yet.
Luisa and Graziella were rehearsing the new menu items for the daily fresh sheet. “Black sea bass poached in a Piedmonte Roero Arneis, that’s a slightly sweet white wine of northern Italy, with a rub of basil…”
Maria let the words drift into the background. Served with a surprise pairing of a young Barbaresco red, it would be an innovative pleasure on the palate. The other noises were starting to sound so familiar, it was if she’d never been anywhere else. Six months she’d been in Seattle since her retirement. Retired at forty-seven, it still made no sense.
But the couple she’d cooked for the last three decades in New York had retired and didn’t need a resident chef any more. They had rewarded her most comfortably and now she had a place here at her son’s restaurant. And it was time.
The Complete Where Dreams Page 52