The Complete Where Dreams

by M. L. Buchman

  Analysis of Perrin’s Glorious Garb business structure and present standing in cash and orders. It was bigger than he thought, though some of the numbers were really wonky. He noticed that Melanie had returned from her bedroom and stood in her doorway looking at him still seated at the dining table studying her work.

  “Did she really only have a manager and a shop clerk and herself until yesterday?”

  “Day before, I helped her interview and hire two seamstresses.”

  “I don’t know fashion, but she looks really understaffed.”

  “She was. Still is,” Melanie admitted.

  He continued reading. Growth curves, analyses… “What’s a mob show? Is that like a runway event for the mafia or something?”

  “A runway show can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to stage. She doesn’t have the cash for that and won’t anytime soon. A mob show is hiring and dressing the models, but turning it into an informal show at the entrance of a major runway show. It gets attention, perhaps decent press if it’s good—and it goes without saying that hers would be good—it can be almost as effective at a tenth the cost.”

  He looked at the timeline sketched out, “but not for six months?”

  “You have to build a capacity so that you can address success when it occurs. To have a hit show and then not be able to deliver subsequent orders to customers…”

  She trailed off at his nod.

  “What?” She looked surprised that he understood.

  “I was just thinking of some restaurants I reviewed. The chefs were masterful. And in the early days, I’d review them. Then they collapsed beneath their own inability to perform and maintain standards after the notoriety packed their establishment. It was pretty sad actually.” He tried shifting in his seat, but couldn’t find a comfortable position. Those first failures had been so horrid.

  “I took more care later in my career, starting reading their financials and inspecting their kitchens before I’d write them up. I used to hurt for some of these poor guys, they finally land a visit by the Senior Editor of Gourmet Week, me, and cook their hearts out. What does he do? He sits them down and tries to explain why he won’t write a review until they get their act together. Not a pretty sight. I may have made Angelo cry back in the beginning.”

  Melanie moved into the room, slowly coming from the doorway back to the table. The sway of her hips, the smooth slide of long hair onto her shoulder, the way she looked at him…

  And then all she did was sit back in the chair she’d occupied only minutes before. Something had changed, but he didn’t have a clue. He dug around in his head for what he’d just been talking about.

  Soup?

  No. He needed to check on it, but that wasn’t it.

  How they were both a mess?

  She hadn’t answered that; which was a lady’s prerogative.

  Perrin’s Glorious Garb. Right. He tapped the pages filled with Melanie’s writing.

  “I can see this working, but do you think she can pull it off?”

  Melanie didn’t play coy or pretend; she simply shook her head.

  He liked that clarity and honesty. He flipped through the pages once more, “There’s got to be a way. This is solid. You did a really great job here.”

  He failed to notice the casual brush of fingertips that Melanie used to wipe away the tear sliding along her cheek.

  “So, what are you writing?” Melanie had to talk about something to stop herself from getting a second bowl of the minestrone. It was beyond delicious.

  “Compost. That’s what I’m writing, drivel and compost. I didn’t really expect anything else at the outset, so I’m not really upset.” Joshua mopped up the remains of his second bowl with his roll. “I wish it wasn’t quite such forced, amateurship, totally lame compost though.”

  “Tell me about it.” Somewhere along the way the Ice Queen hadn’t quite shattered, but she’d certainly been star-cracked. Actually, she knew the exact moment. It was when Joshua had read her notes and said they were “solid.” She knew he was one of the most respected writers and business analysts in his field. She’d learned a lot about how to manage her own career from reading the business column he put in each issue of Gourmet Week: “Basting the Business.”

  Why did one outside validation from such a near total stranger mean so much more than the evidence of her banking and investment accounts? She didn’t know why, but it did.

  “I always thought a foodie mystery would be fun. Murder and food. There are so many great weapons: knives, poisons, gases, walk-in freezers… It just seemed like a fun idea. I’ve been thinking about it for years.” He took up his third ciabatta roll and, finding nothing more to mop up, simply began eating it.

  “But…” Breaking down, she took the last piece of her first roll to wipe her own bowl.

  “But,” Joshua shrugged. “I never thought about what plot I would write, who I would kill and who might be the murderer. So, I’m starting out pretty cold. An article I can fake.

  “Because you’ve written four or five columns a week for the last decade,” she cut him off.

  “Okay, granted. I’ve had some practice so I know how to do that. Can’t fake a novel. That’s real writing.”

  “What if it wasn’t?”

  “Huh?”

  She rested her chin on her fist, elbow on the table. It placed her a bit closer to him than she’d anticipated, but neither did she want to draw away.

  “Well,” she began, “I’ve watched designers become completely snarled when trying to create a ‘showstopper’—a truly breakthrough dress. Perrin does it right. She surrounds herself with dozens of sketches and specific fabrics. I think that’s part of the reason she has so much success. She keeps the results unimportant until it’s done. She just plays.”

  “Unimportant?”

  Melanie so enjoyed watching him thinking. Every expression was right on the surface.

  “You mean just start writing and let it go where it goes?”

  “Absolument! If the words aren’t so precious, if the stakes were lower, wouldn’t it be easier to write?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her, “How are you so smart?”

  She could only sit back and blink at him.

  “No, don’t stop now. You’re on a roll.”

  Melanie went and dished up one more ladle of the soup, more to buy herself a little space for the new emotions running through her. He had cooked her dinner, but there was no quid pro quo that she could sense, he’d been generous and she’d accepted. She checked her internal tally sheet and still found no entry on it except gratitude. Joshua was gaining a presence in her thoughts in just an evening’s time. That was disconcerting.

  Returning to the table, she casually nudged her chair a few inches farther away. She needed the extra distance from this man if she had any hope of keeping her shields intact.

  The extra few inches didn’t feel nearly far enough.

  “No! No! No!” Melanie waved her licked-clean soup spoon at him.

  Josh fooled around in the kitchen cutting up a pear and some cheese for dessert.

  “You start with a bang. Here, I will show you.” She dug into her big purse and unearthed five novels.

  “What else is in there?”

  “Shut up and listen.” And she began reading. It wasn’t some sotto voice recitation. She read the first half dozen paragraphs of each book, giving a voice and drama to the writing. By the second one she was on her feet, by the third, she began acting out the speeches. By the fourth he’d forgotten about dessert and at the last one he was mesmerized.

  Each book opened with a punch. Some character in trouble. The trouble varied. The military romantic suspense had conflict with a new commander, the mysteries with a dead body, the thriller with a car chase, and the humor book with a hilarious situation that Melanie refused to read past the first few lines.

  “Non! What is de la plus grande importance isn’t what they are saying. It is the punch with which they open. The f
irst scene, the first dress in the runway show—POW!” She actually came up to him and slapped her palm against his forehead. “That is what makes the audience excited about the show, that first kick says ‘just you wait.’ The one at the end of the show is the showstopper, but the beginning, that is the powerful one.”

  Josh still didn’t have the least inkling of where to start his book. But watching Melanie stride back and forth in her excitement, he definitely understood that a powerful woman had to be at the heart of the story. Because, Man!, he had the perfect model for that character right in front of him.

  Chapter 5

  Josh woke at his usual five a.m. Apparently being on the West Coast simply wasn’t working its way into his biorhythms. He showered, and slipped out of the condo. He exchanged a wave with the now-familiar shelter cook going in the back door just as Josh passed. The bit of routine helped ground him in the quiet city, it made him feel a little more as if he belonged.

  Which was a welcome change, because nothing about last night fit into any sort of a coherent reality. Normal guys didn’t spend a long quiet evening chatting with a supermodel. For the life of him, he couldn’t recall what they’d talked about.

  Maybe his nervous system was still in overwhelm.

  He’d headed up the ten blocks of the First Avenue grade and tried to get his brain working again. Every time he did, he simply thought of Melanie.

  That was it. Just Melanie.

  The words had been fun. She was intelligent, well-read, and had a dry sense of humor that he tripped over every time.

  Her laugh. He loved her laugh.

  It had lit the condo, made it warm, filled it with life.

  They’d—he could do this if he focused—talked about favorite books through a dessert of tea and crisp slices of New Zealand pears. Okay, he’d recovered that much. Oh, and powerful characters. Didn’t the woman use a mirror and see herself clearly? She held herself under such tight and careful control with apparently no idea of how truly formidable she was.

  He watched the ferry once again leaving the Seattle waterfront under the brightening sky. Right! Travel. They’d gone on to talk favorite destinations: he and Constance had vacationed in several spots that had been promoted in the backgrounds of Melanie’s photo shoots. Melanie had eaten in any number of the restaurants that he’d reviewed. They were forming a nice little mutual admiration society. J&M Mutual Admiration Society. She’d suggested they needed a logo and t-shirts.

  Melanie had tried to insist on cleaning the dishes, but he hadn’t thought to buy rubber gloves and he wasn’t letting her risk her hands.

  “I’m not frail,” she’d protested.

  “But I know that my fingers are not worth a gazillion dollars an hour. Go on, tell me what your hands are insured for by Lloyd’s of London.”

  He’d meant it as a joke, but when she quoted a number in the mid-seven figures he’d responded, “I am so throwing you off the clean-up detail.”

  And her bright laugh had wrapped around him in thanks.

  Like Odysseus, he followed the siren call of coffee through the warm spring darkness still hovering over the silence about Pike Place Market. Mama Maria would assuredly have coffee and a cornetto ready and waiting.

  Melanie had reacted strangely to him, which shouldn’t surprise him, as she was running his own emotions through the blender—on the Utterly Destroy setting. She’d smile at him and his pulse would rocket upward. She’d look grateful for being let off the hook of washing dishes barehanded and he’d felt…strong? Chivalrous? Something.

  Once he’d thought about it, it made perfect sense how smart she was. Even if it was unexpected at first. Careers like hers didn’t happen by accident. No matter how delectable the food was, the restaurant failed if not properly run. When he learned that she was her own manager and agent and negotiated her own contracts, he knew he was in the presence of greatness.

  He arrived at the back door of Angelo’s faster than expected. Again it was open to the soft morning. Maria, in a pale blue dress and floral apron worked once again beneath the lone light in the darkness.

  “What are you making today, Maria? It smells heavenly.” He reached for a cornetto but she slapped his knuckles with a long wooden spoon so fast that he never saw it coming. He sucked on his knuckles; they really stung.

  “What?” she turned to face him. “Is that the proper way to greet a woman? I expect at least a hug and a kiss upon the cheek before you steal any of my breakfast.”

  “Right. Sorry.” He came around the counter and bent down to give her a hug and a European-style peck upon each cheek. He kissed her on the forehead for good measure. It was only after he did so that he felt the heat rising to his cheeks. He’d never hugged Maria before, felt he barely knew her.

  “Good, boy.” Maria waved him toward the coffee pot. “You’re family now, you can get your own coffee.” She returned to rolling out the dough, then looked up at him as he stood rooted to the ground. Maria smiled and patted his cheek with a floured hand.

  He shuffled off to get his coffee. By the time he returned to the stool he’d occupied yesterday, a pair of cornetti were waiting on a plate. Even the walk and the strong coffee weren’t enough to clear his head.

  “What are you doing to me, Maria?” She’d cast some sort of strange spell over him and he couldn’t shake it off.

  “Me. I do nothing. You do it to yourself.”

  “If that’s true, then I’m in real trouble.”

  Her laughter was bright and musical.

  “I can’t believe some cad married you before I came along.”

  “Ah,” her smile turned radiant. “Hogan Stanford is the perfect man for me. Fear not, you will find the perfect woman for you.”

  “I did,” his own bitterness mixed with the next sip of coffee and he set it down with an overloud clatter in the quiet kitchen, only barely managing to not spill it again.

  “No. You may think you did, but she proved you wrong. It is clear just from looking at you that she is the one who left, more the foolish woman. The right woman does not do such a thing. Men are often foolish, but a smart woman would know what she had and keep it close.”

  He was tired of telling the story, of defending Constance. Even as he had the thought, he recalled Melanie’s fingertips on his lips. And then her kiss. It was totally inappropriate. He didn’t want a rebound relationship, especially not with Melanie because she deserved so much more than assuaging his need to be with someone again—no matter how briefly.

  But—and he tried his best to ignore the feeling of disloyalty to Constance—Melanie’s kiss was far more powerful than her beauty. One of them had moaned with how glorious it felt, and he still wasn’t sure whether or not it was him. The sheer power of his desire to devour the woman on the spot had been so startling that it was enough to break the spell of that brief kiss, at least for that sufficient instant to allow him to step back.

  “Well,” Maria was staring at him with her hands resting on her hips, “that was clearly a very pleasant thought.” Her smile said that she knew much more than she was saying. Well, he didn’t want to hear it.

  “Perhaps I should go write.”

  Maria returned to her preparations for the day, “If you can.”

  Unwilling to face that question either, he retreated to the darkened restaurant and the table that Angelo had said was his. He sat down and began setting up.

  Maria followed moments later with the coffee and untouched cornetti that he’d forgotten to take with him. She gave him a hug from the side and kissed him on top of the head.

  “Such a good boy.”

  He watched her walking back to the kitchen. What did she know that he didn’t?

  “Perrin, I need to see those e-mails,” Melanie had done it. It had only taken ten minutes walking around the Belltown neighborhood before entering Perrin’s Glorious Garb, but she’d found the nerve somewhere.

  Perrin flapped a hand toward a stack of paper at the corner of the cutting table.
“I printed them all.” She had finished clearing the far end of the table and fluffed out a couple yards of royal blue. A tall pile of jewel tones stood as a protective barricade between them down the middle of the table.

  Karissa and Clem glanced at her with interest, but then each noticed that the other had stopped working, so they both returned to the woman’s business suit they were copying in two different sizes—a little competition was a useful thing. The suit hanging on the rack between them was a powder blue, with a thin black pinstripe that just reeked of femininity and power. The overall cut and lapels were so retro that they could well be the next “new.”

  Melanie turned from the enticement of closer inspection, or perhaps trying it on. She could see on the rack just how masterful she’d look in it. With a dark-charcoal blouse for daytime and the jacket open, without the blouse and the jacket buttoned in the evening—the closures high enough that even a strongly figured woman could wear it. Most clothes like this could only be worn by the most flat-chested. Perrin designed for women who had shape as well.

  By the time Melanie had finished her inspection, Perrin was whacking at the royal blue with a rotary cutter. Smooth efficient slices with no pattern. Were the designs so clear in her head that she could cut them freehand, or was that only for mockup? Melanie was a little too daunted to ask, just in case Perrin really was that skilled.

  Perrin was so studiously ignoring her, that Melanie knew every move she made was being closely observed.

  Melanie turned to the stack of e-mails and began to read. There were many more e-mails than there had been letters, but the quality was mostly lower. She rapidly sorted aside the stupid “offers” from agents and managers who wanted to control Perrin for however much they could bleed out of her. Two she didn’t simply set aside, she tore them to shreds and threw them in the garbage. She knew those scam artists and didn’t want their name in Perrin’s shop—what they’d done to some models they’d managed to latch onto had been horrible, career-ruining horrible.