The Complete Where Dreams

by M. L. Buchman

  “How many stories?” she barely whispered.

  “Four full laps to go from 000s to 900s. This isn’t New York. You can just walk into the stacks without a catalog query and a request to a librarian. Any subject. Look!”

  He led her into 391 and there was costume and history. Just as he’d hoped she got all gooey-eyed. She reached out to touch some of them like old friends.

  “I’d show you 746, but I’ll never see you again if I do.”

  She leaned and began whispering in French close by his ear. It took him time to translate, especially as he didn’t know some of the words and he had to kind of cobble together the sense of them. Then he caught on.

  The gorgeous lover of his was describing things that maybe even the Kama Sutra didn’t know about. Things she’d do tonight if he led her to that section directly.

  He considered blushing, considered it seriously as they were standing in the middle of the library stacks. Instead he took a deep breath.

  “You are not motivating me to do anything but drag you back to the condo right away.”

  “Then you get zéro. Ripen. Nada. Zilch. Nichts. Ny—”

  “I get the idea. I get the idea. Why do you know how to say ‘no’ in so many languages.”

  “It is, how you say, useful around men.”

  “You’re killing me with the accent.” One of the things she’d started doing was that all of their lovemaking was done in French. It was definitely improving his language skills, but it also made him randy every time she said even a word or two in the language.

  And she well and good knew it. Gads! But the woman was going to kill him yet.

  He zigzagged her through staircases that cut across the middle of the loops instead of walking the descending spiral of the full catalog.

  Joshua let her walk into 746 on her own. Textile Arts and near the very end of the category, one of the most impressive fashion collections he’d ever seen.

  Melanie ranged along the bookcases. There were references here she hadn’t known existed. Other volumes she’d only seen in Óscar de la Renta’s personal collection.

  But the greatest surprise was that Joshua had found this for her. He’d had clearly scouted out the two non-fiction sections she’d most care about and given them to her as a treat.

  He stood in the “bead embroidery” section pretending interest so that she wouldn’t feel rushed. What was he doing to her? How had she come to care so much about the man?

  Melanie didn’t “fall” for men; she chose lovers. Carefully, with forethought and discernment. Joshua simply swept her feet from beneath her.

  This week held other surprises. Apparently, having been beaten back twice in the same week by Joshua, her depression had given up its attacks and fled. At least for now. Melanie didn’t even feel it lurking, though it couldn’t be completely gone. That was too much to ask.

  It was often six months or once whole a year between attacks that drove her to go to ground for a week. She’d always managed to hold it off when there was work scheduled, but this time it had been driven away by the man now browsing through the fabric dyeing section. Future retribution worried her somewhat, but she did her best not to contemplate the problem.

  She and this man had bared their hearts to one another. They’d spoken of their pasts, the cracks in his marriage—only visible in hindsight. Her failure with Russell. It was as if the revelation of her childhood had taken down the last of the walls between them.

  The one thing they carefully didn’t discuss was the future. They curled up each night as if it might be their last together, and woke with a shared look of surprise and wonder.

  This was as close as they’d come, his showing her something he knew she would love, this beautiful fashion collection just begging to be studied and enjoyed over time. She wondered if he was conscious of it, that he was trying to find reasons for her to stay in Seattle even if there was no possible way for it to work without destroying her career.

  It was an eloquent statement and she would gladly repay him for the effort by delivering every single thing she had whispered into his ear.

  But they both knew it was impossible.

  About that there could never be any words.

  Chapter 13

  Angelo’s two restaurants were open over the weekend and closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so everyone had shifted their schedules to match. Jo managed the Pike Place Market on that schedule. Russell and Cassidy were freelancers so they were always busy, but were more likely to take time off on Monday and Tuesday.

  Perrin was caught in between, with the kids in school and her husband as the stage manager for Emerald City Opera. So, she worked Monday through Friday, but the shop ran Wednesday through Sunday.

  When Melanie arrived on Monday morning, the front door on Second Avenue was locked. But she spotted the light in the back of the darkened shop. She went around to the alley door, picking her way around a couple of city-ugly dumpsters to tap on the back door, though the alley itself was open and totally harmless.

  Perrin let her in. No seamstresses today, so apparently they too were working the Wednesday through Sunday schedule. The shop was quiet and peaceful, but Perrin was still a whorl of activity with a half dozen projects spread about.

  “Tomorrow is Tuesday, you know,” Perrin stated as if that explained something.

  “Which means what?”

  “It means that you and Josh are coming to dinner. We all go to Maria and Hogan’s every Tuesday.”

  Melanie blinked. It was no longer a shock that she was included, but still a pleasant surprise. “What do we bring?”

  “Oh, first timers just show up.”

  She reminded herself to talk to Joshua. Melanie didn’t like the idea of being a “first timer,” of being somehow different from the others. They’d think up something appropriate.

  “They’re also probably going sailing tomorrow.”

  “That’s so not going to happen,” sailing was not a Melanie sport. Not even a little. She recalled touring Russell’s boat on that wonderful-horrible Valentine’s Day that had been the end of their relationship as lovers. She felt slightly nauseous just remembering the oil swirl of water across the bilge exposed through the missing floorboard.

  Perrin laughed, “Yeah, our first trip didn’t work out so well either.” By Perrin’s grimace it must have been something spectacular. “I almost lost Bill and we both almost lost Jaspar. The boys still go out with Russell, but Tamara and I almost never go with.”

  They chatted a while, talked business for a bit. But something was bothering Perrin. She was holding back, which wasn’t like her. Neither was she working on a design or a construction while she talked.

  Melanie tried prying it out of her without success, so finally she just asked.

  “Well, you’ve been so kind to me, I hate to ask. But Russell said I should.”

  “Perrin, spill it or I’ll force you to make me a dress out of that very expensive fabric you had the other day.”

  Perrin’s eyes slid aside for a moment, but her smile increased rather than diminishing. “Not yet,” but declined to explain that comment when Melanie pushed.

  “The thing is,” Perrin went to a clothing rack in the corner and fussed with a line of garment bags. “I answered the phone yesterday. I really shouldn’t do that, but Raquel was busy with a customer and I happened to be in the shop with Tammy and… Well, I…”

  Melanie waited her out until Perrin spilled it all forth in a single breath. “It was Fashion Alive magazine. Not that editor; the ad department. They had a last minute cancellation—after they were already in layout—so they have to fill the ad space. The editor told them, I have no idea why, that I could fill it on short notice. They’re giving it to me gratis if I can send the images by tomorrow.”

  “Are you kidding, Perrin? That’s great! They’re on the verge of challenging Marie Claire. A third-page ad is almost ten thousand dollars. Gratis is enormous.”

  Perrin’s nerves were w
ilder than usual. She began folding and refolding a piece of blue corduroy that must be for one of Tamara’s projects; the blue had pop, it was a thoughtful selection. Melanie grabbed Perrin’s hands to still them and sat down on a stool. That forced Perrin to come to rest opposite her.

  “It’s a game changer, isn’t it, Melanie? You told me one was coming, but it’s too soon. I’m not ready.”

  “Yes,” Melanie had to acknowledge, “stepping into Fashion Alive is a game changer. Even a small ad will have a real impact on your business. But this is really too important an opportunity to miss. You’re far more ready than I thought you were at the beginning of the week. I’ll commit to staying at least another week so that I can show you how to tweak the plan to make it work. You’ll have to bring on more people. I already talked to the owner of the shop next door. He said he’d love to rent the back room, it’s empty right now. So you could just punch a door right there,” Melanie pointed at the wall, “and create a sewing room pretty easily.”

  “Okay, I kinda hoped you’d say that it made sense, but that isn’t the favor I wanted to ask.”

  Melanie kept a tight hold on both of Perrin’s hands as she could still feel Perrin’s nerves humming.

  “Russell is willing to take the pictures for me, but would you be my model? I can’t pay very much, but you’d be so perfect for these designs and it really freaks Cassidy and Jo when I make them pose and—”

  Melanie cut her off. “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “No, I said that just to get you to calm down,” Melanie laughed at the abrupt disappointment that flashed onto her friend’s features. “Of course I will, Perrin. I love your designs. They always make me look so at the edge of new ideas. I’d be thrilled to pose for you.”

  “Wow! Uh, how much do you—”

  “How about that dress I mentioned?”

  Perrin’s smile was electric. “Well, that might be cheating, but it’s a deal.” She didn’t explain her enigmatic comment.

  “It’s a deal!” Melanie and Perrin spoke in unison and together shook their still-clasped hands up and down.

  “Two other things I should probably mention.”

  “What are they?” Melanie was pleased. It would be fun to do a shoot, even a little one.

  “First, Russell rented my old apartment upstairs as a studio and he said to call him as soon as I found you. I should have called you earlier. I was trying to get up the nerve when you came by. He wants to do it right away.”

  Melanie took a deep breath and checked in with herself about modeling for Russell. She was feeling wonderful, much of which was Joshua’s doing. And it would be great to work with Russell again. He always found a way to make her look so alluring. Even if it was just a third-page ad, the discards would create some fresh material for her website.

  “Call him now.”

  Perrin squeezed her hands hard.

  “What’s the other thing?”

  Perrin reached for the phone and began dialing. She kept her head down as she spoke.

  Melanie could barely hear her mumble.

  “The cancellation was a four-page spread in the first twenty pages.”

  Melanie was still trying to digest that bit of news as she worked her way into the first dress and did her own makeup.

  When Tamara arrived from school, she was instantly tasked with brushing out Melanie’s hair. Not a single snarl or twist allowed. Her hair was always either a straight fall or in a ponytail. Her trademark hair was never up, never teased, and never ever colored. That was part of her contracts; it also vastly simplified styling choices for the designer. Which many complained about, but ultimately seemed to appreciate.

  A four-page spread in the front twenty. The only thing that caused a cancellation like that was a revelation of illegal activity, like design theft. Even the buyout of a fashion house wouldn’t cause that late a change. All of the space was prepaid and they were way past the late-cancellation deadline, so the magazine would have no financial loss and could afford to give away, she did the math, almost eighty thousand dollars of space.

  Melanie considered kicking out a text to some industry friends to find out who had choked and how. There were only a dozen or so advertisers who could afford that major a spread to begin with. The front twenty was the stomping grounds of only the very best and the very well-funded who typically reserved that space over a year ahead. She’d text later.

  “The editor was one of your customers,” Melanie knew it was right the instant she said it.

  Perrin shrugged in the mirror. “I don’t work front of shop much anymore, so she mostly dealt with Raquel. But after she’d bought three pieces in a single fling, she insisted on meeting me. I only had a few minutes before Bill picked me up, but she was very excited. She looked great in one of my day dresses, very chic and flirty.”

  “That’s a true fan, Perrin. They are rare and precious people who can make all of the difference.” Thinking of fans, maybe she should call Joshua. She’d come to accept that he was a fan of her public image, even forcing him to unearth the Teen Vogue when he’d confessed to owning a copy. She’d looked good. Young, but good. She couldn’t be angry because Joshua had also proved time and again how clearly he also saw the real Melanie.

  “Look who I found just hanging around to carry my gear for me,” Russell announced as he burst in the back door.

  Joshua peeked at her over Russell’s broad shoulders.

  Russell winked at her from where he’d stopped, completely filling the back doorway with his broad-shouldered frame and two camera cases.

  Joshua had to shove past the grinning man. He crossed the studio and reached for her.

  “Don’t touch the hair. Tamara’s been working too hard for you to muss it up.”

  She could see the temptation cross his features.

  “Don’t even think it, Harper. Just don’t.”

  Instead, he held her hand and kissed her on the lips very sweetly. She gave him a careful hug, then turned back to the mirror to check the damage. Well worth it.

  The shoot itself was a blur, they always were. Melanie let herself become a vehicle for the photographer’s instructions. She’d done photo shoots with Russell: before, during, and after they’d been lovers. It had made little difference; they were professionals doing the jobs they both did best.

  But Joshua affected her, she could feel it. She’d walk toward the camera and recall the heat she’d seen fire up in Joshua’s eyes when she’d worn only a t-shirt instead of one of the hottest pant suits she’d ever seen.

  She would turn to look over her shoulder at the camera and see Joshua standing behind Russell with a smile so wide she wanted to go and kiss it off his face.

  They went through a dozen pieces, Perrin and Tamara scrambling back and forth between the downstairs design studio and the upstairs apartment-turned-photo studio. Russell had Joshua stand in to give her positioning for a pose—something about them being the same height was desirable, but Russell didn’t stop to explain—and then move him carefully aside without jostling her. Even after he was gone, she could feel herself leaning on his shoulder and smiling from somewhere down inside.

  For some reason that he never explained and she’d never asked, Russell never used to use her face in his ads. He always hid it with hair, hat, shadow, or other composition. Not this shoot.

  The time flew. At some point, they fed her. Later, Bill and Jaspar came to pick up Tamara and instead ended up being recruited by Russell to the dozens of odd jobs involved in a shoot: angling reflectors, holding meter cards, shifting umbrella lights, moving props without disturbing the model’s position, flapping boards in front of a large fan to create little gusts, and a myriad of others.

  Melanie and Joshua were actually reentering the condo by the time she came back to herself, just like a couple returning from a good day’s work. Both chattering away about how fun it had been as he unlocked and held doors for her to pass through first.

  The afternoon had
been an extravagant whirlwind of innovative clothes and immense fun. Joshua had taken to making the occasional funny face over Russell’s shoulder, several causing Melanie to crack up and lose a pose.

  “I love photo shoot modeling!”

  Joshua laughed at her passion as she set her purse in its usual spot then did a twirl in the middle of the living room.

  “It’s the single thing I loved the most. More than the runway. It’s that back and forth with a truly skilled photographer.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The man was slouched against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. That sparkle in his eyes and grin on his face whenever he was just watching her. He never tired of it and she never felt self-conscious in front of him. She just felt…appreciated.

  “It’s like you were saying when you got that first scene written.” She spun over and pinned him to the wall for a moment with her lips and body. Even when she pulled back enough to continue, she used her body to keep him there. “That energy the character gave you and you gave her. It just hums inside you.”

  And it had been such a joy. None of them were being paid and none of them cared. They were all there to help a friend. Well, she’d get a killer dress out of it, because that was the only kind of dress Perrin made. She’d felt a little guilty about requesting such luxurious fabrics, but a free four-page spread would pay it back in the first day’s orders.

  “Joshua, we have to totally re-do Perrin’s plan. A big spread wasn’t supposed to happen until next year.”

  “You also didn’t factor in having the most beautiful woman on the planet being the signature model.”

  She giggled at the compliment. Melanie never giggled, but she couldn’t help herself. Joshua simply made her feel that special.

  “Let’s go dancing!”

  And that’s exactly what they did. They hit Pioneer Square.

  “Hey look!” Joshua pointed at the sign above a bar right in the heart of the Square.