Cassidy could remember those. Everything switched, which side of the jacket buttoned over, which lapel had been cut on a different slant, which breast had the pocket kerchief, opposite swirls of the slanted pinstripe. She could picture Pamela and Janice, the Swedish-pale and the Jamaican-dark, both very tall, both very curved, an unlikely pair. They probably looked amazing together.
Jo was laughing and Cassidy joined in just a moment late, a moment off beat, but neither of the others noticed. No other revelers in the lounge noticed. None of the pretty women nor any of the business-suited men. Thankfully most of her little screw-ups were invisible.
“How about you, Jo? What adventures in the wondrous world of law? Huh? Huh? Come on, something juicy,” Perrin begged like a puppy dog eager for a new toy.
“Don’t let Perrin be the only one with good gossip. I hate that I always have the best gossip.” She cocked her head sideways and her hair swirled back and forth in a hypnotic spiral. “No, actually, I don’t mind. I kinda like knowing more than everyone about everything. So give me some juicy law stuff to add to my collection.”
Jo brushed back the long, black hair that her half Alaskan-native heritage had mad as naturally dark as Perrin’s dyed locks. That half-heritage had also granted her a scholarship from the state. Law undergrad followed by corporate law grad.
Her heritage had also given a broad face that always looked as if it had a nice tan, and round brown eyes that welcomed you in. She brushed some imaginary dust off the navy blue pantsuit that made her look terribly professional and immensely sexy at the same time. There wasn’t a male judge who didn’t smile when she entered their courtroom. Nor an opposition lawyer who didn’t groan.
“I made partner, does that count?”
Perrin screamed loudly enough to turn every head in the place and then raised her Cosmo in a toast. Cassidy’s merlot and Jo’s Irish Coffee followed.
“That’s great! Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Cassidy sipped her wine, they really needed a better house red than Ste. Michelle. Nice enough at the price, but limited. Overly fruity.
She flagged a passing pretty-boy waiter, “Could we have three flutes and a bottle of Moet and Chandon? The Brut Imperial ’99 if you have it.”
He scribbled a note and left without saying a word. Clearly he had no idea what it was.
“Ooo, Cassie’s ordering. This should be good.” Perrin knocked back her Cosmo and then rubbed her hands together in excitement.
Jo set aside her Irish Coffee and nibbled on one of the crackers. Being Cassidy’s roommate in college for four years had taught her about clearing her palate. Perrin had been the wild girl down the hall who had taken Jo and Cassidy under her wing to make sure they didn’t stay too straight through all those years together. They hadn’t.
“I found out this just a few hours ago.”
“Tell us. Tell us.” Perrin’s hair swung about as she bounced in her seat.
The bottle arrived and he presented the label. She nodded, exactly right.
The sommelier was going to be pissed when he found out that a hundred plus-dollar bottle of champagne had been opened from his collection without his being present. Opened as casually as a ten-dollar Cook’s.
He uncorked it well, with a restrained pop beneath his cupped hand. He just dropped the cork on the table and she picked it up for a sniff. Warm and bright with just the hint of wood she remembered. Never much in a champagne cork, but she liked them for that.
Three baseless flutes that looked like picked flowers were resting at a tilt in a tall, curved vase. Before she could stop him, he began pouring. The flutes were colored, making it impossible to see the wine’s hue. Then she noticed Jo and Perrin’s reactions to the glasses. They were oo’ing and ah’ing about how much they looked like flowers.
She let it go.
Perrin laughed after she sipped, “It tickles.”
Jo took her taste and blinked as if she’d just woken up.
“Cassidy, that’s wonderful. Thank you.”
She took a sip herself. The wine effervesced strongly, releasing its flavors. Pear and citrus. Balanced. No real shift. She swallowed. Almond. She waited for the hint of toast, but the aroma of garlic bread and steamed clam appetizers arriving at their table made her miss it.
“You earned it. So, how did it happen?”
“You are aware that I recently beat that Class Action suit against the Alaskan fisheries? The partners called me in, all three of them so serious.” Jo drew her face down into a frown. “ ‘Well, Ms. Thompson. We, with our most recent victory in Alaska, are now the most sought after corporate law firm in the Pacific Northwest. So, we’re going to have to make a change.’ He pulled a blank piece of letterhead out of his portfolio and pushed it across the table toward me.”
Jo brushed her hair back over her shoulders.
“First of all it was not their win, it was mine. And second, if they thought I was going to write my own letter of resignation, they could go…”
“Fuck themselves!” Perrin filled in. Gave her a thumbs up. “You go, girl!”
Jo tipped her flute in Perrin’s direction, “Exactly my thoughts, though I was preparing to express them differently. Then I looked at the letterhead. You look at something like that a hundred times a day and it just disappears. But there was a change. It didn’t take me long to discover the alteration. My name had been added to the letterhead.”
“Cool!”
“To our Jo.” Cassidy raised her glass and clicked it with the other two. They all knocked it back and she refilled their flutes. Leave it to Jo to make partner two years ahead of any normal schedule track.
“It gets better.”
“Better?” The second flute had lost a bit of the effervescence but none of the brightness. This time she caught the toast in the smooth finish.
“By the time I left the boardroom, my name was gold-leafed onto a corner-office door and everything moved in for me. When I left this afternoon, parked right where my old Toyota should be, sat one of those new BMW roadsters I’ve been lusting after. The one I showed you in that ad. Right down to the red rose on the front seat.”
Cassidy remembered the ad, it wasn’t one of those that you could miss. Something about it leapt out and grabbed you by the… well, clearly she’d had too much to drink already.
“I get first ride,” Perrin giggled and topped off all of their glasses. “Let’s get smashed tonight. Tomorrow you can take me for a drive.”
“I’ll take seconds… I guess.” Long time since she’d done that. Funny thing about being back with them. It was almost like being in college. Perrin always so loud and wild, attracting all the worst boyfriends of course. Which were the one’s Perrin always fell for. Wild flings, roaring breakups, and a heart that was permanently broken until the next one. She remained that way still.
But Perrin also attracted the best and she never kept those. Cassidy’d learned to wait for the ones who recovered quickly from Perrin’s dazzle. Some of them had been quite interesting and she’d never have had a chance at them if they hadn’t flocked first to her friend’s light.
Jo dated the same guy for all four years of college. Where Perrin was long and elegant, Jo was voluptuous and sure of herself in a way that an unsure, sixteen-year old Cassidy had done her best to copy. Jo so quiet and studious, college valedictorian, summa cum laude. Cassidy had always been second finishing as the salutatorian.
Cassidy had some good boyfriends, some bad ones. But none who was four years steady nor even near worth that. She’d forgotten all that, right until this moment.
She’d had enough seconds to last her a lifetime. That was one of the few good things about having left New York. There, she’d been relegated to the second tier by the old boy network for life but no more. She was so done with that, too.
She’d been casually watching the people parade through the door when one caught her full attention. A tall blonde of such perfection that she looked right out of a magazine. The noise in the
bar dropped by a third as every man, as if on some hidden cue, turned to watch her walk down the side of the lounge toward the restaurant.
Had her companion been any less striking, he would have been invisible in her presence. He wasn’t all that handsome. Okay, she had to admit to herself, not as handsome as Jack James for example, but he made up for it in a breadth of shoulder, a confidence of motion, and an easy smile making him impossible to ignore.
Cassidy recognized him from somewhere. A nouveau riché software guy on the news or some such.
Perrin stuck her pinkies in her mouth and let out a wolf whistle. The bar broke into self-conscious laughter. The girl smiled and moved past the tinted glass partition. The man faced their table directly for a moment.
A jolt of recognition pounded against her champagne-befuddled memory.
Where had she seen him?
Recently.
Close.
Very close.
It was the eyes. She remembered his nice eyes. Okay, screw that. She remembered his unbelievably amazing eyes.
Jo tapped her on the shoulder. “Cassidy. Earth to Cassidy.”
“Um, yeah?” He was gone and she sipped her champagne but didn’t notice anything except that it was wet in her suddenly dry throat.
“ ‘Yeah,’ she says. Good. Articulate.” Jo waved her flute toward the entrance. “Didn’t know you had a penchant for women.”
“I don’t. What woman?”
“Miss Playboy centerfold. Miss Cover of Vogue, Elle, and practically every other magazine out there.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I was noticing her companion.”
Perrin craned her neck around but they were out of sight. “Boy or girl?”
“Boy. Man.” Definitely man.
Perrin looked again. “I missed him. I don’t usually miss the guys.”
“Then why did you whistle?”
“Every guy here wanted to whistle at the girl but was too inhibited. So, I did it for them. It’s just the kinda helpful person I am.”
# # #
Russell had ordered dinner and the first hors d’oeuver had arrived, seared bay scallops with a brandy glaze, before he noticed that Melanie was unusually quiet. When had she changed? She’d been a little tentative on his boat, but she’d opened up to Nutcase. Silly pest did have its uses.
When they’d arrived at the restaurant, she gone quiet. He hadn’t planned to make quite such an entrance.
“You okay, Melanie? You want to get somewhere else where they don’t whistle at you?”
She sipped her diet Coke and shrugged. “I get that everywhere.”
“Huh. Guess you would.”
“Though that’s the first time it was by a woman punker.”
“Punker?” Russell hadn’t noticed a punker.
“Sitting at that table, three dykes all together, all so buddy-buddy.”
All he’d noticed was that wine reviewer Angelo was so hyped up on. Now that Melanie mentioned it, there were two other women at the table. He could see them as clearly as a photograph in his mind’s-eye. Not punk and he doubted the dyke remark. They weren’t dressed for each other, they were dressed to be looked at; all three very high-end, very city. Her companions were really attractive, but neither matched the russet-haired reviewer once again in her tight black turtleneck and designer jacket. The woman had a clear sense of what looked good on her.
He brought his attention back to Melanie.
“Well, I guess I’m just not used to it is all.”
“That’s because you’re where you don’t belong. Back in our crowd they know me. They knew you. Beauty isn’t as big a deal there as it is out here in the sticks. Don’t you miss it?”
He dipped another scallop in the mango-pineapple sauce and popped it in his mouth. Other than Angelo’s, this was rapidly becoming one of his favorite places to eat. He didn’t usually face the Friday night crowd; late Wednesday lunches were more his speed. Sometimes there were less than a dozen diners and those were business lunches. He always brought a good book, but spent most of the time watching the amazing view, the ever-busy Seattle waterfront bustling with ferries and freighters and sailboats, and the shifting light on the permanent snowfields atop the Olympic Mountains. All that was lost now in the winter evening’s darkness.
“No. I’m sorry, Melanie. I really don’t miss the life. I miss you.” Far more than he’d expected. Flying her out for Valentine’s Day was about more than the great sex they’d have tonight at the Sorrento. It was more than that. But he hadn’t given much thought to what more.
“I don’t miss the city or the studio at all.” That last was a surprise. He stabbed the last scallop while he thought about it. He really didn’t miss it.
The waiter showed up and slid a Petite Filet Mignon in front of Melanie and a platter with a matching filet and a large Australian lobster tail before him. He put his nose down to the plate and inhaled the heady mix of beef and seafood. The almond butter tickled his nose and the dollop of horseradish nearly made him sneeze it was so fresh.
“And I certainly don’t miss the food.” He cut into the steak.
“You’ll see, Melanie. I’ve got Dave and Betsy all lined up to take us out on a daysail tomorrow afternoon. Their boat is in a lot better shape than mine. You’ll like it. Tomorrow night we’ll dine at the top of the Space Needle and have a nightcap at the Alexis, very old world, very traditional. Sunday I’ve got a pilot to fly us around Rainier and St. Helens. They’re amazing from the air. I’m thinking of taking lessons.”
He’d intended to let the itinerary be a surprise as they went, but she looked so down that he’d spilled the beans. She seemed to perk up a bit and take a bite of her steak.
Wait until she saw the city from the rooftop, outdoor, hot tub perched outside the penthouse at the Sorrento with its awesome night view of the city.
# # #
By the time they’d finished dissecting Jo’s elevation, the lawsuit that had done it for her, and who she was going to tackle next, they’d worked their way through most of the bottle of champagne, the clams, a Dungeness Crab Seafood Cocktail, some Coconut Tiger Prawns, and a mountainous pile of onion rings that none of their waistlines would appreciate in the morning.
Cassidy decided to just splurge and took a big piece of the focaccia bread and dipped it in the olive oil and garlic.
“What ‘bout you, Cassidy? Tell us the wonders of your week.” Jo’s voice had slipped out of power lawyer, back into Vassar casual. It took a lot of wine to do that.
“Yeah, what ‘bout you? Something more exciting than the man with two first names, puh-lease. He is just such a total drip.” Perrin mocked Jo’s slip but everyone was too tipsy to care.
Jack James, the man with two first names. He was handsome, polite, sometimes lover, and a useless jerk.
“Seconds.”
“What’s that?”
“Sick of ‘em.”
“She’s shhick of ‘em.” Perrin was now mocking her.
Her mind wasn’t connecting the bits and pieces together. But somewhere or other the thought did have sense of purpose even if she was too drunk to see it.
“No more sad second-raters for this girl.”
Jo grew quiet. One very drunken night in their dorm room, Cassidy had confessed to how much she hated being second to both of them. Perrin with all her flash and confidence, Jo with her perfect grades and steady boyfriend.
“No more thankless thirds either, huh?” Perrin purred pleasantly.
Cassidy started to giggle at the alliteration in her head. Perrin purring pleasantly through a pursed pucker.
“Thankfully through with the, uh, thoughtless thirds,” Cassidy acknowledged.
Jo cracked a smile but suppressed it quickly, but not before Cassidy caught her.
“And those sad, sad sloppy seconds.” Perrin started nodding, then kept doing so as if she’d forgotten she’d started. Her hair swooshed back and forth in a mesmerizing pattern of d
iagonal stripes.
It sounded even worse put that way. Cassidy glanced at Jo, but she shook her head ever so slightly. She’d never told her about Cassidy’s complaints, Perrin was just on a roll.
“And those fucking fourths. Even I don’t want those.” Perrin continued.
“I’m done with them all. I’m better than that.”
Perrin jutted out her chin, “Damn straight, girlfriend. So what now? Fancy frolicsome firsts?”
“Damn straight!” she shot back. “Nothing but the best for Cassidy Knowles from now on.”
Jo raised her flute, and Perrin her third Cosmo.
“To Cassidy’s fun firsts.”
“To Cassidy.” Jo nodded to her so she’d know that Jo had meant to end it there.
Perrin slowly scanned about the room, then abruptly turned and leaned in so close that Cassidy could smell the Triple Sec, lime, and cranberry on her breath.
“So, what’s the news? What are we drinking to again?” Her eyes were squinted as she tried to remember.
“No sad seconds,” Jo reminded her quietly.
“That’s not news. That’s just about fucking time. I want the news.”
Cassidy considered as well as the champagne would allow her. News. News. News. There must be something. She still hadn’t told them about the lighthouses. But she didn’t want to, not yet anyway. It was still too close to losing her father.
What was the topic?
No sad, sloppy seconds. That was it.
“I broke it off with Mr. Jack James.”
“Thank God above and Satan below,” Perrin clapped her hands together and looked to the ceiling. “He was such a waste of your time.”
Jo was waiting. Waiting and watching.
“When?” Jo’s soft question barely penetrated Cassidy’s whirling thoughts.
It took her three tries to slip her flute back into the vase. It kept moving around the table.
“Um,” she laughed and it partly came out as a sob. She covered her face with her hands for a moment feeling the burning flush on her cheeks. A quick wipe at her eyes and she sat up straight, slapped her hands down on her thighs.
Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) Page 7