Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth)

by Buchman, M. L.

  “No. You.”

  She blushed and looked down again.

  “I’m a, Russell. Russell Morgan.”

  She extended a hand. “Cassidy Knowles. Nice to meet you, a-Russell.”

  “Real nice.” Her grip was firm and warm.

  “Charm, it’s not one of my specialties.” She released his hand.

  He wished she hadn’t. It had felt good, that womanly hand against his rough palm and fingers.

  He was trying to think up a good one-liner riposte when the waiter arrived.

  “Hallo, I am Giorgio. Mister Angelo has asked me to tell you that he will be choosing your dinner once again.”

  “Once again?” Russell aimed his question at his date who nodded so sweetly it was hard to argue.

  Giorgio waited a moment, but when she didn’t speak he continued.

  “He has asked me to let you know this. But, also he has said, knowing your preference for a fair sample, he only will serve selections that have been ordered already this night. Perfetto?”

  “Yes, perfect.”

  The waiter whisked away.

  “Hey, I wanted to see a menu.” He and Angelo had spent long enough redesigning the damn thing. Local cuisine, an elegant montage of Tuscany and Liguria. He’d even managed to work his sailboat into the dessert page. It was one of the best pieces he’d done, had some of the old Russell Morgan flare to it. It was nice to know he still had it. But the waiter was gone and no menu was forthcoming. He turned his attention back to his date.

  She’d gone quiet again. He wanted to see that smile again. It was a hell of a good smile, even if it had been directed at the waiter.

  “What’s with this ‘once again’ stuff?”

  She opened her mouth, but he cut her off.

  “Wine taster. Right. I forgot.”

  “Did we meet before?”

  He thought about the first time, as she’d thanked Angelo for a fabulous meal. He’d been, what, eating spaghetti while covered in boat dust and dirt. No. Fiberglass resin. She’d have discounted him as useless, beneath notice, no more than a blemish on the Angelo’s pristine kitchen. Best not to remind her.

  The sommelier showed up and started chatting wines with her in a way that totally eluded him.

  Listen to her, Russell. New York. It was all over her. Her clothes so perfect, her hair probably done weekly. Her brisk way of addressing the wine steward with short, clipped, quick words. He wouldn’t have noticed if Dave and Betsy hadn’t teased him about his New York way of speaking. She was everything he didn’t want. One hundred percent not his lady in the red coat. She and Melanie could be best friends.

  Even her boots were a joke. Who spent four or five hundred dollars on boots except at a fashion shoot? God, his final shoot. He’d photographed Melanie in exactly those boots for another ad before he’d switched her to the mid-thigh Chanel’s for the BMW ad. Though he’d never photographed anything like that sweater. It dipped and swelled in a splendidly provocative—

  The sommelier was gone, and he was staring at her breasts. Had stopped doing that in high school, as soon as he learned what a turn-off it was. The great paradox of women, he got to see a lot more breasts unclothed as soon as he stopped staring at them clothed.

  He checked her eyes. Oddly, there wasn’t anger, but laughter crinkling the edges.

  “What?”

  She shook her head, but the smile didn’t go away.

  # # #

  “The Penne Agli Scampi, Angelo. Simply exquisite.” Cassidy leaned toward Angelo and rested her chin on her palm, elbow on the table. “But wasn’t that a Piedmont white rather than a Tuscan?”

  Russell couldn’t look away from her. She was so unaware of every motion. There was no posing. Her emotions weren’t carefully considered and exhibited for the benefit of the camera or the moment. She had a natural honesty that had him mesmerized.

  Angelo pulled up a chair and joined them. “I cannot fool you, Miss Knowles. I thought the Tuscan wines a little too fruity for something as delicate as the scampi. I decided that as long as the wine was Italian, I’d let it wander a little farther afield than the cuisine.”

  “Absolutely right. Now the heaviness of the San Rocco Barolo was the perfect choice for the Tagliata, I’ve never had such tender beef. What was the spicing?” She’d described the flavors for him. He could taste the sage and rosemary after she’d told him. But the bay, he had no idea. He’d say she was making it up, but she’d been kept a running commentary on flavors for each new dish and wine. When she’d asked about the other flavor in the beef, he had no idea what she’d been talking about.

  “Oh no, Miss Knowles. You do not get my mother’s secrets so easily.”

  Secret recipe. Right. He’d seen that. Time to pay back Angelo for setting him up with this New York woman, the one who snagged his attention like a harpoon.

  “Anchovy paste instead of salt.”

  Angelo looked put out as Cassidy inspected him.

  “I’ve watched him rub it in.”

  “Watched him…” She ran the words over her tongue, the same way she rolled the wine there.

  “Watched him… while you ate pasta.”

  “What was that?” Angelo didn’t catch it, but Russell bowed his head in acknowledgement. She had an eye for detail. Had picked him out of the mess he’d been when she was here for the wine tasting three months ago. She could probably be a decent photographer with a bit of training.

  “You aren’t a…” She caught her upper lip between her teeth, but he could read it on her face.

  “Contractor… or a homeless person eating on Angelo’s charity?”

  She tilted her head to one side for a moment, made him want to run a finger down the length of neck exposed from ear to turtleneck collar. She arched her eyebrows and shrugged a yes.

  He laughed, “Depends on who you ask.” Melanie would say he was homeless, so would his parents. For that matter any of his New York friends would. And certainly this woman across the table. No way would she be happy with the wind blowing through her hair. She might shatter if you took her anywhere rougher than the Cutter’s lounge or Angelo’s or Nordstrom. She had every mark of coming from money and none of ever touching the great outdoors.

  The shift was clear on her face. Her thoughts, so carefully guarded on her tongue, were easy to see. The slow sifting of information until she moved the smooth photographer to the possibly homeless, smart-ass until she had melded the two into a perfect blend.

  Angelo cleared his throat and returned his chair to the next table.

  “For dessert I will be giving you Sfogliatina alla Angelo’s, a puff pastry filled with a fig and cream custard. And,” he bowed to Cassidy, “I hope you will approve of the wine choice.”

  Angelo managed to kick him under the table without Cassidy noticing before heading back to the kitchen.

  It hurt.

  “You like him.” She aimed those hazel eyes at him.

  He had to look down to think up a reply and still couldn’t.

  “He’s a great cook.”

  “The best.”

  “How long have you two been at this?”

  Russell shrugged, “I can barely heat a can of soup.” For years he and Angelo had cooked together. He was a fair cook, but Angelo was in a whole other class.

  “You know that wasn’t what I meant.”

  “How long have you been with those two girlfriends of yours I saw at Cutter’s?” Real nice. Right back where you started the meal, Brutus. Time to stab her with it again. Dufus.

  “College. Freshman year. First day.” She brought that nice chin up a bit higher. She was a proud woman, who was sure enough of herself to let him know he was being a jerk.

  “Right, sorry, you told me that already. Add another decade or so, that’s me and Angelo. Practically from the same womb. His mom… was a friend of the family. Very close.” She had been his parent’s cook.

  He’d learned to protect his name, to not mention that he was a part of the
Morgans who ran the shipping empire. Women always got weird when they found out you had that kind of money. Melanie had been different. Maybe it influenced her in the beginning, hell, he knew it had. And he’d let it to get her in bed. But by the end it hadn’t been about the money. He simply hadn’t had the brains to notice the change in her feelings, because he was happy enjoying the fruits of the former not even aware of the latter.

  The dessert arrived. He jabbed at the pastry and a small geyser of cream shot out the end and smeared across the tablecloth. Before he could reach for a napkin, a small flock of waiters appeared. Without appearing to hurry, they lifted each item and replaced the tablecloth in about ten seconds flat.

  “Happens all the time, sir,” the waiter hurried off with his soiled cloth. It was all a fucking façade, from glossy ads to glossy women. What would his date do if faced with something that wasn’t perfectly prepared? If the world weren’t perfectly arranged for every step she’d taken since birth?

  “So, Cassidy, what is it you want to do? Spend the rest of your life being a critic?”

  “I don’t know.” She dragged her voice out, slowing the reply. She could obviously feel his change of attitude and she wasn’t going to answer, at least not completely.

  “Hadn’t really thought about the long term,” she continued with caution. “I wanted to get out of New York, expand my horizons.”

  “Have they been expanded?”

  “I think so. My syndication has grown. I’m not Robert Palmer or even close to what Craig Claiborne was, but I’m becoming known.”

  “And is that what you want?”

  She poked at her dessert. “As I said, I hadn’t really thought about long term.” He could read the lie on her face. She had every minute of her perfect little life mapped out.

  He could hear the note in her voice. The clipped tone that a date always used when they wanted a subject change. Well, screw that.

  “Always the critic. Always a step back. A step away. You know all of these wines, but do you really know the true heart of any of them?” He’d met more real people in three months at the marina than he had in twenty-five years in the city. ‘Oh, you’re one of those Morgans.’ And the whole fake-friendly façade would appear. Out here, no one knew but Angelo. And most of his new friends probably wouldn’t have cared.

  Again that stillness dropped over her. During the meal he’d learned that’s when her emotions were working the hardest and was the only time they were hidden. She could be polite and funny, even, he had to admit, interesting. But whenever he’d asked a loaded question, she’d shut down and turned into zombie girl. She picked up her wine glass and eyed it carefully. Her expression unreadable, as if he suddenly didn’t exist.

  He needed to shut up. That’s what he needed to do. He knocked back a glass of the dessert wine. It was so sweet he almost choked.

  “Christ, I need a beer.”

  She was sipping the wine. Holding the glass just below her nose as she sucked in her breath. Her lips pursed as if ready for a kiss.

  What would she look like spread out on a bed, hair undone, clothes askew or missing? Missing except for that sweater.

  He really did need a beer if that’s what he was thinking. If he was going to go there, he might as well go back to New York and beg Melanie’s forgiveness. Melanie at least knew what she was, knew what she wanted from life. And he’d been involved in it, had helped it along now and then even before they became an item.

  This woman, so proud of her perfect acuity and ever so careful with her clothes. Clearly so full of herself for her achievements on something as futile as which damn wine was which.

  “A lot of citrus,” she spoke to herself rather than to him. “Flowers.” She held the glass over the white tablecloth and looked down at it again.

  “Amber. Not just gold. Amber.” Clearly she was puzzled.

  “I thought you knew everything.”

  “There are thousands of wines from nearly as many wineries.” Her voice was almost as chilly as the wine. “I can tell you it’s Italian, but I can’t place it. Perhaps Tuscan. Or close by.”

  “Notice the lemon? The dry finish?” Why was he being such a jerk. She hadn’t earned this but he couldn’t help himself. He’d done it to Melanie without knowing, now he was fully aware he was doing it, but that didn’t stop the next words.

  “Did you miss the high alcohol perhaps?” He couldn’t stop, even though he was being an asshole. He’d made Melanie think he loved her and then tossed her aside, practically called her whore with how he’d lavished gifts on her and then used her for sex.

  “Obvious marks of a Cinque Terre Sciacchetra.” He felt like the old monk with the whip scourging his own back until it bled. He had to strike out. Rake his claws against the pain within.

  “Not Tuscan. Liguria. Very traditional. Very authentic.” He was a fucking mess. He knocked back the rest of the oversweet wine.

  Staggering to his feet, he turned to see the look of horror on Angelo’s face as he stood in the swinging door to the kitchen.

  Turned back to the woman frozen with the wine glass an inch from her pursed lips.

  “Hope you enjoyed the damn meal. Don’t bother to give me your number, you wouldn’t want me to call anyway.” He slapped a couple of hundred dollar bills on the table to pay for the meal and walked out before he could throw himself on his butter knife in atonement.

  # # #

  “The” Ristorante Italiano

  There are moments in our lives that stand out. Moments when mother and daughter recognize the woman in each other. When the son finally throws the ball the father can catch. Those moments when a thousand different little things come together into a single event of perfection. When the symphony of players truly masters the composition and the composer’s intent is revealed, when the dancer disappears into the ballet.

  “Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth” Italian restaurant has brought such finesse to the apparently simple task of a meal. Seattle has long been synonymous with salmon and other Northwest seafood. No longer. Now there is a restaurant that harkens us back to the Old World, when chefs were vied for by kings and cardinals alike. Their master is tucked away in Seattle’s Pike Place Market on Post Alley.

  Cassidy described the meal easily and quickly. Reliving each taste as it had occurred. Making sidebars for tasting notes on the wines as she went. It was all part of her style, the “friendly, close, personal touch” that many column reviewers had so praised and more than a few had tried to copy. She explained the meal in simple terms that let the owner of an untrained palate imagine they were indeed a master of spice and flavor, of ambience and composition.

  However, one must be careful to choose one’s dinner companions as carefully as one’s meal or you’ll end up with a jerk like Russell Morgan.

  She glared at the screen, that wasn’t what she’d intended to write at all.

  A couple of keystrokes deleted the sentence.

  A fine meal can be destroyed as easily by…

  Delete.

  Then she was stuck.

  The ending wouldn’t come. She scrolled back up and read down the page again hoping that when she hit her stopping point, the flow of words would carry her to the end.

  Nope.

  She looked out the window of her twentieth floor condo at Queen Anne hill, the top of a partially submerged mountain rising hundreds of feet right out of Elliot Bay. Seattle’s finest homes perched along its cliff edges. She could also see northern Puget Sound, rough water beneath a glittering sun and clouds zipping by as if they wanted to be anywhere but here. And straight ahead lay Bainbridge Island, no longer her home.

  She could empathize, but her column was due by midnight. Seven hours to go.

  Her hand was halfway to the bookcase before she stopped it. She didn’t want to pull out her old columns. They’d just make her feel even less competent at the moment if that was possible. All those happy, fun meals. Meals where a stupid blind date hadn’t slapped at her so hard she cou
ld still feel the sting across her face.

  The door buzzer jolted her out of the chair as if she’d been electrocuted. The only friends with the passcode to the street door were Jo and Perrin. She really didn’t want to face either of them. Through the front door peephole she could see it was worse, it was both of them, Perrin with a happy smile and waving a bottle of wine.

  She did her best to put on a cheerful expression before she let them in.

  “Oooo, sad face,” Perrin threw her arms around Cassidy’s shoulders. “Didn’t go well last night. In that case we come with consolation rather than cheers.”

  “Hi, Jo.” Her hug was less fierce, but lasted a moment longer. The consolation of a good friend who understood.

  “Well, come on. Give us the worst of it. Mr. Ugly, huh? Boy, doesn’t that just suck the big one. Why do we say ‘boy?’ If I said, ‘Girl, doesn’t that just suck the big one’ it wouldn’t work as well at all.” Perrin shed her yellow, woolen coat onto the hall chair.

  Her outfit was ‘20s flapper, bright yellow with tassels. It looked perfect on her long, slender form. She didn’t remove the beaded hat that was nearly a skull cap and hid all but a few wisps of the bright green hair, that still managed to look cute. Even her perfume was a light lemony scent smelling like a blossoming tree rather than furniture polish. For a moment, Cassidy wished that she had a flat, lean figure like Perrin so she could wear such an outfit and look even half as beautiful.

  “Remember that fashion model the last time we were at Cutter’s?”

  Jo snagged a corkscrew and glasses from the small kitchen and continued into the living room. Perrin dug around for cheese in the fridge as Cassidy pulled out a selection of crackers and spread them around the edges of a cutting board. Jo sat down on one of the stools on the far side of the maple butcher block counter that separated the rooms and opened the wine.

  Cassidy poured the Lindemans Shiraz. A bit tannic, but one of the most drinkable wines at the price. Fresh, a bit spicy. No real demands on the palate. Exactly what she needed right now.

  “The one dressed like a centerfold?” Jo twirled her glass without really looking at it.

  “That’s the one.”