Where Dreams Books 1-3

by M. L. Buchman

  The only thing that didn’t fit in any file was the photo. She propped it in the middle of her desk. She wasn’t afraid of the past. Bring it on, she told the photo. Nor the future. Bring it on.

  Next she started drafting a nice, “Thank you but no thank you,” note for Renée. She rapidly filled a whole sheet on a yellow legal pad with phrases and crossouts, reasons and desires. She slashed a big “X” across the whole page, flipped that page over to the back, and glared at the blank sheet now in front of her.

  It was a relief as visceral as a cold shower when her phone rang with the tone she’d programmed for the main lobby.

  That wouldn’t be Cassidy, Perrin, or Angelo. She’d given the elevator code to each of them. She picked up her phone trying to remember if she’d made any recent online orders.

  # # #

  Jo had barely pulled on decent clothes by the time the elevator whisked Maria Parrano into her apartment.

  “What a beautiful picture.”

  Of course, it was the first thing Angelo’s mother had gravitated to in the entire condo.

  “You look wonderful, Mrs. Parrano.”

  “Maria.”

  “You look wonderful, Maria.” And she did. The flowered summer dress and flat, strapped leather sandals made her look both comfortable and elegant. The yellow leather purse was bright and cheerful. She did nothing to hide her age, but it was hard to credit her with a thirty-year old son.

  “Is that you?” Maria had picked up the cheap frame as if it were something precious.

  “No, it’s my mother.”

  “I meant in her arms.”

  “Oh, yes. That’s me. Only child.”

  “She looks so sweet.”

  “Me?”

  “Your mother.”

  Jo finally caught up with the conversation. “I wouldn’t know. She left when I was two.”

  Mrs. Parrano, Maria, lay her fingertips over her lips for a long moment in apology. “I’m sorry. Do you know much about her?”

  As she told Maria what little she knew, Jo poured them both a fresh cup of coffee and led them out onto the balcony where her novel remained unopened, her place still lost.

  “Redmond is close, isn’t it? Really? Have you called her?”

  “I don’t know if I’m going to.”

  Maria nodded. “It’s hard. When Angelo was in high school I received a note from a friend. My Angelo, his father, had contacted her to find out how I was and how the baby was doing. He didn’t even know baby’s sex or that I was gone to America. I decide that someone who care so little about me and about my beautiful boy that he waits fifteen years to ask the question, he does not matter. So I tell my friend to tell him nothing. If she ever hear from him again, she does not tell me. There are times I doubt myself, but it was good. It was right.”

  Jo wished she had that kind of strength, but she’d never had a parent to teach her. She’d learned to put up the façade, to pretend she had strength, so that no one could see through her. Well, none but Cassidy and Perrin.

  Yet somehow...

  Angelo didn’t see through the façade, but neither did he see the façade. He saw her as strong to begin with. As if it actually were a part of who she was.

  “I just found out that my mother, Eloise, stayed in constant touch with a mutual friend through all the years. I don’t know if Dan asked my father’s permission or not, but he liked her and answered her back.” Her mother had at least cared more than Angelo’s father. That wasn’t much in her favor, but it was something.

  “She sent me a card, which my father left on my old bedroom wall for me to find.” She’d decided that was how it must have been. Her father didn’t have any meanness in him. Useless, lazy, disconnected? Yes. Mean, no. She went and fetched the postcard from the file.

  Mrs. Parrano read it several times then brushed at the corners of her eyes.

  “I wish my Angelo had done so much. She made the choice yours. You could have asked this Dan or tear this up and throw it away. She leave it all up to you. That is a very hard and brave thing to do.” She handed back the card carefully. “I hope I have a chance to meet this woman some day.”

  Jo looked at the card for a long moment and then tucked it into the Grisham novel. She still didn’t know if she wanted to meet her mother or not.

  # # #

  Jo had certainly sat with enough witnesses over the years to know that Maria Parrano was sitting on some topic that was very uncomfortable and struggling to find some way to say it. Jo sighed inwardly. Well, she had decided this was her day scheduled to deal with things. If she remembered correctly, and she’d have to call Muriel later to be sure, she’d be on a flight to New York tomorrow afternoon. So, now was the time.

  “Sometimes, Maria, it is easier if you just say it.”

  Maria sipped her coffee again, but didn’t look away. Jo was learning that Angelo had inherited his directness fair and square from his mother. Or was it something ingrained in the Italian genetic code?

  “I don’t know you, Jo Thompson. I would like to, but I do not.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry about missing dinner, but my father—”

  Maria’s hand wave of dismissal was so like Angelo’s that Jo had to bite her cheek not to smile.

  “What you did was more important and we will eat together soon, you and I. I like to think that we would be friends.”

  “I would like that too.” And Jo was a bit surprised that she wasn’t just being polite. Maria Parrano was a very pleasant person to sit with.

  “You’re sweet,” she patted Jo’s knee without making it belittling. “But I have come to ask you a favor.”

  A chill crept up Jo’s spine. A deep breath. A nod. She didn’t dare speak.

  “I know there is something between you and my boy. I know that it is deep and important to both of you, and I don’t want to pry. But my Angelo is hurting so much. Can you at least tell me why so that I can help him somehow?”

  This wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d thought Angelo had sent his mother to plead on his behalf. Instead, the mother had come herself out of love for her son.

  “You love him very much, don’t you?” At Maria’s knowing nod Jo had to look away. It wasn’t enough, so she stood up and walked the ten feet to the far end of the narrow balcony and back.

  How would her life have been if she’d had a mother like that? Who could guess? If her mother were still in Ketchikan, would Jo have ever left? Would she have been driven to become who she was? Oddly, she could trace nearly every success in her life back to that moment of abandonment. Her motivation to learn, to excel, to be better…

  To be better than her own mother? To show her…what?

  She sat abruptly.

  “What is it, my girl?” Maria’s words shifted strangely in her head, combining oddly with her thoughts.

  “I suddenly don’t know why I do the things I do.”

  Maria took her hand, and massaged it as if to warm it. Her hands were like her son’s, slim, but strong. Calluses where a knife was held, dozens of tiny scars from a lifetime of cooking.

  “I cook for thirty years. I raise two boys, as much mother to Russell as Julia was mother to Angelo. Suddenly one day their boy is married and they decide to retire. John and Julia, they suddenly don’t know what to do. I worry, but I listen to my heart and I know what to do. I know to go be with my Angelo.”

  Maria pulled her over and kissed Jo’s cheek.

  “And you help him see that I can help him. Tell him to let me make pastry. Oh, I think he would have found out the idea himself, but sometimes that boy moves so slow.”

  “Sometimes he isn’t so slow.” Her voice felt dreamy and distant. As if it belonged to someone else. Maybe Counselor Thompson had deserted her for the day, leaving only a lost Jo behind.

  “Oh?”

  “He told
me that he loved me.” It didn’t kill her to say. It didn’t even leave a bitter taste. It was simply a fact, a fact too unreal to, well, be real.

  “When do he say so?”

  Jo cast her mind back until once again she was sitting on that impossible flight.

  “Right after my father’s funeral, while the plane was taking off.” She could feel the shuddering of the jet and taste the dry air pumped into the cabin as she worked her jaws to pop her ears.

  “No,” Maria breathed it out as little more than an astonished whisper.

  Jo could only nod. Here it came, the defense of her boy and why wasn’t Jo sensible enough to—

  Maria Parrano slapped her hand sharply against her thigh with a loud smack.

  “That idiota. I can no believe he do that to you. Is my son so stupido? He must be. Well, serves him right his heart is all hurt.”

  Jo could only watch her wide-eyed as her rant continued.

  “Men, they are so…” Maria tapped her own temple sharply. “What is the word I want?”

  “Dense?”

  “Yes,” Maria squeezed Jo’s hand. “Dense that is good word for my Angelo. You not have enough on your mind, so he must add love just then. Dense. Dense. Dense.”

  Jo couldn’t stop watching the woman in amazement. Jo couldn’t have said it better herself. And it felt nice to have Maria on her side. It helped confirm that she hadn’t lost her mind simply because she didn’t love Angelo back.

  “Of course,” Maria put her other hand over Jo’s. “You are so crazy about him. That is so easy to see, except I bet he can no see that or he not be so miserable. You make him wait Jo. You make him wait until you are good and ready to say you love him. Oh, I do like you. It will be so fun to have you as a daughter. So fun!”

  Easy to see? Sure she liked Angelo but—

  Now Maria looked directly at her with those dark warm eyes that sparkled with inner light.

  “You take your time, Jo Thompson. You are too busy, too many things, they push at you. When you have time. After you decide about your mother and settle all of your father things, then is time to decide you love him. Not before then. Not now.”

  Then she smiled again so strongly that Jo could feel herself smiling back despite the cry of protest that lurked inside, but couldn’t seem to find traction to leap off the tip of her tongue.

  “After you do, oh, then you and me, we will have so much fun!”

  Chapter 34

  Jo never did get the note to Renée finished. She had an acceptable first draft, but it wasn’t near to sufficient. It wasn’t a matter of polishing the language, she simply had to throw it out and start over yet again. And she definitely wasn’t going to see Angelo, but she called Cassidy and Perrin for a get-together. The first of them she’d promised, and both she owed.

  “Somewhere new. Somewhere different. Not near the Market.”

  Cassidy picked Vito’s and by seven they were tucked side-by-side into a deep, burgundy faux-leather booth with two glasses of a local red that Cassidy recommended. On the other side, Perrin had a rum drink of the unlikely name Janky Panky that had turned out to be a nice mix of sweet and mule kick. They had a Beef Carpaccio and steamed clams with sausage that might give Cutter’s a bit of a challenge.

  “It’s like Angelo’s place gone bad.” Perrin squinted up at the black wall and acrylic painted Italian waiters barely revealed by the dim candlelight. “Like I keep expecting a mob boss to show up in a ‘40s zoot suit carrying a violin case.” She leaned out of the booth and looked around the restaurant. “But here it would have a violin in it.”

  The jazz pianist at the grand was far enough away to make it easy to talk, but close enough to reveal that she was good.

  Perrin leaned out and looked toward the pianist this time. “Hey, she’s cute, too. I like long blondes.”

  “What is it with you and women?” Cassidy’s tease was an old one. Anyone who might look good in one of Perrin’s designs elicited the cute comment.

  “Oh, I’ve tumbled a girl or two in my time.”

  Cassidy almost snorted her wine.

  “Didn’t stick. I’ll take the guys.” Perrin winked at Jo when Cassidy glanced down to see if she was wearing any of her wine.

  Cass had always had a slightly narrow view of the world, and every now and then Perrin found a way to give it a good sharp poke.

  “So,” Perrin settled in her seat. “Are you better now?”

  Jo nodded, “Much.”

  “Good. Then let me just say, What the fuck was that?”

  Jo could do this. She’d told Mrs. Parrano, Maria, a nearly complete stranger. She could tell her best friends. And, as she’d advised Maria, she’d just say it before she could second guess herself.

  “When I was up in Alaska, getting on the plane, Angelo told me that he loved me.”

  “And that shorted out your brain for what reason?”

  Not quite the reaction she’d been expecting. Neither showed shock and amazement.

  “Because my father had died seventy-two hours before. And at his funeral, which was five geriatric guys and an ex-Ukrainian Army woman pissing off the end of pier in his honor, I found out my mother lives in Redmond.”

  “Which Redmond?”

  “The one like ten miles that way.” Jo pointed over her shoulder. Or was it the other way? Vito’s was partly below street level, dark and dive-like. There was no obvious view of Puget Sound to provide direction. She took a breath and just said it again to see if she could.

  “Then he tells me that he loves me.” It came out, but it still wasn’t easy.

  Cassidy studied her wine.

  Perrin just shrugged, “Okay, minus ten points for timing but about plus five gajillion for having the good sense to fall in love with our Jo. So what’s the problem?”

  “What did you say?” Cass spoke softly. Right at the heart of the matter. If she hadn’t been so involved in food and wine, Jo might have tried to convince her to go for law. She had the right kind of mind, but her palate was world class.

  “I’m not ready. I didn’t say anything.”

  “What?” Perrin took up a clam on her small fork and waved it at Jo, dribbling garlic butter–white wine sauce up and down the middle of the table. “Tell me one thing wrong with him other than lousy timing. Wait, does he have good timing in bed?”

  “In the bed, in the shower, on the floor. Exceptional timing.” She knew how to make Perrin crazy. “He’s talking about Russell’s sailboat, especially since Russell can’t really use it with a broken leg.”

  Cassidy’s grin was easy. “Yes, his sailboat offers many, many possibilities.”

  Perrin groaned in voyeuristic delight, placed a hand over her heart and panted a few times.

  “That was good for me. Was that good for you? So,” she waved her clam again and dribbled some more. “Tell me one thing wrong with him.” She finally ate the clam.

  “I’m not ready.”

  “Evading the question, Counselor. Naughty, naughty lawyer. Are you in love with him or not?”

  Jo tried to answer the question. She really did. She opened her mouth and nothing came out. She closed it then tried again.

  “Maria Parrano thinks I am.”

  Cassidy twisted to look right at her. “You talked to Angelo’s mother about Angelo being in love with you?”

  “He’s not in love with me, he only thinks that he is.”

  Perrin pointed another clam at Jo, but faced Cassidy. “Is it just me, or is she avoiding every question we put to her?”

  “It’s not you.” Cassidy’s voice was grim. Grim enough that maybe she was thinking of changing over to law.

  “She trapped me.”

  “How?”

  “She was nice. Okay? Are you happy? She was nice to me. She told me how excited she was that I was going to be her
daughter and how much fun we’d have together.” Now that she’d started Jo couldn’t stop. Her voice kept rising and she couldn’t reel it back in.

  “What am I supposed to do with that? Tell me one thing I want more in my life than that? I want my mother to be there for me and for us to have fun together. Then my mother’s lover offers…” She waved a hand helplessly.

  “Your…mother’s…lover?” Perrin was grinning. “I thought we were talking about your lover’s mother. Or is there something going on between Eloise Thompson and Angelo that we need to know about? Because we all know how Perrin loves salacious tidbits.” In the middle of the last sentence Perrin started tipping over into giggles despite her best efforts at a straight face.

  Cassidy’s cough didn’t sound one bit like a cough.

  Jo gave up. What could she do? In moments all three of them were howling with laughter.

  # # #

  Jo was sitting on the plane, the country rolling along beneath her. Now she had two missions in New York.

  Her primary purpose was a meeting with the Undersecretary of Maritime Law at the United Nations tomorrow morning. It was just a preliminary meeting. Information gathering. It would be six long months of research and planning before she’d be ready for even the first meeting with the lower level representatives of the nations with Arctic claims. Most of that six months would be split equally between Juneau and Barrow. She needed to switch that. Hitting Barrow in mid-winter was not part of her plan. Barrow first, then Juneau. Even if Barrow would make Ketchikan look like paradise.

  Jo ignored the sudden knot in her stomach, putting it down to airplane food.

  Her secondary task was a last minute “favor” for Renée Linden. Jo really had to hand it to the woman, she was a spectacular strategist. After days without any contact whatsoever, she managed to drop by Jo’s office as she was double-checking her briefcase and gathering her coat before leaving for the airport. Again, not enough time for a proper conversation.

  But somehow, as a favor to Renée, Jo was now hand-carrying a folder of ad proofs to New York for the supermodel’s approval. Not FedEx, not Internet. It was to be a hand carry and a personal meeting.