“Okay, so,” Bill had a sudden idea. “If I do deign to come and try your restaurant, I’ll want to bring a date.”
The two men sobered and shared a long glance.
Angelo answered for them, “Perrin is always welcome. Always. No matter what she drags in with her.”
Bill had the feeling that the last part was added as an afterthought insult, no real heat behind it anymore.
“And my kids.”
# # #
“Do I hafta?”
Bill tugged on Jaspar’s tie. Even using a clip-on, the kid somehow was wearing it crooked.
“Hey, it’s a nice restaurant and the girls are probably going to look sharp.” Tammy had been consistently going to Perrin’s after school when she wasn’t needed for a rehearsal. But Perrin had promised him that Tammy wasn’t allowed to sew until after her homework was done. He’d been checking up on her homework, as he always did, but Perrin had been as good as her word. Jaspar appeared to be enjoying the exclusive Dad time, even if that often just meant reading a book while Bill worked.
“Girls!” Jaspar scoffed.
“Look here, Jaspar. If I have to wear a tie, so do you.”
Jaspar stuck his tongue out at Bill, but moved to the bathroom mirror and adjusted it himself until it was close enough. He’d inherited Bill’s curling hair rather than his mother’s flowing locks that had gone to Tammy. A quick brush did little to help, especially as he was a past due for a haircut.
Bill was really trying not to be nervous. He’d seen Perrin only briefly as he’d picked up Tammy a few times. A couple late night phone calls did little to slake his desperate desire to see the woman.
To distract himself as they drove to the restaurant, he asked Jaspar to teach him the new Italian words he’d learned. Carlo di Stefano had, once he calmed down from his girlfriend Melanie’s departure, sort of adopted Jaspar. Already the kid had more Italian than Bill had picked up over years of dealing with singers. Carlo had wisely started with cat, dog, elephant, and the like. Then he’d moved on to giovane principe, “Young Prince,” and the other titles in the cast. Now they were ranging off into everyday life vocabulary.
While Bill appreciated it, he also cursed that now he’d have something new he had to keep up with to encourage and support his kid as if he weren’t already juggling enough. Next year Jaspar could start a language in sixth grade and Italian was presently the favored option. Spanish Bill could keep up with from living in California and working with Mexican stage hands. French he’d at least have a head start because that had been Tammy’s selection. But Italian? And ten years old, headed for sixth grade… Life was moving too fast. It had to slow down at some point, didn’t it?
He parked and they walked down to the restaurant where Perrin had said she’d meet them.
“Hey look, there’s another one!”
The walk sign on the corner had one of the Ascension yarn-bomb banners climbing its pole.
Angelo or Russell… Russell, Bill decided. He was the marketing brains, Angelo was the cook. He must have asked… who? Patsy? Well, that would explain the need for a knitting machine. But it didn’t just feel like Patsy and her knitting gang.
It wasn’t just some slap up of Perrin’s designs, the yarn-bomb itself was a designed piece. Perrin, it had to be. So, Perrin had designed a couple yarn-bombs to promote the opera. That was really decent of her. Definitely above and beyond the scope of the contract. And, like the costumes, the yarn-bomb was quite attractive. A tourist stopped to photograph it with his wife standing beside it smiling.
When they entered Angelo’s, Bill was taken back to his life with Adira. In the beginning they could afford one date a month out together. They’d started at the local pub with a brew and a burger. Actually in the very beginning there’d been months where Kentucky Fried Chicken had been a splurge. But over the years they’d slowly climbed up. A good Mexican restaurant, a steak house, a nice little bistro. By the time the kids came along, “date night” had become a monthly tradition. Their last dinner out had been a massive splurge at the Allegro Romano on San Francisco’s Russian Hill, just a week before she was killed.
The rich scents of fine Italian food were a slap to the face that momentarily overwhelmed him with all he’d lost. It was too much. Too fresh. Four years of dealing with it, of telling himself the next day would be better, of putting on the good face for the kids, and here it all was as immediate as yesterday and as harsh as forever.
Air. He needed air. He turned back for the door as it swung open. Out of the evening light, a vision came toward him. Perrin had somehow walked the line between dressing for him and for his children. She wore a simple evening gown of bright red. Thin straps curving behind her neck and exposing bare shoulders told him that the dress was probably backless beneath the light shawl that had slipped down to hang by her elbows. All of her sleek form was traced, enhanced by the simple lines of the dress. Elbow-long gloves of the same material only enhanced the image. It covered, but it promised.
During their one night together, he’d done his best to memorize every one of her gentle curves. Her gown invited him to appreciate them anew.
Then he focused on the woman who had arrived holding Perrin’s hand.
Woman?!
“Tammy?”
She managed a curtsey then a brilliant smile that she shared with Perrin. Her dress, rather than the knockout statement of bright red, was as dark and dusky as her hair. It followed the lines of Perrin’s, obviously the dresses had been designed to complement each other, but it was far more demure. Where Perrin’s elegantly revealed, Tammy’s dress modestly suggested.
He knew Tammy had a figure, he’d helped her buy her first training bra for crying out loud, an incredibly embarrassing moment for both of them, though he’d done his best not to let on. But without him noticing, she’d started growing into her mother’s beautiful figure. The dress followed her lines, which made her pretty rather than enticing. Instead of the bare shoulder-backless look that Perrin wore, it was actually as high-necked as a turtleneck. A simple silver chain an accent to the deep red material that covered her so chastely. And it wasn’t merely dressing up a child in a fancy dress, she wore it as a woman would, fully aware of her own impact upon those around her.
“It’s the Princess-to-be,” he still had trouble equating this growing girl with his own daughter. “Tammy, you’re gorgeous.”
Her glowing smile and bright giggle did nothing to destroy the image.
He wrapped her into a hug, which she returned more strongly than she had in a couple of years.
He mouthed a, “Thank you” to Perrin over his daughter’s head.
Perrin reached out a gloved finger and brushed it along his cheek.
“So,” Perrin broke the tableau and looked at Jaspar. “Are you too busy being incredibly handsome or would you be willing to escort me into dinner?”
# # #
Jaspar took Ms. Williams’ hand and led her forward without any hesitation about coming in contact with a “girl.” He knew that’s what was expected of him tonight. His job was to be the “little grownup gentleman” and do whatever the adults said. He could see how important this was to everyone, except him. He was like a chorus member in an opera; kill him off in Act I and no one really notices whether or not he rejoins the villagers in Act III.
A glance back showed Tammy all dressed up in her girl dress as if she was already an adult, her hand on Dad’s arm like they were on a date together. Well, she wasn’t fooling him. Jaspar knew for a fact that spiders still creeped her out and she hated most kinds of fish. “Dog food,” she called it when Dad wasn’t listening.
A pretty lady, dressed in a neat black dress that didn’t make her look like she was all on display or all pretending to be grown up, greeted him with a pleasant, “Ciao.” It was an Italian restaurant. He’d missed that. Carlo should be here. He’d like i
t.
“Ciao,” Jaspar’s reply made her smile like she really meant it. He dug for Carlo’s Italian lessons and tried to make complete sentences without stumbling over them too much. “Quattro per la cena. Il nom...nome? Cullen.” Then he remembered to add a polite, “Per favore.”
Ms. Williams said something that sounded like a compliment, but he didn’t care. The waitress’s smile grew, “Bueno sera, Signor Cullen. Benvenuto a Angelo’s. Mi chiamo Graziella.” Her accent was different than Carlo’s. It was lighter and fit a girl. Even a grown up one. And she’d spoken slowly enough that he had time to translate “good evening,” “welcome,” and that her name was Graziella.
Jaspar eyed Ms. Williams without really looking. She was so tall and her hair was still that weird color that had made Tam stop wanting to be around him. The waitress, with her long dark hair and quiet face would be better for Dad than Ms. Williams. And she already spoke Italian and had treated him like an adult.
“You, boy!” Ms. Williams had said when they tore up the drawings. Sure, she’d made it fun, but everyone kept calling him “boy,” like a baby. No one was calling Tam “girl” anymore. It was all of a sudden “young woman this” and “young woman that.”
The waitress greeted Ms. Williams and Dad like she already knew them, and then led them to their table. She wore a ring, but it had no big diamond. And lots of girls wore rings, it didn’t mean they were married.
# # #
“You have to be kidding me, Angelo.” Bill sipped his espresso and enjoyed the perfect brewing of it. “No one can learn to cook that well in just thirty years. You sure you aren’t at least, oh, three hundred and something.”
Angelo grinned at Bill’s words and sipped his own espresso. He must get a hundred such compliments a day, but still he appeared genuinely pleased.
Angelo had joined them for a few moments after the meal. The kids were polishing off their apple sorbet with caramel glaze sprinkled with pistachios as voraciously as their manners allowed.
Perrin rested one of her gloved hands on Angelo’s arm, but turned to Bill. “He is always this magnificent, except if Jo comes to dinner. Then he is too distracted. We almost had to ban her from the restaurant for ruining our food during their courtship.”
“Uh, but how did you straighten that out?”
“Easy,” Perrin answered for him. “He married her.” Her saucy wink told him that while her words had been for the kids, it had actually straightened out before that, probably when Angelo and Jo had become lovers.
Angelo captured Perrin’s hand and kissed it. “It’s all Perrin’s doing. If not for her, my Jo might well have slipped away and my life would have been ruined.”
As if Bill needed yet another reason to respect this woman.
Bill thought back over the dinner at Angelo’s Hearth. It was the first time they’d all been together, since the pizza night. They’d all been present at rehearsals together several times, but that wasn’t the same thing. Tonight they’d had a meal as a family.
Perrin had sat across from Jaspar and beside Tammy. It was a perfect, thoughtful choice. Had she sat across from him, he’d have been too distracted and paid no attention to the kids. Instead, the children had been included throughout the dinner.
She’d made them laugh with stories of the crazy clothing that people had asked her to make. Some of them so fanciful as to be wholly impossible, yet she told each story as if it was absolutely true. By the end he believed every tale, well, except for the one about the representative from the Vulcan Science Academy’s Wardrobe Mistress coming to Earth to order fancy party robes for their high council. But the rest of it she made sound at least possible if not wholly believable.
Tammy had talked about sewing her dress, she’d done a lot of it herself, albeit from Perrin’s design. Still, it was so beautifully made that it totally floored Bill. “She made me take out the seams an awful lot of times before I made it right.” He still couldn’t get over the fact that not only was his daughter a teenager, but she looked like one.
Jaspar had worked on his Italian with them, especially when he discovered that Graziella, the beautiful young maître d’ who Bill had met only briefly at Maria’s dinner, spoke fluent Italian. She kept coming by the table, leaving behind another few words with each passing. And, unless Bill was vastly mistaken, she’d also started Jaspar on his first major crush. Being informed that she was newly married didn’t abate his ardor in the slightest. Apparently he saw that as no obstacle in whatever his plans were.
“Hey kids,” Angelo looked toward them, “want to see what our kitchen looks like?”
“I bet it has a stove and everything,” Tammy offered him with a laugh.
Angelo did his best to look hurt, but didn’t succeed very well.
Perrin elbowed her and the two of them, thick as thieves, rose to follow before Angelo could even pretend a decent whimper.
“Where the women lead, we must follow,” he told his son, and they followed along behind Angelo.
It was quite the scene. A woman, who might have been Graziella’s evil, though equally attractive twin, was hopping up and down on one foot in her impatience. “C’mon, Manuel, if you cooked any slower you’d be as bad as Angelo.”
“Ah, Luisa,” the Mexican chef at the center of the cook line teased back as he slid across a beautiful plate that must be the braised venison with wild morel sauce that Bill had almost ordered. “Beware, señora. You encourage me to follow in the footsteps of the maestro.”
Luisa growled, dressed the plate with tiny dots of some dark sauce, and turned around with perfect timing to place it in Graziella’s hand just as she breezed through the kitchen.
Perrin was leading the kids down the line to meet everyone. Without breaking their amazing flow, they greeted his kids as if this was a normal thing to do, and even described a bit of what they were doing.
Angelo remained beside Bill, off to the side watching the line’s progress. He nodded once to himself, clearly satisfied with what he was seeing.
“Maria will be sorry that she missed a chance to meet your children. She starts early and usually leaves before dinner service.”
“She works here?”
Angelo eyed him carefully. “With how long you spent talking to my Mama at dinner on Tuesday, I thought you would know everything. She is the best pastry chef you can imagine.”
“Uh, I kind of remember that,” Bill searched his memory. It was there, but way down the list. “We talked about a lot of things that night.”
Angelo nodded down the cook line to where Perrin and the kids were sampling a red sauce, though where they’d fit another bite after that meal, he had no idea.
“I’ve known Perrin for two years. She’s a very positive person, always glad to see you, always great fun to be around.”
“But?” Bill could hear it clear as day. However good they were together, their relationship was still fragile. If Perrin’s friends decided Bill and his family weren’t good for her in some way, it could shatter what little they’d built so far. He knew Perrin sometimes relied on them more than herself in such matters. But that didn’t seem right somehow. Maybe she only let them think they did… She still confused him much of the time.
“But,” Angelo acknowledged his question. “I always assumed she was happy. But now that I see her overflowing with it around you and your children, I have to wonder about how she truly felt all this time I’ve known her.”
Bill didn’t know what to say to that one. From the moment that she’d shattered his pigeon-holing of her, by staggering into the Opera drunk with exhaustion and glowing like the Empress, he’d only ever seen her as joyous.
But happy? And that he and his family made her feel that way was something else again. A part of him worried that some addictive part of her past had become dependent on him for her happiness.
Then he had to remind himse
lf that the Perrin Williams he knew was strong and incredibly smart. Maybe Angelo had known a different Perrin. But the one Bill knew didn’t strike him as the sort of person to entrust her emotional well-being to another. Share with them, absolutely. Care about their opinion? She couldn’t help it, she wanted everyone around her to be happy too. Depend on them for how she felt? Not a chance.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Angelo, she’s making me damned happy as well.”
Perrin and the kids began heading back from the far end of the cook line, each bearing another serving of the dessert. Even the somewhat fierce Luisa stopped her service to meet the kids.
“Back when Russell and I were first bringing girls home to the kitchen where Mama cooked for Russell’s parents, she said something to us that I’ve always tried to do. ‘Follow the quiet voice of joy. Follow it like nothing else matters.’ Best damn advice Mama ever gave me. It’s why I cook. It’s why I’m married to Jo. Might have made the road a little easier if we’d listened to her a bit more often.”
“You ended up in an amazing spot, Angelo.”
“I did, my friend.” His friendly thump on Bill’s back was almost as solid as one he’d deliver to Russell. It was an acceptance. A welcoming.
As he returned to the cook line, Angelo kissed Perrin on each cheek, scruffed Jaspar’s hair, and bowed so deeply to Tammy that she blushed fiercely.
“Hey, where’s my second dessert?” Bill complained as they reached him.
Perrin held out a spoonful of caramel-covered sorbet. “If I have to finish this on my own, I’ll die of a pleasure overdose. You have to help me.”
He took the bite, and did his best to relish the quiet voice of joy, as the four of them stood to the side watching the busy kitchen and eating their three desserts.
Chapter 14
Since the dinner, it had been a great week for Bill. The sets for Ascension were almost back on schedule, not quite, but that was normal with only a couple weeks to go until opening night.
Where Dreams Unfold Page 16