Chasing Dreams

by Deborah Raney

  She tapped the reservation book. “You’re on the list. Have a nice day.” It was all Jo could do to restrain herself from asking him about Maria. But she wouldn’t cross that professional line. Watching him stand with his back to her, waiting for the elevator, she wondered again what his relationship was to Maria Castillo. With his thick, almost black hair, he could have been Latino like Maria. But his complexion was much lighter than Maria’s, even given how her illness had grayed her skin. And Jo had noticed that Lukas Blaine’s eyes were gray, a paler shade that—under the fluorescent lights of the office—seemed to have gold flecks.

  The elevator arrived and he stepped on. When he turned to press the button, Jo was embarrassed to be caught staring at him. She wiped damp palms on the emerald green fabric of her dress.

  He gave a little wave across the hall as if he appreciated her appraisal. She nodded briefly and busied herself with the papers on her desk, willing the elevator doors to hurry up and close.

  Thankfully, her phone rang from her purse just then. She retrieved it and checked the display. “Hey, Phee. What’s up?”

  “How would you like to be a wedding planner?”

  The elevator door closed and with a sigh of relief, she turned her attention to her sister. “Wedding planner? What do you mean?”

  “We just set a date.” A little squeal escaped her sister.

  “Are you serious? You and Quinn?”

  “Of course, me and Quinn. Who else would I mean?”

  “So, you really did propose to him.”

  “Cut it out, Jo. It was mutual. But we’re doing this. We’re really doing this. Quinn doesn’t want to wait. And neither do I. Mark June 24 on your calendar.”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing would come out.

  “Jo? Hello? Are you there?”

  “June? As in next month June?”

  Phee giggled. “That’s the one.”

  “Are you crazy? I just saw you an hour ago, Phee. How did you manage to set a wedding date between the time I drove out of the driveway and”—she glanced at the clock above the elevator—“10:17 a.m.?”

  “Coffee break.” That girlish giggle again. “Quinn stopped by the flower shop while I was on my break and … one thing led to another and ta-da!” Phee was a different person since she and Quinn had declared their love.

  Jo wasn’t sure she liked this giddy version of her older sister. She quickly amended the thought. She was just jealous. Jealous her sister had found what Jo had always dreamed about. And what she’d thought she had with Ben.

  Ben. She tried so hard not to let his name enter her thoughts. But rarely was she successful. She and Ben Harven had dated for almost a year before he’d shown his true colors. When Mom started going downhill, Ben couldn’t handle losing Jo’s undivided attention. And apparently he didn’t like being around “sick people.”

  Jo had been embarrassed and furious and heartbroken. Mostly heartbroken. And yet, she was glad his betrayal had shown her the selfish, petty side of him before things grew any more serious between them.

  “Jo? You still there?”

  “Phee … Sorry. I … I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.”

  “Well, get to wrapping, sister. I already talked to Dad and he’s coming back. To walk me down the aisle.”

  “Oh, Phee. I’m so happy for you.”

  She wondered how Dad felt about Phee’s announcement. Only a few weeks ago, just months after Mom’s death, they’d learned that Mom had been married before and that it was quite possible, likely even, that Dad wasn’t actually Phylicia’s birth father. And to Jo’s surprise, Phee and Dad both seemed content not to probe the issue any deeper.

  Jo wasn’t sure she could have left the unknown alone if it had been her whose paternity was in question. Especially with the health issues Mom had dealt with. Of course, they knew Mom’s health history—and at her insistence, they’d all had regular checkups with an oncologist.

  “Thanks, sis. I’m so happy I’m almost … scared to let myself believe this is happening.”

  “Oh, Phee … Nobody deserves this more than you do. And I really am happy for you, but … June? That’s only six weeks away.”

  “Actually, almost seven.”

  “You do know that wedding invitations are supposed to go out six weeks minimum before the event.”

  “Then we’ve got our work cut out for us this weekend, don’t we?”

  “Phee! You are flat-out crazy, woman!”

  “Don’t worry. We’re doing everything simple—and cheap. Just a quiet ceremony and a cake reception. I don’t care about a big wedding. Especially without Mom.”

  “I get that.” She’d had that very thought when she imagined her own wedding … however far in the future that might be. It wouldn’t be the same without Mom to share their joy. And with Dad there alone.

  She blew out a sigh, scrambling to fathom how they’d ever pull off a wedding—even a simple one—in six weeks. “I guess you’ve got the flowers covered.”

  “Yes. I haven’t told Mary yet, but that poor woman has been waiting seven years for me to get married so she can do my flowers. I’m pretty sure she’ll say yes.”

  Joanna gave a humorless laugh. “Okay, so the flowers are taken care of. Have you reserved a church?” Since they’d started hanging out with Quinn, the four of them had gone back and forth between the Chandler family’s church in Langhorne and Quinn’s community church in Cape Girardeau. A wedding would probably make Phee have to choose a church home.

  Not for the first time, Jo worried about how Phee’s marriage would affect their plans for the property—the Airbnb enterprise she and her sisters had named The Cottages on Poplar Brook Road and that the three of them had planned to run together.

  “Funny you should ask.” The mysterious note in Phee’s voice made Joanna nervous.

  “Funny why?”

  “Quinn and I thought maybe we could get married outdoors. Up in the clearing. After all, it’s where I proposed.” Phee laughed at the running joke that she’d been the one to propose to Quinn. But she sounded absolutely gleeful.

  “You can’t be serious, Phee. There is no clearing. Have you been up there lately? It would take a Bush Hog and a small army with machetes to clear enough space for a wedding party, let alone a bunch of guests.” She looked at the calendar on the office wall beside her, its squares filled with appointments. And that wasn’t even her personal social calendar. Oh, who are you kidding, Joanna Chandler. You have no social life.

  “Not a bunch of guests.” Phee’s voice pulled her back. “I told you we want a small wedding. Very simple.”

  “Well, there would be nothing simple about getting that clearing ready for a wedding.”

  But even as she spoke the words, Jo knew that no matter what it took, there would, indeed, be a wedding in that clearing. And they had barely six weeks to pull it off.

  CHAPTER 4

  LUKE STEPPED UNDER THE CRISP white tent, let the duffle bag slide from his shoulder, and scoped out the lay of the land. Twinkle lights crisscrossed from pole to pole overhead, flirting with the yellow glow of tea light candles that flickered on each of the round tables. Somebody had spent some bucks on this wedding reception. Figured. Two doctors’ kids.

  Luke motioned for Mateo to follow him. “Stick close, okay, buddy?”

  The twelve-year-old tugged at the collar of his crisp white shirt as if it were choking him to death. Luke could see the outline of the brown bead necklace under his dress shirt. Mateo had worn that necklace—matching the one Luke wore—for almost five years. Maria said he never took it off, not even to shower.

  The DJ table was set up to one side of the dance floor with easy access to an exit. Good. If Mateo got antsy, he could play outside.

  Luke gripped the boy’s shoulder. “Remember, we’re supposed to be invisible.”

  Mateo jerked out of his grasp. He was still holding a grudge that Luke had made him dress up for the occasion.

  “Listen
, short-stuff, I could have made you wear a tie too.”

  Mateo snarled. “Yeah right. That is not happening.”

  “Don’t forget you’re getting wedding cake out of the deal.”

  “And champagne?” The boy’s dark eyebrows rose optimistically.

  “Yeah right. That is not happening.” Luke did an admirable job of parroting Mateo’s tone.

  Which coaxed a half-grin from the kid. Luke laughed at the tenacity of his “little brother,” but hoped he wouldn’t regret bringing Mateo on this gig. Or more like he hoped the bride wouldn’t regret it.

  But with Maria so ill, Luke hadn’t had much choice but to bring Mateo with him tonight. After the incident in that attorney’s office Tuesday, Maria had seemed utterly defeated. Mateo told him on the drive out to the venue that his mom had been in bed most of the week. Luke felt responsible. He’d been the one to suggest Maria contact the law firm. Mostly because it was the only local one he knew much about. The radio station had used the firm’s services a few times, but he should have done more research. And he certainly should have known that Maria couldn’t afford a big-name firm like Pritchert & Pritchert.

  Luke assumed Maria’s distant family in California had agreed to take Mateo, though she rarely spoke of extended family and didn’t seem to be close to any of them. Luke had assured her that Mateo could stay with him until someone could get to Missouri. Still, she’d insisted that everything be in writing. Legal. She’d been terrified of Mateo going “into the system.”

  Luke didn’t think Mateo knew about what happened at the law office, but he hated that the kid had to see his mother that way. And though Luke hadn’t felt it was his place—nor did he have the courage—to bring up the subject with Mateo, surely the boy knew that his mother didn’t have long to live. Had Maria talked to him about where he would go when that happened?

  He shuddered, dreading that day already.

  Maria had seemed grateful when Luke offered to take Mateo with him tonight. He’d been bugging Luke to show him where he worked. Granted, these DJ gigs weren’t exactly what paid the bills, but they were a far cry more interesting than Luke’s desk job at the radio station in Langhorne. And after almost five years as Mateo’s Big Brother, he trusted the boy enough to know he’d be on his best behavior if Luke let him know how important it was.

  “Grab that bag for me, would you? And be careful with it.”

  Mateo hefted the bulky duffle bag and followed Luke to the other side of the tent.

  The night was chilly and Luke wished he’d brought a heavier jacket—and had Maria send warmer clothes with Mateo. But things would warm up once the reception got underway. He didn’t know the bride or groom, but the groom’s uncle worked with Luke at KQOZ and had arranged a nice discount on the DJ’s fees as his wedding gift to the couple. Sounded more like a gift from him, Lukas Blaine—or MO-DJ as his little business was called. For a couple he didn’t even know. But whatever. He was a pushover. And the truth was, he enjoyed moonlighting as a DJ.

  Mateo helped him set up the equipment and check the sound system. Luke meant it when he told him, “Man, I wish I’d thought to bring you with me on these gigs a long time ago.”

  The boy’s brown eyes shone at the compliment, and it struck Luke that Mateo looked more like his mother every day. He’d been a pudgy seven-year-old when the Big Brothers program had first matched him with Luke, but in the past year, playing middle school soccer had thinned him out and put a little swagger in his step. Luke knew Maria worried as Mateo got older that he’d become cocky and self-absorbed.

  “Like his father,” Maria had said with a grimace that revealed more than she’d likely intended.

  “He’s just at that age,” Luke assured her. “He’ll grow out of it.”

  “Well if he does not, I will count on you to nip it in the butt.”

  Luke had cracked up, and seeing her curious expression, explained that the saying was “nip it in the bud. You know, like nipping off the bud of a flower before it can bloom?”

  Maria repeated the phrase as if committing it to memory. “Well, you have my permission to nip Mateo in the butt as well, if that’s what it takes.”

  He’d laughed harder, admiring the way she parented her son, firmly but with great love.

  Maria’s parents had immigrated to the United States from Mexico when she was a young teenager, and she’d worked hard to remove any trace of an accent. But sometimes American idioms still tripped her up. Luke felt bad the first time he corrected her, thinking it might offend. But she claimed she appreciated it and tasked him with alerting her any time she slipped up. He secretly loved it when Mexico lilted into her intonation—usually when she was disciplining Mateo.

  Luke did one last sound check and turned to Mateo. “That should do it. Now all we have to do is wait for the wedding party to arrive. You ever been to a wedding before?”

  “My dad’s cousin got married out in California. I carried the rings on a pillow. Had to wear a tuxedo and everything.”

  “Ah, the ring bearer.”

  “I guess. Mama has a picture in her album, but I don’t remember it. I was only three or something.” His eyes clouded. Probably thinking about his father.

  Maria had married Ricardo Castillo only a year after the man came to the United States. Too late, she suspected that he’d married her to gain his citizenship, and he’d left her for another woman and gone back to Mexico when Mateo was only four.

  Ricardo had been killed in a motorcycle crash a year later, and Maria confessed to Luke that she was relieved when she heard the news because she’d lived in fear that her ex-husband might try to get custody of Mateo and take him back to Mexico.

  Mateo claimed he barely remembered his father, but Luke suspected he had some memories, especially since, at the time Maria signed him up to be a Little Brother, Mateo had been acting out, exhibiting aggression in school and even toward Maria.

  Maria always told Luke that he’d played a huge role in helping Mateo get his impulses under control. Luke wasn’t sure how true that was, but he knew the relationship—and his friendship with Mateo’s mother—had enriched his own life and given him a sense of purpose he hadn’t even realized he needed. He would be forever grateful to the campaign the radio station had run for the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization. He fingered the beads that circled his neck and tugged absently at the tarnished silver charm shaped like the BBBS logo—a “big” and “little” with the shadows of their outstretched arms forming a heart. Luke had signed up to be a Big Brother more out of obligation than conviction, never dreaming he would still be involved five years later.

  Luke put a hand on Mateo’s shoulder. “I should probably warn you that it might get a little mushy out there”—he nodded in the direction of the dance floor—“kissing and stuff like that.”

  “Kissing? Gross! Why didn’t you tell me?” Mateo made a gagging sound and pulled a face that made Luke laugh out loud.

  “Huh-uh, none of that. And no puking allowed either. You’re just going to have to man up and gut it out. You can look away if it gets too bad.”

  “I’m gonna need some champagne.”

  He cocked his head. “How do you even know what champagne is?”

  “Duh. I’ve been to a wedding before. And also, we have this thing called a TV.”

  “Well, don’t even joke about it. Champagne, I mean. Your mother would kill me.”

  “No she wouldn’t. She likes you.”

  Luke tensed. It shouldn’t have surprised him that Mateo had noticed. After all, he’d noticed.

  For a while, after Luke realized that Maria Castillo was attracted to him, he’d considered ending the Big Brother relationship with Mateo. But by then, he’d invested so much to foster Mateo’s trust he couldn’t bring himself to let the boy down, and he really did feel bad for Maria. He put up invisible walls with Maria and was careful to limit their time together. Thankfully, Maria had never once violated the unspoken boundaries.

  And the
n she’d been diagnosed with cancer and that had consumed everything. When he thought of what was now inevitable—that the beautiful young woman would soon take her final breath—Luke was overwhelmed with sadness.

  The crunch of tires on gravel made him and Mateo turn and peer beneath the tent’s canopy. Half a dozen cars rumbled up the lane to where the tent was pitched, leaving a cloud of dust in their wake.

  Half an hour later the tables were full and the room buzzed with laughter and lively conversation as guests waited for the wedding party.

  Luke got the signal that the bridal couple was about to make their entrance and he switched into DJ mode, feeling strangely self-conscious with Mateo looking on. This would be a side of him his Little Brother had never seen before.

  He double-checked the cheat sheet in his breast pocket. “All right, folks. Let’s give a big hand for the beautiful bride and her groom. Presenting …”—he nodded for Mateo to cue up the drumroll track the way he’d shown him earlier—“Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Novotny!”

  He started the mash-up the couple had chosen for their grand entrance. The guests rose and cheered as the bride and groom ducked under the canopy hand in hand, wearing matching thousand-watt smiles.

  During the traditional dances, Luke caught a couple of the groomsmen getting a little too cozy with the bar, so when the father-daughter dance ended, he called for the wedding party to take the dance floor. Winking at Mateo—who watched him with a perplexed smile—he slid the fader up, and Andrew Gold’s “Thank You for Being a Friend” blasted through the venue.

  Once all eyes were on the dance floor, Luke clapped Mateo on the back and raised his voice to be heard over the festive roar. “Hey, good job, buddy. Looks like you’re ready to be a DJ’s assistant.”

  “As long as there’s no disgusting kissing involved.”

  Luke chuckled. “I give you two years to change your mind about that.”

  “No way!” Mateo’s shiny black hair swung with every adamant shake of his head. “Never gonna happen.”