His Perfect Woman (Urban Hearts Series Book 1) (21 page)

A-5

There was nothing better than a Colorado blue sky in May. The spring winds had chased some of the city smog into Kansas and the sun gleamed against the mountains to the west. College kids in shorts and halter tops dotted campuses like multi-colored tulips springing up in a field. May was also the beginning of wedding season and this would be Azure’s first full season as a wedding planner.

So far, she’d had a steady enough business to keep her going. The Vail wedding had brought in enough money to coast her through a month or two, and February had been good, lots of Valentine’s Day weddings, but March and April had been her lean months, so she was ready to work.

“Eli, come on. You’re going to be late,” she called from downstairs as she rushed around, loading various articles into her huge bag. Mal called it the
bag that holds everything
and was a necessary instrument to her business. Opening the door to the pantry, she pulled a bottle of water, two granola bars, and an apple and chucked them into the bag. Grabbing another granola bar and a smaller apple for Eli’s lunch, she heard his footsteps on the stairs. “There you are, honey. You don’t want to be late. It’s your last week of school.”

Eli walked in carrying a large sheet of construction paper.

“I made a picture for Mrs. Sperry. See?” He held it out to her as she searched through kitchen drawers. Batteries, stamps, a small screwdriver, paper clips and a tiny tube of cable ties went into her bag. She looked at his drawing. It was an enormous blue sky with a plane in the middle of it and tiny people on the ground. “That’s you,” he pointed to a stick woman with a shock of dark hair sticking up. Azure absently ran a hand through her hair. “And that’s Daddy and Grandmum.” Two other figures, one tall and one short, were on the opposite side of the page. His parents on opposing sides, both on the page and in his world, Azure thought guiltily. It has been a rocky few months after Jonathan moved to England—Eli’s normally sweet disposition turning petulant and whiny to the point of numerous teacher conferences.  Mrs. Sperry had been a godsend when Azure explained the situation and gradually, Eli was adjusting.

“Very nice, kiddo. And you’re in the plane?” Az squinted at the tiny square windows on the plane. Sure enough, there was a circle in one of them. 

“Yep. And Auntie Lindy’s there too, see?” he pointed again. Az did not see, but she hummed assent anyway.

“Of course. Here’s your lunch.” She handed him the carrier. “Okay. Now all I need to find is my…Let Opti out, please.” She grabbed a tiny make-up bag from her bathroom as Eli let the cat, Optimus Prime, out the back door. “Good, let’s go.”

They rushed to the Volvo sedan parked outside. Eli had named the car BumbleBee, and originally she’d thought  it was so named because of its rounded shape and butter yellow color. It wasn’t until she saw the movie, that Az realized BumbleBee was—like the cat, another Transformers character.  Prior to pulling out of their subdivision and into the busy Denver traffic, Azure looked in the rearview at her son.  He was playing with an action figure from his backpack, the picture for his teacher rolled up and held by a rubber band at his side.

“Ready?” she smiled at her son. Eli looked up and nodded, a grin flashing momentarily across his face.

After dropping him off at school, Azure spent her day with a young bride named Megan. Their first stop was the linen supply house, where the two of them sat at a table with patterns and samples bound together in large books. Stacks of table cloths and napkins lined the walls. Each pattern, each set of linens had a name: Savannah Breeze, Summertime, Indigo Night.  Az flipped through the book, and a name stuck out.
Remember Memphis
.

Wasn’t that a song—some country song back in the eighties? She flipped more pages, but barely saw them. Instead, she kept thinking about Memphis and of course, remembering.

She’d been to Memphis a couple of times—once with Toby, her gay tech guy, and once with Jerry, her former boss. Those times had been a blur of conference work, dance clubs, and plates of spicy barbeque rinsed down with liberal amounts of beer and vodka martinis. She also remembered a spectacular hangover and Toby throwing up in her bathroom.

But Memphis with Ross was etched like a crystal pattern in her mind. After they watched Toby scout a long-limbed young man, they made their escape out into the street. The humid night air stuck to them with scents of beer and barbeque.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“Where ever you want to take me.” She certainly remembered Memphis.

Azure shook herself out of her daydream and pulled another big sample book of linens toward her and her bride.

“Don’t you think white is out?” Megan said, a little fearfully. She was so timid.  Az had worked for days trying to get her to come on these scouting trips without her overbearing mother.

“White is classic, but if you don’t want white, we don’t have to have it. With your colors, the dark blue would work, as well as a maroon.”

Megan leaned in, whispering. “Mama always wants me to get the traditional stuff. But I think something other than white would be cool.”

Az smiled, shoving the large book away and standing up.

“Let’s go look at what they have available. I’m sure we’ll find something.”

Gradually, with every decision made, Megan became surer of herself, and the day flew by. Azure only hit a small glitch at the food tasting. Biting into a deviled shrimp puff, its vinegar smell brought back a vision of Ross eating barbeque.

“God, this is good.” He looked like nirvana and Az was glued to the sight of his tongue coming out and nabbing the vinegary sauce off of a knuckle. They were at an outdoor café, just one street off of Beale. At the scent of real barbeque coming from the establishment, she had suggested they stay and have a sample. Ross seemed pleased when she ordered ribs and fries. “But don’t forget, you promised me jazz or blues too.” He grinned at her from behind a sparerib.

“Early is the night, young Jedi.” She spoke in her best Yoda voice and had no idea why she was being so corny. It must have been the beer. He was undaunted, answering her in a silly imitation of Austin Powers.  At her glance, he apologized.

“Sorry, can’t do Luke Skywalker.”

His British accent was worse than Mike Myers’. Az just smiled at his wild inflection and listened to quote after quote from the movies as they walked down the street. Occasionally, his arm would brush hers or be at her back as the increased foot traffic jostled them. But then he’d move away, re-establishing the polite distance.

At the club, there’d been no room for such niceties. Lucky to find a tiny table in the corner in the packed place, they’d sat side by side as the quartet started their second set for the night.  As the night went on, Ross let had his arm drape over the back of her chair. At first, she’d been nervous about leaning back, but the music had carried her somewhere else, and she’d relaxed, feeling the warmth of his arm across her.

“What do you think of the mini quiches?” Megan was asking. At the words, Az pulled out of the memory and looked down at the bite-sized morsel in her hand.

“The crab is good, but the bacon asparagus is wonderful and not so standard.”

“I’d like to have both, but Mama thinks it’d be overwhelming to have too many kinds of appetizers.”

“You do have a full dinner, but if you did half of each, it’s the same price. That way you can have both and I don’t think five is overwhelming. It is a long cocktail reception.”

Megan smiled brightly at the thought of overruling her mother.

“Have you decided on the music?” Az asked. “Are you still going with a DJ? Because if not, we have to book someone early.”

“Oh no, Carl was definite about the music—no bands. “ Megan said firmly. And Azure wondered if the girl wasn’t exchanging an overbearing mother for an overbearing husband. But she was here as a wedding planner, not a marriage counselor. If she talked every unsuitable couple out of getting married, she’d be broke. How she could see this so clearly in other relationships and not in her own still baffled her.

“Okay, good” Az checked her phone. She had to be across town to pick up Eli in forty minutes. “So next Thursday at the dressmakers for your last dress fitting, are you excited?”  They walked to their separate cars as Megan chattered about the dress and thanked her profusely for all her help so far. “That’s what I’m here for.” She thumbed her phone screen back as Megan drove away. The screen saver was a picture of Eli at his birthday—a paper cone hat askew on his mop of curls.

“He’s cute. You should have more.” Ross had said as they exchanged phones to look at pictures. It was very late, and they’d ended up at another bar, a plate of nachos between them. Maybe it was the way she said thanks. And he caught something in her voice. Or maybe it was the three drinks, but she’d stammered out the story of how she’d gone into labor a month early. She and Jonathan, newly married and scared to be parents anyway, rushing to the hospital, her blood all over the car seat—the medical staff at the hospital telling her how lucky she was that they’d managed to save her uterus, but that future pregnancies would be very high risk. What good was a uterus if you weren’t going to use it? She’d finger quoted the words high risk when she’d told him as if she still doubted their word.

She remembered handing him back his phone with the picture of his girlfriend, remembered having run a hand across her unruly spikes of hair and pressing her lips tight together to give them a little color.

In front of the school, she brushed her hair out of her eyes in the rearview mirror as Eli got in the car.

“Hey kiddo, how was your day?” she asked as he buckled himself into the booster behind her.

“Ms. Sperry liked my picture.” He beamed and then hesitated as if he were thinking about how to put a sentence together. “Darius said it was dumb. There was too much sky. He’s going to Disneyland for his vacation.” Eli frowned. He loved amusement parks and they had yet to do the granddaddy of them all—Disneyland.

“Well, you can tell Darius that where you’re going they have real castles, not just fairy tale ones.”

“Yeah.” Eli nodded in her rearview mirror and she saw him pull out his Barkugan figures before she focused on the traffic ahead of her.

Drinks with Malinda was just the sort of thing she needed after the week she’d had—the week of bridezilla’s lost shoes, sick photographers and snarky groomsmen. Azure had survived them all, even with a nasty cold harboring somewhere in the back of her throat. She kept it at bay with serious amounts of herbal tea, ramen noodles laced with hot sauce and shots of vodka

Throughout the week, she’d kept Ross’s letter tucked away in the zippered portion of her bag that held everything. For some reason, she felt better having it with her, like she carried a bit of her past and what might have been. She hadn’t had the courage to contact him.

“I’ll have a Golden Cadillac number four, please.” Malinda ordered a different drink every time they had cocktails and Az had probably heard a hundred and three drink names over the years. The waiter looked at her blandly.

“Number four?”

“Tell the bartender to make a Golden Cadillac and add a jigger of Vanilla Vodka.”  Mal smiled and blinked at him innocently. He sighed a great and terrible sigh and turned to Az without a word. She was tempted to order a Purple Nurple just to see him toss his cocktail napkins in the air and stomp away. But she had no idea what a Purple Nurple was so she just ordered a Margarita, extra salt.

She turned to Mal. “Number four? Really? Do they have a two and three?”

“Well, no. So it’s probably a number two, but who wants to order a number two of anything?”

“No one, I’m sure.”

Mal had been late by a mere four minutes, something of a record for her and she breezed in wearing blue jeans, green Converse sneakers and a polo shirt in green and orange stripes. the entire outfit made her look fifteen instead of almost thirty. Their waiter hadn’t bothered to card her, but he hesitated as he served their drinks. Mal took a healthy swallow and pronounced her wild concoction satisfactory, waving him away. She leaned back against the booth and cracked her neck, rolling her head side to side.

“Did you just come from yoga class or something?” Grinning, Mal said, “Barry and I were trying this tantric sex thing. I think I pulled a muscle.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“Ha, no.  But good one, I may use that later. That’s my week. How’s yours? You sound sick. Are you getting sick?”

“I refuse to. As for my week, my photographer was hacking up a lung and my bride lost her bridal shoes–apparently she sent them out to be dyed lavender and they never came back.”

“I don’t blame them, I wouldn’t want to be dyed lavender either.”

“You’re wearing green shoes, Mal.”

“Green is a perfectly acceptable color for shoes.”

“You think green is acceptable for everything.”

“It is. I wish this drink were green.” Mar stirred her cocktail.

“Then it would be a grasshopper, not a Cadillac.”

“Ah grasshopper, you have much to learn.”

Comments like that were the exact reason Az sought out her companion after  particularly bad days because one was never allowed to wallow in self-pity or exhaustion or uncertainty when Mal was with them. They were too busy keeping up.