Impossible Dreams (3 page)

Selene slammed down the phone and switched on the answering
machine before stabbing her pen in Maya’s direction. “You talked to
Axell Holm?
You
? My stars and garters, heaven help us. What did you say?”

Curling her fingers behind her head, Maya shrugged.
“What could I say? I know nothing about it. I just flattered his daughter
and offered an invitation for her to join us this summer. I’m not a
complete airhead, you realize.”

Selene sighed and dropped back in her chair. “I know.
You’re the one who stuck out the grind and got your teaching certificate.
I still don’t know how you did that.”

“Slept with the teachers.”

“Oh, don’t get all touchy on me, woman. Get a
grip. I just figure you got too much brains to stay with the program. College
is for those with no imagination.” She waved her hand hastily at
Maya’s glare. “I know, without the degree, we wouldn’t have
the school. Don’t rub it in. Just tell me everything Holm said. And why
the hell did he say it to you?”

“Because I’m the licensed owner and
administrator and you’re the flunky?” Maya suggested. “He
hasn’t figured out I’m just the figurehead yet. He said the mayor
favors the plan to build that shopping center over the hill. They want Mr.
Pfeiffer’s land for parking lot access and apparently, they’re
asking the state to condemn the property and pave a highway entrance through
here.”

“Yeah, that’s what I just heard too. Pfieffer
never said anything about it when he signed our lease.” Selene stared
gloomily at the blinking phone lines. “Reckon old Mayor Arnold heard
about me financing this place? Surely the man wouldn’t hold a grudge
since high school.”

Hearing the arrival of cars in the driveway, Maya groaned
and lowered her feet to the floor. “I don’t know what you and the
mayor have to do with each other, but I knew what Pfieffer was doing. His aura
was definitely ambiguous. If you’d just let me read your cards,
Selene—”

“Oh, hush. I don’t know why I got myself mixed
up with no honky mind-reader. You must have done a spell on me,” Selene
mocked as she released the answering machine and jammed her finger on a
blinking phone line. Her sculpted features reflected only pleasant concern as
she waved her partner out of the room, and her trash talk dissolved into perfectly
enunciated accents to the client on the other end of the line.

“’Cause this honky mind-reader knows a soft
touch when she sees one,” Maya called as she departed, knowing full well
Selene would hear her. Geminis were like that.

With a smile, she turned to greet the first student
traipsing in for the day. “Boffo butterflies, sugar. Did your mommy put
those in your hair for you?” She hugged the beaming little girl and
forgot about all the other problems waiting outside the door.

***

“Constance, you ought to be dressed by now.
You’ll be late for school.”

Harassed by an early morning call from a constituent, Axell
wiped his sleep-blurred eyes and struggled for patience with his eight-year-old
daughter. Still in her pajama top, her mousy hair a tangle of snarls, she stood
in bewilderment before a closet full of the finest clothes money could buy,
arranged in a neat row at a level she could reach. He’d thought
organizing her closet and drawers would help her to get ready faster in the
mornings. Apparently, the choices only prolonged her indecision.

He couldn’t see anything of himself in
Constance’s dainty features and fragile bone structure. Constance’s
mother had been petite, but she’d always been elegant. His wife’s
brown hair had been tipped with golden highlights and her lovely face had been
awash with color and life. Axell slammed the door on that memory.
Angela’s highlights had been artificial and the color, cosmetically
applied. Female emotion might forever be a mystery, but he’d learned
about feminine artifices the hard way.

There was nothing artificial about his daughter. Her
wide-eyed silence tugged at every heart string he didn’t possess. He had
no idea how to reach her.

“Let’s wear the blue dress today, shall
we?” he asked hopefully, pulling out a denim jumper.

Constance regarded the jumper doubtfully but began
unbuttoning her pajama top. Wondering if it was healthy for a father to help
dress an eight-year-old daughter, Axell turned and searched her drawers for
appropriate underwear and socks. He had to crawl under her bed and dresser for
her shoes. Finding only one ballet slipper, a pair of bunny slippers, and an
ancient tennis shoe, he combed the closet for a complete pair of anything. A
clunky pair of Nikes in hand, he turned to see how far Constance had
progressed.

The shoulder straps of the blue jumper hung loosely on her
bony shoulders. It definitely needed a shirt underneath. Frustration mounting,
Axell grabbed a red blouse from the closet rack. “Here, put this on — under
the dress,” he amended, remembering another morning when she’d worn
the shirt over the top. Didn’t girls automatically know what clothes to
wear and how to wear them?

Through it all, Constance remained silent. She never spoke
unless absolutely necessary. Some days, he wished she would chatter to fill the
silence of their monstrous house. Since Angela’s death, it had echoed
hollow as any tomb.

He didn’t know how to fill the silence any more than
he knew how to reach his daughter. She was growing up like one of those forlorn
waifs from the hideous velvet paintings his mother used to collect. He wished
his mother were here to guide him, but she had died when he was twelve. All the
women in his life had died and left him. The knowledge drained Axell’s
mouth dry as he watched his frail daughter reach for a brush. Should he lose
her...

Rubbing his face, he stopped those thoughts. Constance was
just going through a stage. The new after-school program would bring her out of
it. He didn’t have time to run her to ballet classes and music lessons
and tennis lessons every afternoon as Angela had. The after-school program was
just what she needed. He had to find some way of preventing the mayor from
shutting the school down as well as forcing that airheaded school administrator
to recognize the seriousness of the situation. Those were things he could
accomplish easier than persuading his daughter to talk.

Recalling the auburn-haired gypsy from the New Age shop,
Axell wondered if he just shouldn’t start shopping for a new school.

***

Glancing at his line-up of blue phone-message slips,
organized in order of priority, Axell crumpled the one he’d just
answered, and dropped it neatly in the wastebasket at his feet. He scribbled a
corresponding note in his day-planner, then sat back in his chair as he recognized
the brisk knock at his office door. There was no need to tell the visitor to
enter. From long acquaintance, he knew Katherine would enter whether he wished
it or not.

His assistant sailed in, impeccably attired, as always.
He’d often been told they’d make a good pair: they were both tall
and blond with a fashionable sense of style and a similar desire for order in a
disorderly world. However, no matter how much he admired Katherine’s
leggy good looks and sensible attitude, she stirred no interest other than
whatever bit of news or information she carried with her. The exchange of
gossip was the main basis of their relationship.

Networking, people called it, but in the good old days of
his neighborhood bar, it was plain gossip. Axell crossed his hands behind his
head and leaned back in his chair as she threw several more message slips on
his desk. “You’re early,” he commented without inflection.
His talent for hiring perfect hostesses was half the reason his restaurant was
such a success. He certainly didn’t possess the necessary bonhomie to
greet his clientele.

In a red mini-dress and high heels that would have the eyes
of his male bar patrons popping out and rolling on the floor, Katherine prowled
his office, straightening a picture here, dusting invisible specks there,
drawing his attention to the spartan furnishings. She’d helped him find
the sleek modern furniture, and hired the decorator who’d added the black
and white engravings to match the ebony lacquered desk and white leather chairs.
The splash of red stalking back and forth over the black-and-white interior
amused him, and for the first time, Axell wondered if she’d planned it
that way.

Remembering the rainbow clutter of the little shop
he’d visited yesterday, he wondered if there was some pattern between a
woman’s choice of color and her personality that might aid in his
understanding of her behavior. He almost jotted a note to himself to study the
matter when Katherine finally spoke.

“The mayor just offered me a position in his
office.”

On your back?
was the first thought that leaped to
mind, but Axell had learned long ago to suppress his often irreverent humor.
People seldom appreciated it and never expected it. “And you
replied?”

She swung around and glared at him from beneath her stack of
blond tresses. “You’d let me go without a protest, wouldn’t
you? My God, Axell, just exactly what are you made of? We’ve been
together from the start.”

The start of what?
was his next question, again
suppressed. Keeping his mouth shut was a habit he’d acquired from his
father, but in Katherine’s case, one of necessity. She had an unfortunate
tendency toward dramatics, and he disliked scenes. Lowering his arms, Axell
steepled his fingers across his chest. “Katherine, I value our
relationship as much as you do, but if you think the mayor can open doors for
you that I can’t, then in the interest of friendship, I can’t stand
in your way.”

Her angry expression turned to exasperation. “What
doors can the mayor of a two-bit town open? Can’t you look beyond the obvious?
The two of you are at constant odds. What have you done now that he’s
attempting to buy my favors?”

Axell raised his eyebrows, but she raised a healthy
question. He rocked his chair back and forth, then shrugged. “I objected
to his decision to have the state run a highway through the Pfieffer property,
but then, I objected to the shopping center development as well. The list could
probably go on for months. I don’t know where you fit into any of
it.”

“The Pfeiffer property!” Her eyes lit with
recognition. “The old man is second cousin to my uncle or some such. The
whole family thinks he’s cracked to hang on to that crumbling old
mansion.”

“He partially restored it while his wife was still
alive,” Axell reminded her. “And the land itself has been in the
family since the beginning of time. I wouldn’t be surprised if you found
a couple of Cherokees on the family tree and discovered burial mounds or
whatever on the grounds. Not many people can hold onto land that long. I
don’t blame the man for trying to preserve his heritage.”

She shrugged the padded shoulders of her bolero jacket and
paced the carpet at a more leisurely rate. “The city is expanding in this
direction too rapidly for property like that to go undivided. The price of land
is skyrocketing. Those may have been rural roads ten years ago, but the
Pfieffer property stands directly between two major traffic arteries now. A
connector road through there is inevitable.”

“I live out there,” he reminded her dryly.
“I’m well aware of what’s happening. I just don’t agree
that we must allow wall-to-wall housing from the city outward. I thought the
whole point of the town zoning laws was to prevent Wadeville from becoming just
another suburb of Charlotte. We’re a rural town and we should acknowledge
that.”

“It’s part of our Southern charm,” she
said waspishly. “We could all take to wearing straw hats and muddy
boots.”

Since he could remember when his father owned the local
grill on this corner and the patrons who’d worn just that, Axell
didn’t comment. He’d learned more about human nature and running a
business while polishing the counter downstairs than he’d ever learned at
the university. Unfortunately, he’d never had his father’s talent
for being one of the “good old boys.”

He dismissed that thought and applied his knowledge of human
nature to the current situation. “Let me guess: Pfieffer is in ill
health, doesn’t have a will, and the whole family is counting the dollars
that property could add to the coffers.”

Katherine shot him a hooded look. “I doubt there would
be enough to trickle down to me, if that’s what you’re aiming at.
No, I’m looking for the connection between me and the mayor, and the
Pfieffer property has to be it.”

“Not to mention that the governor and probably half
the department of transportation likes looking at gorgeous blondes,” he
added dryly. “You really don’t want to hear the reaction of the
city council when you show up for one of our meetings wearing a
miniskirt.”

“Holm, you have ice water for blood.” She swung
on her high heel and started for the door. “Headley is downstairs, said
he’d like to talk to you when you get a chance. Shall I send him
up?”

Vaguely perplexed by her reaction but not particularly
concerned, Axell nodded. One of these days he’d calculate the pattern
that guided female emotion. Until then, he just accepted that he would seldom
understand what set them off.

He’d straightened out an order with his New York wine
merchant and decided on the best bid for new restaurant linen by the time
Headley ambled upstairs. Axell liked taking care of material details. It was
people like Headley he had difficulty keeping in line.

Spreading his gray suit-jacketed arms across the back of the
leather sofa, the newspaper reporter swung his gaze around the room in
fascination. “So, this is the lion’s lair, is it? Far cry from the
old days.”

“We all have our little rebellions,” Axell
replied mildly. His father’s office had been windowless, stuffy, and
cluttered with files that hadn’t been opened since his first year of
business.