Impossible Dreams (35 page)

Maya nodded in relief. “That’s hard to believe
of that nice old man. Maybe he didn’t know they were dealing.”

Cleo grunted in disbelief but didn’t argue.
“Your turn to spill. Since you were already knocked up when you came out
here, how the hell did you get Superman to marry you?”

Superman. Maya smiled. “I was thinking in terms of
Norse gods myself. Thor, maybe? It’s a long story. You really don’t
want to hear it. But Axell’s good with lawyers. Do you think if we could
prove Mr. Pfeiffer was our grandfather, we might get part of his estate?”
She wasn’t really interested for herself, but for Cleo... It might give
her a reason for hanging out a while longer.

“If a collapsed building and a run-down old house is
the extent of it, we wouldn’t get enough to pay the lawyers.” Cleo
sipped her coffee and stared around at the sparkling shop inventory. “I
kind of liked the place dusty and moldy. It had a certain flavor to it.”

“Yeah, it was called Eau de Rat. It made a profit last
month,” Maya offered tentatively. “Axell said with all the new
growth around here, this town would be seeing a lot of new business, that with
the right planning, your shop could be a major asset.”

“If I stay off dope and out of the clutches of idiots,”
Cleo answered gloomily. “It’s not that easy. I owe a lot of
favors.” She sat up and glared at Maya. “I want Matty back.”

“You want to run,” Maya accused her.
“I’ll be damned if I let you do that to him.”

“He’s my kid.”

“He’s your responsibility. There’s a
difference.” Maya dug her fingers into the chair arms. She’d never
learned to stand up for herself or anyone else, but Cleo was her sister. If she
couldn’t stand up to her, she couldn’t help anybody.

“You don’t understand. Nobody understands.
It’s just better if I leave.” Cleo slumped back in the chair and
glared at the glass counter.

“You can’t leave. You’re on probation.
You’ve got to stick it out and fight whatever it is you’re running
from. You’ve got family behind you now. It can work. We’re not alone
anymore.”

“Oh, yeah, and Beaver and his mom will bake cookies
and serve lemonade.” Cleo struggled silently with her inner demons for a
minute more, then narrowed her eyes and turned her glare back to Maya.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to get Matty.”

All right. Step One. That’s all she could handle right
now. “Talk to Social Services. See if they’ll give him over to you.
If they won’t, we’ll talk about alternatives.” Maya got up.
“I’ll finish up those shoe paintings. You talk to the
system.”

Miraculously, Cleo seemed to accept this order of things.
She wandered off to clean up while Maya took her usual place behind the
counter. It had been a very confusing few days. She needed the security of her
paint and brushes.

***

Maya glanced up as the door chimes rang. The shop had just
opened for the day and nobody came in at ten in the morning. If it was Axell,
she didn’t know if she was ready to speak to him. They had some issues
they needed to sort out, and not the way they had done it last night. Making love
was a lot more dangerous to her equilibrium than she had imagined.

Her eyes widened as Katherine and the mayor walked in. They
stared around as if they’d never been inside a store before. She bit back
a grin as they ran into the bumper sticker rack. Nobody could get by that rack
without looking and chuckling, even these two starched-up yuppies.

Ralph Arnold brought a sticker saying
FORGET WORLD
PEACE — VISUALIZE USING YOUR TURN SIGNAL
to the counter. “Maybe we
could put one of these on every car in town,” he said dryly, laying it
down and reaching for his wallet.

Maya shrugged and waved away his money. “It’s on
the house.” She studied the man on the other side of the counter, looking
for the devious aura that would nail him as up to no good, but she could see
nothing more than his narrow-minded conservatism. At least, they agreed on the
poor driving habits of the local townspeople. “Maybe I could sell you a
crystal ball? They’re supposed to be real handy in telling the
future.”

The mayor looked at her suspiciously, but Katherine
sauntered up and distracted him. She was wearing red, as usual, but a little
more modestly tailored for a change. The skirt only rode half way up her
thighs.

“Pfeiffer’s heirs want to sell the school
property.” Katherine dived right into the issue at hand. “We
thought we could offer alternative properties to expedite the sale.”

Axell had taught her one or two things over these last
months, and one of them was to beware wiggling bait. Maya gestured toward her
high-backed chairs. “Have a seat, if you like. Dazzle me with your
knowledge. But remember, the house and the lease are in the court’s
hands, and there isn’t a lawyer or judge in the state that will break my
lease. I’ve got three years.”

She watched the mayor’s complexion turn purple and Katherine’s
eyes narrow to slits. Maya settled on her stool behind the counter and picked
up her paintbrush.

“I thought Axell had explained to you that we need
that property
now
. We can get a judgment from the court allowing the
road to go through there while the estate is pending. We just need your
release.”

“Axell explains lots of things to me. I don’t
remember him telling me I had to move or sign anything. Actually, if I remember
correctly, someone mentioned that if anyone wanted me out of there early, they’d
have to buy off my lease.”

Selene had actually mentioned that. Maya wasn’t
entirely clear on what it meant, but it had sounded good. Not that she had any
intention of giving up the lease, but she liked shocking people.

“Axell promised!” Katherine all but shouted.
“He said if we scratched his back, he’d scratch ours. He’s
supposed to help you find a new place.”

Well, that was an entirely new perspective. Add one more
issue to discuss with Mr. Axell Holm. But Maya was accustomed to keeping her
mouth shut in the presence of civil servants. She smiled patiently. “So,
scratch your own itches. They have nothing to do with mine. I have a lease and
the school stays. There’s an old depleted tobacco field just down the
way. Why don’t you buy it if you have to have a new road?”

“It’s two miles out of the way!” the mayor
argued. “It would cost a fortune to run that road through there. The
Pfeiffer property will save the state hundreds of thousands. If you won’t
cooperate, we’ll have to proceed with the land condemnation.”

Maya shrugged. “Aside from the cost of building a
bridge over the flood zone, moving the school should make you real popular with
the parents of my students. They like the school where it is. And the ladies of
the Garden Club are planning a fall tour of the landscaping. They’ve been
working hard at it. Apparently, Pfeiffer has some plants in there that date
back to the settling of the colony. Come to think of it, the Historic Society
might get interested. There aren’t many sites like that left.”

“It’s just a damned piece of land!” Arnold
exploded. “You can’t deprive the public of their right of access or
the heirs to their rightful inheritance. We’ll take it to court. Axell
will be damned sorry he let you get into this.”

Probably, but Axell would be damned sorry about a lot of
things, and the Pfeiffer property was the least of them. Maya shrugged.
“Whatever. I’ll give you a good price on the crystal ball.”

“There’s no point arguing with her,”
Katherine pointed out, taking the mayor’s arm. “She’ll be reading
your cards next.”

“Remember the Fool in yours?” Maya called out as
they hurried toward the door. “Keep him in mind when you think of
me!”

Katherine was too literal to catch the reference. As the
pair hurried out, Maya sighed and stared at the unhappy dragon she’d just
created. The cards played tricks with the mind, but she could tell she was the
Fool in Katherine’s woodpile. Even the Death card had been literal.
Pfeiffer had been a relative of Katherine’s, she remembered Axell saying.

***

August, 1946

I have taken my savings and purchased a lucrative rental
property. I cannot tell Dolly of my child or use her money for the
child’s support. She does not know about the property. I have found a
lawyer who will send the proceeds to Helen’s cousins. I will pray they
will raise my daughter to be stronger than I am.

Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

“Shit.” Swinging his chair to face the window as
he hung up the phone, Axell glanced out in time to see Katherine and Ralph
Arnold scurrying from the building next door. He couldn’t think of
anything good coming from a conversation between Maya and the mayor.

He was probably better off letting Maya simmer in peace
until she’d had time to cool off. But he’d held her naked in his
arms just hours before and the memory of that closeness still warmed the
long-empty hollows of his heart. He didn’t want to lose the tentative
ties they’d begun to form. If marriage was anything like a business, it
had to be tended carefully. With that kind of rational outlook instead of a
sentimental one, he should be able to make this marriage work.

Not knowing whether he’d meet the newly
confrontational Maya or the fey one, Axell took the stairs two at a time. If
nothing else, life with Maya would never be boring. He’d never realized
he had such a strong streak of curiosity in him, or that it thrived on constant
nourishment.

The sound system was ominously silent as he entered the
shop. Belatedly, he realized Cleo was in charge now, but he’d seen Maya
arrive earlier. The mayor wouldn’t have gotten far with Cleo.

Fog still hid the sunshine this morning, and no one had
turned on lights in the back of the shop. Axell smacked the switch and
discovered Maya curled up in her wicker chair, cuddling a cooing Alexa in her
arms. The empty chambers of his heart clanged hollow as he read her look.

“All right, what did the mayor have to say?”
Axell asked in resignation as he took the other chair. He wished she would
offer him a cup of tea. She still hadn’t brought the damned cups back.

“I’ll scratch my own back, thank you very
much,” she said coldly.

That should make no sense at all, but he’d learned to
look past Maya’s words to the convoluted path of her mind. He
didn’t have far to go for this one. “I never said that, and at the
time the mayor suggested it, I had to get him and the alcohol board off my
back,” he reminded her. “I figured I could find you another
property if I had to.”

“I don’t want another property.”
Stubbornly, she refused to look at him. “The school is mine and you have
nothing to do with it.”

Definitely not the tack he’d hoped to take.
“Maya, I hate to say this,” he began cautiously, “but
it’s possible Mr. Pfeiffer died over that land. The mayor and the
developer are pretty heavily involved in that shopping center. I’m not
laying any blame, just pointing out the danger. I don’t want anything
happening to you or the kids.”

“You think someone murdered poor Mr. Pfeiffer over
that old house? That’s crazy! You’re more paranoid Scorpio than I
thought. He didn’t even have a will.”

“That just means the land goes into escrow until the
court sells it and divides the proceeds between the heirs, which is what the
mayor wants. If you produce that lease and fight the sale, you’re in his
way.”

The more Axell thought about it, the more nervous he became.
He couldn’t believe the mayor guilty of murder, but he knew little or
nothing about the heirs and the developer.

“It’s still a stupid place to put a road.”
Maya set her small chin at a determined tilt. “It’s a flood zone.
It’s historic property. If it’s sold, they’ll turn the land
into tacky boxes and condiments.”

“Condominiums,” Axell corrected with a grin.

“Cheap condiments for hiding bad taste,” she
insisted. “The tobacco field down the road is a better
alternative.”

“Look, Maya, I don’t want to argue with
you — ”

Her eyes flashed with pleasure. “I am arguing,
aren’t I? Are you mad at me yet?”

She peered at him from beneath thick long lashes and Axell
almost forgot the question. The knowing slant of her lips returned him to the
moment. He kept forgetting that even if she looked like somebody’s fairy
godchild, Maya was no damned innocent.

“I’m not mad at you. I just want you to see
sense.”

“Then don’t call my sister names. I’m
still furious at you for that one,” she responded irrelevantly.
“Cleo’s made mistakes. She’s had a rough time of it. But with
a little help — ”

“Dammit, Maya!” Axell tried not to shout but he
didn’t think he was succeeding. “Drug addiction is not something
that goes away. Your sister will always be an addict. I was just stating facts.
Maybe she’s reformed. I don’t know. That’s not the
point — ”

“It is the point!” she said loudly enough to
startle Alexa into a surprised cry. Calming her voice, Maya continued.
“You want to control our lives, and I won’t let you. They’re
our
lives, to mess up as we will. The school is
mine
, Axell. It’s my
dream. You can’t tell me what to do with it.”

There was something wrong with this argument, but Maya had
his mind twisted in so many directions, he couldn’t pinpoint where
they’d strayed from the path. If she weren’t holding Alexa like a
shield, he’d lean over and kiss her until their heads spun in the same
direction. Axell derived some satisfaction in knowing he had that much
influence.

“The kids are my concern as well as yours,” he
warned. “If I think they’re in danger, I’ll act on it. Right
now, there isn’t much anyone can do with the property tied up in escrow.
The minute that changes...”

Maya returned to rocking Alexa. “You’re a
worrywart, Axell. I heard Mr. Pfeiffer died with a whiskey glass in his hand,
and his nieces just got all atwitter because they claim he never drank
alcohol.” Her eyes lit. “You know what Cleo told me this
morning?”