Impossible Dreams (9 page)

Maya rolled her eyes and with a spurt of humor, imagined
what this place would look like if she let Matty and Muldoon and herself loose
in it for a few days. Axell would never recover from the shock. Maybe she could
round up a pickup and move Cleo’s stuff into the upper story of the
school in the morning. Selene was out of town, but she might have a better idea
when she returned.

Maya shuddered at the first sight of the guest room. It
looked like a hotel with its prints of English gardens and heavy draperies in
polite mauve and blue pinstripes against a beige background. She supposed the
cherry furniture was expensively tasteful but not the kinds of things one would
let a child jump on.

“This was gonna be the baby’s room,”
Constance said matter-of-factly as Matty stared in awe at the big bed with its
stacks of pillows.

The baby’s room? Maya would rather not get into that
one.

Looking around at Axell Holm’s ice palace, she could
see rules and regulations written all over. No sirree bob, she was out of here
first thing in the morning.

Constance tugged shyly at her hand. “I made a
picture,” she whispered.

Unable to accomplish the feat of crouching again, Maya sank
onto an upholstered chair and turned Constance around to face her. “What
kind of picture? May I see it?”

Constance nodded, pulled her hand free, and opened a dresser
drawer. Maya caught a glimpse of a hidden treasure trove of childish objects: a
battered stuffed rabbit, broken crayons, and chunks of what appeared to be
plaster. Constance neatly closed the drawer before Maya could see more.

The child handed her a slightly rumpled sheet of drawing
paper. Maya could easily discern a baby’s crib, a bassinet swaddled in
lace, and a corner full of colorful toys. “How wonderful!” she
cried in all honesty. For a child of Constance’s age, it was a
marvelously accurate piece of workmanship. “Is this what this room used
to look like?”

Constance nodded.

The baby inside Maya’s womb kicked in approval.
Wistfully, she wondered what it would be like to have a sanctuary like this for
her child. She’d hang a mobile of fairy-tale creatures over the crib,
paint stars on the ceiling, stack wonderful books on the shelves...

Someday. She would do it someday. Smiling, she held the
picture up against the cream-colored wall. “I think it would look good
hanging right here, don’t you?”

Constance’s thin dark face beamed with relief.
“I got tape.” She ran to fetch it.

Matty crept over to hug her knee. “We gonna stay
here?” he asked in awe.

She didn’t believe in children sleeping with adults,
but she didn’t see an alternative for tonight. The bed was certainly big
enough for two. She ran her fingers through his hair and smiled as bravely as
she could. “Looks that way, buster. Do you think that bed’s big
enough for you?”

He eyed it with some trepidation but nodded slowly.
“Can Muldoon sleep with us?” he asked plaintively. The cat had been
sleeping in his room ever since she’d brought it with her from
California.

How would she explain it to him if Muldoon never came back?
How could she explain it to him if the social workers took him away?

She just couldn’t deal with the disaster yet.
“Muldoon’s probably guarding your old room to make certain your
toys don’t get lonely. You’re stuck with me tonight.” She
hugged his small body close, making mental promises to fix everything in the
morning.

She wasn’t a fixer by nature. That had been
Cleo’s role. The ever-present burden of doing everything herself swamped
her, and loneliness slipped through all the cracks in her defenses.

She just needed to be strong. She had Cleo’s child and
the one about to be born to fill the emptiness. A life filled with children
would be plenty more than enough.

She didn’t need useless men making demands, giving
orders, and disrupting her goals. She’d take loneliness over that emotional
rollercoaster again. Children had to be easier.

Why then, did tears fill her eyes as she gazed around the
antiseptic guest room and wondered how her life had come to this?

I don’t suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of
it.

Maya stared at the enormous stainless steel double doors of
what had to be Axell’s refrigerator. It looked as if it belonged in his
restaurant. Where were the colorful magnets, the childish drawings, the memos
of doctor appointments and whatnot that should clutter this magnificent expanse
of empty steel? Her fingers itched to fill the space with color and life almost
as much as if the doors were a piece of drawing paper.

All she’d wanted was a glass of milk to stave off the
predawn lonelies. Painting a refrigerator wasn’t on the agenda. Biting
her thumbnail, she eased open the wider of the two doors. A brilliant white
light illuminated the gloomy kitchen. She hadn’t bothered turning on the
overhead fixture because in her experience, with unexpected light creepy crawly
things scattered across the floors. She preferred they scurry out of sight
before she had to look at them. The refrigerator bulb, however, was almost
blinding.

Probably because nothing blocked its glow.

Maya stared in fascination at the shelves of shiny-empty-aluminum.
A half gallon of milk, some eggs, and butter hid in the distant corners of the
vast interior. It almost reminded her of home. Almost. In Cleo’s ancient
appliance, just the milk would have filled a shelf, if they’d had any.

“Miss Alyssum, are you fixing breakfast?”

The soft voice nearly startled her into jumping into the
refrigerator. She’d probably fit, belly and all, Maya decided with
amusement as she peered around the door to see Constance in her flowing
nightshirt. The child had crept up quieter than any mouse.

“Well, it’s a mite early, and our options look
limited. Would you like something?”

“Daddy’s other ladies usually fix French
toast.” She watched Maya cautiously.

Daddy’s other ladies. Right. Rolling her eyes and
biting her tongue on that one, Maya eyed the refrigerator contents skeptically.
“Well, if you know where to find bread and syrup, we could do that. Or
maybe even bread and cinnamon. Or jelly?”

“You and Matty slept on my side,” Constance
replied irrelevantly.

Maya had enough psychology courses to know when a child had
something on her mind. She just didn’t want to contemplate this
particular topic at this hour of the morning in the house of a man she scarcely
knew. By “side,” she assumed Constance meant her wing of the house.
She’d already figured out Axell had a wing all to himself, since she
hadn’t heard him come home.

“Well, I guess that makes us
your
guests,” she replied brightly, closing the refrigerator and opening a
cabinet. Dumb move. Now she had no light.

“Sometimes Daddy’s ladies don’t stay for
breakfast.”

All right, so the kid had a one-track mind. Deal with it.
She’d long ago discovered how difficult it was to shimmer away from an
unwanted topic around kids.

“Constance, what are you — ” The kitchen exploded
with light.

Maya blinked. The sleepy man standing in the doorway did the
same, then rubbed his eyes in the glare of the overhead fixture. Fixtures. The
kitchen had track lighting all over the blamed room.

Axell Holm stood there in only his pajama bottoms. A soft
brown fuzz nicely delineated his rounded pectorals and descended into washboard
abs before dropping beneath the elastic falling over lean hips. Maya thought
her eyes might pop out. Surely pregnancy prevented hormonal outbursts. Lean,
hungry, artistic types did not have chests like that. She didn’t think
yuppie businessmen should either.

She closed her eyes and pretended she’d imagined the
whole thing. “Don’t you have anything dimmer?” she pleaded.

Hitting the dimmer switch, Axell lowered the confounded
lighting while trying to assimilate the image of his elfin daughter standing
beside a hugely pregnant fairy godmother in chaotic auburn curls and... He
peeked from behind his hand. The shimmering turquoise nightgown nearly blinded
him as much as the kitchen lights. He couldn’t remember his wife ever
wearing that color, but Constance must have shown Maya the closet where
he’d stored Angela’s things.

Maybe he was dreaming. “What are we doing out here in
the middle of the night?” he asked cautiously. Actually, he’d come home
in the middle of the night. It must be closer to morning. He blinked again at
the vision in turquoise. Why did she remind him of a particularly striking
bouquet of fresh flowers as she stood there against his steel and porcelain
kitchen?

“
I’m
after warm milk. I believe Constance
is checking on my sleeping habits.”

Axell heard her humor and didn’t want to interpret
that remark. He regarded his daughter’s innocent expression with
suspicion. Maybe his fault lay in believing an eight-year-old hadn’t yet
developed the twisted mind of all females. “Constance, go back to bed.
It’s Saturday. You don’t have to go to school.”

He recognized the rebellious pout of his daughter’s
lower lip. Warily, Axell glanced at the teacher to see if she’d help. She
beamed sunnily as she poured milk into a cup. Following the pattern of her
recent behavior, it dawned on him that the gypsy woman didn’t believe in
confrontation. She had a habit of slipping and sliding out of the most damning
tempests with just a smile as her umbrella.

“Did you want warm milk too?” he asked his
daughter. Two could play at the game of No Confrontation.

“French toast,” Constance replied stubbornly.

Red warning flags waved all over that one. Axell glanced at
the gypsy putting the milk into the microwave. Her smile had grown suspiciously
wider. Damn, but her mouth looked rosy and ripe even at this gawdawful hour of
the morning.

She was eight months pregnant, dammit! Easily eight months.
Nervously contemplating babies popping out on the polished tiles of the kitchen
floor, Axell rubbed his unshaven jaw and tried to gather his thoughts. He was
standing here half-naked, for chrissake. He wasn’t used to having guests.

“When the sun comes up,” he agreed. “Now
go back to bed and let Miss Alyssum drink her milk in peace.”

“I want milk.” Constance sat her skinny rear end
in a kitchen chair.

Why in the name of heaven had he wanted the child to talk?
It was a thousand times more peaceful when she kept her mouth shut. Axell
glanced helplessly at the teacher again. How could she look even more innocent
than his child?

“I believe Constance is worried about where I’m
sleeping,” she replied with muffled laughter, removing the cup from the
microwave and pouring a portion into a smaller cup for his daughter. “Go
back to bed. I’ll see her back to her room.”

Where she was sleeping? Axell sleepily pondered that one
until heat flushed up his jaw. He hadn’t realized Constance was aware of
the women he occasionally entertained in his wing of the house. He tried to
hustle most of them home before his daughter woke, but some had indulged their
fantasies of homemaking and insisted on staying. He should have thrown them all
out. With a sigh, he nodded in acknowledgment of her warning.

“All right. I’ll see you in the morning.
Constance, behave yourself and do as Miss Alyssum tells you.” To hell
with women. Staggering back down the hall, Axell left them to themselves. The
one blamed day he could get a little sleep...

Chiming laughter exploded in the room he’d left
behind. Confounded, know-it-all woman.

***

Maya wasn’t laughing hours later as she cuddled a
meowing Muldoon in her arms while a policeman blocked her path. Through
tear-filled eyes, she glared at the blue uniform and yellow police tape cutting
off her access to Matty and Cleo’s home. She was used to losing homes. It
really shouldn’t hurt so much. But she’d sort of hoped maybe she
could have this one for the baby and Matty — at least until Cleo returned. She
bit her lip and tilted her chin up to fight sobbing over this latest twist of Fate.

“It’s for your own safety, miss,” the
officer insisted. “The place has to be torn down. Fire marshal’s
orders. It’s a death trap. Those walls could fall any minute.”

“But there are works of art in there!” she
protested, praying she didn’t sound whiny. “Hand made,
irreplaceable... The artisans deserve compensation for their work. If I
don’t salvage them...”

The policeman implacably shook his head. “No can
do.”

Maya thought of all Matty’s clothes and toys,
Cleo’s motley assortment of furniture, all the accouterments they’d
gathered in years of careful scrounging, and the tears streamed down her
cheeks. They’d been displaced so many times... The teapot! And her china
cups! A wrecking ball would demolish their whole lives.

Shaking her head in denial, she hugged Muldoon and sought
desperately for some argument to sway the officer. Why did authority always get
in the way in the guise of helping? She and Cleo had spent their entire lives
being shipped from one house to another with little more than a cardboard box
of possessions between them. The teapot and cups were all they still owned from
the home they barely remembered. She couldn’t lose them.

Wiping her eyes with her shirtsleeve, she thought
frantically of ways around the catastrophe. She could creep in there in the
dead of night... Creep? With her two ton belly? Fat chance. And she
couldn’t just haul out the china when Matty needed his rabbit and his
pajamas, and the artists who’d built the kaleidoscopes and wind chimes
needed the income from their work and...

The CD player, with her recordings. Cleo’s
photographs. Their whole damned lives were in that building. She bit her lip on
another hiccupping sob.

“Trouble, Miss Alyssum?”

Walking from the corner where he’d been talking with a
man Maya recognized as the mayor, Axell Holm stopped beside her with that
puzzled expression men assumed when confronted with female emotion. Maya glared
back at him.