Where Dreams Begin (19 page)

His teasing jest had struck too close to home, and she ignored his suggestion and turned away. “I need to get those colored pencils.”

He hurried to catch up with her. “I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. Luke’s ex is giving him such a hard time that he probably wouldn’t notice if you walked through his office naked.”

“There’s no danger of that,” Catherine assured him.

“You’re right. He wouldn’t ignore you.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” she was quick to point out.

“I know. Do you mind if I walk to the store with you?”

“No, of course not.” Dave was a flirt, but in no danger of succumbing to his charms, she felt safe with him. She sent a brief glance toward the auto supply as they passed and hurried on. “I guess I’m just anxious to get started.”

“Me too. There’s always plenty to do at Lost Angel, but not much of it is fun. I think the mural will be a hoot from beginning to end.”

“I hope you’re right. I happen to believe having fun is an important aspect of life.”

“Damn straight it is, especially for the kids. Luke does a hell of a job, but no one would ever hire him to be the activities director on a cruise.”

She kept quiet rather than agree, but she was surprised after all Luke had done for Dave, that he would be so disloyal. “I thought you two were friends,” she offered and pushed open the door of the Ninety-Nine Cent Store.

Dave caught the door and followed right behind. “We are, but that doesn’t mean we don’t butt heads occasionally. I think the art supplies are over here.”

Catherine quickly gathered up a dozen boxes of colored pencils. “We’ll need the little sharpeners too.”

“Here they are. The metal ones are best.” He grabbed a handful.

She paid for their purchases, and they walked back to Lost Angel with Dave again doing most of the talking. When they arrived, he went out to work on the grounds, while she stayed in the office to sort through the latest mail.

Shortly before noon, Luke produced a three-foot-wide roll of white butcher paper from the office supply closet, and walked Catherine over to the hall. “I thought I’d catch the kids while they’re lining up for lunch rather than when they’re full of spaghetti and yawning,” he explained.

“Good plan.” She swung the bag of pencils and sharpeners in rhythm with her stride. “I just hope there are a couple of artists in the crowd. I’m sorry I don’t have any examples to show. I should have gone by the library and checked out some art books.”

“You’re expecting a Renaissance masterpiece?”

She hated to admit that was precisely what she’d envisioned. “That’s unrealistic, isn’t it?”

“Wildly,” Luke stressed. “Think Colonial folk art, and you won’t be so badly disappointed.”

The kids were already streaming into the hall, and Catherine moved aside to allow Luke to pass through the open doorway with the heavy roll of paper. They hadn’t once discussed how they would present the project to the kids, but she trusted him to make it sound appealing.

He set the roll of paper against the wall and then asked for everyone’s attention. “I promise not to slow down the lunch line,” he began, “but we’re seriously considering painting a mural on a building owned by one of our neighbors. We’re hoping for angels to honor the center, but it’s your call as to how you portray them. We’ve plenty of white paper and colored pencils, so after you eat, try your hand at working up some preliminary sketches.”

“Is there a deadline?” a feminine voice called from the far side of the hall.

Luke turned toward Catherine. “How’s Friday?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” she assured him.

“Friday it will be, then. Are there any other questions?”

“Is there any money in this?” Rafael sauntered up to ask.

Luke shrugged. “It’s difficult to say. If you submit a spectacular design, for a single angel or the whole mural, then I just might be inspired to offer some prize money.”

“Might?” Rafael pressed.

“Yeah, I might,” Luke replied.

Tina Stassy wove her way through the crowd. “How are we supposed to know what angels look like?”

When Luke appeared perplexed, Catherine stepped forward. “They’d look like all of you. Have any of you ever watched figure skating on television? The skaters’ poses are so graceful they often appear to be flying. While that may be beyond our capabilities to achieve, I’d like for you to try.”

Dave had entered the hall in time to hear Luke’s remarks, and he pushed off the wall and came forward. “If I lift you, can you show everyone what you mean?”

“That’s not a good idea,” Luke cautioned under his breath.

“No, I’m serious,” Dave insisted. “I know exactly what Cathy means, and I think we ought to provide a quick demo.”

Several boys began to stomp and clap sending a chorus of encouragement echoing throughout the hall. When Mabel began to pound a spoon against a pot lid, Catherine couldn’t help but laugh.

“The skaters are moving, spinning, dancing across the ice,” she reminded Dave. “Their speed is part of the magic.”

Dave motioned with his hands. “I’ll turn. Come on, let’s feed their pitifully starved imaginations.”

Perhaps it was the bold graphics of his Rolling Stones T-shirt, but his proposition suddenly made perfect sense. Catherine laid her hand on his shoulder. Dave dipped slightly to grasp her knees and, seemingly without effort, raised her aloft. She arched her back, gazed up and lifted her arms in an elegant gesture that would have done an Olympic gold medalist proud.

Dave turned in a slow circle and then set Catherine down to thunderous applause. Slightly flustered, she took a quick bow. “It’s merely a suggestion. Many of you must have better ideas of how angels might return to heaven. Now isn’t it time for lunch?”

Luke had been right beside her moments before, but when she turned toward him, he was no longer there. Startled by his unexpected absence, she scanned the hall, but he’d simply disappeared as though he’d dropped through a trapdoor. Before she could make sense of that puzzling happenstance, Polly rushed up to her.

“That was so beautiful,” Polly gushed. “You make me wish I could ice skate.”

“I can’t skate either,” Catherine readily admitted. She tried to smile, but Luke’s abrupt departure had thoroughly dampened the exhilaration she’d felt in Dave’s arms. Clearly Luke had shown his disapproval of their stunt with his feet, and she couldn’t have been more insulted.

Polly, however, was staring up at her with an awestruck admiration, and she refused to be as rude as Luke had just been to her. “Do you like to draw?” she asked.

“I love it, but all I’ve ever been good at is flowers. My people don’t look much better than stick figures.”

Catherine took Polly’s elbow and urged her toward the lunch line. “I’m sure we’ll need decorative elements. Draw your best blossoms, and I’ll find a place for them.”

“Oh, thank you, I will.”

“Where’s Nick?” Catherine asked. She looked around but saw no sign of him either.

“He’s limping around somewhere,” Polly replied. “He’ll be along soon. Spaghetti is his favorite meal.”

“Mabel’s is awfully good, isn’t it? Excuse me, I want to make certain she has plenty of help to serve.”

Catherine sidestepped the line to enter the kitchen where she’d hoped to find Luke, but again met with disappointment. Only the best magicians could vanish with the speed he’d displayed, and she feared he must have left the hall at a run.

Whatever appetite she might have had for lunch had fled with him. Alice and Betty were there again so Mabel had volunteers to serve and Catherine took cleanup. Scrubbing pots and pans proved to be positively therapeutic and by the time the lunch hour was over, she’d paved over Luke’s haughty rejection with the determination to create the best mural the citizens of Los Angeles had ever seen.

In the hall, Dave had laid the roll of butcher paper at the end of a long table, and he was tearing off generous sections. Several kids were already seated at the tables, either arguing about where to begin, or like Polly, who had found Nick, doodling with the new colored pencils.

Catherine walked around to offer words of encouragement, but she was shocked to find Sheila, the black girl with the dreadlocks, blocking out a design with Frankie, whom she’d accused of plotting to steal her boyfriend Jamal.

“Have you two become friends?” she asked.

“Sure, why not?” Frankie replied, and the buzz-cut blonde went right on sketching an angel with enormous purple wings.

If they’d forgotten all about Jamal, Catherine chose not to provide a reminder and promptly moved on. When she returned to the table holding the supplies, Rafael was leaning against it and arguing with Dave.

“What’s the problem?” she asked.

“He claims he needs twice as much paper as everyone else,” Dave replied. “Naturally, I don’t agree.”

Rafael leaned close to Catherine and whispered, “I’m twice as good as everyone else, so I deserve more paper.” He straightened up, and his spiked hair made him Dave’s equal in height. “Give me two sheets if you have to.”

Catherine doubted Rafael was as good as his boast, but she hated to discourage anyone on the first day of the project. “Let’s give him whatever he needs, Dave. We’ll just buy another roll of butcher paper if we run out, which I doubt.”

Dave still appeared skeptical. “Are you really that good?” he asked.

Rafael responded with a wicked grin. “I’m a fucking Picasso. Give me the paper, and you’ll see.”

“Watch your language,” Dave scolded, but he tugged on the roll, drew out at least three times the length he’d given everyone else and handed it over. “I can’t wait until Friday.”

“Me neither.” Rafael grabbed up a box of colored pencils and walked out of the hall in a cocky strut.

“Do you suppose he’s any good?” Dave inquired softly.

“For all our sakes, I certainly hope so,” she responded, but she wondered if Rafael’s angels wouldn’t be holding knives. Luke had not placed anything off-limits, but when she found Tina Stassy drawing an angel and a winged cat scrounging through garbage cans, she thought he might be real sorry he hadn’t.

She remained in the hall all afternoon. Dave cruised through every half hour or so sometimes toting a mop, hedge clippers, or broom. When Luke failed to put in an appearance before the time his afternoon group was scheduled to begin in the sanctuary, she called it a day. She congratulated everyone on their progress, went straight to the parking lot without stopping by the office and drove home.

The telephone was ringing when she unlocked the door, but unwilling to listen to Joyce’s ecstatic praise for Shane, or Luke’s excuses, she let her machine answer. She fed Smoky his afternoon snack and took her time before she finally checked her messages.

The first call was from a firm offering to reduce her mortgage payments. The next message was from Joyce, who claimed her dinner date with Shane had gone amazingly well and that she would see him again over the weekend. The last was from Luke, who said only he was sorry to have missed her.

Catherine played that one twice, but she found it impossible to believe Luke actually cared. She took her mail outside to sort on the patio, and when the telephone rang again, she ignored it. She got up to make herself a cup of tea, then later went inside to watch the network news, but she still had no interest in food.

When the doorbell rang, she feared it would be Luke and took her time answering. “My, what a nice surprise,” she exclaimed without any hint of joy. “I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“I was afraid there might be a problem.” He stepped over the threshold and jammed his hands in his pockets as he turned to face her.

“How perceptive of you. Frankly, I’d say you created it when you walked out on me at noon, and don’t you dare blame me for not dealing well with abandonment issues.”

While startled by that accusation, Luke quickly recovered. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Why don’t we make some tea and see if we can’t straighten this out?”

“Do you actually drink tea?”

“Sure, on occasion, and this seems like a good one.”

She simply stared at him a long moment. His smile wavered with what she hoped was acute embarrassment. He’d come straight from the center rather than clean up first. A day’s growth of beard shadowed his cheeks, and his clothes were slightly rumpled. She supposed that was some measure of his sincerity.

“Fine, we’ll have some tea,” she agreed, “but I’m on to you, Dr. Starns, and if you careen off the subject the way you usually do, you’re out of here.”

He appeared aghast. “I might stray, but surely I don’t careen.”

She refused to quibble and led the way into the kitchen. She turned on the burner beneath the teakettle and opened the cupboard containing several boxes of tea. “Do any of these appeal to you?”

“Tension Tamer might be nice.” Luke surveyed the spotless kitchen. “Did you have dinner?”

Catherine leaned back against the counter and folded her arms across her chest. “I wasn’t hungry.”

“Well, Mabel’s spaghetti is filling.”

“I didn’t feel like eating at noon either.” She glanced toward the wall clock and wished she’d set a time limit on his visit. Now it was too late.

“You have to eat,” Luke argued. “Let me fix you something.”

“You like to cook?”

“I like to eat, and I don’t think it’s fair to make women do all the cooking. After all, anyone who can read can follow a recipe.”

“There, you just careened right off the subject.”

“Did not.” He glanced toward the cupboards. “You must have something, soup, a can of chili. Don’t you have earthquake supplies?”

“Sure, a package of beef jerky I keep in the car.”

Luke winced. “I’d rather not chew off a hunk of jerky, and I haven’t eaten today either.”

“Why is that? I thought you loved Mabel’s spaghetti, or was it merely the company you couldn’t stand?”

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Let’s talk about it after dinner.” He began opening cupboards. “Hey, you’ve got Tuna Helper. I love this stuff.”

“You can’t possibly be serious.”

“Why are you making fun of me? It’s on your shelf, isn’t it?” Luke grabbed the box and a can of tuna and set them on the counter. “Do you have some onion, bell pepper, maybe celery we could add?”