Impossible Dreams (27 page)

“Are you telling me this now so I’ll know how to
handle the problem after you leave?” he asked quietly.

The glass in Maya’s hand smashed to the floor with the
same effect as the bombshell Axell had dropped. She stared at it stupidly for
all of a minute before bending over to clean it up while furtively glancing up
to her husband. Her husband. She was having a hard time adjusting to these
labels. This one diminished her somehow, as if she weren’t a whole person
in her own right any longer.

“What on
earth
made you ask that?” she
demanded, almost angrily. She’d had enough confusion from her own head
for one day. She didn’t need his.

Axell grabbed the infant-seat handle and Maya’s elbow
with almost the same motion. “You look beat. Let’s sit down
first.”

She shook off his hand. “Fine time to think of that.
It’s a wonder I didn’t fall flat on my face.” But the
familiar messiness of the family room beckoned, and she escaped to the haven it
offered, wrapping herself in the throw as she hit the sofa. Remembering the
last time they’d had a heated discussion in here, he’d kicked shoes
like footballs, she braced herself. “Explain.”

Setting the baby seat on the table, Axell paced the room,
straightening picture frames and knickknacks. “Just because a man is a
lousy father, doesn’t mean you can’t love him. Stephen’s
young and good-looking and from what he says, he probably has an exciting
future ahead of him, a much more exciting one than I can offer.”

Maya thought if she had the energy, she’d laugh.
“You think I crave excitement? If I want excitement, I’ve got
collapsing buildings and road condemnations and Matty’s social worker and
my sister for excitement. Stephen’s brand doesn’t begin to
compare.”

She saw Axell’s mouth tighten in disbelief, but she
didn’t have the power to drive his doubts away. They didn’t have
that kind of relationship.

“I know I pushed you into this marriage at a time you
were vulnerable and didn’t have a lot of options,” he insisted.
“I thought two intelligent people could work it out. But I know women
don’t think like I do, that they want things I can’t always give,
and I don’t want to be the cause of your unhappiness. If you want out,
better say it now, before our lives get any more entangled and the kids get
hurt too badly.”

Maya shivered inside. She’d been shoved aside so often
in her life, she knew when it was time to pack up and leave. Had it just been
her, she would be out the door right now. But she had the kids to think of, and
she knew damned well that kids didn’t need to be shoved from pillar to
post like so much furniture. For them, she would learn to dig in and hold her
ground.

If she fought him, would she drive him away even faster?

Uncertainty swamped her. Since the age of ten she’d been
misunderstood, unloved, unwanted...

Was it too much to ask for just one person to see that she
was perfectly rational, and as capable of doing the right thing as everyone
else? What the hell did he think she would do, hop Stephen’s concert bus
with infant in arms and play groupie?

She was afraid to look at him, afraid to see disapproval in
the eyes of a man she’d come to respect and rely on. She’d hoped...
But she knew all about the uselessness of hope.

“Unless you’re telling me that you’re
tired of my problems and want me gone, I’m not going anywhere,
Axell.” She might as well throw down the oars and start bailing.
“You knew I was a disaster waiting to happen when we married. Are you
chickening out at the first rough spot in the road?”

He stiffened, and crumpled the discarded newspaper in his
hand. “I’m not chickening out of anything. I just don’t want
you running off in the middle of the night, leaving Constance
brokenhearted.”

If she wasn’t feeling so battered, she’d slide
into his arms and kiss him. This wasn’t about her! This was about his
late wife, Angela, and maybe his parents, and all the other people in his life
who’d left him. Relief overwhelmed her, and she had to fight back a smile
as she reassured him instead of the other way around. “There’s no
thunderstorm, there’s no sports car in the garage, and I think I’d
like a gardenia bush outside that bay window. Can I order gardenia bushes
planted? Or do I have to dig the hole myself?”

Axell stared at her as he slowly processed her leaps of
logic, blinked, then shoved his hand across his hair, and shook his head.
“I’ll dig the hole. Just tell me where you want it.” His
hands relaxed their tense grip on the newspaper as he watched her quizzically.
“You really are planning to stay, aren’t you?”

Maya beamed and reached over to pat his arm. “I like
men with both feet on the ground who know how to deliver babies.”

“Even if I am as boring as yesterday’s news and
not the latest rock singing sensation?”

“Stevie can write lullabies,” she answered
dryly, climbing to her feet with his assistance. “But you’ll be
there to rock the cradle. Don’t ever underestimate me like that again,
Holm, or I’ll whip your head off so fast you won’t know what hit
you.”

Axell watched her go with a burgeoning feeling of dread deep
in his heart. Maya was so beautiful, so talented, so wise in so many ways, and
so damned ephemeral, that one of these days she would have to sprout wings and
fly like a butterfly.

And he had the perishing feeling that her departure would
kill him.

***

January, 1946

I saw Helen in town today. She looked pale but more beautiful
than ever. She looked right through me as if I didn’t exist. She must
regret sending that letter, but I can’t get it off my mind. My
“wicked, sinful lips” ache for hers. I’ve not dared to so
much as brush Dolly’s cheeks with them.

I’m not a sentimental man. I thought what we shared was
of the flesh only, but may the Lord have mercy on me, I crave Helen with all my
body and soul.

The town calls her a fallen woman, but she’s not.
She’s warmhearted and fun-loving and in desperate search of what her cold
and calculating uncle cannot give. Had her parents lived... There’s no
point in speculating. She needs rescuing, but I don’t know if I have what
it takes to do it.

If I lose my job, I’ll lose the land and the house my
grandfather built and my sister will go homeless. Can I choose love over honor
and respectability?

I look in the mirror and see a coward.

Always remember, you’re unique, just like everybody
else.

Chimes tinkled a musical scale as Axell opened the door to
newly-reopened Curiosity Shoppe. The powerful thunder of waves rushing to shore
roared over the chimes. May sunshine poured through the plate windows, and the
breeze that followed him in stirred dancing rainbows from the crystals
sparkling overhead. The kiosk of brightly-hued bumper stickers swayed as he
brushed past, and he noticed Maya had stuck still another quote on the sticker
collage forming between the shelves.

Her cheerful “I’m up here” was a startling
reversal of his first entrance into his wife’s wonderful wacky world, and
curiosity escalating, Axell scanned the ceiling.

Maya sat on a high stepladder, carefully hooking what
appeared to be multicolored ribbons of a hanging mobile to an emerald green
papier-mâché dragon. Among the streamers hung grinning gnomes, surly trolls,
and crystal treasures. In the nearly seven weeks since their marriage, Axell
had discovered his wife’s creative mind had a few more twists than
he’d suspected.

“I think you’re supposed to put a mobile
together before you hang it,” he said cautiously, watching her lean from
the ladder to reach the hook she wanted. With the warmer weather, she had taken
to wearing short tight tank tops beneath loose blouses, but he’d noticed
she usually shed the blouses when she was alone, which was probably why he was
here. He’d known she’d be alone.

He admired the bounce of Maya’s unfettered breasts as
she climbed down. She’d been forced to give up trying to nurse Alexa, but
her breasts were still as full as a man could desire, not to mention high and
firm and easily discerned beneath that damned tight knit. Sometimes, he thought
she wore those shirts to taunt him. His restraint was near the cracking point.
Maintaining any semblance of equanimity in her presence was a challenge that
might break him.

“But I didn’t know where the streamers belonged
until I hung it.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, and Axell
responded to the scent of hyacinths wrapping around him. Maya wore the
damnedest perfumes. If he was a man of any less restraint, he’d have her
down on the floor by now.

As it was, he had to ball his fingers into fists to prevent
grabbing her by the waist and swallowing her tongue. He knew he could kiss any
resistance good-bye if he so much as touched her, and he didn’t think
making love to his wife in full view of the public would enhance either of
their reputations. He almost had the Alcoholic Beverage Control board believing
in his sterling character.

He glanced warily at the enormous laughing dragon flying
high above his head. “And I suppose the dragon told you where he wanted
his streamers?”

“Of course.” She crossed to the counter and
produced her carafe. “Tea?”

“Not now.” He watched as she poured hot water
into unfamiliar china. “Where are your teacups?”

She looked briefly embarrassed before she threw up her usual
defenses and shrugged. “They’re still at the school in a box. I
haven’t remembered to bring them back.”

He wouldn’t have thought anything of it except for
that brief embarrassment. Those teacups meant something special to her. He
didn’t like the idea of them still in their packing box, ready to be
moved at a moment’s notice. They were all Maya had that were truly hers,
he realized.

He’d learned that confronting Maya wasn’t any
easier than getting direct answers from Constance. Instead, he took the
indirect route. “Stephen’s band took that show at the club in
Charlotte?”

She pulled a bottle of mineral water from beneath the
counter and threw it in his direction. “The album’s done and the
tour won’t start for months. They have to do something.”

Axell caught the bottle and unscrewed the top. It gave him
something to do while he quelled the imps wreaking havoc with his stomach. He
couldn’t object to a father wanting to be near his daughter, not with any
rationality anyway. It was Stephen’s proximity to Maya that was driving
him crazy. He glanced upward. “He’s back then?”

Maya grinned and sat cross-legged on the cushion of one of
the giant high-backed wicker chairs she’d added to the inventory.
“If I know Stevie, he’s sawing logs. He doesn’t come awake
until the owls do. Sit down, Axell. You make me nervous prowling around like
that.”

Instead, he crossed the room to examine the row of painted
sneakers behind the counter. “You’re still taking orders for these
things?”

“They’re fun, and almost pure profit. I’m
working up a book of different characters people can choose from. I took in
fifty dollars yesterday,” she added defensively.

At fifty dollars a day, the shop could scarcely pay the
utilities, but it was better than where they’d started. He hadn’t
come in here to criticize. Axell swung around and took the other chair beside
her. Thank heaven she’d sold those hideous wrought-iron things.

“The transportation board is going ahead with land
condemnation proceedings. They’re calling for a public meeting next
month.” He hadn’t wanted to tell her. The school had just had their
first full summer session this week, and Maya had been so excited, she’d
almost closed Cleo’s shop in celebration. Only a curt note from her
sister had dimmed her exuberance and forced her to agree to teaching afternoon
classes only.

It seemed Cleo might be getting time off for good behavior.
She hadn’t been very polite in her inquiries about Matty and the store.
He was having grave doubts about the sister.

He didn’t know which was harder on Maya, the shop or
the school, but he loved having her close at hand for breaks like this.
Usually, she had the kids with her, but today, Matty and Constance were on a
field trip, leaving just Alexa to coo in her cradle. If it weren’t for
his unhappy news, he could be using the time to woo her a little.

At his warning, Maya bit her bottom lip and turned troubled
eyes toward the dancing prisms in the window. The speakers blared a mournful
Gaelic folk song, and Axell had the urge to smash them into plastic grounds. He
had a lot of explosive urges lately, but fortunately, he’d curbed them.

“Well, I suppose we’ll have to see to it that
the public supports us,” she finally responded with her usual cheer.
“The Pfeiffer property is practically an historic monument. How could
they want an ugly old road in its place?”

Very easily, Axell wanted to remind her. People preferred
shortcuts to the grocery store over historic monuments. But he didn’t
have the heart to shoot down her cloud. By now, he realized Maya knew when she
was ignoring reality. She did it deliberately. It saved a storm of tears and
rage and avoided the confrontations she so thoroughly disliked. He
couldn’t argue with that attitude, since it saved him tons of grief too.

“We’ll start a campaign,” he replied
gently. He didn’t have much hope of it working, but he didn’t want
to let her down either. They were still at that awkward stage of courtship
where they skirted around all the issues while warily testing each
other’s boundaries. Well, he was wary. Maya had a habit of treading his
toes whenever it occurred to her. The purple larkspur on his dining room walls
had grown six-feet tall.

“Won’t it be costly to build a road in a flood
zone?” she asked, wrinkling her brow as she sipped her tea.

Pow! Right between the eyes. Axell stared at his amazing
wife in incredulity. “Sometimes, you’re a lot more connected than I
realize,” he declared before his brain kicked in and he gave a mental
groan at his unintended insult.