Texas Heat (56 page)

“Choices. Options. They're available. I think it's wonderful for the elderly.”

“If they could afford to live here. Do you know what the rent is in Assante Towers? Five thousand a month, and it's got an eighty-five percent occupancy as of today.”

Arm in arm, Thad and Billie climbed the broad steps of the center. At the top they stopped to peer into the crowd below.

“Here we are, but I don't see any sign of Cole or Riley. I thought I saw Maggie a moment ago, but she's disappeared.” Thad turned to look into his wife's eyes, a conspiratorial smile on his lips.

“What say, pretty lady, that you and I take this little trip all by ourselves? And I'll hold your hand so you don't get nervous.”

A tour guide, commandeered by Cary from Disney World, spoke cheerfully as he shepherded the first tour group into the building. Thad and Billie melted into it.

“Let me start off by thanking you all for coming to this wonderful opening of ACH Enterprises,” the guide was saying. “For those of you who don't know what ACH stands for, it's Assante, Coleman, and Hasegawa. Mr. Cary Assante is the man who built Miranda, with the help of the Coleman and Hasegawa corporations. I don't think I need to tell any of you from Texas just who the Colemans are!” Most of the crowd tittered knowingly. “For those of you who don't know who Mr. Hasegawa is,” the guide continued, “he's the grandfather of Riley Coleman and the owner of a Japanese publishing conglomerate called Rising Sun.

“From the time Miranda first appeared on paper till this day, it has taken ten years and several billion dollars. This,” he said, waving expansively at an immense display table strategically positioned in the middle of the vast Miranda City Planning Room, “is the result.”

On the twenty-foot-square table, gilded by sunshine from a skylight high above, was an exquisitely detailed miniature rendering of the magnificent city. Thad and Billie smiled as the group shared a delighted sigh.

The guide, with the aid of a long pointer, began his description by indicating an emerald-green park exactly in the middle of the display. “This central area is Grace Park, a seventy-acre wooded and landscaped oval. It was designed and constructed by the renowned Japanese landscape artist, Hing Takinara. In it, among other things, are a zoo, three fine restaurants, cycling and walking trails, an aviary, meditation pools, a slow tramway for older or disabled visitors—or lazier ones.” Everyone laughed at this. “Underneath Grace Park is Miranda's ultramodern metro system, a quiet and comfortable one-stop or express ride from the center part of the city to several destinations in each direction. The one stop is the exact middle of the park, where the Jessica Coleman Library and the Lotus Fountain are situated.”

Pointing to the street surrounding the park, the guide continued. “This is our Grand Concourse. As you can see, from this street you can go everywhere: Saks, Neiman-Marcus, Martha's. For all you food aficionados, the New Fulton area has fresh produce shipped in daily from all points of the globe. This is where our head chefs from The New Maxim's, La Tut Suite III, and our other fine restaurants buy their food.

“As you know,” he continued, pointing to another impressive building at the park's south curve, “Donald Trump managed to grab this prime corner, where he has duplicated his New York effort. Ours is called New Trump's.

“Miranda boasts one each of every well-established bank and large national corporation.

“To your left is Assante Towers, one floor shy of the Sears high rise in Chicago. As you can see, it's a marvel of steel and glass. The ten top floors are residences owned by some of the wealthiest men in the world. There are three penthouse apartments, one owned by Mr. and Mrs. Assante, the second by the Coleman family, and the third by the Rising Sun Corporation. But we're wasting time here—let's go and see the real thing!”

Outside in the clear, cold daylight, everyone clambered into the sleek new jitney. The tour guide picked up his mike, tapped it once to see if it was on, and continued his spiel. Billie and Thad huddled closer and tuned him out as the jitney moved slowly forward toward the main thoroughfare of Miranda.

In five minutes, the real thing, looming up ahead, took everyone's breath away. From the south curve and Main Street they proceeded onto the Grand Concourse. As far as they could see to their left was a combination of Rodeo Drive and Fifth Avenue, an international shoppers' paradise, with gold-braided and festooned entrance porticoes, parked Rolls-Royces, and liveried doormen. On their right the park beckoned, velvety green and majestically jeweled with flowering entrances and graceful, generously sized park benches.

The jitney came to a halt in front of the Assante Towers building. The guide directed his enthralled charges to its entrance, shepherding them like schoolchildren to the first-floor mezzanine. All eyes were drawn upward to the first five floors, dense with trees and hanging plants, elegant food emporiums, and boutiques of all types. Shining green-tinted glass enclosed it all. Sea-green wrought-iron filigreed causeways and balconies laced the structure, and the sound of gently falling water filled the air. The guide signaled the group to divide into two as he led them to the egg-shaped, glass-enclosed elevators, framed in black wrought iron. Under ceilings sectioned with Tiffany glass, they were slowly carried to the fifth floor.

After giving them a few moments to absorb the wondrous sight below, the guide ushered them toward large iron gates draped in ivy and flowering wisteria.

“This is the Cardinal's Nest restaurant,” he announced. “We bring everyone here for coffee early in the tour because the Cardinal's Nest affords the finest bird's-eye view of the entire heart of Miranda.”

The guide pointed to New Trump's, directly across the park. “Sparkling and majestic, the entire one-hundred-and-twenty-five-floor building is at once there and not there. It is enclosed in a special mirrored glass that reflects everything around it. This feat is most strikingly apparent when one realizes, that the last fifty or so floors reflect the sky and the clouds back to the viewer....”

Billie and Thad couldn't listen anymore. All they could do was squeeze each other's hands and try not to howl like coon dogs.

 

“Are you used to the apartment yet, babe?” Cary asked with a smile on his face.

“Darling, I could live in a shack as long as you're with me,” Amelia laughed back. “To answer your question, yes, I love it. And we're going to need all eight rooms and three baths. It's amazing what you builders can do. Here we are living high in the sky in an apartment that's bigger than most people's houses.”

“It's all for you, Amelia. I had it down on paper right to the last nail. I know you wanted a state-of-the-art kitchen. I kind of like the sunken Jacuzzi myself.” He leered at her.

“I know you do.” Amelia leered back. “You know what I like best, Cary? The balcony. It's as big as the patio at Sunbridge. The first thing I did was set out my sundial. It fits perfectly on the pedestal. Cary, I just love it. I know I'm going to spend a lot of time out there when the weather is good.”

“We can sit out there all year-round. Did you forget about the special heater I installed? The canopy and the sides are insulated. We'll be as snug as two bugs in a rug.”

“I did forget, Cary. There are times when living in an apartment, no matter how big it is, gets to you. The need to walk outside, to touch something green, makes all the difference. Thank you, Cary.”

They walked hand in hand through the apartment. Each time they did it they noticed something different—an object with a memory, a special gift, something they'd bought together because it pleased them, the colors they'd chosen after months of looking at fabric and paint samples, a cushion with a petit point cover. All the little things that made up their new home in Assante Towers. In Miranda.

“We're going to be happy here, babe.”

“Not going to be happy, Cary. We are happy. I'm so proud of you and all this.”

“Couldn't have done it without you,” Cary said.

Amelia knew he meant every word. Cary was probably the most honest person she'd ever met. “I love you, Cary.”

“And I love you, more than life itself. And because I love you, I am going to carry you to that large sofa we bought so we could snuggle into it together. If I remember your words correctly, you said we could get lost in it.”

“A nap sounds good to me. What are you going to do?”

“Not a damn thing except reflect on Miranda. I might go out to the balcony and try out that heater.”

Amelia smiled at her husband as he settled her in the softness of the sofa. He propped bright orange pillows behind her head and covered her with one of her mother's afghans that had seen far too many washings. “Warmer than cashmere,” Amelia whispered as she drifted into sleep.

Cary watched the tour bus from the heated balcony of his penthouse apartment. He straightened his shoulders and threw out his chest. He wasn't going to burst, he was going to bust ... with pride. He'd created it all, lived it all, 365 days a year for ten long years. For a moment he felt like God surveying His creation. God had created the world out of nothing. He, Cary Assante, had taken his imagination, his own money, his wife, Amelia's, faith in him, and had gone to work. Five years into his project, he'd run out of money. Unable to let his dream slip into obscurity, he'd solicited the aid of the Colemans and the Hasegawas. They'd all invested—in him, they said. From that point on he'd doubled his workday, arriving at the building site before first light and returning home long past midnight. Amelia should have divorced him for his neglect; instead, she encouraged him to keep on. He was glad now that he'd listened. He hadn't lied to the Colemans, to Thad Kingsley, and to Shadaharu Hasegawa when he told them their investment would be returned tenfold. Their belief in him made him deliver; it was that simple.

Cary felt like singing. Lyrics bubbled forth.
Come fly with me
. . . . He wished he could remember the rest of the words to the song. He hummed the melody as he leaned on the railing of his balcony. Down below ... his blood, his sweat, and his tears.

Nothing in his life had prepared Cary for this moment, this day. This was the bubbly. He'd earned this moment—a moment of aloneness to savor his creation. For a little while, until the dedication, Miranda had belonged to him. Now it would belong to the world.

Come fly with me
. . . . It sounded right. If only he could take wing and fly over his creation.... If only.... He wished he could keep forever this wonderful, intoxicating feeling that was transfusing his body.

This was his dream. Dreams were something the Colemans understood. Moss, Amelia's brother and Billie's first husband, had had a dream, too, but leukemia claimed his life before his revolutionary slant-winged aircraft—his dream—could be brought to reality. After Moss's death, Billie forged ahead, with the family's help, to make the dream a reality. She'd faltered just as he had, but she'd righted herself, just as he had. And with the aid of Shadaharu Hasegawa, Moss Coleman's slant-winged plane took wing before the entire world.

Cary shivered, but not from the cold, even though the temperature was biting and well below the freezing mark. It was a shiver of elation and pride. He imagined he could see Moss Coleman standing on some fluffy cloud giving him his cocky thumbs-up salute and saying, “I couldn't have done it better!”

There was no doubt in his mind that he now belonged.

His feeling of pride stayed with him. Yes, he'd faltered, and yes, the Japanese side of the family had come to the rescue again—to his rescue. He'd never negate the monetary help he received or forget the confidence the Colemans had in him and in his ability.

Cary's step was jaunty, his grin in place. Not bad for a boy raised on the charity of a New York City orphanage. From runny-nosed, barefoot, bare-assed orphan to this.

He belonged now. He proved to
himself
that he was finally worthy of being one of
them.

The cold November wind buffeted him, pushing him back against the sliding doors. He should go inside, where it was warm and cozy. Inside with Amelia.

 

“If you'd take those clumsy clodhoppers off, you might be able to walk normally. How many times do I have to tell you to leave those work boots by the back door—you almost broke my figurines!” Tess Buckalew shrilled.

Coots Buckalew was in a fighting mood. Nothing had gone the way he'd planned today, and this shindig at Miranda had him twisted in knots. Tess had signed a lease and told him afterward that he'd forked out sixty grand in rent for a suite of rooms at Assante Towers for a year. Rent he couldn't afford. He'd wring her skinny neck, but then he'd go to prison, and there was no way in hell he was going to spend his remaining years in jail because of Tess.

The voice he aimed over his shoulder was a thick mixture of gravel and molasses. “Shut up, Tess. You got me into this, and I don't want to hear a goddamn word out of you. I haven't forgotten that little trick with the Towers. We can't afford sixty grand. When are you going to get it through that pea brain of yours that we have to cut back? I mean, way back. And you better not tell me you and the girls bought new clothes for this thing tonight.”

“Damn right, I'm going to tell you that!” Tess shouted. Coots barely kept himself from jumping. He hadn't seen her creep up behind him. Tess was two feet away from him and, judging from her pulsing temples and bulging eyes, fighting mad. The thought that Coots would even try to get in her way now meant war. “Do you want us shamed? Of course you do, I can see it in your eyes. You're a hateful man, Coots Buckalew. We were specially invited, so that means something. We have to look our best.” Tess poked her clawlike finger into his chest. “That means new clothes.” Each word was accompanied by a jab of the claw.