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ostentatious wedding imaginable.
Maybe you ll let me shoot it for you at the friend s
discount.
Thanks, but don t count on it. If Mike has his way, we ll
elope. In fact, if it were up to him we d do it as soon as I got out
of school.
So soon?
If there s one thing he hates, it s a drawn-out spectacle. Once
he makes up his mind, he s ready to do it. Married? Check. Kids?
Three. He s the same way about everything.
The waiter returned with their pasta and the conversation
turned to food. It was clear to Claudia they had crossed a
threshold toward friendship when they sampled each other s
entre, even sharing a fork to polish off a piece of cheesecake.
After a spirited protest she allowed Leo to pick up the check, but
only after insisting they would go out again soon at her treat.
If we walk to the end of the boat dock, we can catch the
sunset, Leo suggested as she zipped her jacket against the stiff
breeze.
Claudia looped the elastic headband around her hair and
turned up her collar. This is so beautiful. I was supposed to be
doing my lesson plans today. I didn t know I was going to play
hooky with you.
So you re saying I m a bad influence.
She followed Leo s gaze to a cluster of seagulls that seemed
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to hang in the air behind a sailboat. I wouldn t call it bad at all.
Gosh, if I lived as close to this wharf as you, I d be out here all
the time.
It s one of my favorite places. When I was a teenager I used
to walk this dock every day dreaming about my life and making
all the plans in my head for how I would get there. I don t know
why I stopped coming.
Maybe because your dreams are coming true now.
Leo shrugged. Or maybe because I know some of them won t
ever come true. I used to walk out here and think about how I d
build the business with my dad. Instead I ended up having to
scale back to just the jobs I could manage.
Like school pictures?
And sports teams, weddings& studio work. A lot of it s
pretty mundane. I always wanted to branch out into some of the
high-art stuff like magazine work, but I don t have time to do
that on my own because it means I d have to go out there and
sell myself to a whole new audience. I m too busy just trying to
pay the bills. She sighed. Besides, that kind of work calls for
skills and connections I don t really have. I was hoping for an
apprenticeship or something, but I can t do that and leave my
studio sitting empty.
It sounds like your whole world was turned upside down
when your dad died. She had nearly come undone when her
beloved grandmother died, but that didn t compare to losing a
parent.
That s what it felt like, but at least he trained me well to do
what I do, and he left the studio in good shape. It could have been
a whole lot worse.
Still, it says a lot about you that you held on. Claudia was
beginning to wonder if Sandy was mistaken about Leo being shy.
She had talked about her first girlfriend, her mother s feelings
of exclusion from the family and now her father s death, all in
what Claudia considered very personal terms. Maybe these were
just surface emotions she shared with everyone, but Claudia felt
privileged to see them.
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It was fascinating that someone so young had taken on the
burdens of a business while dealing with the loss of her father.
She couldn t name a single friend from home or college who
had proven so much with the exception of Mike, who was
only twenty-nine and already heading up a whole division of
his family s company in Asia. Her recognition of the similarities
between Mike and Leo made her realize how much she valued
maturity and self-sufficiency. It was one of the main reasons she
wanted to teach for a year or so before getting married to prove
she could stand on her own two feet.
They reached the end of the wharf, where Leo indicated
a wooden staircase leading down to the marina. I d suggest
walking out to the end, but with all these people spraying off
their boats, we might get wet.
This is far enough for me. They leaned over the rail to
watch the activity below. So tell me about this party. Do people
go in costume?
Not me, but Sandy keeps a basket of masks by the door.
Anyone not wearing a costume has to put one on when they
come in.
That sounds fair. I have a biker chick costume I wore to a
party a couple of years ago. The only problem was that in Santa
Cruz nobody realized it was a costume.
Leo laughed. You in a biker outfit? That I ve got to see.
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