A Dream to Cling To by Sally Goldenbaum

of a nondescript office door. She had taken the day off from Petpals, letting the volunteers chauffeur the pets around while she ran various necessary errands—like grocery shopping. Sam had said he’d be working on her father’s game at his office, and had invited her to drop by. This was the first time she’d been to Sam’s office and when no one answered her knock, she checked the address he’d scribbled on a piece of paper to make sure it was the right number. Suite 103. That’s what he’d said, although he hadn’t mentioned it was in an old brownstone in the renovated section of Windemere. The building had been carefully fixed up and quartered into offices. It was a pleasant surprise from the usual squat, concrete office building,
if
it was the right place. But there was nothing on the door that said Creative Games, nothing at all to indicate this was Sam’s business. Just painted numbers on the smoked glass surface. Beyond the door she could hear music playing softly. A symphony …? Puzzled, she knocked again, and this time the door opened a crack. She stepped through, and her eyes widened.
    The outer office was crammed full of cardboard boxes,one on top of the other in haphazard fashion. Some were still closed, while the contents of others—dice and brightly colored playing pieces—spilled out onto the clean floor. And nothing else. No furniture. No cheerful plants. No desk. No
living person
. But filling the air were the wonderful themes of a Brahms sonata that came from a rather elaborate stereo system lined up against one wall.
    She shook her head and stuck her hands into the pockets of her wool slacks. Strange. Perhaps she should have called first. She enjoyed the music for a moment, then gave the room one more cursory glance and walked with growing curiosity into the next room.
    There was hope here, she decided, though no life. Several desks were positioned about the room at odd angles and a drawing board stood in front of a window. Mugs filled with artists’ tools were lined up neatly on the sill.
    She walked over to the drawing board and glanced at the sheet of paper lying across the smooth surface.
    “THE GORDON WINTERS GAME” was sketched in neat letters in the center of the white sheet and was bordered on all sides by game squares. The name of the New England town in which her father was born was printed in one, the church in which he’d been married in another, and so on around the board. Beneath the words tiny cartoon-type characters romped across the squares, acting out the events.
    She smiled and her heart skipped a beat. This wasn’t at all what she had anticipated when the game idea had been explained to her a little over a week ago. What Sam was undertaking was a thoughtful, gentle exploration; it wasn’t a mechanical study at all. In fact, Sam’s way of questioning her had been so subtle, she’d felt he was doing it because he cared about her, as a
person
, not as a client or a source or a reference. He was making it all as painless as eating candy.
    She took a deep breath and walked through the finaldoor into what must have been a kitchen in the original house. A round butcher-block table was set in front of shuttered windows, and a tiny stove and refrigerator were still in place. One window was open to let in the crisp autumn breeze and through it Brittany heard animated voices. She stepped closer and looked out through the thin curtain.
    Beyond the window and stretching the width of the brownstone was a tiny square patch of patio. An old picnic table stood beneath the one tree—a proud maple whose brilliantly colored leaves drifted down in slow motion to the uneven brick below. Leaning against the tree, his pipe held loosely in a hand that moved slowly through the air, was Sam Lawrence.
    Brittany stopped short, her pulse quickening. A feeling of familiarity rushed through her so suddenly it startled her.
    With two fingers she pulled the curtain back and let her gaze run freely