Eye to Eye Page 27
But watching their half-illuminated faces, I feel lucky. Lucky that at this moment everything feels perfect, as absolutely perfect as any evening could be. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford hag it up, arguing, fighting up and down the stairwell, cooking rats. And after all that drama, you find out they don’t even have their stories right. I decide now there’s a lesson to be learned. A warning not to believe in a story so much that you lose sight of the present. Maybe Zach and I don’t have an easy ending in clear sight, or a story that sounds terribly smart or familiar, but that doesn’t mean that a happy ending can’t happen.
“Space Shoes,” Ronnie whispers in my direction. “You’re missing the best part.”
I look at the screen and Bette Davis is letting roll with everything she’s got.
“Best hag ever,” I say.
Zach closes his hand over my own, and beside me I hear Earl murmur something soft and intimate in Ronnie’s ear. For a second, I feel like Dorothy when she opens her eyes at the end of The Wizard of Oz to see all the familiar elements of two different lives blend in one instant of love and recognition. I click my black stiletto heels together, gently, in a gesture to myself, as Zach holds my hand tighter. It may not really be perfect, it may not even be forever, but it feels like home.
EYE TO EYE
A Red Dress Ink novel
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2493-7
© 2008 by Alison Umminger and Dana Johnson
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