Jeanne sat there looking at Ellie for a moment; then she pushed the button on her telephone. “Sarah, cancel my luncheon date.” She then turned to her laptop on her desk and opened it. “Ellie, my dear, you and I are going to get on the Net and see what we can find out about these women; then you’re going to invite them to spend your birthday with you.”
“Is a therapist supposed to be this controlling?”
“She is when she cares about her clients as much as I care about you. And, besides, I want to read more about Jordan Neale. Hey! I tell you what, you can have my house in Maine for that weekend. There are only two bedrooms, but there’s a sofa bed in the living room, so one of you can use that. Now, what were their names?”
And that was how Ellie came to be sitting on a plane that was flying toward Bangor, Maine, and why two women she hadn’t seen in nineteen years were going to meet her and the three of them were going to spend their collective birthday together.
But now that she was actually on the plane and was, eventually, going to land—but, given her luck of the last three years, maybe they wouldn’t land. No! Jeanne had made Ellie take an oath that for one whole weekend she was going to do her best not to be negative.
Anyway, now that she was actually flying toward the meeting, she couldn’t believe she’d allowed Jeanne to bully her into it. Ellie was sure that the other women were both divinely happy and that she was the only one with a sob story for her life.
I must stop. I must stop, Ellie chanted to herself. I must force myself to look at the positive and not the negative. If nothing else, doing that will make people stop telling me that idiot story about the half-full and half-empty glass of water, she thought, then told herself to cut out the sarcasm.
Think of something good, she thought. Think happy thoughts. Think . . .
Leaning back against the seat, she closed her eyes. Legs and Face, she thought, then smiled in remembrance. “And I was . . .” she whispered aloud, smiling broadly.
The plane engine seemed to make a cocoon of sound, so that Ellie could hear nothing else but the roar. In the background she could hear a man with a monotone voice droning on and on and on. Glad I’m not married to him! Ellie thought as she began to visualize the first time she’d met the two women.
It had all started with that nerdy little man at the New York Department of Motor Vehicles, Ellie thought with a smile. And she’d never forget his name: Ira Girvin. His name was on a little badge on his chest and it was right at Ellie’s eye level, and considering how short Ellie was, that meant he couldn’t have been more than about five feet four.
“Sit over there and wait,” the little man said to Ellie, and she could see that he loved having the power to make people wait.
With a fake smile, she took the forms from under the cage and turned around. There were some people standing between her and the bench along the wall, but when they moved, Ellie saw them. Sitting at opposite ends of a short green bench, looking in opposite directions from each other, were two of the most extraordinary women Ellie had ever seen.
The one on the left had on a black leotard with a long dark green silk skirt clinging to her legs. With her dark auburn hair pulled tightly back in a knot, she looked as if she was probably a dancer, just off the exercise floor, and she had a body that any sensible woman on earth would kill to have. She was like an illustration of what the human body can look like.
She had a pretty face, and her long neck curved gracefully down to wide, strong shoulders, then small breasts atop a stomach that looked as though it could flip coins over. Slim, strong hips topped legs that had to be seen to be believed: long, muscular, graceful. Even the way the woman was sitting was as though it had been choreographed, with elegant feet pointed, her hands in liquid repose.
Astonishing woman! Ellie thought; then she dragged her eyes away to look at the other woman. While the one in the leotard was graceful, this one was beautiful, so beautiful, in fact, that Ellie had to blink a couple of times to be sure she was seeing correctly. The woman was at least six feet tall and she was quite thin, but thin in a way that made you want to look like her. And she was beautiful. No, there had to be a term that didn’t sound so run-of-the-mill. There were lots of women who were beautiful, but this one was . . . was . . . Well, she was perfection.
She was wearing a simple little summer dress, something with ruffles down the front of it, something that had probably been bought in some tiny Midwestern town and would usually have looked out of place in sophisticated New York. But this woman made the dress look like couture. There was something about her that made that plain, ordinary dress look as though it were grateful to be worn by this divine creature.
The woman had long, dark blonde hair that fell silkily down her back in big waves. Her face . . . Her face was that of a goddess, Ellie thought as she gaped at the woman. She had high cheekbones, a perfect nose, full lips. Her eyes were almond shaped, with thick black lashes set under brows that were perfect arches. Flawless skin, perfect hands and nails, and encased in little sandals were feet that looked like something off a marble statue.
For a moment Ellie just stood there looking from one woman to the other. Then, slowly, she turned back to Mr. Nerd, Ira, her eyebrows raised in question, as though to say, Are they for real?
Ira gave her a little shrug and a smile, then nodded his head toward them as though to tell Ellie she was to take her place between those two.
Slowly, Ellie walked toward the bench. The two young women had their backs to her and paid no attention when she sat down between them. Ellie tried to place the form on her knee without touching either of the two gorgeous creatures, but it wasn’t easy. She twisted and turned but couldn’t seem to find a way to sit and write at the same time. When she did manage to squeeze herself in tightly and raise her knee to use as a desk, the cheap pen she had wouldn’t write.
For a moment Ellie raised her eyes skyward. Why, oh why, hadn’t she renewed her driver’s license before she’d left home? But today was her twenty-first birthday and if she didn’t renew her license today, it would expire. It wasn’t as though she were going to need a driver’s license in New York, but if she should ever make it as the world’s greatest painter, she might need to be able to drive, and who wanted to have to take that test over again?
She looked up at the counter where Ira was marking othe
r people’s applications. If she went to him, she was sure he’d tell her that the New York DMV was not a free-pen-lending institution.
“Excuse me,” Ellie said weakly to the two backs on either side of her, “but do either of you have a pen I could borrow?”
There was no reply from either of the backs. “Great,” she said under her breath. “What did I expect, brains behind the beauty?”
She hadn’t expected anyone to hear her. She’d grown up in a small house with four older brothers, all of whom seemed to be in a permanent contest to see who could make the most noise. Ellie’s only defense against them had been to make snide remarks under her breath. It had always been an exciting game because if any of her brothers happened to hear one of Ellie’s biting little remarks, she’d get an Indian head rub, a twisted-skin-arm, anything her jock brothers could come up with.
But the women beside her did hear, and it took Ellie a few seconds to realize that they were laughing. She could see ripples in the muscles of the dancer’s back, and the ruffles around the neck of the other one seemed to move in a nonexistent breeze.
With her head down, Ellie smiled. “Can either of you read?” she said in a tiny voice. Slowly, Ellie felt the dancer turn and when Ellie looked up, the dancer was smiling mischievously.
“I can read a bit,” she said, smiling, her eyes laughing.