“Wow,” I said, looking at it more closely. “It’s really well done, Norman. He must have liked it.”
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “He’s never seen it.” He paused. “I didn’t want to show it to him, because I knew how he felt about my work. But I’ve always loved that picture, you know? There’s something so cool about capturing a person at a time when they’re really just, like, the best they can be. Or have been.”
I thought about this, taking in his dad’s broad smile.
“That’s why I keep it there,” he added, brushing crumbs off his lap. “It’s the way I want to think of him.”
We sat there, not talking, for a few minutes. He ate the Moon Pie; only skinny people can scarf down junk food like that. Finally, I said, “Norman?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you ever going to show me the painting?”
“Man,” he said. “You are, like, so impatient.”
“I am not,” I said. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
“Okay, okay.” He stood up and went over to the corner, picking up the painting and bringing it over to rest against the bright pink belly of one of the mannequins. Then, he handed me a bandana. “Tie that on.”
“Why?” I said, but I did it anyway. “Norman, you are way too into ceremony.”
“It’s important.” I could hear him moving around, adjusting things, before he came to sit beside me. “Okay,” he said. “Take a look.”
I pulled off the blindfold. Beside me, Norman watched me see myself for the first time.
And it was me. At least, it was a girl who looked like me. She was sitting on the back stoop of the restaurant, legs crossed and dangling down. She had her head slightly tilted, as if she had just been asked something and was waiting for the right moment to respond, smiling slightly behind the sunglasses that were perched on her nose, barely reflecting part of a blue sky.
The girl was something else, though. Something I hadn’t expected. She was beautiful.
Not in the cookie-cutter way of all the faces encircling Isabel’s mirror. And not in the easy, almost effortless style of a girl like Caroline Dawes. This girl who stared back at me, with her lip ring and her half smile—not quite earned—knew she wasn’t like the others. She knew the secret. And she’d clicked her heels three times to find her way home.
“Oh, my God,” I said to Norman, reaching forward to touch the painting, which still didn’t seem real. My own face, bumpy and textured beneath my fingers, stared back at me. “Is this how you see me?”
“Colie.” He was right beside me. “That’s how you are.”
I turned to look at him, studying his face the way, for all those weeks, he had studied mine. I wanted to remember it, not just in this moment, but from the whole summer into forever.
“Norman,” I said. “It’s wonderful.”
And then he reached forward, as he had in my mind so many times, brushing my cheek as he tucked that one piece of hair behind my ear. This time, he left his hand there.
I thought of so many things as he leaned in to kiss me: that swirling universe, a million protractors tinkling and finally, that other girl—me, too—who sat on that back stoop and smiled as if she didn’t even know or care about the sign over her head.
Last Chance.
We were still kissing when I suddenly heard music. Loud, crazy, boisterous music from the little house.
“What’s that?” I said, pulling back and listening.
“Isabel,” Norman said into my hair. “Her whole life is high volume.”
“No,” I said, gently untangling my fingers from his as I got up and walked to the door. “Isabel’s out with Frank. The only one there is—”
The music cranked up louder. It was disco, wild and wonderful, beats pounding, a woman’s voice climbing and falling over them.
At first I was afraid, I was petrified . . .
“Morgan,” I said. “It’s Morgan.” And when I went out into the yard, by the birdfeeders, I could see her. She danced across the brightly lit kitchen, arms waving over her head, hips shaking.
Either she had gone totally crazy, or Morgan was having a breakthrough.
“Come on,” I said to Norman. “Let’s go.”
The song ended while we crossed the yard. Then it started again. As I pulled the front door open, I had a sudden worry that I wouldn’t be able to handle what was going to happen. But by that point, she’d already seen me.
“Colie!” she yelled, waving me inside. “Come on in!”
I stepped over the threshold, with Norman right behind me; he closed his hand around mine. “Morgan?” I said. “What’s going on?”
“Norman!” she shrieked, running over to us. “Look at you two! You’re so cute together!”
The music was so loud we were all screaming.
“Morgan,” I yelled, “are you okay?”
She was bobbing up and down, shaking her head back and forth, but suddenly she stopped. “Come on,” she said. “Dance with me.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t—”
“Please,” she said. She put her hand over mine and squeezed, hard. I looked into her eyes and remembered that first day I’d seen her at the Last Chance.
“Morgan,” I said.
“I’ve been going crazy,” she said in a rush. “I’ve been crying for almost twenty-four hours straight and I just didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I mean, nothing is gonna be how I thought anymore. I have to start all over, and that is scaring the hell out of me, Colie. And then I realized that there was nothing else I could do tonight. Except this.”