Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [65]
And then Michael and Jane were both crying and hanging on to each other fiercely.
“This,” he finally managed to say, “what happened today, is a miracle.”
Eighty-two
WHILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT of miracles, consider this one:
Just because life is hard, and always ends in a bad way, doesn’t mean that all stories have to, even if that’s what they tell us in school and in the New York Times Book Review. In fact, it’s a good thing that stories are as different as we are, one from another.
So here’s how this one ends: happily, I should warn you.
Huge spotlights rake the night sky of Manhattan, signaling that this is a really big deal. People are waving pens and pieces of papers, screaming for autographs from the actors. Police hold back the crowd at Sixth Avenue and 54th Street. It’s pretty cool. It’s a genuine rush.
My stomach is all in knots, and I smile as if it isn’t and walk past the paparazzi into the theater. I’m wearing a red satin dress. It’s a little snug at my hips and flares at the bottom. But I look good, and I know it. Sort of. In my own way of knowing these things and feeling good about myself, which I’m slowly getting a lot better at.
As I walk down the aisle to my seat, I can almost hear my mother saying, “Oh, Jane-Sweetie, a fancy dress like that deserves better jewelry. Why didn’t you go to my vault and pick out something nice? You look so . . . incomplete.”
I almost say out loud, “Mother, please, not tonight.”
I slide into the third row, all by my lonesome. That’s all right, though. I can handle it. I’m a grown-up.
Then I see Michael. He looks dashing, as he dashes down the aisle and sits in the empty seat next to mine. “Made it,” he says.
“I’m a nervous wreck,” I tell him, as if he didn’t know.
He gives me a hug, and my nerves instantly calm. Slightly. He’s comforting, sexy, sweet — all in one.
“Okay, now I’m a nervous wreck who’s wildly in love with a man who may or may not be real.”
Michael pokes me lightly in the side — the poke is our thing these days. “Okay, you’re real,” I say.
The houselights finally dim, and the movie begins.
People in the audience cheer immediately, but I know they’re all with the studio and PR agencies, so it doesn’t count.
“They love it!” Michael says.
“It hasn’t started.”
A title card fills the screen: “Jane Margaux, in association with ViMar Productions, presents Thank Heaven.” More cheering, much appreciated.
I lean toward Michael and say, “The music sounds fabulous, anyway.” Violins and a little soft brass.
Just right to introduce the first scene of this nice, light comedy.
A camera moves through a crowd, then in tight on a table at the Astor Court of the St. Regis Hotel. The scene was really shot at the St. Regis.
An adorable little girl sits at the table. The camera lingers on her for a moment, lets us get to know her. Apple-red cheeks. An irresistible smile.
Then the camera continues across and catches her companion, a handsome man, maybe thirty years old. Hard to tell for sure. But he’s definitely a star.
“So what’ll it be?” he asks.
“You know,” the girl says.
“I know. Coffee ice cream with hot fudge sauce.”
The actor playing the part is perfect for the role. He’s an unknown, whom I just happened to discover. Plus, he needed the work.
It’s Michael — playing Michael. Who else could it possibly be?
I watch him up on the screen as I hold his hand in the audience, and I think that everything in life is kind of unreal, isn’t it?
And then I’m thinking — is it so impossible to imagine or believe? — that a man and a woman can find happiness together for a little while, which, after all, is all that we have. All anyone has.
I think it can happen. It happened to me, to Jane-Sweetie, so it can probably happen to anybody.
By the way, the movie audience loved Thank Heaven.
EPILOGUE
Strawberries with Whipped Cream
Eighty-three
MICHAEL WAS SEATED at a table in the Astor Court at the St. Regis, with an absolutely adorable four-year-old girl named Agatha, who preferred to be called Aggie.
Aggie was Michael’s