Read Aurora 07 - Last Scene Alive for Free Online Page A

I’d ever seen on a woman who wasn’t standing on a street corner. And these high heels were worn with jeans, the tightest jeans I’d ever seen. No, wait; Nadine Gortner had worn some just as tight to one of the Pan-Am Agra picnics, and her zipper had popped.
    As if the heels and jeans weren’t enough to mark her out, this woman had lips outlined in the darkest possible shade of red while the lipstick she’d filled in with was a creamy pink. She looked like a bee had been at her.
    The people accompanying this creature were not as eye-popping, which was a relief. An older, grizzled man who might be from almost anywhere was carrying a bag (which I had to believe belonged to The Creature). A slightly less ornate woman in a modified version of The Creature’s outfit was scrabbling in her outsize purse with fingernails like a Chinese emperor’s.
    She pulled out some car keys, and immediately reached out to steady her flamboyant friend, who had stumbled on the irregular surface of the parking lot. No wonder, in those heels.
    After absorbing this trio in a comprehensive glance, I passed them with my eyes straight forward. That was why I noticed Miss Joe Nell standing in the glass door of Great Day making an elaborate face at me, jabbing her finger vehemently in the direction of the little group. It was hard to keep a steady course forward, since Amina’s mom was doing her best to get me to stop, turn, and stare.
    “That was them!” she said excitedly, as soon as I came through the door. Miss Joe Nell and her partner, Mignon Derby, were flushed and practically panting.
    “Them?” I said, trying not to sound as irritated as I felt.
    “The movie people!” Without ever thinking that I might not be delighted to have come in close proximity with some “movie people,” the two women began speaking all at once. Miss Joe Nell and Mignon (who, at twenty-eight, had the kind of skin most women only dream of) were extremely revved up about the trio’s just-concluded visit to Great Day, where the Starlet Lite (as opposed to the spike-heeled Full Starlet) had bought a white linen shell.
    “I don’t know what Celia Shaw bought at Crafts Consortium,” Mignon babbled. “I’m gonna go call Teal and find out!”
    So that had been Robin’s girlfriend, at least according to the magazine article. I was almost proud for despising her before I had known. Then I was angry with myself for my lack of charity. This was not my day to be pleased with the way I conducted my life.
    I am not exactly poker-faced, so Miss Joe Nell was picking up on my lack of enthusiasm.
    “Well, that was fun, but we know who’s going to be around when the movie people are gone,” she said, smiling. “What can I show you today, Roe?”

    Since I didn’t know what I wanted, I felt even grumpier. I was rapidly getting to be the town killjoy. At that moment, I was sure I was the only person in Sparling County who wished everyone associated with the movie project would fall into a big hole.
    I calmed down as I shopped, the familiar ritual and the renewed attentiveness of Mignon and Miss Joe Nell combining to make me feel once again that I had a legitimate place in the world.
    Hmmm. Was I just full of sour grapes at not being Top Dog? Was I way too used to having people treat me with a little deference and a little extra attention because I was well-heeled and a widow?
    Just could be.
    A life unexamined is not a life lived, I reminded myself, and resolved to be a little less stuffy and a lot less grudging about the excitement the filmmaking was bringing to Lawrenceton. Maybe, despite my legitimate gripes about the movie’s being made at all, what I was really doing was . . . pouting. Hmmm, indeed.
    I left with a nice bulky bag and lots of news about Amina, since Miss Joe Nell and her husband were just back from a trip to Dallas to see Hugh, Amina, and their two-year-old, Megan, who was being taught to call me Aunt Roe.
    Spending money always makes me feel