Re: log: joey & ella, gatsby
She put her elbows on her knees, the stockings had a hole in them but way, way up high. Past the point anyone would see them. It was a hole in the put-together whole, a tear in the dream but so were the colored-in spots on her shoes and the way the girls redrew their eyebrows, curlicues of surprise arched up to set-tight curls. Playing pretend was adults with money to burn, phone lines on little printed cards in discreet type. Everyone could have magic and mystery if they could afford to pay for it by the hour.
"Tess and Sam," she tried out names in dusty, smoky back-alley air. They sounded pretty, tumble-rough but pretty. Tess-who-played-pretend she'd never seen more than a scrap of. What-ifs could only be played with if you knew you couldn't fall off the edge.
She shook her head, blond curls and pins falling like stars. "No," she said, certain. Apple pie and handsewn dresses -- and a backyard education and growing up without medicine to put a guard-rail around childhood. "You have to grow up sometime. You can't play make-believe all the time or it wouldn't be fun." She smiled, chin on the palm of her hand and her face turned toward him in street-alley lit profile. "I have to get a real job sometime soon. Something with medical and sick days and vacation time. Beth's getting old enough I need to be her mom first."