Free All for a Song by Allison Pittman Page A

green skirt.
    Minutes later she was enveloped in black velvet, the cushion beneath her more comfortable than any chair her behind had ever known. The lush fabric caressed the backs of her bare arms, and she wondered if Brent would ever consider letting her furnish their future home in theater seats.
    “I’d come here every night if I could,” Darlene said. “I’ve sat through some of the most awful films just to get away from those boys and the heat.”
    “I can imagine.” Dorothy Lynn could feel the sheen of sweat on the back of her neck being lifted and cooled, and she took off her hat, sighing with pleasure at the icy touch to her brow.
    “Put that back on. Do you want everyone to see what a bumpkin you are?”
    Dorothy Lynn felt too happy to be hurt by the words. “I don’t care what they think. Besides, nobody’s lookin’ at me anyway.”
    “Well, they might.” Still, Darlene took off her hat too, and fluffed her fingers through her flattened curls.
    For the next few minutes they chatted—bits of news from Heron’s Nest about people Darlene had long since forgotten and amusing people in St. Louis that Dorothy Lynn had never met. Intermittently, they contorted themselves in their seats to allow someone or another to pass by.
    The noise grew with the crowd, and when Darlene excused herself to visit the powder room, Dorothy Lynn allowed her eyes to wander. The sea of seats had crested with waves of faces. They turned to one another in conversation or faced stoically forward, eyes trained on the empty, looming screen. Nobody looked at her. Maybe if she stood up and shouted, or engaged in some crazy antic, she might have garnered some attention, but simply sitting there quietly, she might not even be there at all. Never in all her hours of solitude in her clearing in the woods back home had she felt so alone. There among the trees of his creation, she could feel the eyes of God holding her like an embrace, his breath in the cool breeze, his voice in the silence.
    Sitting here, encased in black velvet, shivering in artificial air, she felt about as far away from that place as she’d ever been.Words built walls around her, and she couldn’t imagine offering the simplest greeting to the young woman just two seats away. And yet there was no fear, no discomfort. Just fascination coupled with a bit of envy. Part of her felt guilty, as if she were betraying a first love. But this was nothing more than a peek into another world, a brief respite from mundane familiarity.
    Somewhere, three chimes rang out. She twisted to look for her sister’s return and offered a wide smile to the middle-aged woman sitting directly behind her. To her relief, the woman returned the gesture and asked if Dorothy Lynn was looking forward to the movie.
    “Very much,” she said. Before she could say more, Darlene returned.
    The lights went low and the orchestra, after a beat of silence, came together in a single enthralling note. Dorothy Lynn and Darlene settled back in their seats and quietly unwrapped their chocolate.
    And then she was lost. She nibbled her candy in the light of Valentino’s smoldering dark eyes, following the story of the young Indian prince taken away from his family to be raised in a wealthy American family. She followed the heart of the young woman enticed away from her betrothed and got chilled when the hero experienced disturbing psychic visions of his future.
    When the closing image disappeared into darkness with the final strains of music, she joined the audience in wild applause. It seemed the best way to get her heart to start beating again.
    “I just can’t imagine walkin’ back out into the world after somethin’ like that,” Dorothy Lynn said. She and Darlene remained rooted in their seats while the rest of the crowd began to exit around them.
    “Nothing like a bit of fantasy to make you appreciate your reality.”
    Darlene was attempting to get out of her seat but obviously needed a hand, so