One Enchanted Evening Read Free Page A

had indeed designed all the costumes, as well as having sewn most of them, but she was standing on the brink of a truly remarkable piece of good fortune, and she didn’t want to jinx it by arguing the point with a successful show’s director on closing night.
    Though it was really tempting to take the pair of dressmaker’s shears she had stuck in the back of her belt and cut off Frank’s ponytail while he was otherwise engaged in sucking up to his leads and belittling the little people. Fortunately for his dignity, she found herself suddenly too busy repairing tears and replacing sequins to do any trimming.
    By the time she had gotten all the costumes put away for someone lower than she on the food chain to worry about cleaning in the morning, she had given up the idea of revenge. Petty theater directors and grumpy actors were in her past. Her future was a sparkling green city in the not-so-distant distance and there was nothing standing between them but a no-nonsense flight to England. She got herself home through a damp and rather foggy Seattle night, then settled happily into her favorite pair of flannel pajamas before going in search of a decent post-production snack.
    Half an hour later, she pulled her last cinnamon-sugar Pop-Tart from the toaster, then frowned at the smell. Something was burning, and it wasn’t what she was holding in her hand. She leaned forward and sniffed her toaster. No, not there, either.
    She followed her nose to her front door, then opened it and looked out into the hallway. Gaspard, her neighbor, flung open his door, shrieking curses in French as he jerked off his chef’s hat, threw it on the floor, and stomped out the flames. He looked at her.
    “Run, chérie .”
    It took her a moment to reconcile herself to the fact that flames were licking his doorframe, which meant he was obviously not just capable of dispensing advice on how to make a killer Bolognese sauce but could also run a mean escape operation. She watched the smoke begin to billow for a moment or two before she realized that she was about to become as crispy as the pastry she was holding in her hand.
    She dashed back into her apartment, tossed her future into a suitcase, then bolted for the stairs.
     
     
    Several hours later, she stood on a the edge of tree-root-ravaged bit of sidewalk, pushed back the hair that was curling frantically around her face and dripping down the back of her now-soggy pajamas, and decided that there was only one explanation for the swirling events she’d been plunked down into.
    Karma was out to get her.
    She was a big believer in Karma. A girl couldn’t grow up as the child of flower children and not have a healthy respect for that sort of thing—and for tie-dye as well, but those were probably memories better left for another time when she had peace for thinking and some mini chocolate muffins to ease the pain.
    She rubbed the spot between her eyes that had almost ceased to pound, then looked around for somewhere to sit. Her sturdy, vintage suitcase was there next to her, looking imminently capable of standing up under the strain, so she sat and was grateful for the recent departure of fire engines and Dumpster delivery trucks. She rested her elbows on her knees, her chin on her fists, and gave herself over to the pondering of the twists and turns of her life.
    She also kept a weather eye out for that rather large and clunky other shoe she was fairly sure was going to be dropped onto her head at any moment. One couldn’t have the sort of spectacular good fortune she was about to wallow in without some sort of equal and opposite cosmic reaction. And to keep herself from breaking into the kind of jubilant rejoicing she was sure Karma took note of, she reviewed the path that had led her to her current enviable spot on a suitcase out in the rain.
    It had begun, she supposed, when Susie Chapman’s mother had given her a Barbie and a lunch sack full of fabric scraps for her seventh birthday. A