Page 61 of With Stars in Her Eyes
“You as a kid?”
“Yep. These are my grandparents.”
“Your grandmother was beautiful. She looks like you.”
“People say that sometimes, but my mom says… never mind.” I tucked my wild hair behind my ears. “It’s getting late, and I keep getting distracted. Let’s take your photo. If you still are okay with it?”
“What if it tells you too much about who I am?” Courtney’s voice had lowered to a whisper. It was like the fear had come out more seriously than she meant for it to.
“I’m not sure that’s possible, but if you don’t want—”
Before I could give her another out, Courtney sat down on the stool and held up her hands, ready to be directed. I placed her hands on the blue boxes.
“Should I—er—smile?”
“Make whatever expression feels the most you.”
After another of Courtney’s long, unreadable stares into space, she kept her face mostly natural. Natural Courtney with her eyes catching the light was hypnotic. I could barely look away long enough to remember what I was supposed to be doing.
“God.” My voice was low and reverent. A tone better suited to smoky churches or temples. “You’re very, very beautiful, Courtney Starling.”
I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
As her gaze settled on me, a hint of a smile parted her lips, but she didn’t speak. She kept her hands pressed to the plates as instructed while something warm and glowy built in the space beneath my ribs.
“Got it.” Hoping to pass over thetoo muchcompliment I hadjust heaved on her, I fussed over the camera until I pulled a rectangular piece of paper from it. “We have to wait a minute for it to develop.”
“Like a Polaroid?”
“Kind of. And I was thinking about what you asked about whether any of this is ‘real,’ and I think with anything—whatever the colors show or the tarot cards tell you—the real thing is in the way your mind and heart react to what you see. For me, I do believe in the metaphysical even though my academic background is in science. I think there’s always more to everyone than we can see. And it’s better to find out more about ourselves in a nonjudgmental, positive sort of way. So… is this art to help you see yourself in a new way, or is this some kind of mystical magic with unseen energy? I think I do, myself, believe it’s both, but I’m also okay if the answer is only one of the two.”
Courtney nodded slowly, considering my words without responding to them.
My grip tightened on the photo. “I’m not sure if that was too woo-woo or not woo-woo enough for a person who reads tarot and asked to photograph your aura.” I winced, replaying that completely silly-sounding sentence in my mind.
“I think you’re the exact amount of woo-woo that’s right.”
Smiling, I handed her the photo. “You can look at it first. Peel the top layer off.” I demonstrated with my hands.
After a few seconds of scrutinizing the photo, she passed it to me. In the image, color wreathed her face, pink and a little bit of orange and turquoise, but the dominant color was a deep purple that was almost blue. Above her head was an arc of yellow with a hint of green.
“Do you want an interpretation?”
“Only if it won’t hurt my feelings.” She braced as if expecting an uncomfortable truth coming.
“Don’t be silly. I told you. There’re no bad auras.”
“All right. Analyze me, then.”
“I think you’re an expansive visionary. Playful with someretained features of childhood that most people lose. Creative. With an active inner life.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
I measured her, took a deep breath, and decided to just freaking go for it. “And, I had this other idea, and I wanted to see if you were down.”
Courtney’s eyes widened. “Down for—?”
CHAPTER 21Courtney
