Dream Factory

  She smiles. “I was kinda hoping,” she says. She props them both up on top of the dash, just under the windshield, side by side. “I got rushed and dropped it in. But probably it was my brain being smarter than me. I mean, I don’t know what I want. But I know I do want something, you know?”

  “Yeah, it’s hard to be specific.”

  “What do you want, Luke?” She really looks at me, her green eyes flecked with copper. The radio station fades out, and we ride to the rhythm of the wipers. When I check the rearview, I notice the spires of Cinderella’s castle still barely visible behind us.

  “Everything,” I say, and look at her again.

  “Yep. Not very specific.”

  “I didn’t finish,” I tell her. “Everything . . . and you. And if I can have you right here beside me, I think the everything might not matter so much.”

  She blushes and smiles, reaches up to touch my hair. She opens her window a little to let in the smell of the rain, and our index cards flutter on the dash.

  “Ask me what I want,” she says.

  I clear my throat. “Ella,” I say, “what do you want?”

  She smiles. “You, right here beside me.” She squeezes my hand, leans into me. “And a hamburger.” She smiles big.

  “Nice. Are those two ranked in any particular order?”

  “Oh, you are definitely first. The hamburger is merely a close second.” She kisses the side of my face. “And I mean it. All that crappy food we had? I want a real burger, on a sour-dough roll, with real tomato. And fries.”

  “I know just the place. They have the best burgers in the world, I think. Wanna go?”

  “Sure. Where is it?”

  “Memphis,” I tell her, and cut my eyes at her. “That’s in Tennessee.”

  She laughs. “Well, I might need some Junior Mints or something to tide me over, since it’s like . . . how far away? Two days?”

  “Yeah, if we take our time.”

  She nods. “Let’s do that.”

  I nearly miss the next exit ramp heading west. As we turn, I glance up into the rearview and try to see the fiberglass castle disappear behind us. By now the rain has stopped, and sunlight fills the car. Ella leans as we turn, one arm holding on to me, the other holding up the glass snow globe near her eyes again as the music plays. She tips it slightly so that all of the snow settles to one side of the globe. For that moment the two of them, Dale and Cinderella, dance in the bright sparkle of water, all the snow gone, nothing clouding their vision.