For her part, Celeste decided it was the moment to go forward, also for Blanche, and she wore, that night of the weekly ball on the ship, her first not-blue dress; one of Roxanne's, which the latter let down to suit her taller sister.
"Roxanne," Joseph said, while he admired her beautiful brown hair, which she was wearing up, and her rosy cheeks, which were further enhanced by the dark, dotted with stars, space that framed her, "on Playa, I will be happy because you will be with me. And I'll make every effort to make you happy too. Will you do me the honour of being my wife as soon as we locate the person entitled to marry us?"
In spite of all the things that tormented her and wouldn't let her sleep at night, a nice, revitalizing sense of excitement filled her, bringing her closer to optimism, which had come to seem so lost.
"You said you wanted us to know each other better."
"I feel I need it. And I now see no reasons to wait."
Neither did she.
They walked to the middle of the room, cleared of the dinner tables, and joined the other dancers, who were dreaming, like them, of a new life about to begin, full of hardships, like all lives, but with the necessary hope ingredient, so, so important.
On the other side of the room, in the background, Alan watched them merge into a union of love.
They'd met him boarding the spaceship, a couple of days before. Alan had taken advantage of a moment in which Roxanne was alone to approach her in that purposeless - until proved wrong, she thought - way of his. This time, he was no longer a novelty, no longer a candidate. She knew who she could really rely on and her heart was no longer free. She cut him short, not rudely, but being clear on the matter.
He, of course, resigned himself to it. And he was now watching them, feeling like an absurd secondary character in a story he could've been the protagonist of.
Roxanne had told Lorraine about him and she'd said that when she was young, on the Earth, she'd met several similar men, who seemed at an initial point willing to make more commitments than they really were.
"It's all so complicated, isn't it?" was the girl's conclusion. "Everywhere."
"Yes, Dear. Everywhere. But take comfort from that thought and move on. Don't forget you're the girl in red who found the strength to fight to walk in the rainbow and choose her own colours."
Copyright©2012 Monica Euen
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