Sour Grapes

sucked!” Atlanta plopped down on the grass, her legs crossed, her lip out. “I hated the whole thing! You wouldn’t believe how boring it is to record a song! You sing it over and over and over again until you’re just sick to death of hearin’ it!”
    Savannah stared at her, unable to comprehend this reversal. It was so abrupt. So... Atlanta .
    “It ain’t what it’s cracked up to be, this singing thing,” she said. “Dixie was downright cranky, and I don’t really blame her. I had to be there at nine, but she’d been recording since seven in the morning. She hadn’t even had time to do her hair and makeup. I’m tellin’ ya, she looked like crap! Nothin’ like she did at the Oscars.”
    Lying in his hammock, eyes still closed, John smiled, his mustache twitching.
    Ryan and Tammy gave each other a sideways look.
    Dirk started dishing up a bowl of ice cream.
    Savannah walked over to the barbecue grill. “Okay,” she said. “So much for that. We saved you some ribs. The veggies are on the kitchen counter. Can I dish you up a plate?”
    “Naw, I’m not really...” Atlanta paused. Her eyes met her sister’s for a long moment. “Yeah, okay,” she said. “I’ll take some of that potato salad you made yesterday and a piece of corn.”
    As Savannah walked into the house, she heard her sister saying, “You know what? On the way here on the plane I was noticing that those flight attendants have got a pretty good job. I mean, they get to dress up in cute uniforms and meet lots of rich guys and travel all over the world. That would be cool, you know. I’m just thinkin’ that maybe if I was a stewardess, I might meet some movie director in first-class, and... you know, a lot of actresses get discovered that way, because...” Marion Lippincott was right after all, Savannah decided as she put a double-sized scoop of potato salad on a paper plate; all that energy, all that optimism—it really was wasted on the young.
    But at that moment, as she gazed out her kitchen window at her loved ones—those her own age and those younger—Savannah was extremely contented to be exactly where she was on life’s road.
    Right here... this spot where she was standing... it was the very best place in the world to be.