Ruby
By the time Gigi and I board the train back to the city two days later, I’m certain of three things.
* * *
Piña coladas are medicinal and healing.
It’s time to shake up my life. Big time.
Gigi is an even better friend than I realized before we spent two days pondering life’s mysteries in side-by-side lounge chairs.
* * *
“So you’re saying you’ve known since I took over as office manager?” I ask around a bite of the semi-stale Amtrak station croissant I grabbed on the way onto the train. “Seriously?”
Gigi nods. “Probably before that, honestly. At your high school graduation party, when you announced you were majoring in business and minoring in art, I remember I got a sharp, stabby feeling in my gut. And I hadn’t had any eggs that day, so . . .”
I snort. “Don’t ever eat eggs again. Seriously. I’m still haunted by the ghost of eighth-grade Christmas, when you decided to see if you were still allergic.”
Gigi shudders. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that sick. I can’t believe you let me have eggnog.”
I laugh. “Right. It was all on me.”
She sticks out her tongue before she smiles again. “But I think I knew then the pie life wasn’t for you. That you were hitching your wagon to an anchor instead of a star. You were never as pie-shop crazy as the rest of us. And you’ve always hated numbers.”
“I don’t hate them,” I demur.
Gigi’s brows lift. “You despise them.”
“Okay,” I admit with a laugh. “I’m not a huge fan.”
“I can empathize with that, even though numbers are probably my best non-imaginary friends,” she says, confirming that my secret plan for the pie shop is the right one.
The only plan for Sweetie Pies.
For a moment, I almost say something to Gigi about the specifics and what I want to tell my parents, but in the end, I decide to wait. I think my parents are going to wake up and see the light, but if they don’t, I don’t want to offer Gigi something I can’t deliver.
“Yeah,” she continues, “if I had to spend all day coloring, my soul would shrivel up and die.”
I snort. “It’s not coloring. It’s not even close to coloring. Drawing and painting are completely different from coloring.”
She wrinkles her nose. “That’s what artsy people like you and my parents say, but the only art I get excited about is hanging in my closet.”
I tear off another bite of croissant, pondering as I chew. After I swallow, I ask, “So, why didn’t you ever say anything? About hitching my wagon to an anchor?”
“It didn’t seem like my business,” Gigi says with a shrug as the train swooshes around a curve in the tracks. “It isn’t my job to tell you what I think is best for you. Believe me, I was bossed around by my big brother enough growing up to know how miserable that can be.”
“Your brother is super bossy. Like, the dictionary definition of bossy.”
“One hundred percent.”
Gigi sets her hot chocolate on her tray with a smile and reaches out to squeeze my hand. “And that’s why, in my personal philosophy, my job is to love and support the people I adore while they blaze their own trails and choose their own adventures.”
“That’s a wonderful philosophy.” I turn my hand palm-up and return the squeeze. “And you do an amazing job of that. Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” she says, sobering as she adds, “but I confess that I really want to stick my nose into the whole you-and-Jesse thing. It’s been hard keeping my thoughts to myself.”
I sigh. “There is no Jesse and me. I hope we’ll always be friends, but he’s moving away. Far, far away.”