Erica
I put in my two weeks notice at the brewery the next day. I was worried about how Charlie would take it, but to my surprise—and delight—he washappyto hear the announcement.
“I always knew you were destined for bigger and better things,” he said, beaming at me. “You’re too smart to be a bartender. Always having ideas, pestering me to try new things around here. You don’t need to wait two weeks, either. I’ll figure it out. I actually already started training a girl last week, in case your diamond business thing took off.”
“Really?” I asked. “What if it failed?”
He snorted as if I had said something dumb, like trees were made of chocolate. “Nah. I knew it wouldn’t fail. Go on, get out of here. I’ll send your last paycheck in the mail.”
I hugged him, grabbed a four-pack of beer for good measure, and walked out of the brewery for the last time as an employee.
Without a bartending shift to worry about, I spent the next two days focusing on my thriving new business. A lot of the work was already automated. When a customer placed an order on my website, the order was automatically forwarded to the laboratory that produces the gems. The lab would then mail a DNA sample kit directly to the customer, who would send it back to the lab. The gemstone would then be produced and shipped to the customer. My company wasn’t involved in any step of the process once the order was placed.
But there were a lot of secondary processes that needed to be managed. I had to create an automated email that would send customers a satisfaction survey once they had received their gemstone. Hunter helped me sync this up with the database that confirmed an order had been completed. There were also follow-up email automations that would send emails to customers three, six, and nine months later, advertising more gemstones and other products. Once the processes were completed, everything would run smoothly and automatically, but configuring them at the beginning was a lot of work.
I also had to go through my ever-growing inbox. All the order confirmations were automatically forwarded to the laboratory, but scattered throughout these were emails from customers asking for information. Seven hundred and fourteen such emails, to be exact. They asked any number of questions:
Does the lab-created ruby look as red as arealruby?
Is there a noticeable difference in quality?
If I shave my entire head, rather than just sending a single hair sample, will the diamond be more pure?
Most of the information was readily available on the Q&A portion of my website, but that didn’t stop people from asking. So I went through each email, one by one.
Hunter and Brad helped with much of this for the first day. With our laptops gathered around the dining room table, we looked like a scene from the movieHackers. The only thing missing was a young, emo Angelina Jolie.
Hunter’s final week here ended, and he had to fly back to Portland to handle all of his personal affairs. This time I drove him to the airport myself, and kissed him goodbye in front of the security line.
But it was easy saying goodbye, because he was coming back three days later.
Once I was caught up with theYours Forever Gemstoneswork, I had plenty of time to begin going through my parents’ belongings. It was a slow and emotional process. There were boxes and boxes of heirlooms and memorabilia in the attic. Thousands of photographs, individual ones and some organized in scrapbooks. Toys from when Brad and I were kids. Things that pre-dated us, like Mom’s wedding dress and Dad’s Army uniform and his box of medals. Things we had never seen before.
I cried several times while going through everything, but it was healthy. It was cathartic to finally get it out of the way.
Hunter returned from Portland and helped us make trip after trip to Goodwill. We rented a storage unit for the rest of the items, the things we wanted to keep. We could figure out what to do with them later. For now, we just needed them out of the house so we could prepare to sell it.
The only room left was Mom and Dad’s bedroom.
“I’ll handle it myself,” Brad told me one night. “It’s the last room, so it will go quickly.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Absolutely. You guys are supposed to leave tomorrow. You don’t need to delay your trip just to help me. I’ll be fine. I promise.”
Hunter had been busy in the garage since he returned. He had gotten the Mustang out of impound, then renewed the plates and inspection sticker, so the whole thing was street-legal again. Then he spent the rest of his time fixing all the other little things that needed to be done before a long road trip.
I’m so lucky to have him,I thought as we fell asleep together in bed.
We were packed and ready to go the next morning. Lizzy came over to see us off, and patted the hood of the Mustang lovingly.
“Be sure to open her up every now and then,” she told Hunter. “This kitty canpurr.”
“I’ll do my best,” Hunter replied.
Lizzy hugged my tightly. “Have fun, you two. I’m so jealous!”
“I’ll tell you all about it when we get back.”