“Really? Georgia, that’s huge!” I crossed over to the large sink and started cleaning up the dishes.
“Uh-huh. I’m going to start the first class this weekend. Just a one-day introduction class. After that, I’ll run another weekend, and the weekend after that I’ll have the grand opening. Is that crazy?” She put her hands on her hips and took a few quick breaths.
“No.” I shut off the water, dried my hands, and walked over to her. “It’s not crazy at all. You’ve got this. What’s the permit status?”
“I have my inspection Wednesday, and everything else will be good to go.” She shrugged, leaving her shoulders by her ears as her face shifted to disappointment. “Shiiiiit,” she sighed.
“What?”
“I ... have this ... fucking appointment ... thing on Wednesday and it’s like around the time the health inspector is going to be here.” For a second it looked like she was going to cry. Like a child who was about to question the reality of Santa Claus, but didn’t really want to know the answer.
I reached up and touched her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, G. I can be here for the inspection if that’s okay with them.”
She looked relieved and, in a flash, smacked me. “Don’t call me G.”
“What? I thought your friends could call you that. Did I miss something?”
She scrunched up her nose. “It just ... sounds funny coming from you. And, I don’t kiss my friends ... or people who call me G. Those are one and the same, you see?”
I playfully growled and shook her a little. “The riddles! When do they end?”
“Look around you.” She laughed and spun around the kitchen and into the seating area. “Never! This is the world according to Georgia, brought to you by the Mad Hatter.” She twirled again, one smooth circle with her arms out and chin lifted to the ceiling.
“Can I call you Alice, then?”
Her chin dropped, lips formed a thin line, and she crooked a wicked eyebrow. “Not if you expect me to answer.”
“Why not?”
The air around us shifted. Imperceptible to passers by, for certain, but I was afraid to look down, thinking the floor would suddenly be missing. Georgia’s shoulders and breasts rose and fell quicker as color went from her cheeks to the scooped neckline of her grey t-shirt.
“Because,” she started with nervous breath, “because ... Alice was a lonely girl. With no prince.”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah? What, then, are you?”
“Who.”
“What?”
“Who, then, am I, you mean.” Her voice was shaky.
I nodded. “Who are you?”
She took two steps toward me and grabbed the ends of my index fingertips. “I’m not a lonely girl anymore.”
“And the prince?” My voice came out as a whisper.
“It’s like Alice with the unicorn. Book, not movie. I see one, I think, but it’s in the convincing, you know? Of myself. Can I believe it?”
We were both speaking in whispers now.
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to tell her she could, but things with her were better presented as questions. “Can you?”
“I’m afraid, you know.”
I nodded. “I know. Listen ... I have something I need you to help me with.” I cleared my throat again, willing myself not to kiss her until this last part was done.
“Oh? What’s that?”
I sped into the kitchen, grabbed two cupcakes and handed them to her. “Meet me on the pier in, like, five minutes.”
“With these?”
I nodded. “We’ll need them, I think. Kind of a re-do of a few weeks ago. Only I promise you that this time I won’t curl into the fetal position and sob.”
She stared at me with a comically quizzical look on her face. She wasn’t used to being part of a plan, just the master of them.
“Just go.” I nudged her arm. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
A few minutes later, I made it to the pier with my violin in one hand, and a paper bag in the other. I stopped at the edge of the pier for a moment, taking in the view. Not just the welcoming sun, peaceful in its fury, but the peaceful and fury bit of human being dangling her legs over the edge of the splintered wood. She’d rolled her black jeans up to her knees and her shoes were resting next to her. Just as she rolled her head back and took a few deep breaths of warm sunlight, she caught a glimpse of me out of the corner of her eye.
“Oh, hi!” She seemed startled, even though my invitation was why she was there in the first place. Georgia stood and un-cuffed her pants, staying barefoot, as she walked toward me with the two cupcakes in her hands. “Did you, uh, want these now, or...”
“Not yet. Set them over there. I have to play something first.”
As she set the bright cupcakes on the tattered grey railing, I played a couple of notes.