“Not just yet,” Jess told her.
Smile fading, Destiny said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
As soon as she left, Rachael, who wasn’t yet privy to the fact that Jess had decided against law school, said, “So, college girl? Where are you applying?”
“Nowhere,” Jess told her.
“Nowhere?”
“I’ve decided I don’t want to be a lawyer after all.”
“She’d hate it,” Diana, who already knew, said.
Jess nodded. “Totallyhate it.”
Rachael’s face fell. “Then what are we celebrating exactly?”
“You said it yourself,” Diana told her. “Her new-found confidence.”
Jess grinned. “Yup. I may not want to go to law school, but what Ididlearn is that the world is full of possibilities for me. I’m going to do something important with my life. I just don’t know what it is yet. I know I want to help people, likereallyhelp them in life-changing ways. But other than that, I have no idea.” After a sip of her drink, Jess said, “And that’s where you come in. I’d like to hire you to help me figure out what I want to do when I grow up.”
Rachael gave her an open-mouthed smile. “Yay! Oh, I’m so excited. Except you can’t pay me.”
“But I want to. You have to honor your time, Rach. And I don’t want any handouts. I’m going to be a professional, which means I need to invest in myself. I am going to pay you.”
“I charge three hundred dollars an hour.”
Jessica’s jaw dropped. “And by pay you, I mean buying you brunch.”
They all laughed, then Jess said, “Three hundred dollars an hour, Rach? You could totally be a sugar mama if you wanted to.”
Rachael wrinkled up her nose. “Never. But back to you. I wouldloveto help you out. First thing I need you to do is to make a list of everything you’ve ever done that felt right. Likereally right, deep in your bones. Any and every idea counts. Don’t leave anything out.”
“Okay, then what?”
“I’ll get you to do some of those personality and aptitude tests, then you narrow down what you want to do until finally you pick one and we figure out how to market it.”
Jess felt a flutter of happiness in her belly. “You have no idea how exciting this is for me.”
“I’m excitedforyou,” Rachael said.
“Same!” Diana said, putting her arm around Jessica’s shoulder and giving her a quick side hug. “You got your sparkle back.”
Jess leaned into the hug. “I really did. It’s been a painful, weird, windy, and slightly humiliating path, but I definitely found my sparkle. Now, let’s talk about our awful children, who we love to bits and would do anything for…”
29
"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."
~ Mae West
Three Months Later
“So, it turns out, the thing I love to do best is to organize, and second is teaching peoplehowto be organized,” Jess told her mom.
The two of them were at the mall shopping for a dress for Winnie’s graduation ceremony. After a month of emails back and forth between Rachael and Jess, they had finally come up with a business plan that ticked all of Jessica’s boxes. She’d be helping people, doing something that felt important, and with any luck, would be raking in the big dollars in no time. Not dentist money, but definitely enough for her and Mike to have a more comfortable retirement than they had expected.
“That makes perfect sense,” her mom said, holding up a cornflower blue dress for Jessica to look at.
