“Because it works better for your metaphor?” Emma asks.
“Precisely. Eagles are symbolic, too, if you’d be willing to meet me there,” she offers.
Emma smiles. “Well, doves represent freedom and peace.”
A laugh bubbles out of my throat. Phoenix. Eagle. Dove. All I hear is: more birds.
“When you quit your job to open this place,” I ask Emma, “were you scared?”
“Shitless,” Emma says without missing a beat. “But I had spent years working for others. It was time to do something for me.” She looks around her shop appreciatively. “If there’s anything I learned, it’s that the future is not written. When I passed the bar, my fifteen-year plan did not look… this orange.”
“A psychic once told me I was going to be married three times,” Gloria says. “I’ve only had two marriages, but hey, there’s still time.”
We have so many people telling us what our futures should look like. Get a good job. Then get a better one. Get married. Have kids. Buy a house. Live in the suburbs.
But what if I don’t want all of that? What if I want to change that vision? Make my own version?
What if I want a shoebox of an apartment with a boyishly handsome man with way too many tie-dye shirts?
What if I want to choose myself for once? What then? It’s like Gloria said, there’s still time.
And it’s time—and my actions—that will tell what happens in my life. Not a bunch of fortune tellers. I want to have a say in what my life looks like. Present and future.
“I want to be here for the candy charcuterie,” I blurt out. “I want to help with the register, and clean the shelves and tables, and fill up jars with candy. And when I have time in between that, I’d like to analyze your data.”
Emma looks surprised. “You want to work here? With us?”
Gloria beams at her use ofus.
“I do,” I say. I feel so sure about it, too, I find. “I don’t want to be a cog in a machine. I want to add real value. Our days make up a life. And I don’t want to save a billion-dollar company millions of dollars.”
“You want to save my candy store thousands?” Emma asks.
“I really, really do,” I say with a little laugh. “Being here, helping customers, spending time with you two, that’s made me happy these past few weeks. This place makes every customer who comes in here happy, too. I want to be part of something like that.”
“I’d love to hire you full-time, but I can’t afford to match what you’d be making as a manager, let alone a data analyst,” Emma says, looking apologetic.
I smile. “I think I’ll be able to make it work.” These words, this decision. They’re for me. That’s something I need to get used to.
“You can make it work, huh?” Gloria asks, flashing me a wink. It reminds me of the day at Grand Central when she—and Emma, now that I think about it—didn’t dig deeper into the lottery namecoincidence. I just figured we were all busy and that they weren’t interested in that kind of thing, but… had it been more than that?
The question is on the tip of my tongue when Gloria says, “Her analysis could be useful as you try to expand.”
“You want to expand?” I ask.
Emma’s nod turns into a head circle. “It’s a far-fetched dream.”
“At my last job, I did analysis on demographic information and consumer behavior in various areas to help my company figure out where to open new locations,” I tell her. “I can help you. No. We can help each other.”
Emma smiles. “I would love that. Okay, you’re hired… again! But hear me when I say this: You had the job before you said all that.”
I sit back. “Just like that?”
“Just like that,” Emma confirms.
Leaving a six-figure job to work as a cashier–slash–data analyst at a candy shop for five figures? I don’t think anyone could’ve seen that coming. I’m thrilled.
“Speaking of, we need to talk about my pay raise,” Gloria says. “I want more money.”
