A week later, some things had changed.
We had gone down the shore, trying to get our fix before all the crowds came and the shore was ruined for the summer. I was driving on Route 35, with Dave Matthews Band playing on the radio.
"Oh my god! Did you see it?"
Ruby asked, her hands were up excitedly.
"The moon. It's huge!"
She started pointing and then dropped her hands. "It’s just past this building. You'll be able to see it, you can’t miss it."
As we passed the wide building, the moon suddenly came into view. It had a slight yellow cast that was emanating across the sky.
She was right, it was huge. The moon looked like it was so close that we could drive to it. It was just dangling in the sky, in the black sky, over the ocean.
"Pull over," she said. "Right up there." She pointed to a rocky area that looked like it had been a makeshift parking lot plenty of times before.
We parked the car and got out, unsure exactly where we were.
"Look, up ahead — a boardwalk."
Ruby took my hand, intertwining her fingers with mine, and led the way. We walked on the rocky terrain until it turned to sand and made our way to a six-foot-wide boardwalk that seemed to stretch for miles. There was nothing around. This wasn't like when we went to Seaside, Point Pleasant, or even Asbury Park. All that was along this boardwalk was the sand.
As we got closer to the boardwalk, we realized that it was too high for us to step onto without steps. When Ruby stood next to it the boardwalk was chest high.
Still holding my hand, Ruby continued walking along the length of the boardwalk, hoping to find stairs or some way that we could climb onto it.
We had walked for a few minutes when I stopped.
"Wait a second," I said. "Let me give you a boost."
Ruby tilted her head at me, then slowly started shaking it. "I don't think so. I'm not sure that that's a good idea."
I laughed. "Come on, you're not heavy. And the view from up there is going to be so much better."
"Okay, but if you drop me, I'm never going to let you live it down." She laughed.
I weaved my hands together to form a step for her and I kneeled. Ruby's foot fit perfectly and I gave her a small boost up onto the boardwalk.
After she was up there, I was able to boost myself up. And then Ruby and I walked on the boardwalk to where she silently decided was a good spot. We sat down, feet dangling off the edge of the boardwalk, and looked at the moon, still hanging large in the sky, with its pale reflection in the waves below it.
We sat in silence like that for a couple of minutes before I put my arm around Ruby's shoulders and she leaned in, close against me. We didn’t need to talk. We knew what each other were thinking, how we were feeling.
For almost a year and a half, almost since I first met her, I knew that Ruby was the one for me. Ruby knew it too. She once told me about split-aparts. I think she said that it was Aristotle, or Plato, who had this idea of soulmates. That souls are created in the stars. But when those souls come to earth, they’re split, and they’ll do anything to find that other half of them. Their split-apart. Ruby was my match, my other half. I was lost without her, and I couldn't imagine living any minute of my life without her in it.
"Ruby?"
"Mm-hmm," she said. Her eyes didn’t pull away from the moon.
"You know how we've been talking about what it is that I want to do with my life? What kind of job I want?"
Ruby turned away from the moon to look at me. "Is everything okay? Why are you so serious?"
"Yeah, everything’s good, great even. It’s just that I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. And, you know, I've been kind of just floating around, not sure what I want to do as a career, you know, and with work, just going from one job to another.
“The one thing that I'm sure of is you. You have so much passion, and you're so sure of yourself. You know I love you, Ruby. And ever since you showed me those sketches and you started talking about that lot and creating those homes, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. It's something that I would love to do with you."
"I don't understand. What are you saying?"
