“I got a life, Nicky.” I smiled and pulled him closer. “I got a life.”
Epilogue
One Year Later . . .
RUTH
Life can change or end in a heartbeat. One minute, I was falling off a bike trying to remove a wedgie at the gym. Three months later, I married the stranger who was kind enough to help me off the floor.
Getting a life had been my goal after the near-death experience on the plane, but I had gotten much more than I had bargained for.
I got the man of my dreams.
But I wasn’t the only one who was lucky in love. In fact, there were three weddings in twelve months. I enjoyed being in the bridal party for two of the weddings, but nothing beat being a blushing bride who was madly in love.
It was amazing how fast everything happened.
“When you know, you know,” Judy had told me.
She was right. She was also the first of us to get married.
Two weeks after she had gone out with Samuel, her computer class teacher, he’d proposed. They’d made it official a few weeks later on a Hornblower Yacht on the San Diego Bay. The wedding celebration included dinner, dancing, and bingo, of course.
The next wedding had been for me and Nick.
My heart still skips a beat when I think of how he had proposed to me in front of my now fully healthy roses in my backyard.
He’d handed me a velvet box and asked me to open it. Inside the box was my grandma’s locket that he and Karma had found. It was polished, completely restored to its former beauty, and attached to a new silver sterling necklace that I absolutely loved.
Inside the locket was a little note that said, “Marry Me.”
Then he’d gotten down on one knee and pulled out a diamond ring.
I screamedyes, jumping into his arms, and kissing him.
We were married two months later in an intimate ceremony on the beach in Del Mar, right in front of Lucy and Ricky Ricardo’s old summer home. The reception took place at Bernardo Winery with Jay’s famous pulled pork as the main meal.
Our first dance song was “Heaven” by Bryan Adams.
Nick and Karma moved in with me, and our first home project together was painting the kitchen yellow, my favorite color.
As for my professional life, it had done a complete one-eighty after I had quit Stansfeld. My new job was wonderful and rewarding. It had also been the least stressful year of my life.
I started my own consulting firm to save companies who were going through difficulties. I used the same strategy that saved Mathors Aerospace from going under and left me walking away with 50,000 shares that had quadrupled in price in twelve months.
Dee was still working for me, because only a fool would let someone of that caliber go. I gave her another raise and a title worthy of her talent: Vice President.
As for my former company Stansfeld, Dee had informed me that Steve had been promoted to managing partner after Gary retired. Mason had been fired from the company, as expected, and was subsequently fired from his next two jobs after that. He was never caught by the SEC for his insider trading but was now being investigated by the IRS for tax fraud.
As for me, I had the perfect work-life balance.
I no longer tore things apart.
Shutting down my computer every day at five on the dot was pure joy. Plus, I didn’t work on the weekends.
I had a wonderful life.
By the way, Nick’s cousin also had thousands of shares of Mathors Aerospace that quadrupled in value. After catering our wedding, Jay ended up quitting his job to pursue his passion of being a chef. He eventually opened a cute cafe near Balboa Park. People lined up around the corner, waiting for the best pulled-pork sandwiches in San Diego County.
