Chapter 48 Gigi
At the beginning of summer, Eloise and Clyde had been strangers. Now they were life partners.
The difference a few months could make was astonishing.
The same went for Gigi and Eloise. Gigi was at an engagement party for her mother and had baked a carrot cake from scratch
for the occasion. If someone had told her this would happen when she was on the ferry ride back to Mackinac in June, she would
have denounced it as ludicrous.
And yet, despite the rapid changes, the pace had felt unhurried. One of the mysteries of island time.
Gigi watched as Eloise and Clyde waltzed together under the back porch lights that Clyde had climbed up on a ladder to replace.
(Gigi had to admit it was nice to have a man around to help her mom with those things, as stereotypically gender normative
as it felt.) Music sifted out from speakers Gigi herself had set up.
Half the island was packed into the backyard of Thistle Dew, soaking in the late-summer evening. Fireflies blinked, lighting
up the scene like lanterns.
Gigi and Rebecca were getting a few minutes to themselves, sitting around the small bonfire.
It was the first time Eloise had permitted the firepit to be used in many years. There were three pitchers of water and a hose next to it, but still, it felt like progress. A sign Eloise wasn’t so scared anymore of things burning down.
Tom had a work conference, but Rebecca had driven the three hours herself, her longest drive ever. Gigi was a proud sister.
“I’m sorry I ever judged you for cooking,” Gigi said as they ate her carrot cake. It hadn’t risen much, but she’d slathered
it in many inches of cream cheese frosting to mask the blunder. “It’s actually very rewarding.”
Rebecca grinned. “You’re telling me that being a woman who enjoys the kitchen isn’t a flagrant denunciation of female empowerment,
but is actually an embodiment of what true feminism should be, the freedom for every woman to make her own choice?”
Gigi was impressed. “You sure you don’t want to do a PhD? That was pretty good.”
“Maybe down the line, but I’m very happy being your campaign manager for now. Your mayor announcement is going viral.”
They both checked their phones. Gigi’s short video was making the rounds online. Seven hundred thousand views and counting.
It had only posted eight hours ago. She’d filmed it at the Grand Hotel stables, with the horses behind her. The social media
world seemed riveted by this peculiar horse-and-buggy island and the young woman who was trying to run the town she’d once
run away from.
“You edited and posted the video,” Gigi said. “I just rambled and ranted like I do best.”
“Team effort.” Rebecca grinned. “No cold feet now that you’ve announced it to the world?”
“Warm feet,” Gigi said, toes curled up by the bonfire. “Very warm.”
Rebecca excused herself to check on the food supply and see if anything needed refilling.
Gigi spotted Lillian making the rounds to say her goodbyes.
She was headed back to Chicago tomorrow.
There seemed to be a few whispers and stares, but between the astonishment at Eloise Jenkins getting married and Georgiana Jenkins running for mayor , the news cycle seemed to have hurried past Lillian’s own updates.
Gigi took this relative disinterest as a good sign that
Mackinac might be ready for a new era of leadership.
Lillian came over and joined Gigi at the bonfire for their goodbye. Gigi was roasting a marshmallow, patiently waiting for
it to turn golden brown.
“I thought you liked your marshmallows burned to a crisp.” Lillian sat down next to her. She smelled like lilacs. It mixed
well with the bonfire smoke.
“Not anymore. Charcoal doesn’t taste as good as it used to.”
Lillian put a marshmallow on a roasting stick and positioned it next to Gigi’s, in the same pocket of embers that was protected
from the flames. “I’m glad we got this summer together.”
“Me too. But it’s good you’re leaving,” Gigi said, though she was sad to see Lillian go. They had just started getting close
again. “Before the tide sucks you back in like it did to me.”
“The tide didn’t suck you in,” Lillian said. “You sucked the tide in.”
Gigi liked that. She thought again about how she’d been a bad friend for all those years. It didn’t seem like Lillian held
that against her, but Gigi still held it against herself.
“I’m sorry for how I acted when we were younger,” Gigi said. “Shutting you out overnight and everything. That was the summer
my dad came back—well, one of the summers. And I got my period and had all those teenage insecurities. I’m not trying to make
excuses. I’m trying to apologize.” She kept her eyes on the embers.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Lillian said.
“I do, though.” Gigi wanted to clear space for the future. Not by avoiding the past, but by acknowledging it. “I never should’ve
pushed you away.” Gigi lifted her eyes to meet Lillian’s.
“Then don’t do it again,” Lillian said.
“I promise,” Gigi said. Promises didn’t feel as flimsy as they used to. This one at least felt strong.
“If you ever want to come stay with me in Chicago, there’s plenty of room in my apartment. I’d be happy to have the company.”
Gigi sensed Lillian’s nerves and excitement at what her life would be like on the other side of tomorrow’s ferry ride.
“I might take you up on that if I lose the election.” Gigi took her marshmallow from the fire and ate it whole. “No way I
can live on an island that’s literally voted me off.”
“You’re not going to lose,” Lillian said. “And if you do, the islanders don’t deserve you anyway.”
Gigi grinned. “That’s true.”
From her pocket, Lillian withdrew a string of beads. Gigi recognized it right away. It was the old friendship bracelet she’d
made with Lillian all those years ago. The colors had faded but the elastic seemed strong as ever.
Lillian dropped it into Gigi’s hand, the one that wasn’t sticky with marshmallow. “Keep it. A little souvenir from summer.”
Gigi couldn’t believe Lillian still had it. She had thrown hers out long ago. Wriggling her wrist into it, Gigi put it on.
“Still fits.”
“Good,” Lillian said. “Now go talk to James. He can’t take his eyes off you.”
Gigi hugged Lillian, then hopped over to do just that.
***
“I thought you said those mayor rumors weren’t true,” James said as Gigi approached him by the dessert table. She was happy
to see he was eating a slice of her cake.
Dressed in beige linen to fit the English tea party theme (Nonni lumped England and Scotland together), he looked like a model
hired by a magazine doing a spread on island chic summertime style. If he had dressed like this for their first date, Gigi might not have been able to deny her mother’s matchmaking prowess so readily.
“All my patients could talk about today was your campaign launch video,” James went on. “They say it’s gone viral.”
“It has, thanks to Rebecca,” Gigi said. Sharing the credit made her feel bigger rather than smaller. The sensation was a strange one, though good. “This is just the start.”
James asked what changed Gigi’s mind. She told him how she craved having an outsized impact in a small town rather than an
undersized impact—or none at all—in a big one. James said he related, that this was what he liked about being a doctor on
the island too.
What Gigi didn’t say was how much his words meant to her—about the impact she had already made—but that was just as well.
It was too sappy for friendship territory.
“Are you excited to get back to Detroit?” Gigi asked.
They had been texting a little since their lake swim but hadn’t seen each other again.
“Not really,” James said. “Especially now that I know you’re staying on Mackinac.”
“At least through the election,” Gigi said. “Then we’ll see.”
She thought about what Rebecca said about how sometimes people needed to know they were wanted.
“Have you thought of doing a trial run to see how you’d like taking over the clinic? Fred could take an extended vacation
but still help out here and there.”
She liked the prospect of having more time with James to explore if there might be something there. Something beyond end-of-summer
emotions that were always a little inflated.
“I actually have thought about it,” James said slowly. “But I think I’d still feel guilty being far away from my dad. He’s
all by himself. I want to make more of an effort to be there for him.”
“Maybe he could come visit for the fall,” Gigi said. “The foliage is really something. And you could reevaluate how it’s going
sometime before winter sets in. November 11, for example.”