abby
Flying.
It most certainly wasn’t her favorite thing on earth to do, she actually hated it, yet to get from one place to another, it was an evil she had to endure. If anything, Dr. Abigail ‘Abby’ Bishop’s favorite thing to do in life was get her hands dirty in a nasty trauma. It was like a day at the beach for her, but better, with blood. Or drive her car fast; listen to music so loud that her teeth chattered, those were the things that Abby loved. Flying wasn’t on that very long list.
She sank deeper into her seat, having flown from Los Angeles to New York, then jumping a flight from New York to Boston because her other flight had been cancelled. Now she was on an eight-seater, heading into Gideon’s very small airport. She slipped her Oakley sunglasses on and then jammed her iPod ear buds into her ears. Abby tried to relax, finally nodding off after a few minutes. One of the benefits of being a doctor was being able to sleep anywhere.
piper
Piper Brady was scribbling in a small notebook that she always carried around just in case she had a thought or a story came her way. She nudged her on and off boyfriend since high school, Benjamin Dionne. “What are you staring at?” asked Piper. He kept glancing back towards the rear of the plan.
“That girl back there, she looks familiar and I’m trying to place her, do you know who she is?” he asked Piper in his always-quiet voice.
Tucking a strand of her brown wayward hair behind her ear, Piper’s blue eyes darted to her left, seeing an athletic woman curled up on her small seat. Sunglasses hid her face, her blonde hair tussled and her full lips seemed to be relaxed and pouty. “How should I know?”
“Doesn’t she look… familiar?” asked Ben. He looked over his shoulder again. Piper slapped his knee. Ben looked back at her. “I was looking… Geez, Piper.”
“I saw how you were looking, hmmm…. Think we’ll be late? For the wedding and all?”
“We have hours, why do you worry about things like that? It’s not like it’s our wedding,” said Ben.
It was a sour point in their long relationship. Ben wanted to get married. He’d wanted to get married directly after high school. Piper had bulked, not something that most girls from Gideon did, refuse a marriage proposal. Piper had wanted to go to Boston University to major in journalism. With some reluctance, Ben had stayed behind. He had gone to the Addison Community College and had forged a career as a radiologist because Ben wasn’t about to leave Gideon. He was a homegrown boy who was rooted in place. They had kept their relationship alive, with long phone calls and frequent visits. When Piper had then moved to Vermont, living in Burlington at first, getting her feet wet in the newspaper business with the Vermont Daily News, Ben had assumed that they’d marry as soon as she’d graduated. He’d assumed wrong. Piper hadn’t jumped at the proposal, instead she’d broken up with him.
When Piper’s mother had gotten sick Piper had ventured back to the smaller town of Gideon to take care of her ailing mother, she and Ben had resumed their relationship with some trepidation, now, three years later – they were still unmarried.
“Why would you want to ruin a good thing?” repeated Piper for the umpteenth time in the last three years. He was handsome, smart, and funny, absolutely one of the nicest people she’d ever met, yet she didn’t feel the need to marry him to keep him. “We’re virtually married anyway,” added Piper.
“See this?” he said, wiggling his left hand, “This is not virtually married, this is me, with no wedding band on.”
“You are such a woman, god, Ben you’re a woman. Cut it out,” growled Piper. Weddings drove Piper insane because people continually asked them when they would be getting married.
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