Venus Envy: Jess & Hannah
Hannah remembered. She remembered New York like an old memory in a scrapbook, like a photo taped over a handwritten caption. She'd arrived in New York scared and green like new-spring grass, and she'd been wide cornflower eyes and a desire to breathe in every single experience the city offered. She'd found the shop that way, during her wandering and inhaling, and the woman behind the counter had been one of the first women Hannah met that wasn't garbed in Tethys colors and spouting a corporate line.
Hannah had liked Jessica right away, though she thought Jessica maybe found the store's new regular to be a little annoying in her exuberance. Then, Hannah had been all thumbs, gangling tall and impossible to miss with that copper hair.
Now, Hannah was still a copper giraffe without the svelte lines that would make a runway a feasible thing, but she wasn't all thumbs anymore. She'd grown less awkward, less trip-trip-stumble, but she was no less bright cornflower eyes and curiosity. She still had a grand disavowal of personal space, and she still spilled questions without consideration for societal boundaries and politeness. And she was excited to see Jessica.
Familiar faces, faces that knew her, not the dead girl in a swampy Florida grave, they were very few and very far between, and Hannah was cheerful in purple as she walked through the door. Sunlight rays and brightness lit her face as Jessica walked over, and the hug was returned with warmth and a lingering squeeze of hands. "Hi. It's so good to see you too. It's like the east traveled and traveled all this way, and just to say hello. You'll make this town so much brighter by being here," she said honestly, the truth a tumble on pink lips, and her gaze brightened with whimsical delight when she saw the cupcakes. "That's the first one of those I've seen since moving out here," she admitted unabashedly; New York had been a different story altogether.