From a few weeks ago, before B's departure, and another long separation

I've begun working on a third revision of The Hand she was Dealt. It will take too long to delineate all the little details I somehow managed to iron out. I would show you  my desktop now only it hasn't changed much.

"I will show you this."

Not featured:

1. Gail, our other best friend, who arrived half an hour or so afterward. I was leaning on the table between B and I. 
2. The other cupcake Gail ordered when she arrived.
3. Dinner at Friuli Tratoria because Gail had not eaten yet.

What I remember:

1. Ruby over dinner (Crazy Katsu)
2. How she no longer wore glasses, the girl whose image I kept in my mind was rougher and, now, far from the original. 
3. The large phone in her hands. 
4. Her speech patterns changed over time; now, no longer erratic. She no longer trails off when she tells stories, that's the biggest change. 
5. And her stories themselves were different. In a different league, about vastly different things that I forget how I could have imagined we'd talk about what we've always talked about. 
6. She wore, still, a frilly top in an appropriate somber color and when she laughed she still covered her mouth with a hand. And true enough when Gail came I could safely disappear into the glorious babble of their easy conversation.