Page 3 of Lost in the Fog

“We will work on that when you can keep yourself solid. You need to focus.”

Pandora nodded. “Solid is... different.”

Regis nodded. “And you will have to work on it.”

Gia grinned. “I can help. Going from solid to spectre is something I am really familiar with. I am an expert.”

Pandora looked out the window toward the pond and then back at the cheerful ladies who wanted to put her back on her feet. “How do we start?”

Regis grinned. “I know just the thing.”

Six months of practice, timing, clothing, and learning to bake pastries and decorate cakes. She went to work at Regis’s bakery and got faster and more efficient with every passing shift. She learned to drive a car on the property, and Regis helped her get new identification so that she could get her license.

Pandora was legal, and Gia was moving around in her own body again. Pandora visited her home, and despite the butler’s disapproval, she was allowed in. She hiked up to the second floor with a bakery box under her arm.

When Pandora got to Gia’s morning room turned gym, hostility was crackling around the socialite.

“Hey, Gia. What’s going on?”

Gia looked furious. “My father married me off while I was out. I have a husband... somewhere. Apparently, he’s off on business a lot.”

“Well, did you want to try walking again?”

“My therapist isn’t here yet.”

“That wasn’t the question.” Pandora moved to help Gia make her way to the bars.

“You were so much nicer when you weren’t really talking.”

“Well, I have always been chatty, or that is how I remember myself. You have really fancy clothes. Makes me nervous about touching you.”

“Tough. Lift.” Gia grunted as Pandora helped her away from the wheelchair and got her limbs arranged so she could practice walking.

As Gia walked slowly, she asked, “How are deliveries going?”

“We can’t keep up. It tripled business for corporate and business events. I spend my days from lunch until eight delivering orders.”

“And still waking before dawn to make the stuff?”

“Yeah, but someone has to get desserts to those strippers on their birthdays. Seriously, some of the clubs have parties, and regular patrons participate. It’s hilarious. The look on their faces when I come in is astonishing. It’s like they forget women can wear pants without side snaps.”

Gia laughed. “Keep talking. This is helping.”

Pandora told her about one of the restaurants that she delivered to, where an apparent crime boss or something always had a different woman sitting in his lap or on his desk, and the ladies all had striking similarities.

By the time she finished her description of her client, Pandora had helped Gia on six rounds of walking, each more easy than the last.

The physiotherapist arrived and gasped. “Miss Gia. What are you doing?”

“Walking, Melvin. The thing you have been forbidding me to do because you like pushing me around.”

Pandora smiled and continued walking backward in front of her friend. Gia was walking with a straight back and her hands hovering over the supports.

Gia grinned. “I will be back in my heels in no time.”

Pandora smiled. “Yup. And I will keep bringing reward cannoli. We had extra today.”

“Oh, yum.”

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