Dear Rafe,
Thanks for the most magical week and sharing your family with me. I’m a much better version of myself now that I know how to drive manually and make shakshuka—and homemade hummus!
As much as I’d like to keep this camera, I think you really should keep it and use it to take as many pictures of your amazing family as possible. I left the card in there. I hope that you’re happy with the photos I took. They are just a fraction of the images that I’ve burned into my memory.
This really has been a dream, one that I’m not likely to ever forget. Hugs to Naomi and Orly. I’ll make sure to share the fairy pancake recipe with the real Lorelei so she can make them for you all.
K
I take one last peek out the window, glancing down at the empty, Mickey-shaped pool, wishing I had one more day to spend swimming with Orly, trading recipes with Naomi, and pushing back any time she suggests that her megawatt star is somehow less than because he didn’t get a college degree from Harvard.
But the sun is leaking golden rays through the palm trees, and I suspect my driver will be here any moment. It’s time to transition back to real life.
I slip out the door and into the elevator, still feeling like Lorelei Dupont, looking over my shoulder for fans and paparazzi. I won’t miss that part. It’s stressful. I can’t imagine enduring years and years of that, particularly through the tender, awkward teenage years. Poor Lorelei.
I study myself in the mirrored interior of the elevator and twist my crazy, bedhead hair up into one of my signature messy buns. I untuck my souvenir Tiki Room tee that I am wearing and apply my usual banana-flavored lip balm.
By the time the elevator doors slide open in the lobby, I not only look like myself again, I feel like me, too. I stop at the coffee station and serve myself a cup of lobby coffee, doing my best to doctor it up with extra cream and sugar to fortify myself for reentry. It’s only a moment or two before the driver comes into the lobby holding up an iPad with my name on it. My real name.
“You Kenna Papadopoulos?” he asks.
“Yes,” I nod, “I am.”
“Well, let’s get a move on. There’s a lot of traffic on the 405. I’d hate for you to miss your flight.”
* * *
I enjoy one last bit of luxury in my business-class seat—Rafe insisted—eating breakfast and taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi to scroll through the course offerings in the Continuing Ed. Department at the small college just outside Ephron. There’s a business management course starting in September. I put in my email address to be added to the mailing list for more information. It’s time. If Georgia can run her own shop, and Naomi can run a culinary empire, there’s no reason why I can’t take over the management of the Ephron Diner.
I can’t wait to tell Georgia. I tap on the messenger app on my phone.
Good Lord! That’s a lot of messages!
My heart does a little flip-flop when I notice the unusually high number of messages that have piled up in my inbox since I switched my phone to silent almost forty-eight hours ago. Starting with the most recent one from Rafe. Short and sweet, the whole thing shows up in the preview. I don’t even have to click on it to read it in its entirety.
Why didn’t you wake me to say goodbye? XO Rafe
It’s not like any one person was blowing up my phone. It’s just that so many people had tried to reach me, and a few more than once over the course of a day. But none of the messages are marked urgent. Any of them could have reached me, even on silent mode, in a real emergency by calling twice.
I scan down the rest of the list, sorted visually by the emoji I’ve chosen for everyone in my contact list. Just one more little dyslexic life hack that I’ve been happily using for years.
I open the messages from the uncles first.
Oh, my God, sweetie!
Uncle Nick had texted first.
I don’t know what’s more shocking—that it has been 27 years or that we forgot Gotcha Day. I promise we’ll make a cake and get out the albums when I get home. We can’t skip a year. You need to be celebrated!
Plus, it doesn’t hurt for Stavros to be reminded how dashing I was. Winky emoji.
Five minutes later, Uncle Stavros had texted as well. I can picture them sitting on their terrace in Mykonos, realizing the flub at the same time and panicking.
Kenna, even though I wasn’t there the day you got home, you are still like a daughter to me. I am so lucky to have you. We’ll make it up to you when we see you very soon.
Not too soon, though. The uncles are not due back for another three weeks, which is probably a good thing. I know things have slipped at the diner since the swap, and it’s time for me to step up and show them I can do this.
I open the messages from Georgia next.
