“It’s not. She’s really pretty and really smart and totally committed to what she does. I could learn a lot from her.”

He looks at me with mild disgust and a tinge of intrigue. “Maybe you guys should get a room.”

“Maybe we will.”

“Maybe I’ll join you.”

“Maybe you won’t be invited.”

We each have another Munchkin.

“So what kind of a name is ‘Sorry’?”

“It’s ‘Sari.’ S-A-R-I. Like the traditional Indian dress.”

“Well, it sounds like ‘sorry.’ The traditional English apology word.” He laughs at his own dad-joke, which, I try, but fail, not to laugh at, too. “Is she from India?”

I stare at him like he has a bird on his head. “She’s from Long Island. And, like I said, she’s really really pretty. Except for the forehead thing.”

“What forehead thing?”

“Glenn is obsessed with the fact that she has a giant forehead.”

“She knows Sorry, too?”

I explain that she doesn’t know Sari Epstein in real life either—that she’s just seen pictures of her on social media. “And it’s not just that she has a giant forehead: it’s that she has a giant forehead and wears her hair parted in the middle, making her giant forehead even bigger.”

“As opposed to?”

“Wearing her hair parted on the side, or with bangs, either of which would minimize the giant forehead instead of strangely emphasizing it.”

“I bet that’s the real reason you’re going. Because she’s obsessed with someone’s giant forehead.”

“Pretty much.”

“Anything for Glenn.” We both laugh, then, thinking the same thing, stop abruptly. “God, what are we going to do without her?”

Our smiles fade and we both sigh heavily, then look away, drinking our coffee, poking at the box of picked-over doughnut holes, inexplicably stale so early in the day. He gathers our trash, then nudges my foot under the table.

“So what’s the plan?”

I check my phone and see that Sari Epstein has responded to my text, which I share with Gary:

We can put you up here in our incredible guest quarters. And we promise not to look at you like you have a bird on your head!

* * *

I’ve never heard anyone brag about their own guest quarters—or even call their guest room guest quarters—and it’s unclear if they’re going to put us up for free or charge us for our stay, but I’m so flattered that she references my book—that she knows who I am—that I Google “expensive florists near me” as we head toward Woodstock. It’s clear we’re going to need to show up with a very special hostess gift.

An hour later I’m leaving a place called Mattahorn, where I easily drop $150 in under ten minutes, despite Gary’s pleas to get something small. But since I don’t want to appear cheap, especially in light of these allegedly incredible guest quarters, I opt for a giant orchid, the biggest one they have, which is now even bigger wrapped for transport and gift-giving in a cellophane-pod tied at the top with green grosgrain ribbon (the salesgirl, in fact, had to jump up onto the shop’s sleek cement counters, ducking her head under the halogen lamps and plant misters, to staple the wrapping shut and tie the bow).