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it. Nobody could want this, need this, more than she did. She hadn’t known how much until it was presented to her, and now she felt she would perish without it.
    “That’s wonderful news.” Her dad was nodding. “Tibby must be doing well for herself.”
    “I think Brian’s doing well for the two of them. That’s the impression I get. He’s got his software company going. He’s kind of a genius.”
    “Well, good for them. When do you go?”
    “October twenty-eighth,” she said, savoring the date. “I’m so excitedwe’ll be back together.” She breathed in the bar smells and felt the white wine melting all that was left of her reserve. “I really cannot wait.”
    Her dad took a sip of his whiskey sour and gazed at her thoughtfully. “I picture you four girls back when you were small. I hardly knew where you ended and the other ones started.”
    Carmen nodded. “Me either.”
    For the last four years, Lena had sharpened her Greek by means of weekly hour-long conversations with Eudoxia. She had first been referred to Eudoxia through her online Greek course, and had paid sixteen dollars to talk to her for an hour on the phone. Lena could have easily talked to any number of people fluent in Greek, including her parents, but they all had in common that they knew her, and when they were talking they wanted to talk about her. Eudoxia had the benefit of being a stranger at first, and somewhat old and hard of hearing and kind of loopy.
    After the first year, Eudoxia had advised that they move their conversations from the telephone to the (Greek) coffee shop equidistant from their two apartments. Initially Lena had paid the sixteen dollars plus the price of coffee and the occasional pastry, but about a year in, Eudoxia started refusing her money. And for the past year Eudoxia had insisted on picking up the tab every week because her husband, a police officer, had retired with his full pension and gotten a job as a security guard at a shoe store. Lena had offered to help Eudoxia practice her English part of the time to make things fair, but Eudoxia wouldn’t hear of it.
    Wednesday at four o’clock, Lena walked into the coffee shop as she always did and spotted Eudoxia, perched in their regular booth. No matter how early Lena got there, Eudoxia always got there first. Eudoxia jumped up and hugged Lena. She was fat and soft and droopy where Lena was tucked in tight.
    “You are excited about something,” Eudoxia declared in Greek.
    Lena kissed her cheek and replied in Greek. “How do you know everything?”
    The waitress appeared, another Greek transplant with darkteased hair. Lena saw her more often than she saw her dearest friends. “Just coffee for me today,” Lena said in Greek, exactly the way Eudoxia always said it. Lena was a fairly gifted and subtle mimic. She was so used to copying Eudoxia’s expressions and rhythms that she had begun to suspect she spoke Greek like a sixty-four-year-old lady from Salonika.
    After Lena got her coffee she unleashed the big news. “I am going to Greece.”
    Eudoxia bowed her head and whacked her palm on the table, as she did when she was excited. When she lifted her head her curly hair was still bouncing and the coffee cups were still quivering in their saucers. “That is wonderful . When?”
    “Twenty-eighth of October. Tibby planned it. She bought the tickets for all four of us so we could be together.”
    “Tibby?” Eudoxia knew about all of them. She talked about Lena’s friends as though they were hers.
    “Yes, Tibby.”
    Lena secured her cup while Eudoxia whacked the table again. “In Greece! How wonderful. How wonderful.”
    “I can’t quite believe it.”
    “Nor can I.”
    “I didn’t know if I should accept. It’s a lot of money and everything. But I emailed Tibby and she said I had to. She said I was doing my part offering the house.”
    “You’ll all stay in your grandparents’ house in Oia?”
    “Yes. It’s still empty. My father keeps