Summer Holiday Memories With — The Ladies Special...

We ate dinner that night by candlelight – burnt pasta, salad from a bag, the last of the good prosecco. I wore a yellow sundress I haven’t fit into since. Sana, the quietest of us, read tarot cards on the terrace. She pulled The Sun for me. “Joy,” she said, touching the card’s painted child on a white horse. “Uncomplicated. Remember this.”

I close the album. Outside my window, the city is gray and ordinary. I have a spreadsheet open on my laptop. A deadline in three hours. Summer Holiday Memories with the Ladies Special...

My phone buzzes. A new message in the group chat. It’s from Sana. A photo of a familiar terracotta roof, a familiar jade-green pool. A caption: “La Spettatrice is available again. August. Who’s in?” We ate dinner that night by candlelight –

We didn’t want to leave. We packed slowly, deliberately, leaving things behind on purpose – a pair of Chloe’s sunglasses, a bottle opener, a note for the next guests hidden under the mattress. “The Ladies Special was here. Be loud. Be lazy. Be honest.” She pulled The Sun for me

And when it was my turn, I said the thing I hadn’t told anyone. That I wasn’t sure I loved my job. That I felt like I was watching my own life from the outside, a passenger in a car I wasn’t driving.