Epilogue
Cliff walked up to the log cabin with a bundle of firewood. The late fall air was cool on his skin, but he’d worked up a sweat underneath his flannel. He got to the ridge and reflected on the last two years, which spread out before him like his view to the sparkling lake below.
Wide and deep and magnificent.
He marveled at how one disastrous date night with five other singles could have such a profound effect on his life. As weird, broken, beautiful, and imperfect as they all were, it somehow added up.
Kyle and Shannon went to Comicon in San Diego shortly after their group trip to the airport, where they spent the weekend indulging in video gaming reverie.
Kyle proposed in front of group of people dressed up as mages and demon hunters.
A month later, Cliff officiated their World of Warcraft-themed wedding while Jamie, Holly, and Rick attended in faux armor.
Chef Pascal catered the event. No one died.
Soon after, Kyle got off his mom’s prayer list and Shannon kicked her nicotine habit as they continued to prove every day that real love and gaming can go hand in hand together.
Holly and Rick wound up arguing their way across Spain on a wine discovery journey that ended up in their purchase of a crumbling villa with a view of the Mediterranean.
Rick left advertising and rediscovered his soul as he began working in documentary film for which they gave out real awards, and was nominated at the Cannes Film Festival.
Holly was offered Grimsby’s job at the museum with a sizable raise, but ultimately decided to open a boutique travel agency specializing in visiting the world’s rarest antiquities and fine wineries, which she let Rick pick.
Duncan Reeves spent the first part of that first year in the yard of the minimum-security federal prison working on his pickleball game.
In the second part of the year, Duncan’s fear started to kick in after an attempt on his life by a new Egyptian prison guard who had tried to kill him in the showers.
The guard got away, but Duncan had to spend millions hiring a consort to convince the Brotherhood of Ahkenaten that he did not, in fact, have the Golden Cobra.
He also continued to spend millions on his defense, but the U.S.
federal court system was so backlogged, he was going to be there for a while even with all the bribing.
It was reported that he had one photo in his cell.
A picture of his first wife, a young and fresh-faced Elizabeth “Lorna Gray” Reeves on the first day of their honeymoon.
A tack was in the middle of her forehead.
Lorna Gray—it was rumored—went on a round-the-world trip that lasted a year. Cliff imagined her taking many lovers, drinking crates of champagne, and playing quiet matchmaker to unsuspecting strangers who found themselves falling madly in love.
At the end of the year, Lorna made an unannounced stop in Egypt where she visited the national museum, admired the artifacts, and made a donation before disappearing again.
Holly happened to be at that very museum with her tour group when, out of the corner of her eye, she spied Lorna across the vast museum hall.
Holly excused herself and tried to reach Lorna but was overwhelmed by an incoming tour group who had just entered.
She came away without success. But later that night, as she was removing her blazer, a note was tucked in her pocket.
It simply read: Rick’s purpose that night was to fall in love with you. Job well done.
Rick, to his credit, took that to heart. He didn’t mind in the least that Holly was his purpose.
Holly’s liaison at the museum was in touch the next month with news that an anonymous package was left with the incoming post at the Egyptian National Museum. A new mail clerk opened the package to find Nefertiti’s Golden Cobra necklace.
Lorna was never heard from again, lost to the four corners of the globe. In an unexpected move, the South Bay’s top orthopedic surgeon, Daniel Torres, abruptly retired from his successful practice and curiously did not leave a forwarding address.
Dez Wheeler—even with her perfect record—gave up her parole officer job and decided to buy a sailboat in Tahiti. She checked in with Cliff from time to time to discuss the finer points of training for a 5K.
As to Jamie’s M.O.M., Elaine Cromwell Frisco ended up divorcing her fourth husband, Barry Bonavico, after he was indicted in a federal court on embezzlement charges.
But even before that, something searingly painful had bubbled up in the conversation she’d had with Jamie on that fateful day after her group blind date.
Elaine had decided to drop all the bricks she’d been carrying.
She forgave her own poor mother, her husbands, and finally herself.
This resulted in her decision to give her children half of their inheritance now so they could enjoy it while she was alive.
Elaine remained opinionated—one cannot change overnight—but now she regularly brought croissants and champagne over to her son’s house on Sundays to spend time with her granddaughter, Emily, whom it seemed was able to reach into a tiny chamber of Elaine’s heart and open it up wide.
In an effort to understand herself a little better, she even enrolled in a psychology course at UCLA.
Rumor had it that she was dating the dean.
Jamie and Cliff never made it to the Cromwell-Frisco-Bonavico wedding. But if Elaine married the dean someday, they agreed they would be there with bells on.
Food critic Nigel Spoke’s death was determined to be the result of anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction to bee pollen.
But since nothing in the entire restaurant that night contained any bee pollen whatsoever, Chef Pascal was cleared and went on to critical acclaim with a James Beard Award to boot.
Nigel’s wife, whose name no one could remember, retreated to a small enclave in northern Maine where she reviewed local restaurants and spent time in her backyard filled with all manner of wildflowers, zucchini, sweet peas, peonies … and three lovingly tended beehives.
Jamie Frisco was offered a job at the LAPD as Chief Psychological Profiler now that Melvyn Ott was safely back in prison serving out a life sentence.
But she decided to hang up her forensic psychologist title and put her talent to better use.
She found a spot where she could write all day and catch a glorious sunset every night.
She had finally found a way to feel safe enough to be vulnerable and as a result, was putting the finishing touches on her first novel, a black comedy about a serial killer who goes on a group blind date.
Cliff’s security systems business became a huge success, especially after Paul at the Guitar Parlor hired him and then literally sung his praises to his uber-rich clients.
He was able to build his dream life after all, with prison in the rearview for good.
This eternal gratitude he owed to, of all people, Lorna Gray.
He ran this mini-empire from a well-appointed remote cabin in the Sierra Nevadas, which he was hiking back to after collecting firewood, necessary for another cozy night spent with a budding new novelist who smelled like honeysuckle, had blue-green eyes, and a serious knack for reading people.
The vista of Mammoth Mountain with June Lake below was stunning at sunset, but he pulled out a grainy black-and-white image from his pocket that he enjoyed looking at much more these days.
The little bean in the image had grown bigger now, but was still cozily ensconced in her mom’s belly.
That new adventure was still a few months away, but it was one he couldn’t wait to go on.
Another hat tip to Lorna Gray. Brokenhearted avenger, bossy fairy godmother, and mastermind of love.
A tug on the leash pulled him out of his reverie.
He looked behind him for the little shaggy brown dog who was preoccupied with their resident gopher, Polly.
Now that they had a PO box and no mailman to visit, the gopher had become the love of his scruffy little life.
It was endearing. “Come on, Dash,” he said as he climbed the steps to the front door.
Cliff swung open the door and the faint smell of honeysuckle wafted his way, his heart finally full.
“We’re home.”