Ms. Edna

Everyone knows an Edna, because no one knows Edna.

Just a few details and she will come up in your memory. She might not be named Edna. But she’s there.

In elementary school, she was part of the storm of noise and kids just like all of us. She said the pledge of allegiance, she waited in line for the restroom, she played four square when there was an empty corner to be filled. You know, the stuff we all did before Middle School.

In Middle School, Edna disappeared without anyone noticing. It’s what she was supposed to do. It was natural. While others puberty raged, and cults of personality formed, Edna was in the back of class behind her glasses, stone faced and reading. Oh, she answered role, and ate lunch. She was there every single day. But no one has any stories from even High School that involve Edna…

If you knew an Edna growing up, you should now have a clear picture of this person. Now all you need to know that, in this story, her name is Edna.

Little did you know she went on to be an optometrist. It’s an amazingly stable and lucrative field. To this day, people come and go from Edna’s office only to see her behind lens after lens. Don’t worry, she likes it that way. Always has. You see, that’s part of what makes an “Edna”. She gets to make her stable income, live in her beautiful studio apartment, and enjoy her solitude. Not even an assistant to have to say hello to each day.

But all that changes once a year when all the payed time off kicks in.

Each year, starting the first Monday in May, is Kauai time. Two weeks - two days off, two flights, and “Miss Edna” has arrived.

The moment the puddle jumper touches down in the Lihue Airport, the change begins. The white coat is long gone, of course, but now the cozy plane sneakers come off to reveal well-guarded toes, painted in red Schlack days in advance, slowly slipping into woven reed flip flops from her last trip. After a stop at the lady’s room, the sweatpants are replaced by board shorts covered in red hibiscuses. Finally, stepping outside, the long and unruly black hair goes up in a bun, and the rain-jacket comes off to reveal a “Hawai’ian dirt shirt”.

An aside about these shirts. In Kauai, Hawai’i there is dirt so clay-fully red, that if you soak a shirt in water full of this clay, the shirt will become dyed the same rusty color forever. Enda had found one with a big pair of sunglasses on the chest with the word “Aloha” scrawled across the lenses on her first trip and bought it immediately. This third iteration already had a hole in the left armpit.

With this the transformation is complete. While you would probably recognize her if you just so happened to get stuck at the same airport bus stop, you might also be a little worried about why you suddenly felt scared to talk to invisible old Edna. Maybe it has something to do with her having no luggage? Maybe it’s that her chin is about 3 inches higher than you remember? Anyway, the glasses are unmistakable, and so is that hair. To really know what’s different you would have to follow her to the Saint Regis.

After a bus ride of about an hour, Edna steps out of the small bus onto a sidewalk winding its way along the edge of a golf course. As she begins to walk along this sidewalk, rented cars fly around the fountain of Pontus on their way to sea-side rented condos and shared apartments.  Golfers zip about on golf carts happy to be “on vacation” as they talk about stocks to a different backdrop. None of them see Edna as she passes block after block and the golf course turns to timeshares.

The sun setting on her left shoulder, Edna walks up to the valet stand at the Saint Regis – her woven sandals scuffing the remarkably smooth driveway. A middle-aged man in a 50’s style lounge shirt looks up for her claim ticket but upon laying eyes on her, gasps, and straightens to attention.

“Miss Edna!” he sputters. “Your back right on schedule! I’ll send someone for your things.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Says a strong smoothly confident voice you certainly would not recognize from your eye exams. “I plan to go straight to my room.”

The moment she steps towards the doors and her back is to the valet, he grabs another man and pulls him close whispering fiercely.

“Go through the service entrance and tell the front desk Miss Edna is here! Get there before she makes it down the hallway!”

The larger younger valet, not knowing why he feels so powerfully compelled, takes off faster than he has ever moved at work to notify Herman at the front about this “Miss Edna”, whoever that is. By the time his voice made it to “Edn-“ Herman was on the radio.

“Ok you three she’s on her way to her room. You know what to do.”

Meanwhile, Edna makes her way straight down the main foyer, past every living soul in the lobby, and straight to the wing housing room 120. Last year she had been in room 119. The year before that 118. That way, everyone knew where she was headed each year and where she would be the next. Only time will tell what will happen when she has stayed in every room…

Arriving at room 120, Edna finds Herman waiting for her with the keycard to the room resting on top of a small pocket book that will be her purse for the trip. 

“Thank you, Herman.” She says, straightening his Gardena corsage and taking the pocket book.

Herman says nothing.

Edna then swipes the keycard and the door opens with a click. As the door swings open, her room unfurls.  

The layout is the same as the last 20 years (“Same floor and wing,” she thinks to herself “makes sense”) and everything is just so. All the lights are off, the main window is open, and the curtains are drawn, allowing the sight of the setting sun to color outside and inside alike. The 20th time to see the first Monday sunset in May from more or less this spot…

“I don’t know what you guys are gonna do when I get to the west wing.” Edna says as she slips something in Herman’s pocket and closes the door.