Love You a Latke

Chapter 9

9

The rest of the day and even the night went surprisingly smoothly. Bev and Benjamin took Seth and me out to their favorite neighborhood place, a little French joint where we feasted on steak frites and duck and some truly excellent salads. When we got back to their apartment, we lit the Hanukkah candles—well, candle—for the first night. They insisted that, as their guest, I be the one to hold the shammash over the tinfoil as we sang. It was amazing how the first two blessings came back to me after not reciting them for years (the third, which was only said on the first night, had my tongue stumbling—fortunately, Seth and Bev sang loudly enough to drown out a chorus of ambulance sirens).

Bev wished us good night with a smile so gooey it made me feel like I’d eaten too much sugar (which I had, because you couldn’t celebrate Hanukkah without doughnuts, and it turned out there was a Krispy Kreme a mere few blocks away from Bev and Benjamin’s apartment). “Don’t be too loud in there, you two.”

“Gross, Mom,” Seth said, scrunching up his whole face.

I struggled to keep my own face straight. “Good night.”

Once we had the door to Seth’s room firmly closed behind us and we’d waited a few minutes to hear Bev and Benjamin’s footsteps pad down the hallway and their bedroom door close, I turned to face him. “Are you sure you don’t want to share the bed? We don’t have to make it weird.”

“No, it’s totally fine,” Seth said. “I actually don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

“You’re really sure? I don’t want you to hurt your back or anything.” I’d said I was fine with it earlier, but now, looking at those hard wood planks and thin rug, I felt kind of bad.

“Absolutely,” he said. “It’s like camping. It feels like an adventure.”

The small pile of pillows he’d arranged to cushion himself didn’t look like an adventure. They just looked uncomfortable. But whatever. This was his house. He could do what he wanted.

We faced opposite walls to change into our pajamas, or what served as pajamas. I hadn’t slept in pajama sets or nightgowns since I was a kid—usually, I just slept in T-shirts washed so many times they’d gone soft as silk, and boxer shorts. As I waited for Seth to finish changing into whatever he wore at night, I stared at the wall and tried not to feel too self-conscious. I was basically wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I walked around wearing shorts and a T-shirt every summer in public without even thinking about it.

And yet, as I turned around to see Seth in an outfit that all but matched mine, I couldn’t help the quiver that went through my stomach. I crossed my arms over my chest, even though I’d made one concession to my usual bedtime attire and kept on a sports bra. “Well?” For some reason, my voice came out higher than usual. I cleared my throat. “Should we go to sleep?”

“You’re not going to brush your teeth?” he asked. “That’s bad for your dental hygiene.”

Of course I always brushed my teeth before bed. I didn’t know what was going on with me. “I don’t need you to worry about my dental hygiene,” I said, flustered, tempted not to brush my teeth now, just to show him, but knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep with dirty teeth. I went first, then Seth, and once we were both minty-fresh and emptied of excess fluids, I lay down as he turned off the light. “Well,” he said. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come, but apparently it had been scared off by Seth and Bev’s out-of-tune singing. After what felt like an eternity, I turned on my side to look down on the floor, where Seth was staring up at the ceiling. For a moment I wondered if he slept with his eyes open, but then he blinked and turned to me. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nope,” I said. I gave it a second to see if he’d chirpily suggest counting sheep or imagining myself on a beach, but fortunately he didn’t. Instead, he asked me a question.

“What did you think of my parents?”

“They seem nice,” I said automatically. It was true. They had been very nice and welcoming to me.

Seth blew out a breath. “Good. They can be kind of a lot.”

These flannel sheets were incredibly warm and cozy. I imagined Bev tucking in the corners when she’d put them on the bed, smoothing out the top so that her son wouldn’t suffer any creases against his back. “A lot isn’t always bad,” I said, burrowing deeper into the fuzziness, feeling bad again that he was stuck on the hard floor with only a few pillows trying to save his back from total ruin.

“Glad you think so.” He was quiet for a moment. “They really liked you, you know. They weren’t faking it.”

Well, I hadn’t been worried they were faking it before, but I was now. Then again, what did it matter? It wasn’t like I’d ever be seeing them again after this trip. I tried to ignore the pang that thought made in my chest. “Okay. Cool.”

We were quiet for a moment. It was almost companionable. Seth and me against the world, assuming his parents were the world.

And then he had to ruin it. “By the way, when my mom said that thing about how I thought you were cute.” His words came out in a rush, so fast I thought they might drown me. I turned away from him, focusing on the ceiling. For some reason, I couldn’t handle seeing his face right now. “I don’t mean to—”

“I know what you meant.” My words came out so loud they might have woken up Bev and Benjamin. I lowered my voice as I went on, still studying the ceiling. A line ran through the plaster above me, hopefully not meaning the place was going to collapse on my head. “Don’t worry. I didn’t take it seriously. I know you were just trying to make our relationship seem real.”

I’ve always been someone who’s appreciated a good silence—why fill up a calming, soothing quiet with unnecessary babbling or background noise?—but I couldn’t take the one that fell after my words. I felt like if I didn’t fill it up, I might hear something I didn’t want to hear. “It was good thinking, actually,” I said. “Me coming here totally out of nowhere might make them suspicious. Of the truth. That this isn’t an actual relationship and we have no actual feelings for each other.”

Seth was quiet for a long moment. Again, quiet usually settles me, but this one tied my stomach into a knot. “Right,” he said finally. “Sure. You’re right. I’m glad you’re not weirded out or anything.”

“Nope, all good here,” I chirped, still staring at the ceiling. “Good night.”

“Good night, Abby.”

It took a while to fall asleep, and once I did, I kept waking up to the sounds of cars honking and ambulances blaring sirens outside. At least I didn’t wake up wincing or clutching my lower back, unlike my fake boyfriend, who the next day led the way into the kitchen bent over like an old man. He straightened up when he saw his dad already in there, eating a bowl of what looked like plain oatmeal. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Benjamin said gravely. To be fair, he said everything gravely. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

“I was thinking I’d take Abby downtown to check out some of the Hanukkah pop-ups,” Seth said. He didn’t specify that we’d be looking at them for my own Hanukkah festival, which made me wonder if he’d told his parents about that. “Where’s Mom?”

“Her barre class,” Benjamin said. “But don’t let that stop you. Go have fun just the two of you.”

I copied what Seth was having for breakfast—some Greek yogurt and fruit with granola—and then we were off. It was lucky I’d brought my winter gear with me, because the wind outside was so chilly it would’ve burned right through my wool pea coat. Of course, my warm winter coat and cozy hat made me sweat on the subway, so I was relieved when we climbed the steps and emerged somewhere in the Village.

I was glad to see that the years hadn’t totally erased the Village’s charm; glossy bank chains and Duane Reades alternated space with small, grubby, quirky stores that looked like they didn’t make enough rent to pay for a square foot of their space: a place that made custom rubber stamps; one that sold dollhouse furniture; another with a display of antique teapots in the window. Christmas lights were strung on the streetlights, making glittery stars over the dirty sidewalks; every time a store door opened, a tinkle of holiday music poured out. “I always liked it down here,” I said, breathing in deep the smell of pine as we passed a Christmas tree stand. “Though I didn’t come much.”

“Yeah, it takes a while to get here from Riverdale.”

We walked by a fancy-looking restaurant that proudly proclaimed in its window that it served modern twists on traditional Jewish food. I slowed to take a look, but Seth kept moving. “I’ve been there with my parents and it’s great, but not why we’re here,” he said. “Besides, we definitely couldn’t afford to have them cater the festival.”

I caught up with one more wistful look over my shoulder. Babka beignets sounded amazing. “We’re here to scout people who might want to come do a booth for the festival?”

“Exactly,” said Seth. He stopped so short I almost walked right into him. “That reminds me. I made up a Google Doc with other people you might be interested in talking to about the festival: the guys I know who perform the Hanukkah story in schools and at synagogues; the company that rents out the giant blow-up menorahs; some of my mom’s friends or my friends or synagogue connections who sell various Hanukkah-related things or Judaica. Let me share it with you now before I forget.”

My phone buzzed with the notification. “You’re not worried I’m just going to take the info and run?”

Seth gave me a lopsided smile. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“How do you know?” Even though I had no idea where we were going, I started walking again. “I got what I wanted. Why bother continuing the charade of being your girlfriend?”

He didn’t break stride beside me. “Because you’re a good person and you wouldn’t not keep your agreement.”

“That’s idealistic,” I said as we stopped before what appeared to be the facade of an old Jewish deli. “What’s this?”

Seth swept his arm out, narrowly missing hitting a pair of tourists wearing I ? NY T-shirts and taking photos of pigeons eating a discarded slice of pizza. “This whole area used to be pretty Jewish. My great-grandparents actually grew up around here when their parents brought them to America. But in recent years most of the Jewish delis and businesses have closed. This one among them.”

I studied the big picture window, beyond which throngs of people were crowded before a counter. “Doesn’t look closed to me.” I left out the fact that some of my great-great-grandparents had come to New York, too, back when they’d immigrated from the old country, narrowly making it out before the Holocaust. They’d been part of this great American machine, building this city and this country into what it was now.

“Right. The building was just sitting empty, so this pop-up took it over for a few weeks. Are you looking only for kosher food for the festival?”

I shook my head. “Not only. I definitely want to have some kosher options for the more observant visitors, but everything doesn’t have to be kosher. Lots of things don’t even have to worry about kosher laws as long as they aren’t meat or dairy. Like we don’t have to worry about kosher latkes, I don’t think, as long as we’re careful with toppings.”

“Good. Because most of the pop-ups we’re going to aren’t strictly kosher.”

We stepped inside the former deli and were blasted in the face by doughnut steam. Every spa should have a doughnut steam room. “I see we’re starting with dessert.”

“It’s Hanukkah,” Seth said. “Eating doughnuts is a good deed.”

You really can’t go wrong with the food at any Jewish holiday. Well, with the exception of Passover, because matzah is terrible and eight days of no carbs but matzah and potatoes can have you crying for pizza by the end. But think bagels and lox to break the Yom Kippur fast. All sorts of exotic fruits on Tu B’Shevat. Brisket and tzimmes and noodle kugel for pretty much any occasion. And that’s only the Ashkenazi food; I’d been treated to Sephardic and Mizrahi food occasionally at friends’ houses growing up, and I remembered fish cooked in spicy tomato sauce, tagines with chickpeas and saffron, Yemenite braided bread with whole eggs hidden in the twists.

But Hanukkah food? Because Hanukkah celebrates the miracle of the oil, it’s basically a mitzvah to eat fried foods for the holiday. And doing a good deed by eating French fries or doughnuts is the absolute best way to do a good deed.

So he was technically right. We joined the long line, which had wound all around itself to avoid subjecting anyone to the cold outside. The space was otherwise pretty spare, with a wooden counter, a chalk menu board hanging above it, and some tables and chairs pushed up against the walls.

I examined the menu as we inched closer. “What are the odds that Manischewitz grape filling will be good?”

“I never got the Manischewitz hate,” Seth said. “Manischewitz is delicious. It’s like drinking grape juice.”

I glanced at him with dismay. “If you want grape juice, drink grape juice. Manischewitz is supposed to be wine.”

“Maybe I like my wine tasting like grape juice.”

“I knew you had terrible taste.”

We moved forward in line. The guys in front of us stepped up to the counter, leaving us craning our necks at the menu board. “We have to decide what we’re going to get. Are you okay with sharing?”

“I love sharing,” Seth said. Of course he did.

Ten minutes later, we were huddled at a corner table that had miraculously opened up just as we were receiving our cardboard containers full of doughnuts. We’d left a trail of powdered sugar behind us as we elbowed our way through the crowd, like Hansel and Gretel leaving breadcrumbs in case they needed to find their way out.

Seth was even more smug after we sawed the Manischewitz grape jelly–filled doughnut in half with a plastic knife. “This is amazing,” he said around the half-chewed glob of dough and jelly in his mouth.

Like a civilized human being, I took the time to finish chewing before responding, which gave me time to think about how right he was. The wine—sorry, “wine”—really worked as a doughnut filling, the jelly tart and sweet and smooth with the ever so slight bitterness of alcohol, which perfectly complemented the rich, plush, not-too-sweet dough. The powdered sugar on the outside coated my lips with sweetness as I swallowed. “It’s good.”

The other two doughnuts we’d gotten—a chocolate gelt one that was basically just a glazed doughnut with chocolate filling and a gelt garnish on top, and a chunky apple pie one—were good, too. I grabbed their business card on the way out, though I did say to Seth as we exited the store into the cold air, “I’m not sure if I’ll call them.”

“Why not? The doughnuts were fantastic.”

“We can find doughnut vendors locally in Vermont that make doughnuts just as good, and they can give their doughnuts fun Hanukkah names,” I said. “That way we can save the budget for things we can’t find in Vermont, like kosher food and exclusive Hanukkah specialties.”

Like latkes. The next place had popped up to sell the fried potato pancakes with toppings ranging from the standard applesauce and sour cream to kimchi and trout roe. This one had a window to order outside, so we took up our positions in line while stomping from foot to foot to keep warm.

“Anyway,” Seth said. This line was moving more slowly than the doughnut line. “I’m not idealistic.”

“What?” I had no idea where that had come from.

“Earlier,” he said. “That’s what you said about me. That I was being idealistic when I told you I knew you wouldn’t just take the info I’d gathered for you and run.”

“It is so idealistic,” I said. “Maybe I’ll take it and run right now.”

“Go ahead. I won’t be upset.”

I stared at him. He stared back at me. My hand, holding the phone with access to his Google Doc, twitched. Why not just take it and leave? It wasn’t like I cared about what he thought of me.

Except…maybe I did.

A tiny, little bit.

“I’m not going to do that,” I said. A beat. “Did you really think I would?”

“No,” he said immediately, firmly. But his face didn’t match the vehemence of his tone. He actually looked a little…relieved?

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “You didn’t totally know. You wanted to make sure I wouldn’t just ditch you.”

I would’ve thought him thinking of me that way would hurt my feelings. It didn’t, though. Somehow it made me actually feel better. Because he wasn’t cartoonishly sunny after all. “You’re right, I guess,” I told him. “You’re not that idealistic.”

“I told you,” he replied. “Just because I like to see the best in people doesn’t mean that’s all I can see.” He was quiet for a moment. We took a step forward, and suddenly the smell of fresh frying latkes hit my nose. I breathed in deep. I rarely thought that anything could smell better than French fries, but this might smell better than French fries. More surface area for the oil to caress the potato. It was science.

Seth cleared his throat. “Do you think…” He trailed off before he could finish whatever he was going to say.

I waited. “Do I think what?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Pressed his lips together. Opened them. “Do you think that latkes are superior to French fries?”

It wasn’t like I had an idea of what he was going to say, but I hadn’t seen that coming. I guess maybe I thought he was going to continue the conversation we’d been having. Not that it mattered. So what if maybe he wasn’t as annoying as I’d thought? “Yes. Latkes are obviously superior to French fries, because of the lacy, crispy edges and the pillowy insides.”

“French fries have crispy outsides and pillowy insides, too.”

“No, French fries have a crispy outside,” I said. “Latkes have multiple. The more the better.”

“I see,” Seth said. “So would you put latkes in the pantheon?”

“The what?”

“The pantheon of the best foods,” Seth said. “Don’t you have a list?”

“Of my favorite foods?”

“No, of the best foods,” Seth said. “They’re different. Favorite is subjective. Best is objective.”

I snorted. “There’s no such thing as an objective best food. Everybody has their own individual tastes.”

“Not entirely true,” said Seth. “Take potatoes. Have you ever met anyone who dislikes potatoes?”

“I haven’t met a lot of people,” I said. Purposely.

“Or butter,” Seth said. “Pizza. Macaroni and cheese. Really?”

I wanted to tell him that I despised pizza and wanted to vomit at the thought of macaroni and cheese, but of course that would be a lie. Pizza and macaroni and cheese were delicious. “There are lots of people who are lactose intolerant and can’t eat any of those foods.”

“Doesn’t mean they don’t think they’re delicious.”

We inched forward in line. “One of my favorite things about growing up in New York was the food,” Seth said. “My dad, as you may have noticed, would be content eating brown rice with steamed broccoli and baked salmon every night, but my mom loves food. We’d travel all over the five boroughs to try all sorts of different things. Have you ever been to the Queens Night Market? It’s like the Central Park Food Festival but less expensive and less pretentious.” I shook my head. Queens was a long way from the Bronx. “I tried food from Sierra Leone there for the first time. Afghani food, Cambodian food, ceviche.”

“That sounds like a lot of fun,” I said. I’d grown up in kind of a Riverdale cocoon; sometimes my friends and I would go into Manhattan, but the other boroughs were at least an hour away by train, so we rarely made the trip. “What’s your favorite food neighborhood?”

Of course he couldn’t pick a favorite. As the line continued to crawl, he expounded about the Thai and Nepalese food in Jackson Heights, the Middle Eastern places in Bay Ridge, the various Chinese cuisines in the city’s multiple Chinatowns. My mouth was literally watering. “Oh my god, next time you’d better take me on a food tour.”

He stopped talking and stared at me. It took me a moment to realize why. Next time? There wouldn’t be a next time. There was this time and this time only. I let out a weak laugh. It was okay. I could always come back on my own and seek out the fried fish salad at the Thai place, the silky-smooth hummus at his favorite Lebanese joint.

Why didn’t the thought of going there alone feel better than the thought of going there with him?

As if it were a glorious sign from God to stop thinking about it, the menu board appeared ahead. I turned to face it fully, carefully avoiding Seth’s eyes so he couldn’t address my slipup. The main offering was singular: latkes. But the toppings were varied and delightful. “We should decide what we’re going to get. I vote we get one order with sweet toppings and another with savory options. I’m intrigued by the apple chutney and the cucumber raita.”

It took him a moment to talk, and in that moment I held my breath. But when he spoke, it was about the latkes. Which was what I wanted. Of course. “Any of them sound good. Get whatever you want.”

“Are you sure? You can’t complain if you don’t like it, then.”

“I’m sure.”

Of course he didn’t complain. We set up shop on a nearby bench, me starting with the savory order—trout roe; sour cream; pickled radish—and him with the sweet one—spicy apple chutney; honey; whipped cream. The second savory order, with smoked salmon and dill and cucumber, we balanced between us, because I couldn’t limit us to only two options after all. And really, when it came to fried potatoes, the more the merrier.

Especially these, because they were excellent: lacy and crisp, with crunchy edges and soft, pillowy centers. “I’m definitely going to call them for the festival,” I said, tucking the business card into my wallet after taking a quick picture just in case I got mugged. “Hopefully, we can afford them.”

“Hopefully,” Seth said. His arm brushed mine as he raised a latke to his mouth for another bite. Usually, my shifting away would have been automatic, but it took me a second this time. Probably because it was cold out, and he was emanating heat like a radiator. “Hey, you know. What you said.”

“About the latkes?”

“No, earlier? You said something about wanting to go on a food tour ‘next time’?” I tensed again. “I just wanted to say, no pressure, but if we ever happen to be in the city at the same time, I’d be happy to take you.”

I softened, like a crispy latke beneath a heavy spoonful of tangy, sweet, spicy apple chutney. “That would be really nice.” We could go as friends; of course we could go as friends. If we happened to be in the city at the same time.

I kind of hoped we would be.

—

A few hours later, we were waddling down the sidewalk with full bellies, a snowy layer of powdered sugar dusting our coats and a stack of business cards fattening up my wallet. “This might be my favorite day ever,” Seth said so sunnily I could swear the clouds overhead considered breaking open.

Somehow it wasn’t annoying, maybe because I could agree that all the food had been amazing. I’d gotten some solid leads for the festival, as well as some other ideas for where I could use local vendors, which would please Lorna. I was riding high on the thought of making Lorna eat her words, even though we were back on the subway and a guy was clipping his toenails across from me. “So where to now?” I asked. It was still early, but it was already starting to get dark. “I feel like I already have the start of a great festival, but you’ve been full of surprises. Do you somehow know a guy who can actually time-travel into the past and bring Judah Maccabee back for a speech? Or no, a guy who can bring Antiochus back so we can all throw rocks at him?”

“I think that’s called stoning,” Seth said. “Isn’t that illegal?”

I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, grinning. “If anyone deserves to be stoned, it’s that guy.”

A smile twitched at his lips. “It’s nice to see you…” He trailed off. “Actually, I was thinking we’d check out the—”

“It’s nice to see me what?”

“Nothing,” Seth said. “I was saying, I think we should check out the big menorah lighting in Union Square. It’s supposed to be the world’s largest menorah.”

I debated asking again what he’d really been meaning to say, but a different curiosity won out. “Do you think they’d bring the world’s largest menorah up to our festival? That could be a draw.”

Seth laughed, which was actually nice, because it covered up the sound of the nail clippers. “No, I just thought it would be fun. Besides, won’t it not actually be Hanukkah during your festival anyway?”

Right. Thinking about it that way still seemed weird. We wouldn’t be able to do a real menorah lighting. I mean, we could—it wasn’t like anything was legally stopping us. But it didn’t feel right to light a menorah outside the actual holiday. We could still have big blow-up fake menorahs with all the candles lit as decoration. But not a real one.

It was fine. It was all going to be fine. It wasn’t like I cared about the actual holiday. I cared about bringing tourists to town and saving my café. “Right.”

We stopped at the Union Square subway station, which was basically an underground maze swarming with people coming and going in all directions. I had to stop myself from grabbing on to Seth’s sleeve like a child so that we wouldn’t be separated. It was a relief to emerge into the city air, no matter how many stairs it meant climbing.

The sun was setting over the tall buildings around us, outlining them in red and gold, washing the sky a darker blue. A street busker was fiddling a rendition of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” while, several feet away, a group of drummers pounded a rhythmic beat. As we waited to cross the street into the square, I inhaled deep and smelled not just the usual New York street corner smell of pee and hot pretzels and coffee but gingerbread and cinnamon.

For a moment I wondered if it was magic, and if I was that character in a Christmas movie who was about to find herself changed by holiday cheer. But if I was going to be in any movie, a Christmas movie was not it. My eyes fell upon the far side of the square, where wooden booths wound themselves into a maze, draped in golden lights and cloaked in rising steam. “Oh,” I realized. “The Union Square Holiday Market.”

By holiday —say it with me—they meant Christmas .

“We can check that out, too, while we’re here,” he said. “The menorah doesn’t get lit until it’s fully dark anyway.”

I didn’t really feel the desire to browse aisles of miniature Santas in guises from candles to soap or ornaments shaped like the NYC skyline, but enough of the doughnuts and latkes had worked their way out of my stomach for me to gravitate toward the hot chocolate booth. Seth handed me a red cardboard cup that warmed my hands. I stuck my face in it and inhaled deep. Yum, hot chocolate steam. That should totally be a spa offering, too. “Thanks.”

Seth got a hot chocolate as well, his spiked with a spicy kick of cayenne. Probably didn’t want to stick your face into that one. “No problem. Thanks for being here with me.” He held his cup up. I stared at it for a moment before realizing he wanted to toast. That was a terrible idea. Our cups didn’t have lids. If we bumped them too hard, we’d slosh hot liquid down our arms.

But what the hell. I did it anyway. He tapped my cup so gently I didn’t have to worry.

The hot chocolate was thick and rich and delicious. Sipping it slowly, we meandered from the “holiday” market over to the middle of the square, where the giant menorah stood proud. When he’d told me it was the world’s biggest menorah, I’d somehow pictured something the size of a building, but of course it wasn’t anywhere near that size. It was about five Seths stacked on top of one another. It was tall, gold, and gleaming (probably plastic), with candles the length of my arm sprouting from it.

I wondered where they got candles that big. They probably had to special order them.

We weren’t the only people drifting over that way; tens of people were beginning to gather, some wearing kippahs or long skirts, others in secular clothes, like us. I couldn’t help but feel a flash of fear from being in a public space with a bunch of obvious fellow Jews, because mass shootings and hate crimes. But I pushed it down. If I lived in fear, the Antiochuses of the world won.

Once we found our positions toward the front of the crowd but not in the very front, I realized I should really thank Seth for sending me that Google Doc and taking me to these pop-ups—even if I didn’t meet anyone else the whole trip, I’d have a good start for planning this festival. And all I’d had to do so far was let his loving mother hug me.

But it seemed weird to bring it up after a while like this, as if I’d been obsessing about it or something. So I just said, “I don’t think I’ve been around this many Jews at once in years.”

“Me neither,” Seth said. I wondered again about the circumstances that had brought him to the middle of nowhere, Vermont, but this wasn’t the time to bring that up, either. “Isn’t it great? The feeling of anticipation like electricity in the air as we wait to light the menorah, the sound of all of our voices raised together in song…”

Having to worry about a hate crime , I didn’t add. But I’d already decided I wasn’t going to dwell on that. Besides, what he’d mentioned did make me feel like I wanted to smile.

Not that I actually smiled. As previously mentioned, my face didn’t always like to listen to the rest of me. Impulsively, I asked, “What do you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, your job,” I said. “If you told me before, I forgot.” He blinked at me, apparently surprised. “If I’m supposed to be a good fake girlfriend, I should probably know what you spend most of your time doing.”

“Probably true,” he said. “I’m a dog food taster.”

I boggled at him. “What?”

“You know,” he said. “That big factory up near Burlington? Someone has to taste the dog food and make sure it’s up to par.” I had no idea what to say to that. He continued, “It’s not too bad. Though I have developed a taste for horse. And it’s amazing how many wines you can pair with it. A good red really covers up the aftertaste.”

His lips were twitching. I smacked him on the shoulder the same way, I realized a moment too late, that his mom had yesterday. “You’re joking.”

“I am. Though it is a real job, you know,” he said. “I wish I had a more serious face so that I didn’t give it away. Imagine how hilarious it would’ve been if we were out to dinner with my parents and you started talking about how my breath tastes like tinned horse when we kiss.”

“Is horse even kosher?” I asked. It didn’t matter. None of us kept strictly kosher anyway. “So what do you actually do?”

He shrugged. “The real answer is way more boring, I’m sad to say. I’m in data analysis. Not glamorous, but the pay is decent, it’s remote, and the hours are pretty good.”

More than anyone could say for my job, to tell you the truth. “What data do you analyze?”

He dove into a word salad of financial and marketing buzzwords that left my head spinning. It was a relief when the guests of honor—I missed who exactly they were, but they were all dressed up and grinning from ear to ear—got up to light the menorah.

The massive candle burst into flame, lighting up the night. Was it my imagination, or had the Christmas music from the fair area dimmed? Only the drummers were still going, their thuds like a heartbeat. I opened my mouth to sing the blessings, and it was like the words weren’t just coming from inside me; they were flowing through me from the people all around. Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu Melech ha’olam…

Out of nowhere, I felt Seth press something into my hand. I looked down. A tissue?

I swiped it at my cheek out of instinct. It came away slightly damp, but I was not crying. I had no reason to cry. If my eyes were a little bit shiny, it was nothing but a trick of the light.