Love You a Latke

Chapter 12

12

The next morning, my eyes popped awake with the excitement of an idea. Without bothering to think it through, I leaned over the side of the bed. “A sufganiyot latte.”

Seth winced, covering his eyes dramatically with his arm as if my teeth were the sun. If anything, he should be covering his nose, I realized belatedly (the morning breath multiple drinks had given me could have wilted grass). “Good morning to you, too.”

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

“I heard you. Something about a doughnut coffee that was entirely lacking in context for being shouted at me this early in the morning.”

I hadn’t been shouting. Had I? Maybe. The idea was that exciting. I pulled myself over to the edge of the bed, dangling my bare feet over the side, dangerously close to where Seth was stretched out on the rug with his meager pillow and blanket. It was a good thing we weren’t in a real relationship, or I’d probably be self-conscious about my feet. I’d always had ugly feet, scarred and knobbly with an oddly long second toe and a scrunched knot of a pinky.

But enough about my feet. “A sufganiyot latte,” I said, then added context. “I’m thinking I set up my booth at the fair with some Hanukkah coffee specials. I already thought about a latke special based on that cocktail I got, and now a sufganiyot latte with flavors of strawberry and powdered sugar. A chocolate gelt cappuccino. I’m thinking of a few other ones, too. I can sell them at the fair and see how popular they are, then rotate the more popular ones at the café with all the Christmas specials next year.”

Seth pulled himself slowly to a seated position against the wall, wincing. Hopefully, at his back and not my idea. “You look very angry about this.”

“That’s just the resting bitch face,” I said impatiently. “I’m very excited. What do you think?”

He tipped his head as if in thought, though it might have been because he was all lopsided from sleep: his hair flattened one side and flying free on the other; all the blood in his face red in his one cheek. “What do I think?”

I realized I was holding my breath. That was stupid. I needed to breathe.

Seth cracked a smile. “I think I’d try some of those out instead of my usual pumpkin spice.”

I didn’t need to release a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, because I’d already realized I was holding it. So instead, I just released a breath. “Okay. Cool.”

“I’m really excited about these ideas, too,” Seth said, and it was truly amazing how he could be this animated right after waking up. “I can’t wait to try them. I volunteer as tester.”

He volunteered as tester. Which meant that he really did want to stay friends after this whole adventure.

The thought didn’t make me cringe the way it might have only a few days ago. Somehow his positive attitude was less annoying here in New York than it was in Vermont.

Or maybe it was the context. Maybe it was taking him from “annoying me at work” to “showing me things he was excited about, for good reason.”

Or maybe it was that I actually had things to be positive and excited about for the first time in a long while.

But no need to psychoanalyze myself. I jumped out of bed, feeling a lot more energized than someone who fell into bed after too many drinks late last night had any right to feel. “I’m going to go hop in the shower and get ready. What do we have going on today?”

Seth fell back onto his sad floor pillow. “Sleeping a little later?”

I laughed, assuming he was joking. “I’ll be back in a few.”

But by the time I got back, scrubbed clean and fragrant with Bev’s lavender-lemongrass soap, he was snoring again, one arm draped over his eyes. I stood there and watched him sleep for a moment—that broad chest rising and falling, his lips parted in his dark beard—before shaking myself off. Stop being a weirdo, Abby.

I could sit there in bed and play on my phone or read a book until he woke up, or I could go have something to eat. My growling stomach solved that conundrum for me. I padded out into the hallway, closing the door gently behind me so as not to wake Seth.

In the kitchen, Bev and Benjamin turned to look at me at once, Benjamin at the table with his bowl of oatmeal and a print issue of the New York Times , Bev at the counter with the coffee machine. Neither of them spoke. I said, awkwardly, “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Bev said, but her tone was low and deadly. I braced myself for whatever I’d done—had she discovered I was making her precious son sleep on the floor?—but exhaled in relief when she aimed her barbs at Benjamin. “Or it would be a good morning if my beloved husband of almost forty years would get off his tuchus and help me with the French press, considering he used the last Keurig pod.”

Benjamin didn’t even look up from the paper, bless his nerve. “I said I’d help you as soon as I finished my oatmeal. I don’t want to eat cold oatmeal. It’s like eating cement.”

Eating hot oatmeal was also kind of like eating cement, but I didn’t say that. Especially because Bev’s brows had lowered, and thunder was on the horizon. I said, quickly, “Let me help.”

Ten minutes later, Bev was awestruck at the latte I’d made her. “You even did the little leaf art on the top,” she said. “Wow.” She took a sip. “This is excellent.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Is it okay if I make one for myself, too?”

“Please,” she said. “Make ten for yourself if you want.”

“Only if you want me scaling the side of your building from the caffeine,” I said dryly. She laughed.

Once I was done, I sat at the table with them, because to do otherwise would be rude. Benjamin laid down his paper, which gave me a good look into his bowl of oatmeal. Again, I couldn’t see any mix-ins or spices or anything. “How did you sleep?”

“Very well, thank you,” I said. “How about you?”

They exchanged a glance. “Very well, thank you.”

Silence settled over the table, thick and warm as a blanket. I took a sip of my coffee, my cheeks heating up. I had to break the silence before Bev did with some super personal question that would ruin my day. “I actually did some brainstorming overnight,” I said. “I love it when that happens, when you come up with ideas without even having to put in any effort.”

I wondered a moment too late if that would be a black mark on me—Benjamin seemed to be the kind of guy who valued effort—but whatever, too late now. I went on to tell them all about my café, about how I’d always had Christmas specials but was now coming up with ideas for Hanukkah specials. “Oh, those sound delicious,” Bev said. “I don’t know how I’ll choose one when I visit the two of you up there.”

“I’ll make all of them for you,” I said. And then what the hell, I went on and told them all about the Hanukkah festival, too, and how I was down here coming up with ideas for it. “I’m actually pretty excited,” I said, and when had that become true? “It’s going to be, from what I can tell, the first Hanukkah festival in New England outside of Boston. I’m hoping it’ll attract Jewish tourists, but also non-Jews and locals, too. I really like the idea of sharing Hanukkah with people who don’t know anything about it.” I’d seen how much fun that could be here, playing the dreidel drinking game and lighting the menorah with Seth’s friends. “I’m thinking I’m definitely going to hire the latke guy and the apple cider people from the pop-ups Seth took me to—I know apple cider isn’t really a Hanukkah thing, but it was so good I can’t resist. And then there’s this doughnut maker up in Vermont who I think will be perfect if I can persuade them to try out some Hanukkah specials.”

“We’ll definitely have to come up for this! I can’t believe Seth didn’t even tell me about it,” Bev said, and for a moment I could picture it: the four of us at the festival, Bev darting off to booth after booth and bringing back armfuls of sufganiyot and latke platters, Benjamin rolling his eyes but eating just as much as the rest of us, me and Seth strolling behind them hand in hand, wondering if that would be us in thirty years.

A moment. Just a moment. And was that really so bad? It wasn’t like I was deluding myself. I knew it wasn’t real.

It was just a thought that made me feel warm, as if Hanukkah candles were flickering before me, reflecting a glow from the window. Just for a moment.

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I just smiled.

“I know a guy who makes these beautiful crafted hanukkiahs out of all sorts of found objects,” Benjamin said. “Technically, he makes them out of trash, but they’re quite beautiful. For being made of trash. I could give you his number if you’d like. Maybe he could sell them at your festival.”

“That would be wonderful,” I said. “Thank you.”

Bev smiled fondly at me. For a moment I felt guilty for it, after all Freya had told me yesterday. It wasn’t like she liked me for a reason I had anything to do with. “Your hair looks nice,” she said.

Surprised, I touched my head. I hadn’t washed my hair in the shower this morning, just tied it up out of the way, but it had of course still gotten damp. It hadn’t quite reverted back to its natural curl, but the ends had gone rogue, the middle waving. “Oh, thanks. I usually straighten it.”

Maybe I wouldn’t today, I decided spontaneously. Maybe I’d just let it do what it wanted.

I touched my hair again. My mom’s voice popped into my head. You look awfully…unkempt. I don’t want you going out with us looking like that. Do you want to stay home?

But Bev had said it looked nice. And what did it matter anyway? I didn’t care if Seth thought I was beautiful. And it wasn’t like I was going to see any of these other people again. If I looked unkempt, then I looked unkempt.

“Is Seth still sleeping?” Benjamin asked. “He never sleeps this late. He’s always been an early riser.”

Of course Seth would be an early riser. He probably popped awake with the sun every morning. I rose from the table, my coffee mostly finished. “I’ll check in and make sure he’s still breathing.”

No noise in the hallway, but everything smelled like lavender. I breathed in deep, finding it comforting. Opened the bedroom door and—

“Oh my god,” I said, because yes, Seth was breathing.

He was also naked.

Not totally naked, I realized a beat later. He had a towel wrapped around his waist. Which, come to think of it, explained why everything smelled like lavender. It also explained the beads of water clinging to the black curls scattering his chest and taut stomach and the thicker trail of black hair leading down beneath the towel—

“Oh my god,” Seth said, his eyes widening. “I’m changing.”

Why was I staring at those glistening beads of water on his skin? That was rude. I tore my eyes away and stared up at the ceiling, my cheeks heating up. My first instinct was to shout some apologies at him and slam the door and run back out into the kitchen area.

Thank goodness I’d never really been one to trust my gut, because my second instinct told me that would look suspicious to Bev and Benjamin. I was their son’s girlfriend after all. We were presumably sharing a bed and saw each other naked all the time. So, fighting that first instinct, I slid inside and shut the door behind me.

I didn’t let my eyes slide back down to Seth, but I assumed his cheeks were as red as mine. “Sorry,” I said, as quietly as I could, so my voice wouldn’t reach the kitchen. “But your parents would think it was weird if this freaked us out, right?”

“Right,” Seth said, and from how strangled his voice was, I knew I was one hundred percent right about red cheeks. The cheeks on his face. I wouldn’t know about his other cheeks. They’d been covered up by the towel. Not that I’d looked. “It’s fine. No big deal. Maybe just face the wall?”

I was too close to the door to turn around without hitting the knob, so I took a step forward. And, naturally, since I was still staring at the ceiling like I was trying to read a treasure map printed on it, tripped over something. One of my shoes from last night, I realized as I was falling.

“Whoa!” Seth managed to catch me in his arms before I could fall flat on my face. His bare arms. His bare wet arms. His bare wet arms flanking his bare wet chest.

Those bare arms against my shoulders, my waist, were strong and capable and warm. They cradled me for a moment, and I had to fight the urge to lean into them, to rest my head against his shoulder.

And then I realized that those arms had been holding up his towel. I lurched upright and away, my face so hot it might actually combust into flame and fry us both crispy like latkes. “Sorry, sorry,” I said hastily, then noticed that the towel was firmly knotted around his waist, barely dipping under his belly button. An innie. I had an innie, too.

“Don’t worry about it,” Seth said, his voice still strangled. Maybe because I was staring at his belly button. Which was weird. I went to tear my eyes away, only to notice a slight bulge there beneath the knot. It could have been a wrinkle in the towel or it could have been—

Abby! Get out of here!

I spun around, feeling frantically for the doorknob. Somehow I had the presence of mind to call over my shoulder in what I hoped was a spritely and cheerful and not at all frantic manner, “Sounds good! I’ll get some coffee ready for you!”

And then I was out in the hallway, the door closed behind me. I had to lean against it for a second to let my hammering heart calm down a little bit. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Why was I so flustered? It wasn’t like I was some blushing innocent who’d never seen a shirtless guy before. I saw shirtless guys all the time. Not, like, a weird amount of the time. A normal amount of the time. At the beach. Running outside during the summer. Sometimes, unpleasantly, in my café.

So pull it together, Abby.

Back in the kitchen, I managed to smile for Bev and Benjamin. “He just got out of the shower and is getting changed,” I said. “He should be here soon.” To avoid having to look them in the eye, I busied myself making Seth the perfect cup of coffee, even sprinkling in some cinnamon and nutmeg to mimic the flavor of his usual pumpkin spice latte.

It took him longer to come out than I expected, and I definitely did not spend those extra minutes thinking about what exactly he could be doing in there that would be taking so long, nope, not at all, my cheeks were always this red.

He finally came padding out wearing a T-shirt and jeans, hair sticking up all over his head. “Good morning,” he said, and good for him, it no longer sounded like he was being strangled. “Ooh, is that for me?”

I held out his coffee mug like an offering. “It’s pumpkin spice–ish,” I said. My heart fluttered. There was clearly something wrong with my body today. Maybe I’d drunk too much caffeine. “Hope you like it.”

“I know I’ll like it.” He took it from me, then focused on my face. “Oh. Your hair looks nice.”

My heart fluttered again. Two people had told me my “unkempt” hair looked nice . “Thanks.”

Maybe because Seth was still hungover and we’d had a lot of activities the last few days, maybe because we were both exhausted from the stress of the morning, we decided to take it easy this morning and afternoon, then light the fourth night of candles with his parents at sundown. “Let’s go walk in Riverside Park,” he said, already by the door wrapping his scarf around his shoulders. “I want to show you the gardens.”

I waited until we were out in the hallway, the door shut behind us, before saying, “It’s winter. Aren’t the gardens all dead?”

“Hush, you,” Seth said lightly. The elevator stopped on our floor with a ding. We stepped inside, where I was given the privilege of staring at my makeup-less, wild-haired self in the unflattering overhead light above the elevator mirror. “I need a slap of cold, fresh air in the face if I’m going to make it through the day.”

“Fine, let’s go look at dead flowers.” I paused. “I’m really sorry, by the way. You know. For walking in on you getting dressed? I didn’t mean to. I—”

“It’s really okay,” Seth said. The elevator jounced to a stop. The building should probably get that checked. “It happens. You didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Right.”

We waved to the doorman as we passed by. Outside, the air was indeed a cold, fresh slap of air in the face. “You know, I could’ve done without the slap,” I said. “Considering I was a responsible adult last night who stopped after two drinks and all.”

“It feels like you have something you want to say.”

I gave an exaggerated shrug. “Is your fake girlfriend not allowed to look out for your health?”

If I’d ever been to Riverside Park, I couldn’t remember it. The long, narrow strip of green parkland snaked its way between the Upper West Side and the Hudson River, across which the buildings of New Jersey stood, looking sad and inferior (hey, as a born and bred New Yorker, it was my right to bash New Jersey as much as I wanted). It was hilly and crowded with monuments and statues. I stopped to check out the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, which rose up high and domed into the grayish sky, surrounded by cannons aimed at a playground below. Hopefully, they didn’t actually work.

“So,” Seth said, hands in his pockets as we strolled down a grassy incline and into the park proper, where the sound of the slate gray river was covered up by the traffic of the highway next to it. “I wanted to check in with you now that we’re almost halfway through. Is everything going okay with you so far?”

That phrase stuck in my head. Halfway through. Tonight would be four nights, the official halfway point to returning home. When I’d go back to being the single owner of a failing café who barely remembered her Hebrew.

That wasn’t totally true, at least. I’d discovered that over this trip. I guess I’d said those blessings over and over so many times growing up that it was like riding a bicycle. Which I also barely remembered how to do, but if Seth sprang a bike-riding outing on me, I could probably wobble my way through it. “Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat over a lump that had suddenly risen up there. “It seems like it’s all going well for me. I got so many leads for the festival. It’s going to be amazing.”

I let it sprawl out in my head. The wintry fairgrounds, spiky grass dusted with snow, the big lights overhead making it all glitter. The sound of a live band performing Hanukkah songs, but also other Jewish and Hebrew songs, just to break it up. Maybe even a klezmer band if their rates weren’t absurd and the tourism board wouldn’t laugh me out of town when I told them about the accordion. The winding rows of tents with their rising smells of frying oil and powdered sugar, the booming sound of voices reenacting the Hanukkah story, the shining lights of the big brass menorah reaching into the sky…

It was stunning. And it was all thanks to this deal I’d made. It was only fair that Seth feel like he’d gotten as much out of it as I had. “How about you? Anything I should work on or change for the second half of the trip?” I cracked a wry smile. “Besides maybe learning how to knock?”

His nose was ruby red from the cold, almost matching his wool scarf. “No, not at all. Like you said, it’s been great. Everybody loves you, you know. They’re going to be so sad when…”

He didn’t need to say it. They were going to be so sad when we “broke up.” Hopefully, Bev wouldn’t be one of those weird moms who came after the ex to ask why. I had a friend back in college who’d broken up with her boyfriend and ended up having to block his relentless mother on Instagram because she wouldn’t stop DMing her GIFs of sad baby animals.

I swallowed hard. Time to change the subject. As long as I was careful about it, I could broach the subject without betraying Freya’s confidence. “You know, Freya told me a little bit about your breakup last night. If I were her, I would be pretty angry with you.”

I watched him carefully to see how he’d react to that. If his eyes would narrow, or roll with annoyance of me butting into his business.

But his expression gave no indication of whatever he was feeling beneath. “Oh.”

I gave him a second to elaborate on that “oh,” but nothing came. I said, “She told me that you’d basically ghosted her after more than two years. Her and your friends, too. Is that why you were so weird about going to see them?”

That got a grudging response. Well, half response. “I didn’t ghost her. I broke up with her because I was moving to Vermont.”

“Why the big move? It wasn’t for work, right? Since you’re working for the same company, just remotely.”

A chilly breeze whipped through us, making me pull my arms in tighter. We were now walking by the gardens, which were, indeed, mostly brown and dead, but the wire frame of a cat suggested topiary in the summer months. I’d kind of like to see that, the topiary cat.

Seth sighed. I wondered if he liked cats, then wondered why it mattered. “I moved to Vermont because of Freya.”

“What?”

“I moved to Vermont because of Freya,” Seth said through clenched teeth. “Things were good between us. I liked her, loved her. I just…”

He trailed off. This time, I had the sense to wait and let him continue on his own.

When he did, he was no longer speaking through a clenched jaw. “It had been about two years, and we were getting into our late twenties. People were starting to prod about getting engaged and getting married. And I just…I freaked out.”

“At the thought of getting married?” I asked.

“No,” he said immediately, and now his eyes were large, honest. “Okay, maybe. Kind of. I imagined walking down the aisle with her, living together forever, having kids with her, waking up next to her every morning, and freaked out. Panicked. It made me feel like I wanted to crawl out of my skin.

“And again, it was nothing she did. Freya is great. Which was part of the problem. Every time I’d gone through a breakup before, I was either the one who got dumped or she’d cheated on me or something. I didn’t know how to break up with someone who was perfect, just who I maybe didn’t want to commit to in such a big way. And if I didn’t know how to do it, I definitely didn’t know how to explain it to all of my friends. I figured they’d see me as the bad guy. So I just…left.”

I blinked. “You just left? What, did you just get in your car and drive until you got tired?”

He scoffed at me like I was the one who’d made the more ridiculous statement. “Of course I didn’t just drive until I got tired. Abby, this is Manhattan. Nobody has a car.” He paused. “I took a train. I’d been up in the area for a hiking trip with the guys a couple years ago and really liked it, so figured, why not? I got a car once I was up there.”

We jumped nimbly out of the way of a kid barreling toward us on a bicycle, face full of panic. “So let me get this straight. You couldn’t handle the thought of a mature, adult conversation with your partner of two years , so instead you just ran away. I can’t believe you never even apologized to her. You really owe her one. A big one.”

“Wow, Abby,” Seth said, and this was it, this was going to be the explosion. Seth was going to say how dare I, as his fake girlfriend, question him like this, like I had any right to say such a thing.

But his shoulders sagged. “You know, you pretty much nailed it.”

And that made me feel a little sorry for saying it so harshly. Not enough to actually apologize, though. I mean, it wasn’t like I’d been wrong. So what the hell, I just barreled down, full steam ahead. “Do you think this might be a bit of a pattern?”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, instead of having a confrontation with your parents and telling them you’re happy and to leave you alone, you formulated this scheme to bring a Jewish fake girlfriend to get them off your back.”

“Oh,” Seth said slowly. “Oh, yeah. I see where you’re getting that impression.”

We walked side by side in silence for a little while. He might have been thinking over what I’d said, considering what it meant about him as a person and him as a partner and him as a son. Me? I was craning my neck over the chain-link fence to see all the dogs in the dog park. There were so many, and guess what? They were all cute. Not as cute as Seth’s friend’s corgi, but very few dogs could be that fluffy and have that round of a butt.

“You know,” Seth said, and I was about to tell him that yes, I knew his friend’s dog was so cute I was considering a kidnapping scheme, but of course he couldn’t read my mind. “I guess I’ve never been great with conflict. As a kid my mom always kind of took care of things for me. That’s not much of an excuse, but…”

“It’s a fine excuse,” I said, thinking of my own mom and dad. They were my excuse for so many of the things I’d chosen to do and be. Only…“How long, though, can you let it be one? You’re an adult now. It can’t explain everything about you forever.”

My stomach flipped unpleasantly, like when you’re making that first pancake and it oozes out the sides because it’s not fully cooked. Maybe I wasn’t just talking to Seth.

“Unless you want her to,” I said hastily. “I mean, it’s your life. Not really any of my business.”

“No, you’re right,” he said. “I mean, even last night, I didn’t really want to go out with the group, but they told me to go, so I went.”

“But you ended up having fun, right?”

“I did,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it was a good thing that I just folded.”

“That’s true.” We were both quiet for a moment.

And then my phone trilled. I hadn’t realized I’d taken it off silent, but now we both looked down to where I was trying to fumble it out of my pocket. You’d think that, after years of living through brutally cold Northeast winters, I’d be better at maneuvering my fingers through gloves.

It had already rung for so long by the time I’d extricated it that I just answered it without even checking who it was. “Hello?”

“Abby, hello.” Lorna’s most businesslike tone rang out in my ear. “Is this a good time?”

“Um—”

“Good,” she said. “I wanted to check in and see how things were going in regard to the festival. Since you didn’t take any of my recommendations.”

It’s Lorna , I mouthed at Seth, grimacing as I tucked the phone into my shoulder. “It’s actually going really well,” I said. “I’m in New York City for a few days and have already found some vendors I definitely want to hire.”

I gave her a rundown of the people I’d decided on, plus some of the other booths I was considering, highlighting the places where I planned to stick to local vendors. Lorna was silent the whole time, which, not going to lie, made the hair rise a little bit on the back of my neck the way it did before a lightning storm.

And then she struck. “That all sounds unnecessary,” Lorna said. “Why do you need to call in all these special vendors from the city? I’m sure they’re charging extra for travel.”

I took a deep breath. The air chilled my lungs. “They do cost a little more, true, but it just means we get a smaller percentage of their—”

“And I really want to insist that we have some kind of holiday tree,” Lorna said. “It’s not a Christmas thing to have a tree. Wasn’t it a pagan tradition to begin with that we adopted? We as in Christians. Anyway. Vermont is full of trees. There’s a big evergreen tree in the middle of our flag, so you can think about it as celebrating our state. Do it in Hanukkah colors. It’ll be beautiful.”

But it was a Christmas thing to have a tree. I ground my teeth in frustration. I’d heard it so many times. Christmas is basically secular now. Is it really that big a deal for all the kids to wear Santa hats? It’s not a religious thing. We’re all singing Christmas songs at the holiday concert, it’s not like we’re at church or singing prayers.

Whether they viewed those things as religious or not, they were all part of a holiday celebrating another religion. “Lorna…” I said.

“I really must insist,” she told me. “Anyone who comes up here for a holiday festival will be expecting a tree. There’s a reason the Christmas festivals have been so successful. People expect certain things when they go to one.”

Then why didn’t you just decide to have a Christmas festival? was what I wanted to say. But my new self-righteousness was already wilting along with my curls under my hat. Was it really that big a deal to compromise a little? I didn’t want to fight with Lorna. If I did, who knew what she’d do? Maybe take me off the project altogether and do it herself, a Christmas festival reskinned in blue and white. “Fine. We could have a tree.”

“Wonderful. I knew you’d be reasonable,” Lorna said. There was almost no ambient noise on her side of the phone, and I pictured her outside in her backyard, the mountains hushed behind her, snow falling silently on the grass. Unlike what she was hearing from me. Just in the last minute, we’d had someone cursing at an e-biker who’d almost hit them, screaming children at a birthday party, and a runner blasting his shitty music for all the world to hear. “And I was thinking a holiday light show, too. People love those. My friends tell me they’re very popular at their festivals. And isn’t Hanukkah the festival of lights?”

That didn’t seem like so big of an ask. “I guess we can.”

“Great, I’ll get the vendor from my friends. I don’t know how much Hanukkah-specific stuff he has, but obviously we’re not going to pay to have someone lug all that from New York,” Lorna said. “What else did you have in mind?”

The rest of the conversation made me feel like I was slowly shrinking, leggings puddling around my legs, feet swimming in my fluffy boots. She grudgingly okayed me bringing some kosher food vendors up from New York, but not all of them (“They’re so expensive, Abby. Why are they so expensive?”), and she insisted that we include some of the vendors from up there that people were familiar with (“We already know everybody loves the corn dog guys and waffle makers. Not everything has to be a special Hanukkah food”). She understood why I wasn’t going to have a Santa but badgered me with questions about a possible replacement (“Parents love having their kids take pictures with someone, and you can charge so much for them. Doesn’t Hanukkah have some kind of mascot? Can we make one up? Can we just say that Santa’s in town and felt like stopping by for a doughnut or whatever?”).

By the time Lorna sighed heavily in my ear and said, “Okay, it sounds like we’ve got a good start. Let me know if you have anything else you want to run by me, okay?” all the fight had gone out of me. I was limp. All I could do was nod and give her a quiet goodbye before she hung up.

Seth had, of course, been there the whole time, looking off into the distance and pretending not to eavesdrop but obviously overhearing everything at least on my side. “Everything okay?” he asked carefully.

My mouth opened, instinct strong. I would tell him that yes, of course, everything was fine and I had it all under control. Nobody had to worry about me.

Except he’d just shared a bunch of really personal stuff and let me poke and prod at his most sensitive spots. This wasn’t even one of my sensitive spots, just an annoying thing that was happening. So why not share a little bit? Maybe he’d have some ideas on how to help.

So I sighed. “I was excited about all the plans we came up with for the Hanukkah festival, but Lorna’s not totally on board. I’m pretty sure she just wanted to have a Christmas festival but there wasn’t room for another one in the market, so she wants to technically have this be a Hanukkah festival but have it really be a Christmas festival.”

“Why didn’t she just plan it herself, then?”

I shrugged. “Bad publicity? There have been all those stories about cultural appropriation and cultural insensitivity. Maybe she didn’t want to be featured in one.”

“So instead she piled it on the shoulders of the only Jew she knew but figured she would control it all anyway,” Seth said slowly. “So that if they did get any bad publicity for this Hanukkah festival being a whole lot like a Christmas festival, she could point to her token Jew and be like, ‘She’s Jewish and she planned it, so it’s fine.’?”

Sounded like Lorna. A sour taste filled my mouth. “I don’t like being used like that.”

“I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t, either,” said Seth. “What if you told her that it was your way or the highway?”

“What?”

“Like, if you told her you were going to do it the way it needed to be done, or else you were out.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. I took a deep breath. I wasn’t quite ready to share how badly my café was doing, and how much I desperately needed an influx of tourists to keep it afloat. That was too much like exposing a bruise for him to poke at. I said, instead, “Even if I can only change her plan a little bit, isn’t that better than nothing? I’m just thinking of all these excited Jewish tourists flocking in for their tiny scrap of representation and finding Santa Claus and Christmas trees.”

Seth squinted at me, as if he suspected there was more to it that I wasn’t sharing, but he didn’t press me. “I guess.”

It didn’t make me feel any better.

It was nice to spend the rest of the morning being lazy, considering how busy we’d been the past few days. Even if I had to be on my tip-top best behavior regarding our fake relationship, since Bev and Benjamin were around the entire time. Bev somehow produced an entire lunch spread from nowhere, bagels with cream cheese and lox and pickled red onions and capers and scallions, multiple salads on the side. The woman was a food magician.

Naturally, the bagels were the best I’d had in a very long time. To be fair, I hadn’t had a bagel in a very long time. Vermont had great food, but those round bread rolls they called bagels didn’t deserve the name. I had no idea if it was the New York City water or not that made New York bagels so chewy and doughy and delicious, but they clearly did something right here that they didn’t do anywhere else.

“So, Abby,” Benjamin said to me over lunch. “I thought your ideas for Hanukkah drink specials in your café were excellent. Have you thought about expanding or diversifying your business?”

I huffed a little laugh, spraying a few bagel crumbs back on my plate. “To be quite honest, I’m focused mostly on keeping my one location alive and running. Business…could be better lately. That’s why I’m so determined to make this Hanukkah festival a success.”

Benjamin nodded. “Smart. No sense in big dreams if you can’t pull your little dreams off first.”

Exactly. That had to mean I’d done the right thing on giving in to Lorna on the festival. Like he said, saving the café and the town had to come before getting absolutely everything about the festival right.

I wasn’t going to say that to him, though. I’d just assume.

“What are your big dreams?” Bev asked. “Say the sky’s the limit. Would you want to be a Starbucks one day? With franchises all over the world?”

I blinked and stuffed a bite of bagel into my mouth so I’d have a moment to think. I’d entertained thoughts of becoming a big CEO one day, sure. Hasn’t everyone? Flying on the private jet, shuttling from beachside estate to mountain estate to city penthouse, sitting at the end of a big shiny wooden table surrounded by people looking at me with respect. The trappings sounded fun. The other aspects of the job—a grinding work schedule, constant travel, schmoozing all the time—less so.

I swallowed the bagel lump. “I honestly don’t know,” I said. “I mean, if some big investor came to me and was like, let me help you spread your brand all over the country, I imagine it would be hard to turn down. And it could be cool to have a few locations where I could try out experimental things or cater to different crowds. But I’m pretty happy where I am.”

Cold fear clutched my chest at the thought of losing it. I hurried on to fill the space. “I like being my own boss and I like the town and I like getting to do my own thing when it comes to the menu. It would be nice to have a few employees so I don’t have to be there all the time.” And maybe live in a house or nice apartment instead of the shitty rental above the shop, because I liked the smell of coffee but didn’t love marinating in it twenty-four seven. And not have to stress about going under all the time, but I’d already told them enough. I didn’t have to share my greatest worry. “But otherwise it’s all pretty good. I think I could be happy there for a while.”

“That’s really lovely,” Bev said. “Of course, I would have preferred it if you said, ‘I want to open a café on the Upper West Side and move back here soon,’ but I’m glad you’re happy.”

Behind her, Seth rolled his eyes at me. I bit back a smile. “Maybe one day. Rent is very expensive around here.” If rent wasn’t so expensive? I don’t know, I could almost see it. They’d been so good to me, it didn’t sound all that bad to have Bev show up at the café every morning for a free coffee she protested against but never actually paid for, bullying all her friends and neighbors to make it their regular spot, Seth’s friends showing up for open-mic nights and poetry readings and whatever else happened at artsy coffee shops in New York City. Me brewing up increasingly ridiculous and colorful sweet coffees for Seth to try. Unicorn lattes with sprinkles and peaked whipped cream horns. Chocolate-chocolate-chip mochas with lumps of half-melted Hershey’s bars floating in them.

There I was, thinking of this as a real relationship again. My smile disappeared. A headache tingled at my temples. This wasn’t real, and it was important for me to remember that.

With such small, trite topics as our hopes and dreams for the future dispatched, the conversation turned toward last night. “What did you think of Seth’s friends?” Bev asked. “I’ve always thought Dan needs to shave. Much like Seth here, but I won’t say anything about that.”

“You kind of did just say something about that,” said Seth.

“I like Seth’s beard,” I said, and now that I’d done my supportive fake girlfriend job, why not poke at him a little? “At least, as long as he keeps it groomed. Sometimes his mustache grows over his lips and it feels like kissing a Christmas tree.”

“An oddly specific description,” Seth said, meeting my eyes. I flushed, my own eyes dropping to my lap, because I could tell exactly what he was thinking. How much time have you put into thinking about what it would feel like to kiss me?

Quick, Abby, change the subject. “Anyway, what were we talking about? Seth’s friends?” I swallowed hard, raising my head, and brushed a strand of hair off my forehead as if I didn’t still feel Seth’s eyes hot on my cheek. “I liked them. Everyone was really welcoming.” For a moment I was back there in the glow of last night, everybody laughing around the table as they stumbled through the Hanukkah blessings, the lightbulbs of the cheap menorah shimmering in my vision until they looked almost like real flames. “And even the non-Jewish ones were excited about lighting the Hanukkah candles. It made me realize how much I’ve…”

I trailed off, because the end of that sentence would have exposed a soft part inside of me I wasn’t sure I wanted to put out there. It made me realize how much I’ve missed this. “This” being a stand-in for a whole bunch of different things. The community. The lights. The feelings.

“I have an idea for later,” Seth said abruptly.

“Oh, for all of us?” said Bev.

“No, just for me and Abby,” he replied. She didn’t even look deflated, as if that was the answer she’d wanted.

My turn to ask a question. “What is it?”

“I’m not going to tell you or else you’ll probably refuse to go.”

“Well, that’s one way of selling it,” I said.

“Just trust me,” Seth said, and god help me, I did.