The Goy Next Door (Girl Meets Goy #2)

Chapter 8 The lift of jealousy

When Leah woke up the next morning, her entire body was sore. She wasn’t sure how a short run in Central Park made her back sore and even her biceps, but she felt like her entire body was punishing her. Her legs, well, sore didn’t even describe them. They were stiff like someone filled her veins with lead and somehow she needed to lift them to get out of bed.

“Can’t you sleep in a little more?” Asher said, his face muffled in the pillow when Leah lifted his heavy arm from hers. “Your boss loves you so much, he won’t care if you’re late.”

Leah smirked and shook her head. Asher’s boss didn’t even show up to work until 10 or 11 am. He sometimes didn’t show up at all, from what Asher told her. None of the analysts arrived before 10, there just wasn’t a point. But things were different at Diamond Media. Reporters arrived before nine, and the boss never stepped in a minute after the hour.

Leah usually arrived at 8:30. She liked getting a head start. Her early arrival had nothing to do with the fact that she knew Gabe commuted early.

This morning, with her stiff legs and Asher’s pleading, she was later than usual. She dashed from the subway as fast as her lead-heavy legs would allow and got into the elevator at Diamond Media.

Just as the doors were closing, she noticed Alex walking in the building. She stopped the doors for him and waved. He flicked his head but didn’t try to hurry toward her. It made her feel silly and she wondered if she shouldn’t have waited for him, especially when she started realizing that this was the same elevator they rode down together after Diamond Media’s holiday party when they kissed. Or he kissed her, she couldn’t remember really. The feeling, however, she remembered. It made her all tingly, but that was probably because the kiss never should have happened. Not between her and Alex and not in the elevator at work.

“You’re late, Rosenberg,” Alex said when he stepped inside the elevator. He pressed the door close button and the doors started closing ever so slowly.

“I’m not late,” she asserted and looked at her phone. It was 8:54, still six minutes before her contract stated she needed to arrive.

“Late for you,” he responded. “Don’t become a slacker like me! It doesn’t suit you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Wait!” someone yelled as a hand stopped the doors from closing. Leah’s heart jumped at the infraction, which came so late that Leah was sure the doors would smash the hand, but they didn’t. They opened to Brittany’s smiling face.

“Thanks!” she said and stepped inside. “Hey Leah! Did you get another run in this morning?” She completely ignored Alex while she pressed the door close button.

Leah shook her head. “I’m actually really sore,” she confessed as the doors finally closed. It was now 8:56. She would be almost exactly on-time.

“That happens when you first get into it,” Brittany assured. “It’ll take a few runs before your legs get used to it. Would you like to meet tomorrow morning? We could be running buddies!”

Leah did not want to make it a habit of getting up early to run, but there was something about Brittany that made her feel like she had to say yes. And besides, she still wanted to talk to Brittany about the job at Teen Club.

“Sure,” Leah heard herself agree.

“You look good, Brittany,” Alex suddenly said. “Did you get a haircut? It’s nice!” Before Brittany could answer, the doors opened on the 11 th floor, the offices of Teen Club.

“Thanks, Alex. Leah, see you tomorrow at the reservoir?” Brittany skipped out of the elevator and Leah nodded even though her sore back barely let her.

When the doors closed, Leah again felt the memory of her kiss with Alex dance in front of her. It was right there that he pushed her against the wall and kissed her. He pushed her. He kissed her. Instead of letting the memory linger, she said, “Jealous much? I have a date with Brittany and you don’t!”

“I’m not jealous!” Alex insisted as the doors opened again on the 12 th floor and they both stepped out.

“What happened with you two anyway?” Leah asked as they walked to their cubicles.

Alex shrugged. “Nothing. It wasn’t anything serious.”

Leah wanted to pry, but just then Tony stepped into the floor. “Rosenberg! My office!” he yelled before he had even gotten to his desk. She dropped her things and followed her boss.

“Rosenberg, I need an answer by Monday,” he said. “Marnie is bugging me and if there is anything I hate, it’s getting bugged by Teen Club or any of the other superfluous publications here. I have no idea why people read those rags, but they keep our doors open so I tolerate them. But I cannot tolerate Marnie asking me about my reporter. So make a decision. Have you decided?”

Leah shook her head.

“Monday,” he said. “I need to know by then or I’m going to blow every shade of Spring lipstick to bits! Get back to your desk now, I’ll call you in for the daily meeting soon. By the way, good job on the Zoomburger story, it’s getting some interesting comments.”

Leah nodded and went back to her desk. It was now Wednesday, and part of her was glad to have a deadline to make the decision. She couldn’t drag it out and by Monday she’d be on her path, whichever it was.

She hadn’t thought much about her decision since her fight about it with Asher. She’d actively tried not to think about it because thinking about it made her nervous. What if she chose wrong?

She started checking her email and then she opened her browser to her Zoomburger article that she had written thanks to Gabe. She scrolled to the comments.

How the hell did you get this story?

Who’s your source?

No way this is true!

Great reporting!

Call me for another scoop.

Leah stopped at the last comment. Another scoop. The comment was anonymous and she wondered if it was from Gabe, if he had seen her article. Part of her wanted to pick up her phone and call him—scoop or not—but she wasn’t sure if that was reason enough to talk to him.

Soon Tony called the reporters into his office for their daily meeting. It started with a tirade on why being gluten free was a joke, because his oldest child was now starkly against gluten, but also loved the wheatgrass shots at Jamba Juice. Tony couldn’t understand why grass with wheat as the modifier was gluten free, while all other things with wheat were off limits. “She’s just trying to waste my hard-earned money! If gluten was more expensive than gluten-free, she’d be a gluten lover!” Tony insisted before telling the reporters it was time to get back on track.

He assigned each of the reporters their duties for the day. Leah was in charge of writing about a loan closing that was expected to go through that morning. “It’s a straightforward piece,” Tony insisted. “But it’s a big name so people will be watching.”

Leah nodded and was thankful to have an easy day. Maybe it would give her time to think about all the crossroads in her life right now. Back at her desk, she started reviewing the loan documents for her story. She’d written tens if not hundreds of stories of this sort since she’d started and so she could skim the documents while her mind wandered.

When her phone rang, she even answered it right at her desk.

“Honey! Are you and Asher coming home for Passover?” her mother Savannah asked. “I was thinking we should invite his parents, they are so nice and we haven’t seen them in a while!”

Savannah was quite possibly the happiest about Leah’s rekindled relationship with Asher. While Savannah had tried to be nice to Gabe, tried to be quiet while her daughter “sowed her wild oats” with Gabe, she couldn’t hide her excitement after their breakup. When she heard Leah was back with Asher, she had even congratulated her on her maturity and dedication to their tradition. Two minutes after that, Savannah had even called her mother to calm her that Leah was no longer living in sin and that Leah was back on track to inherit her kosher wedding china.

“You would have felt really terrible had I died of a heart attack when you were with him!” Leah’s Bubbe said when she too called to congratulate Leah for getting Asher back. Leah wanted to tell her that she would feel terrible no matter when her Bubbe had a heart attack, but that was neither here nor there. “But I’m glad my kosher wedding china will have a good home when I die.”

Yes, that was one of the top priorities for Leah’s Bubbe, homes for all her keepsakes that she wanted to pass down to her grandchildren who followed tradition.

“Sure, Mom, that’s a great idea,” Leah whispered in the phone while still skimming the loan documents at her desk. It wouldn’t be the first time her family celebrated a holiday with Asher’s. They had broken the Yom Kippur fast together when Leah was a junior in high school and they’d also celebrated the Passover Seder once when Leah and Asher were long-distance in college.

Their families got along well and back then Leah’s heart jumped when they referred to each other as in-laws. Asher would squeeze her hand, and she could imagine their future together and thought she was so lucky to have wonderful in-laws.

Leah hung up the phone and wrote her article about the loan closing. She hadn’t received confirmation of the closing, but as the day dragged on she didn’t want to wait for final confirmation to get the editing process started. With such a straightforward financing, the confirmation would surely come soon, or maybe the lawyers were just taking their time with the paperwork while they worked on other pressing matters. Either way, Leah submitted her story and left her desk right on time.