True, but he was trapped with this woman who rolled her eyes every time he tried to make a joke, who had practically snapped his fingers off when he reached to adjust the car’s heat settings, and who looked at him like he was some kind of arrogant, misplaced rock star nuisance rather than… well,him.
And had Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” really just come up on her random shuffle?
Another mile marker ticked by before she spoke.
“So what’s in Erie for you, anyway?”
“Nothing except a bus station. I have to get to Buffalo for a show tonight.”
“Was band practice at the rest stop?” She didn’t hold back a snicker. “I’d think you’d have reached…I don’t know. Private jet status by now? Helicopter?”
He sent her a dark look from the passenger seat. “Is that really how you think it works for me?”
“I haven’t thought of you at all,” she shot back, her voice cool but her eyes betraying a flicker of something else. “And whatworksfor you.”
Despite her sharp words and chilly demeanor –and the diss track– there was still that familiarity. That was the thing that got under his skin. A little echo of the past, something warm and real, wrapped up in the sweet scent that filled the car. It was infuriating—and oddly fascinating.
First, it was the spicy hint of cinnamon drifting off her hair, like it had been baked right into her. And now, as she pivoted her body to check the side mirror and look over her shoulder before moving into the fast lane?
“Vanilla,” he declared. He was sure of it. “Likerealvanilla. The kind you get from extract, not that fake stuff.”
“You’re imagining things.”
Was he imagining her voice had gone up an octave?
“Maybe my air freshener is just… weirdly fancy.” She shrugged, casting a glance up.
Hanging from the rearview mirror was a pair of fuzzy dice, shrunken to dollhouse size. Paired with a dangling gold Hebrewchaisymbol and a two-sided tile the size of a domino. It spun idly to show off both a red side and a green side, with what looked like a Chinese character on each. He ran a finger over the markings.
“We call them dragons in Mahjong,” Leah explained, “Western players, that is.”
He recalled his Aunt Miri and her friends doing just that.
“My best friend is Chinese, she said the two combined symbolize luck and prosperity. Actually, Jaz says it’s a bit more confusing than that, and dragons are also a source of unpredictability. But it’s a bestseller from ourLuck & L’ChaimCollection.”
“Bestseller?”
“Yes, Jasmine and I have an Etsy shop, Gift of the Mahj. Our keychains are a popular price point. It’s a low-barrier entry to attract customers. Every tile we currently offer is hand-painted, so not exactly cheap, but this makes a good gift to a fellow Mahj player.”
“Gift of the Mahj…Like the Henry O. story,Gift of the Magi?”
“It’s O. Henry. But yes!” She whipped her head toward him in surprise. “It’s one of my favorite stories. And the wordplay is fun…but it’s just a placeholder until Jaz and I come up with a better name for our brand.”
It was the most she had uttered without snark…but it had also thrown him off the scent. Temporarily. He flicked his finger gently at the tile, and it clacked against the dice as it spun. No scent of vanilla, but he kinda wanted her to keep talking.
“I used to fall asleep to the sound of the tiles when my Aunt Miri and her friends would play into the night.” Avi suddenly had this memory, of holidays hosted in overheated houses where the men would go off to smoke pipes after dinner, and the women would drag out the Mahjong sets. “Lots of trash-talking, if I recall.”
She laughed, a first since they had gotten in the car.
“I always thought it was a game you had to be old to play.”
“Mahjong is so much more than just a game.” Leah flicked her gaze at him before back to the road. “It represents home, family, belonging…and yes, multi-generational trash-talking.”
Home, family, belonging.Avi couldn’t remember having much of that growing up. Not until Miri had moved in with him and his dad back in Jacobsdale.
“And the sound of the tiles is the best,” she continued. “Lizbet and I used to stack them to play some sort of Jewish Jenga. Or just build forts for our Barbies, and Lucas would always pull a Godzilla and knock them all down.” She smiled. “I bet this is probably the longest conversation you’ve ever had about Mahjong.”
“Are you kidding? It’s theonlyconversation I’ve ever had about Mahjong.”
