“If all goes as planned tonight, you can have my left kidney.” Jay handed him back his phone. “Just make us a boatload of money with that acoustic auction item. Your boy here has pitted you all against one another, to see who can raise the most for Free Arts NYC.”
“Bring it,” Avi challenged, chest-bumping Jonah. “Your velvet-wearing ass is toast.”
“Hey, now. I don’t need a sharp suit. Just sharp wit.” Jonah flicked Avi’s collar. “When did you wear this last? Grammy night?”
“Yep. And I’m wearing it to a bat mitzvah soon.”
Leah found herself entering a short hall between decks. A sign to the left indicated it was a floating photo gallery. The retrospective was calm and softly lit, and felt like a good place to get her bearings.
The three girls had been nothing but sweet to her. They’d brought her into the fold, chattering excitedly about the night’s festivities, giving her first timer tips, and pulling out all the stops, save for a glass slipper in their miracle makeover. Nothing she owned in her bag could’ve compared.
Nora had name-dropped all of the famous people who would be on board, and she seemed to know half of them personally due to working on Broadway since college. Talia couldn’t stay long, saying her kugel ravioli wasn’t going to fry itself. But had given her a quick menu rundown, including where to find items that would be exclusive to tonight’s event and in limited supply. Leah marveled over the precision and what it must take to keep milk, meat andparveall separate for the masses. And Libby had prepped her with snappy comebacks and witty one-liners to keep the J-Daters and players from trying to get too cozy.
The one thing none of them had mentioned?Sylvie.
As a thank you, Leah gifted them one of the two Mahjong sets she had stashed in her bag – after jettisoning Avi’s road clothes from it – while he’d handled the valet. The game had a special Hanukkah theme woven into the traditional tile style.
“Now all you need is a fourth player,” she’d said. All three had exchanged looks, but still, no one brought up Sylvie.
The name was on her mind and on her lips as she explored the boat and got used to tottering around in kitten heels on decks that didn’t feel quite horizontal at times.
The sights were dizzying. No wonder the event was an eight-hour affair. Huge heat lamps made the outside just as cozy and festive as the interiors, where each room was decked out and decorated, some by theme. In just her cursory walk-through, she’d noticed a cookie decorating station being set up, a photo booth already drawing a crowd, and bubbles and balloons everywhere. The glow-in-the-dark section with various activities was definitely on her list to check out later. And hopefully Avi or someone could explain the whole Spinagogue thing, which looked like a championship dreidel tournament of some kind.
She texted Jasmine.
On the boat. What do you think of a glow-in-the-dark Mahj set?
Jasmine
Girl, I think you can pull just about anything off!
It was actually helping Leah recalibrate, looking at photo documentation of previous Ballers as she meandered in the gallery. People obviously got their money’s worth drinking well into the night, judging from their dancing photos.
Some of the pictures were taken on land, too – but Leah recognized some of the major players. Talia and Nora, out with their men in a diner booth. The black and white timelessness of the photo only broken by a cell phone in one of the girl’s hands.
Avi’s friend Jay, the mastermind of the Matzo Baller, was also in one. He was holding the hand of a stunning woman with bobbed brown hair, escorting her through a doorway. A bar, Leah assumed, noticing the name ASHER’S above it. The woman’s smile accentuated her already high cheekbones as she looked forward, directly into the camera. Freshly printed, matted and framed, according to the very recent date on the placard beneath it.
Oh, but the ones of Avi. He had an entire wall to himself, and she couldn’t help but gravitate back to them. She bit back a smile at the first image.
Avi must’ve been barely twenty, leaning against a tree and cradling an acoustic guitar like it was his talisman against the world. She recognized the split trunk and outward growth of leaves; it was an olive tree.He must be in Israel here. His hair, looking like it defied both gravity and a good brushing, tumbled in long, dark waves – framing a face equal parts defiant and vulnerable. Leah couldn’t detect any tattoos yet, just a lean, wiry intensity and that gaze: direct and smoldering, as if he were hungry for something beyond the frame.
Her gaze traveled to the next photo. His guyliner phase, apparently. Avi front and center, sweat-slicked and shining under lights on a small stage, curls plastered to his forehead in wild strands. In mid-guitar solo, every muscle of his body taut with the moment.
“I can see why some people would want to gobble him up with a spoon.” Two older women had come into the floating gallery hall, moving down the row with drinks in their hands and a running commentary from their mouths.
“Eh, it’s an acquired taste,” said the other. She was wearing a sequinedBALLER FOR LIFEsweater and dangling earrings that were tiny matzo balls, which swung as she laughed with her friend. “Come on, let’s go check out the other auction items.”
Leah waited until she was alone again before turning back to the display wall, her gaze pulled in by an arresting black-and-white image.
He was leaning into the mic, lips parted and lush with feeling; the raw, electric kind. Even in the still image, Leah felt the buzz; the heat of his presence. His fingers, adorned with heavy silver rings, clutched the mic like it was his lifeline. The caption on the placard beneath it titled the piece“SILVER, BLUE AND GOLD,”and indicated it had been taken on the boat just the year before.
The final photo felt like a pause in the timeline. A little too recent for Leah’s comfort. She wasn’t ready for it.
Avi, not on stage. But rather, sitting barefoot in jeans, forearms resting easily on his raised knees. Surrounded by all white – the padded headboard he leaned against, the hint of rumpled sheets and luxurious pillows, and a billowing duvet that had been pushed aside.
His curls were shorter, but still unruly enough to tempt her fingers. She studied the traitorous curve of his mouth, caught mid-smirk, like he’d just shared a joke with the camera – or perhaps the person behind it.
Tattoos now bloomed, artfully winding up both arms – the same inked tapestry Leah had traced with her fingertips only hours before. Beneath the familiar challenge in his gaze, she noticed something softer, an unguarded tenderness.
