They ducked through a cluster of revelers and into their booth, shrouded on one side by tinsel curtain. Its inside was mercifully dim, a velvet bench barely wide enough for two. Kara yanked the curtain closed behind them.
The tiny booth hummed around them, warm and close. He heard Leah say a breathless hello to Nora.
“Seriously, who is that Mahjong lady and why is she following us?” Kara stage-whispered.
“She also might think you’re her BFF after you danced at her Bat Mitzvah party last year,” he whispered back. “Long story. You probably wouldn’t remember.”
They were so close, their mask noses almost touching.
“Anything else happen that I should know about…” her voice fell to a hush, “that I probably wouldn’t remember?”
His pulse hammered. This was it. The moment to say it.
To remind her they had history, even if it was humiliating history.
“There was this one guy…”
Jonah had never been to Confession, obviously. But he wondered if this was what one of those confessional booths was like. Dark, faces mutually obscured. Voices low in the small space. “He made a total fool of himself in front of you last year.”
Suddenly, the countdown tones chimed, the flash surprising them both. Breaking the spell.
“I can’t breathe in this thing,” she laughed.
“And I can’t see jack without my glasses.”
Off came the masks, before the next camera click. Kara was quick; she’d plopped a tiara on his head, too.
“Oh, just for that…you get glasses!” He pushed oversized comedy glasses, built-in Groucho ‘stache and all, onto her face. Click.
They scrambled into poses –props no longer needed. Except for an absurdly long blue feather boa entwined with silver Star of David garland. It fit around the both of them. Three times. She threw her head back and laughed.
The camera flashed. Then again.
Her thigh brushed his. His chuckle caught in his throat.
The curtain rustled with people outside, but no one pulled it open.
Jonah’s pulse refused to behave.
He was usually the fastest guy in his improv class – first to “Yes And,” first to follow the spark and the bit wherever it led.
Tonight? He had no damn clue where this one was going.
Only that he was already leaning in.
You’re good at this subterfuge thing.
Max’s words echoed in Tzipi’s head as they slipped out of the games area once the coast was clear, back into the fresh air of the lower deck.
She had played it off like a joke, but knew exactly what the word meant: Deception on a grand scale, no matter how much her sister had champagne-gummy-bear-sugar-coated it.
And it was exactly what she had been worried about.
Note to self: you need to examine your boundaries when it comes to Kara.
But she knew it was about more than just that. Trying to keep someone else’s world from imploding helped her believe her own might steady again. After Lorne.
Why else would she have swanned onto this boat, and into the spotlight, like some kind of delusional superhero?
