Her violet eyes widened in disbelief as they followed his gesture. She quickly packed up a kit for him. “Everything you need to satisfy her…sweet tooth.”
“Speaking of satisfying – Gold Kippah doing it for you?”
He gave a subtle head nod toward the main decorating table. The man who he’d seen lighting the menorah earlier was now surrounded by women hanging onto his every word as he demonstrated adding color to the white royal icing canvas of Libby’s cookies.
“Please. That’s Rabbi Micah Wasserman.”
“So he’s a man of the cloth. Well…of the kippah.” He shrugged. “When has that ever stopped you before?”
The look Libby gave him wasn’t one he’d ever seen cross her face. Shadowed, then shuttered. It made him want to sweep her bangs aside and plant a big forehead kiss of consolation. But he realized he might risk an off-set spatula to his ribcage if he got that close.
“Here.” Finally he got a smile out of her, as she handed him the kit. “Go play sweet hero to your movie star.”
Kara clapped in delight when Jonah returned with the box. “This is way beyond your call of duty, thank you!”
“Growing up with a houseful of sisters, I understand the quest for sugar…no questions asked.”
They tucked themselves onto a bank of couches outside the karaoke room, where pendant lights cast warm pools on a low coffee table – perfect for their cookie carnage. Best of all, it was deserted. People were far too busy channeling their inner superstar on stage to notice a real one, right outside the doorway. Sitting crisscross applesauce with her shoes off, offering up a nude cookie in each of her manicured hands.
“Dreidel or Star of David?”
“Whichever one you don’t want to eat. ‘Cuz we’re about to have a sprinkle massacre up in here.”
“But those are the best kind!” she insisted, unpacking the supplies.
Libby had included everything: filled pastry bags cinched with rubber bands, paper towels, sprinkles and nonpareils, and the world’s tiniest scissors that were definitely made for right-handed mortals. His thick fingers were no match for them.
“Jeez, haven’t lefties suffered enough?” He struggled with his non-dominant hand. “This is why we are funnier. We’ve had to adapt to a right-handed world.”
“Here…you hold the bags, let me snip the tips.”
He surrendered the scissors over in defeat. She maneuvered them awkwardly, but got the job done. “There. Ready to rock?”
She grabbed the blue icing bag – with her left hand. And Jonah had a technicolor flashback, from somewhere deep in the trivia vault of his brain. Of young Rosie Bloom, sitting at the kitchen table and coloring. Blue was her favorite crayon, like his, but he would’ve remembered if she’d used her left hand, like him. A more recent memory screeched to the forefront of his mind. Vanta Blackmore, leveling a Glock at a bad dude. Using her right. Was that all just a part of acting? Or was that…
…not the woman in front of him now, innocently piping a border around a dreidel cookie left-handed?
“You okay?” she asked, pausing.
“Yeah…” he stalled. “Just thinking how ‘Snip the Tip’ would be a great name for a mohel-themed reality show.”
Another snort escaped. “Oh my God, Max – don’t say things like that while I have a piping bag in my hand!”
An even more recent memory surfaced: at the dreidel table.
She absolutely spun left. Right?
He wished he could go back and rewind the tape in his brain.
“Okay, trained in hand-to-hand combat, hora dancing, and cookie frosting? Major flex.”
He blinked down, surprised to discover he’d piped a perfect Magen David, triangle over inverted triangle, and had efficiently flooded each section yellow. Lost in thought.
“One of my best friends is a pastry chef,” he said slowly. “And it’s more like pen-to-paper combat most of the time. Desk jockey.”
Her face registered instant concern. “Were you hurt on an assignment? Sorry, that’s probably too personal. I know you’re paid not to ask questions, so it should go both ways.”
His accounting brain – highly paid, by the way – began a mental tally. Logging her comments throughout the night. Her assumptions. Her actions.
