On a night like this, where she’d called him knowing what he was doing, where she’d been vehement about him doing it.That meant they were headed to one place.
He put his arm around her, making sure she stayed with him.Side by side, they walked the familiar streets of Greenwich Village to the slightly larger original location of La Poutinerie, the one that got expanded after the Empires won the cup.Partly on the back of the nephew of the shop’s owner.
They’d be busy in the early morning hours of New Year’s Day, but when you help out at the back of a food truck during a cup championship celebration, or pop in every once in a while to help in the kitchen or behind the counter, you get a table.
When he opened the door, he heard her exhalation even over the noise from the restaurant.
“How did you know I wanted to come here?”
He smiled.He’d guessed correctly.“Lucky guess,” he said with a laugh.“Come on.”
She still looked meek, still seemed upset, but also looked as if maybe after a dish of poutine she’d be able to tell him what was bothering her.And that was the improvement he needed.
*
Three bowls ofpoutine later, Naomi felt she’d calmed down enough to tell Jason the reason she’d been sobbing: the unedited version she wouldn’t offer anybody else.And when she’d finished telling him, she took a long swallow of her lemon drop.
“Wow,” he said.“That’s a lot.What do you think Judith and Ash are going to do?”
Which is when she realized she had to make something clear.In that moment, he hadn’t been her confidant; he’d been the best man.So, even while exhausted, having another drink, on New Year’s Day, she had to set boundaries.Immediately.“You can’t tell him,” she said.“You can tell nobody.”
There was a long second, where he looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.“Not tell Ash?”
“Nope.Not a word to him.”And then she paused as she let it sink in.But there was something else she needed to make clear—the boundaries weren’t just for him.“I’m not telling anybody…except you.”
Which might have been a bit too far, but this was New Year’s right?Second best time, right behind Purim, to make ridiculous confessions that were just on the wrong side of friendship, to the person she told everything to.
Once again, there was a long second where she didn’t know what was going to happen.“I can’t let Judith find out,” she said after reaching for the right words to fill the space.“At the slightest hint of trouble, my cousin will try to take over, and that will cause trouble with Ida because Ida wants her ‘special touch’ on the wedding of Jacob Horowitz-Margareten’s project manager to the founder of the JHPA, and I can’t deal with that.”
Eventually, he smiled, and she knew she was going to be okay.
The fact that she couldn’t stop staring at the cheese on the corner of his lip was a problem she’d have to deal with another time; she wasn’t reenacting an animated movie starring lovestruck dogs.
“Whatever I can do to back you up and get you a new caterer who isn’t me,” he said, breaking her concentration and the reverie, “you’ve got it.”
Her ability to rely on him made her calmer than usual about the losing battle to keep her cousin’s wedding away from Ida’s meddling fingers.But there was something else sitting deep in the level of his words.What was it?
Of course, that was when she realized two things.
First, she’d been holding his hand and not even trying to break his grip.
And second?The conversation was on hold because she couldn’t get the words out.“Thank you,” she finally said, leaning in to the touch.“But what’s up with you?Because there’s something there.”
She would have to eventually deal with her reaction to his smile.And his touch.
“I’m going to be away for a bit,” he said, once again bringing her back to reality.“I won’t go until you’re seeing a clear light through the tunnel.And I’ll be back before the wedding.But that’s all I know.”
The details, the timing of the trip made her feel better.But the fact that he was actually taking it?The fact that he was actually doing this?
That made her really excited.
“Did you made the connections you wanted to at the party?”
He nodded.“I did.”
Even in the haze of her New Year’s Day buzz, she remembered the conversation they’d had where she’d floated the idea of the trip, and how he’d done his best to balance his desire to leave against the guilt tied to the business his brother was auditioning to take over.
Now he was doing it.
