“What did you guys do last night?”
Nothing!“We went to the Arnold Arboretum and out to dinner.” Thank god I’d called her instead of Skyping, so she couldn’t see my red face.
By the time Mom and I hung up, Noah had jumped in the shower. I googled German census records, and found more information than I’d expected, but no concise search engine—mostly places I could pay for in order to download census results from different towns. I bookmarked the pages for later.
Next, I looked up the Holtzman House, which Else Friedhoff had said she and O’ma had been placed in by the German Jewish Children’s Aid society, the principal organization for getting children over from Europe. Like the GJCA, the Holtzman House was a privately funded refugee organization. It provided temporary housing for Jewish children.
Perhaps they’d been the ones who’d informed O’ma her parents had passed away, which meant they might have more information about them—or perhaps they’d have more information about O’ma’s arrival itself, including family facts.
The Holtzman House no longer existed, but another Jewish nonprofit had inherited their records. Like many of the other organizations I’d come across, it didn’t have digitized records and suggested coming to New York to search their archives, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I shot them an email, grateful to have actual information to impart:My grandmother, Ruth Goldman, came over on theSS Babettein 1939. She stayed at the Holtzman House for severalweeks. Do you know if there’s any mention of her in your records?
Noah came out of the shower, rumpled and half-awake. He wore a towel slung low over his hips. “Morning.”
“Good morning.” I felt unexpectedly shy, as though we hadn’t spent half the night with our bodies pressed against each other.
He filled a glass with water from the tap. “Were you on the phone?”
“With my mom, yeah.”
He drained half his drink, then looked at me. “You’re okay?”
“About my phone call?” I said, slightly confused.
“No, I meant—” For the first time, he fumbled. “I wanted to check about last night. Make sure we didn’t go too fast or anything.”
I couldn’t stop a smile from springing to my lips. “No. We didn’t.”
“Good.” He came over and kissed me full on the mouth, then grinned his heart-melting grin. “Because I thought it was great.”
This boy was going to kill me.
“Should we get breakfast?” he asked. “I’m starving.”
We went to a café down the road with sandwiches named after streets and schools. We ordered breakfast burritos and Noah got a coffee while I added on a cookie (to each their own). Then we took the T downtown and spent the afternoon walking around the Common and Public Garden, which (as Noah told me) was the oldest in the country. Then we took the T to the train, the train to the ferry, and the ferry all the way back to Nantucket.
Returning to the island after a night away felt odd. You weren’t supposed toreturnto your vacation land once it had ended, and the vibe of Boston had been far different than of Nantucket. Not to mention what had happened between Noah and me. I felt nervous as wewalked down the dark, familiar streets to Mrs. Henderson’s house. Now what? Had Boston been a fairy tale, and Nantucket, however odd it sounded, our ordinary lives? In the city we’d existed in a bubble of our own making. What would happen here?
Noah walked me to my door, and we lingered on the steps. He hitched his duffel bag strap higher on his shoulder. “I’ll see you soon.”
Right. Because now we were parting. “I’ll let you know if the archive has any info.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
We stayed locked in place. Then Noah’s hand came up to cup my cheek and he lowered his lips to mine, soft and light as a whisper. The worried tension inside me unwound. “See you later, then.”
“See you.” I slipped inside, then leaned against the closed door. I grinned at the ceiling, unable to suppress the thrill of the weekend. I’dkissedNoah Barbanel! And, you know, extensively made out. I gave a hop of sheer joy.
The house was dark but moonlight streamed through it. I danced upstairs, silently entering my room where Jane already lay sleeping. I floated down atop my bed like a maple seed helicoptering down to earth, blissful and dream-filled.
I fell asleep thinking about Noah.
I woke up thinking about Noah.
Okay, wow, this could get real time-consuming real fast.
Did people usually feel sodestroyedby hookups? Utterly all-consumed? Was it normal, craving another person like a drug? It couldn’t be.
