Noah, thank god, turned to his mom. “Can we be excused?”
“Sure, honey.” She plucked a bottle of wine from the center of the table and topped off her glass. “I think it’s probably a good idea.”
Thirteen
As soon as we were inside, I sagged against a wall. “What just happened?”
“Come on.” Noah grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my collapsed state, leading me down the hall and toward the stairs.
“Where are we going?”
“Upstairs. Too many ears here.”
Up we went, past hand-sized paintings of the sea, smudges of light set in wide frames. In the upstairs hall—one I hadn’t been in, modern and high-ceilinged—we passed more of Edward Barbanel’s paintings, large ones, unsettling: the moors of Nantucket under the silver moon, the snowy beaches in weak winter light.
Noah pushed open a door and I balked, tugging him to a stop—him over the threshold, me on the other side. “This is your room?”
“During the summer.” He dropped my hand and moved farther in, and I didn’t miss his touch, because who missed a hand only holding yours for directional input? I swallowed my impulse to sayYou’re allowed to have girls in your room?because I didn’t want to sound like a sitcom character from the nineties. Instead, I followed, pretending to be ever so calm. “Cool.”
“Sorry it’s not super clean.” He blushed a bit as he pulled up the bed’s rumbled covers—blue-and-white plaid. He grabbed a heap of clothes off the floor and threw them into his closet.
“Good solution.” I nodded to the pile of clothing on the closet floor. “Into it.”
His laugh cut the tension. “You can sit...” He turned toward an armchair, which was also covered in clothes. Then he looked at the bed, now made, but still decidedly a bed.
“Here’s fine.” I lowered myself onto the pale wooden floor. “So your grandma definitely knows about Ruth and Edward.”
“Seems likely,” he said, sitting down across from me.
“Seems one hundred percent.”
He cupped his hands over his mouth and blew into them. “She was throwing you in his face, huh.”
“Yeah. But why? She can’t still be mad?”
“I think it’s more how she’s mad at him in general right now, and this is... more ammunition.” His head sank. “Which I didn’t want them to have.”
The door burst open. Noah’s cousin blazed through it, hair flying, eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”
Noah groaned. “Shira, go away.”
She ignored him. “What’s the deal with Ruth Goldman?”
“She was this girl Grandpa’s family took in—”
“Yes, I know,” she said impatiently. “The German girl.”
“What?” Noah exchanged a stunned glance with me. “You know about her?”
“Of course I know about her.”
“Ibarely know about her!”
She shot him a condescending look. “You’re aboy. Boys don’t pay attention to anything.”
Man. I’d paired up with the wrong Barbanel. “What do you know?”
“Not much. She existed. Once I asked Grandpa if she’d come talkto my class on Yom HaShoah, but he said he didn’t know how to get in touch with her.” She turned to me. “What’s the deal?”
