Great.
Seventeen
July 26
From: The Jewish Children’s History Foundation
To: Abigail Schoenberg
Dear Abigail,
We are sorry to report we do not have any records of a Ruth Goldman in our database. You are welcome to come look at our archives in person...
From: The Kanevsky Organization
To: Abigail Schoenberg
Dear Abigail,
Thank you for your inquiry. Unfortunately, we were unable to find anyone by your grandmother’s name...
From: The New York Center for Holocaust Victims
To: Abigail Schoenberg
Dear Ms. Schoenberg,
We do not have any records of a Ruth Goldman in our databases. Good luck with your search.
I met Tyler the next night at a restaurant on the water.
He stood near the hostess station, all sunshine and summer, his corn-silk-yellow hair artfully arranged, a sky-blue shirt boosting the color of his eyes. His face was pink with sun, and he straightened when I walked into the cool air-conditioning. I gave him my best winsome smile. “Hi.”
His gaze roamed over my pink dress and blown-out hair. “You look great.”
“Thank you. So do you.” My real takeaway from this summer was going to be learning to accept compliments. How did all these boys know compliments were the way to my heart? Was it simply because they’d dated enough to know this was standard practice?
“I put our names down, but if there’s no room, there’s a million other places we can go...”
The hostess looked up. “There’s two of you, yes? We can seat you now.”
“Really? Awesome.” He beamed at me. “Great luck.”
He put his hand on the small of my back and guided me toward our table, which was as new as getting complimented. The hostess left after handing us menus, and Tyler leaned forward. “This place is getting huge attention. My friend’s mom is a food critic and she told us about it, and it’s going toblow upas soon as her review goes live. We’re lucky to get in while we can.”
“Wow,” I said, since some response seemed necessary. “Cool. I don’t know anything about restaurants, I just look things up on Yelp.”
He settled back in his seat. “People on Yelp are all haters, you can’t trust them. You need somebody objective to know what’s good.”
The server came over with two glasses of water. Tyler looked up at him. “How long have you guys been open?”
“Three weeks,” the server said.
“And how’s it going?” Tyler looked around. “It’s real busy in here.”
“This is our busiest night so far,” the server said, finally unbending enough to smile.
When he left, Tyler caught me smiling at him. “What?”
