“I don’t mean to be harsh. It just wasn’t super exciting.”
“Okay, like, what are we working with here? Too much tongue? Not enough tongue?”
I dropped my head into my hands, my cheeks hot. “No tongue. Zero tongue. Just—we kissed.”
“Oh. Hmm. Well, sometimes you need to train someone in kissing, you know? To be perfectly honest, Jackson wasn’t a great kisser when we started dating.”
My jaw fell open. “You can train someone? What, like you graded him on a rubric and gave him feedback?”
She laughed. “No, he was just, like, kind of slobbery? I did a lot of positive reinforcement. You know—appreciative noises when something worked for me.” Her cheeks darkened, and she cleared her throat. “Anyway! You shouldn’t be worried, you’ll figure it out.”
“Wait, no, tell me more about these ‘appreciative noises.’ ”
She rolled her eyes, grinning. “I made it very clear what I liked, you know?”
“Olivia. What hidden depths.”
“I try,” she said. “So how do you feel? You’ve been obsessed with him for a year.”
I reached over her to snag an oatmeal raisin cookie. “I’m kind of... relieved? It was so much work to talk to him. He’s hot and smart and Iwantedto like him, but I didn’t really know him, and now... I don’t know, there’s nothing there between us. I’m more bummed out about losing the idea of a boyfriend, instead of being sad about actual Isaac.” Tyler’s volley came back to haunt me, that I wanted an easy boyfriend instead of a connection with someone I really liked.
I pushed both boys out of my head. “What about you? Jackson gets in later today, right?”
“Wait, no, first. What about Tyler?”
I slumped, looking out the window at the gray sky. “I don’t know. We had this weird fight that made me think he might be jealous—but we want different things. I want steady and reliable, and he wants fun and uncommitted, so even if wearecircling each other, it doesn’t matter, because no future would make us both happy.”
“Hmm,” Olivia said, her tone more measured than usual. “It’s good you realize you don’t want the same thing. So you don’t jump into something and wind up miserable.”
“Right. No.” I pushed my hair behind my ears. “I’m definitely not going to do that.”
After the movie ended, we went downstairs so I could gather my things and head out before Olivia picked Jackson up at the ferry. While Olivia ducked into the bathroom, I wandered over to the piano, which stood in its own personal alcove. A songbook lay open at the march fromThe Nutcracker. Tentatively at first, I began to play, then more and more sure, ending with a cheerful, confident few notes.
When I looked up, Olivia stood there. “I thought you didn’t play anymore,” she said.
“I don’t.”
“You sounded very good for someone who doesn’t play.”
“Thanks. Is this what you’re dancing to at the New Year’s party?”
“Indeed.” She did a pirouette. “How do I look?”
“Like a perfect Clara.”
She regarded me. “You could play, if you wanted to. Mom’s planning on it, but she really doesn’t want to—she’d rather be captaining the ship.”
“Oh no,” I said quickly. “I haven’t played in public in years. I’d mess up.”
She shrugged. “Just putting it out there.”
I set off along Cliff Road toward Golden Doors. I could have called someone to pick me up instead of embarking onan hour-long walk, but today was on the warmer side, and the road’s incline churned enough heat in my body that I unzipped my coat and stuffed my hat in my pocket. At home, I routinely walked more than an hour through the heavily trafficked grid of Manhattan; it was soothing to instead walk by myself on an empty road.
The light was soft and malleable today, fading in and out of thick, undefined clouds. There were no shadows, but an ever-present glare as I took in the island’s barren beauty. The trees were stunted and wizened from salty air, patches of snow still lying thick in the wood. The ocean, when I could see it, was a shimmery blue-gray, fading into the washed-out sky.
When I reached the turnoff to the long, private drive leading toward Golden Doors, I looked instead to the left, where Tyler’s home lay.
It wasn’t Hanukkah anymore. The season for miracles had passed. And I wasn’t sure I believed in miracles, anyway, not ones handed down by an all-seeing power. But maybe I believed in the miracles you made, in the leaps you took. I believed in small miracles, in realizations and understanding and belief.
