Page 17

She beamed at us. “The two of you are going to look so handsome together. I can’t wait for all of our friends to see you.”

“I’ll hold on to the tickets,” Seth said. “Hopefully, I don’t lose them. Or accidentally light them on fire.”

“Don’t you worry,” Bev said with an angelic smile. “I purchased them digitally. So if you lose them, or burn them, all I have to do is print them out again.”

What the hell. She already had us. “It sounds like so much fun,” I said. “Thanks so much.”

“Of course,” she said. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” She stepped away, even closing the door behind her, leaving Seth and me alone in the room. He stared after her, probably thinking something about how she never would’ve behaved this way with his Viking goddess.

“Hey,” I said, stepping closer. “It won’t be so bad.” It was kind of funny, this role reversal. That I would be the one telling Seth things weren’t so bad. Just to make it extra ironic, I said, “Look on the bright side.” But then I couldn’t figure out what the bright side would be for him, so it only did so much.

He made a face, hopefully coming to a deep and powerful understanding of how irritating his personality could be. But then he smiled, as if he was indeed looking on the bright side. Ugh. “You’re right. I’m glad you’re excited about it, at least. That will make it fun.”

What did it matter, when I was just a fake girlfriend? But I supposed he was one of those annoying people who made their day by making other people happy.

But before I could say anything about it, he was gone, leaving me totally, blissfully, alone. Or maybe it wasn’t total, or even entirely blissful, because that last smile of his lingered in the air before me like the afterimage of a flash photo.

9

The rest of the day and even the night went surprisingly smoothly. Bev and Benjamin took Seth and me out to their favorite neighborhood place, a little French joint where we feasted on steak frites and duck and some truly excellent salads. When we got back to their apartment, we lit the Hanukkah candles—well, candle—for the first night. They insisted that, as their guest, I be the one to hold the shammash over the tinfoil as we sang. It was amazing how the first two blessings came back to me after not reciting them for years (the third, which was only said on the first night, had my tongue stumbling—fortunately, Seth and Bev sang loudly enough to drown out a chorus of ambulance sirens).

Bev wished us good night with a smile so gooey it made me feel like I’d eaten too much sugar (which I had, because you couldn’t celebrate Hanukkah without doughnuts, and it turned out there was a Krispy Kreme a mere few blocks away from Bev and Benjamin’s apartment). “Don’t be too loud in there, you two.”

“Gross, Mom,” Seth said, scrunching up his whole face.

I struggled to keep my own face straight. “Good night.”

Once we had the door to Seth’s room firmly closed behind us and we’d waited a few minutes to hear Bev and Benjamin’s footsteps pad down the hallway and their bedroom door close, I turned to face him. “Are you sure you don’t want to share the bed? We don’t have to make it weird.”

“No, it’s totally fine,” Seth said. “I actually don’t mind sleeping on the floor.”

“You’re really sure? I don’t want you to hurt your back or anything.” I’d said I was fine with it earlier, but now, looking at those hard wood planks and thin rug, I felt kind of bad.

“Absolutely,” he said. “It’s like camping. It feels like an adventure.”

The small pile of pillows he’d arranged to cushion himself didn’t look like an adventure. They just looked uncomfortable. But whatever. This was his house. He could do what he wanted.

We faced opposite walls to change into our pajamas, or what served as pajamas. I hadn’t slept in pajama sets or nightgowns since I was a kid—usually, I just slept in T-shirts washed so many times they’d gone soft as silk, and boxer shorts. As I waited for Seth to finish changing into whatever he wore at night, I stared at the wall and tried not to feel too self-conscious. I was basically wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I walked around wearing shorts and a T-shirt every summer in public without even thinking about it.

And yet, as I turned around to see Seth in an outfit that all but matched mine, I couldn’t help the quiver that went through my stomach. I crossed my arms over my chest, even though I’d made one concession to my usual bedtime attire and kept on a sports bra. “Well?” For some reason, my voice came out higher than usual. I cleared my throat. “Should we go to sleep?”

“You’re not going to brush your teeth?” he asked. “That’s bad for your dental hygiene.”

Of course I always brushed my teeth before bed. I didn’t know what was going on with me. “I don’t need you to worry about my dental hygiene,” I said, flustered, tempted not to brush my teeth now, just to show him, but knowing I wouldn’t be able to sleep with dirty teeth. I went first, then Seth, and once we were both minty-fresh and emptied of excess fluids, I lay down as he turned off the light. “Well,” he said. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

I closed my eyes and waited for sleep to come, but apparently it had been scared off by Seth and Bev’s out-of-tune singing. After what felt like an eternity, I turned on my side to look down on the floor, where Seth was staring up at the ceiling. For a moment I wondered if he slept with his eyes open, but then he blinked and turned to me. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nope,” I said. I gave it a second to see if he’d chirpily suggest counting sheep or imagining myself on a beach, but fortunately he didn’t. Instead, he asked me a question.

“What did you think of my parents?”

“They seem nice,” I said automatically. It was true. They had been very nice and welcoming to me.

Seth blew out a breath. “Good. They can be kind of a lot.”

These flannel sheets were incredibly warm and cozy. I imagined Bev tucking in the corners when she’d put them on the bed, smoothing out the top so that her son wouldn’t suffer any creases against his back. “A lot isn’t always bad,” I said, burrowing deeper into the fuzziness, feeling bad again that he was stuck on the hard floor with only a few pillows trying to save his back from total ruin.