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“About the latkes?”

“No, earlier? You said something about wanting to go on a food tour ‘next time’?” I tensed again. “I just wanted to say, no pressure, but if we ever happen to be in the city at the same time, I’d be happy to take you.”

I softened, like a crispy latke beneath a heavy spoonful of tangy, sweet, spicy apple chutney. “That would be really nice.” We could go as friends; of course we could go as friends. If we happened to be in the city at the same time.

I kind of hoped we would be.

—

A few hours later, we were waddling down the sidewalk with full bellies, a snowy layer of powdered sugar dusting our coats and a stack of business cards fattening up my wallet. “This might be my favorite day ever,” Seth said so sunnily I could swear the clouds overhead considered breaking open.

Somehow it wasn’t annoying, maybe because I could agree that all the food had been amazing. I’d gotten some solid leads for the festival, as well as some other ideas for where I could use local vendors, which would please Lorna. I was riding high on the thought of making Lorna eat her words, even though we were back on the subway and a guy was clipping his toenails across from me. “So where to now?” I asked. It was still early, but it was already starting to get dark. “I feel like I already have the start of a great festival, but you’ve been full of surprises. Do you somehow know a guy who can actually time-travel into the past and bring Judah Maccabee back for a speech? Or no, a guy who can bring Antiochus back so we can all throw rocks at him?”

“I think that’s called stoning,” Seth said. “Isn’t that illegal?”

I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, grinning. “If anyone deserves to be stoned, it’s that guy.”

A smile twitched at his lips. “It’s nice to see you…” He trailed off. “Actually, I was thinking we’d check out the—”

“It’s nice to see me what?”

“Nothing,” Seth said. “I was saying, I think we should check out the big menorah lighting in Union Square. It’s supposed to be the world’s largest menorah.”

I debated asking again what he’d really been meaning to say, but a different curiosity won out. “Do you think they’d bring the world’s largest menorah up to our festival? That could be a draw.”

Seth laughed, which was actually nice, because it covered up the sound of the nail clippers. “No, I just thought it would be fun. Besides, won’t it not actually be Hanukkah during your festival anyway?”

Right. Thinking about it that way still seemed weird. We wouldn’t be able to do a real menorah lighting. I mean, we could—it wasn’t like anything was legally stopping us. But it didn’t feel right to light a menorah outside the actual holiday. We could still have big blow-up fake menorahs with all the candles lit as decoration. But not a real one.

It was fine. It was all going to be fine. It wasn’t like I cared about the actual holiday. I cared about bringing tourists to town and saving my café. “Right.”

We stopped at the Union Square subway station, which was basically an underground maze swarming with people coming and going in all directions. I had to stop myself from grabbing on to Seth’s sleeve like a child so that we wouldn’t be separated. It was a relief to emerge into the city air, no matter how many stairs it meant climbing.

The sun was setting over the tall buildings around us, outlining them in red and gold, washing the sky a darker blue. A street busker was fiddling a rendition of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” while, several feet away, a group of drummers pounded a rhythmic beat. As we waited to cross the street into the square, I inhaled deep and smelled not just the usual New York street corner smell of pee and hot pretzels and coffee but gingerbread and cinnamon.

For a moment I wondered if it was magic, and if I was that character in a Christmas movie who was about to find herself changed by holiday cheer. But if I was going to be in any movie, a Christmas movie was not it. My eyes fell upon the far side of the square, where wooden booths wound themselves into a maze, draped in golden lights and cloaked in rising steam. “Oh,” I realized. “The Union Square Holiday Market.”

By holiday—say it with me—they meant Christmas.

“We can check that out, too, while we’re here,” he said. “The menorah doesn’t get lit until it’s fully dark anyway.”

I didn’t really feel the desire to browse aisles of miniature Santas in guises from candles to soap or ornaments shaped like the NYC skyline, but enough of the doughnuts and latkes had worked their way out of my stomach for me to gravitate toward the hot chocolate booth. Seth handed me a red cardboard cup that warmed my hands. I stuck my face in it and inhaled deep. Yum, hot chocolate steam. That should totally be a spa offering, too. “Thanks.”

Seth got a hot chocolate as well, his spiked with a spicy kick of cayenne. Probably didn’t want to stick your face into that one. “No problem. Thanks for being here with me.” He held his cup up. I stared at it for a moment before realizing he wanted to toast. That was a terrible idea. Our cups didn’t have lids. If we bumped them too hard, we’d slosh hot liquid down our arms.

But what the hell. I did it anyway. He tapped my cup so gently I didn’t have to worry.

The hot chocolate was thick and rich and delicious. Sipping it slowly, we meandered from the “holiday” market over to the middle of the square, where the giant menorah stood proud. When he’d told me it was the world’s biggest menorah, I’d somehow pictured something the size of a building, but of course it wasn’t anywhere near that size. It was about five Seths stacked on top of one another. It was tall, gold, and gleaming (probably plastic), with candles the length of my arm sprouting from it.

I wondered where they got candles that big. They probably had to special order them.

We weren’t the only people drifting over that way; tens of people were beginning to gather, some wearing kippahs or long skirts, others in secular clothes, like us. I couldn’t help but feel a flash of fear from being in a public space with a bunch of obvious fellow Jews, because mass shootings and hate crimes. But I pushed it down. If I lived in fear, the Antiochuses of the world won.

Once we found our positions toward the front of the crowd but not in the very front, I realized I should really thank Seth for sending me that Google Doc and taking me to these pop-ups—even if I didn’t meet anyone else the whole trip, I’d have a good start for planning this festival. And all I’d had to do so far was let his loving mother hug me.

But it seemed weird to bring it up after a while like this, as if I’d been obsessing about it or something. So I just said, “I don’t think I’ve been around this many Jews at once in years.”

“Me neither,” Seth said. I wondered again about the circumstances that had brought him to the middle of nowhere, Vermont, but this wasn’t the time to bring that up, either. “Isn’t it great? The feeling of anticipation like electricity in the air as we wait to light the menorah, the sound of all of our voices raised together in song…”