Page 57

I turned to Seth, ready for a distraction from lying to these lovely people. “What’s on the agenda today?”

“My friends are doing this thing if you’re feeling up to it,” he said. “No worries if you’re not. I know last night was kind of a lot, so if you just want to lie in bed all day, no one will fault you.”

I cocked my head, trying to read in his face if he wanted to ditch me and hang out with his friends. But for all he’d said about himself being an open book, I couldn’t catch anything in his flat mouth and blank eyes.

Well. Guess I had to fall back on what a Good Fake Girlfriend would do. “I think I slept long enough where I outran the hangover,” I said brightly. “So let’s do this thing with your friends. Whatever it is.”

His expression didn’t change. Hopefully, that was a good thing. “It’s a scavenger hunt around the city. Well, not really a scavenger hunt, because that would involve someone being clever enough to write those kitschy rhymes and dedicated enough to wake up early and go hide clues in places other people won’t disturb them. So it’s a photo hunt—you’re given a list of things to take selfies with. First one to complete the list wins.”

“Wins what?”

“Honor. Glory. Pride. A seasonal goodie bag.”

Given my loss yesterday with the cookie decorating process, my blood was already beginning to pump hot with the competition. “I’m in.”

“Don’t worry about us,” Benjamin said, collapsing with the groan of a dying car on the couch. “We’ll be fine.”

We weren’t due to leave for a couple hours, so I excused myself to Seth’s room to deal with café stuff and festival stuff. As in, literally used it as an excuse. I mean, I did have to do stuff in that regard, but mostly it was an excuse to avoid talking to my fake boyfriend and his real, loving parents.

I sat myself at the desk, facing the window that looked out onto a brick wall. It was because I wanted a view of the outside. Not because I wanted to avoid looking at the bed. The bed where we’d—

Wow. Look at that beautiful brick wall striped with pigeon shit.

My first call was to Maggie at the café. It was late enough in the morning where she should hopefully be between the early pre-work rush and the lunch rush. Sure enough, she picked up on the third ring. I wasn’t sure I’d ever picked up on the third ring on the café phone in my life. “Good Coffee, how can I help you?”

“Hi, Maggie, it’s Abby,” I said. “Is this a good time to chat?”

“Oh, hi, Abby!” Maggie said brightly. “Everything is going well. We’re selling a lot of holiday specials. People really seem to love your gingerbread lattes.”

Take that, beet-faced flannel man. “That’s great,” I said, then hesitated. Maggie was really chill about it—no constantly telling me that I should find Jesus so that I wouldn’t go to hell, for example—but she went to church every Sunday, not just on Christmas and Easter, and she said things like, I’ll pray for you when things seemed to be going badly. “Maggie, what do you think about Hanukkah specials at the café in addition to Christmas specials? If you saw a sufganiyot latte—that’s doughnut themed—or a gelt mochaccino—that’s chocolate—would you try it out?”

“Of course, why not?” was her immediate response. “You might have to explain what it is, since I’m not familiar with those terms, but you did a pretty good job of it just now.” She paused, as if reading my thoughts. “It’s just coffee, Abby. It’s not like drinking one is asking me to convert.”

True. Maybe it hadn’t been fair to assume that the people who patronized my coffee shop wouldn’t be willing to give such things a try. Or to assume that they wouldn’t be interested in checking out a Hanukkah festival.

We spent the next ten minutes or so going over business things, what we’d taken in over the course of the week and what unexpected expenses she’d had (somehow she’d run out of whipped cream again). It went about as well as could be expected—she hadn’t magically turned the place around, but sales also hadn’t plummeted in my absence—and I hung up feeling a little more at ease.

It would be so nice if I could afford to hire her again for real, and I could have some occasional time off to go places and do things and let my creativity well refill. Hopefully, the Hanukkah festival would help me do that.

It was with that attitude in mind that I called Lorna next. “Abby, hello,” she greeted me. “How is everything going?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m excited about how the festival is turning out,” I said. “I’ve seen a lot of things here that I think we can replicate. For one, I’m thinking about a cookie decorating booth.”

That made me think of the lurch of panic in my chest, the flush of shame I’d felt upon seeing Mrs. Landskroner.

But then that was replaced by the vision of Seth finding me, of soothing me, of helping me get through it.

I pushed all those visions away, narrowing my eyes at the brick wall. “I think kids will love it. We can order a big batch of plain sugar cookies in various Hanukkah shapes and stock a bunch of different colored frostings in piping bags with all sorts of sprinkles and edible glitter and other fun things to decorate.”

Lorna was silent on the other end for a moment. “I like the idea,” she said finally. “But do we need to purchase cookies in specific Hanukkah shapes? What if we got an assortment of generic shapes like squares and circles and then people can draw menorahs or whatever they want on them.” It wasn’t a question; it was a statement. “I think that would give the booth a wider appeal to the maximum number of visitors.”

I wondered if she could hear the grinding of my teeth on the other end of the phone. I’d spent enough of my childhood drawing random things in cutouts of Santa faces or trying to origami a paper Christmas tree into a menorah to know what she really meant. I didn’t even have to say it.

But I did anyway. I tried to keep my voice as calm and level as possible. “Lorna, what it seems like to me is that you’re trying to make this Hanukkah festival a Christmas festival in all but name.”

She was not calm in her response. She squawked, “That’s absurd!”

It was unfair that she got to raise her voice, but I didn’t. Because if I did, I’d get deemed hysterical or told that I was taking things too personally. So I kept it level as I said, “Every time I’ve pushed for making things more specific to the holiday the festival is supposed to be celebrating, you’ve pushed for making them more like Christmas or more ‘neutral’ so that people can read Christmas into them if they want to.”