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Still, it was worth it when I regarded myself in the mirror. I was no longer the princess of the night sky.

I was the queen.

“Oh, you’re just stunning,” Bev said, clasping her hands together. “Isn’t she, Seth?”

Seth, garbed in a black tuxedo that was somehow both slightly too long in the arms and the most dashing thing he could be wearing, had no words for me. He just nodded, an odd look I couldn’t quite read shimmering in those hazel eyes. I wanted to gaze into them. I wanted to drown in them.

I couldn’t handle the intensity. I looked away.

“Very pretty,” Benjamin said gruffly. From the way Bev sighed dreamily, I gathered that was the equivalent of a regular person throwing confetti and gushing out a thesaurus’s worth of synonyms for beautiful.

I wondered how they’d balanced each other out over the years. If before they’d met, Bev had been overly volatile and anxious; if Benjamin had been totally closed off and taciturn. If over the years they’d challenged each other, brought out the best in each other and smoothed out some of the rough edges, balanced each other in a way that made them both better, happier people.

Before my brain could push it away, I let myself wonder if that was true. If Bev had been right back in the salon when she’d told me she could see how Seth and I brought out the best in each other. Because hadn’t I been feeling happier, more comfortable, here with him than I had maybe ever before? I felt prouder in my Jewishness, too, and more open—okay, so I didn’t feel more open exactly, but I had opened up at least a little bit, and it hadn’t killed me. Yet. And Seth. Seth had been able to deal with conflict in a small, manageable way, true, but he’d still dealt with it in a way he hadn’t before. Was that us bringing out the best in each other?

Stop thinking about it, I tried to order myself, but I couldn’t help picturing me and Seth in ten years, twenty years, thirty years. Maybe Seth would never be entirely comfortable starting conflict or striding right into it. Maybe I’d never be an open book—which was fine, because who wanted everybody reading my insides anyway? But maybe we’d be able to bring out those parts of each other the same way Benjamin and Bev had. Maybe…

“The Uber’s here,” Seth said, snapping me back to reality. “You ready, Abby?”

I waited a second before turning to him just to make sure my eyes weren’t glittering with tears, then let him take my arm. I just had to get through tonight. Then I could figure out what all these confusing feelings meant. Or, better yet, I could not. I could just shove them away and pretend they didn’t exist.

Except that somehow the thought didn’t feel as appealing as it usually did.

22

The Eighth Night Ball took place in the ballroom of a hotel Seth had been shocked I’d never heard of. “It gets name-dropped on, like, Gossip Girl,” he said. “It’s where all the fancy people stay. Seriously, do you live under a rock?”

“Seriously, how have we never discussed that you’ve watched Gossip Girl?” I retorted. “Seriously, how have we waited this long to discuss Derena and Chair and how Jenny Humphrey deserved better?”

“Okay, but Dan Humphrey was a psychopath, right?” Seth said. I nodded with so much force I was afraid my curls might come out. “And everybody just treated him like he wasn’t? And then he got a happy ending? I’m worried about Serena’s future, honestly.”

We debated the whole Uber ride to the hotel, but all conversation ceased as Seth opened the door for me and motioned me out with a grand gesture.

And just like that, we were in a fairyland. White marble steps climbed above the sidewalk into columns that made me think of the Met. Twinkling lights were strung everywhere, glowing against the dark, and warm, inviting light beamed out of the hotel’s large arched windows. Chatter escaped the open doors, and so did notes from what sounded like a string quartet. I held up one side of my skirt so that I could walk up without tripping, because I could just imagine what Bev’s friends would have to say about me doing a full face-plant down the steps of the fancy hotel.

We showed our tickets at the door and then we were inside, which took my breath away. The ceiling of the hotel ballroom stretched unfathomably high overhead, hung with glittering crystal chandeliers and painted with the blazing glory of a sunset. Arched mirrors decorated the gilded walls, reflecting all the people in gowns and tuxes sipping bubbly flutes of champagne and snacking on mini latkes topped with crème fraîche and caviar. A string quartet was indeed playing away, right now to a jazzy version of “Ma’oz Tzur.” In the center of the room, set up high on a platform, shone a golden menorah the size of a very large dog.

Before I could grab a champagne flute or a latke, Seth snagged one of the waitstaff to take some pictures of us in front of the giant menorah. “My mom will pitch a fit if we don’t take enough pictures,” he said. “I’ve learned it’s easiest just to get them out of the way early.”

It was hard to blame her. I wanted pictures of Seth looking like this, too. Something about the tux in its stark black and white made my stomach go all warm. We posed in front of the menorah, smiling as the waiter turned Seth’s phone this way and that as we tried not to touch each other. Or at least, that was me.

Seth retrieved his phone and swiped through the pictures to make sure we weren’t blinking in all of them. “Perfect,” he said, then waved at someone behind me. “Hey!”

I turned around only to be enveloped by a cloud of flowery perfume and damp skin. When the cloud dissipated, I realized I’d been hugged by a woman maybe a few years older than us, accompanied by a man around the same age. Both had sleek dark hair and sharp, narrow features. They could’ve been siblings, but the way he was rubbing her back said they definitely were not.

“If it isn’t Seth Abrams, showing his face in New York City again,” the woman said affectionately. Her dress was long, tight, and pink, with rosettes bursting around the shoulders. “How’s Vermont? You moving back yet?”

“Definitely not,” Seth said, just as affectionately. He gave her a loose side-hug. “Abby, this is Emily and her boyfriend, Hugo. I’ve known Emily basically since I was born; we went to Hebrew school together. Emily, this is my girlfriend, Abby.”

“I was hoping I’d get to meet you!” Emily cried. I hoped she wasn’t going to hug me again. “I’ve heard so much about you through the temple grapevine. I assume it’s not true that you’re already pregnant and are planning on naming the baby after Bev’s parents?”

“Definitely not.” I echoed Seth. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Seth and Emily spent a few minutes catching up on their lives—Emily was a doctor in obstetrics and gynecology up at Columbia, her sister had just gotten married, she’d gotten a great deal on an apartment in Morningside Heights with a slight mouse problem but that could be dealt with—and then Emily turned to me. “I heard you run a café,” she said. “That’s so cool. I always wanted to have a bakery when I was younger.”

I’d definitely had people say that to me in a condescending way, but she sounded genuinely enthusiastic. I smiled at her, trying to counter my resting bitch face. “I do. Thanks.”

She squinted sidelong at Seth and leaned in like she was going to whisper, though she spoke at full volume. “I’m more amazed at how you got him here, though. Especially in a tux! The kid wore jeans to his own bar mitzvah.”