Page 4

They all snorted into their tea, and that led into stories of the most outrageous behavior they’d witnessed working in the art world, which, since it was the art world, was extremely outrageous. They’d talked until their tea went cold, until there was nothing left on their tea tower but crumbs and a few sticky smears of jam, until Shira couldn’t imagine ever wanting anything else.

Shira’s phone buzzed. Danica had texted back, Idk how you say you don’t have time for comedy when your face is hilarious

Shira sent back an emoji with the tongue sticking out, then rolled over in her bed and sighed. She’d definitely go say hi to Leo today. Probably. Maybe. She didn’t know why the thought was so intimidating. They’d been best friends once! She used to enter his house without knocking all the time, and vice versa!

Maybe that was it. The thought of knocking at the door to say hi just felt too weird. The thought of feeling each other out, trying to navigate their past intimacy with this new strangerhood, too intimidating.

Shira tipped herself out of bed right into her waiting pair of slippers, tuning out the sound of Talia’s white noise machine—more “roar” than “gentle whoosh”—filtering through their shared wall. Shira was the second one up after her mom, who was seated on the living room couch with her morning cup of coffee. Her feet were up on the ottoman as she admired the view of the leafless woods through the sliding glass door. “What are you doing up so early?” she said in lieu of good morning.

Plopping down on the couch beside her, Shira shrugged. “Went to bed too early. There are only so many hours I can sleep.”

“Imagine telling your teenage self that,” her mom said. “She’d never believe it.”

“She’d be pretty impressed by me overall, though,” Shira said. She imagined it for a moment—that her teenage self was there beside her on the couch. Teenage Shira would be seated at the edge of the cushion, hands clasped at her knees, back straight as if she were at a college interview—not because she specifically wanted to impress her older self but because that was how she sat all the time. Her brow would be a little scrunched from the mental calculations always in progress about what more she could be doing to impress college admissions officers: start another club (she’d already started her school’s branch of the Model UN and an art zine) or get another leadership position (secretary of the art honor society, vice president of the literary magazine). Racking her brain about what experience she could try that would look impressive in her college essay.

And it had worked—she’d gotten into Columbia and gone to college in the city, and it had been all she’d ever dreamed of. Once there, since she’d been so good at figuring out what admissions boards wanted, she seamlessly switched to figuring out what her professors wanted in order to give her top grades, then what activities would look best to get her the most impressive jobs in the art world. All the while she’d been working on her own art on the side, trying to balance what she wanted to create with what she knew the market wanted. And again, it had worked. She’d done it. She’d gotten all she’d worked for all those years.

Shira wished her teenage self could know she’d done it. That she could somehow look back in time and thank her for laying all the groundwork. She’d despised Model UN and all the internal politics of dealing with people getting mad at her for giving them some country they deemed boring or insignificant compared to the one someone else got, and covering for the absent president and vice president of the art honor society, while not having their titles, had been incredibly stressful, but she’d stuck it out.

“She really would,” said her mom. “I remember when you’d call us crying in college about your internship at the art gallery, how the whole thing was slimy, and how you hated the honors class you had to take to do your thesis, but now you’re living your dreams.” She paused for a moment. “Thanks for your help with the Hanukkah party, by the way. I know it can’t have been easy making all those calls with the time difference.”

“It really wasn’t a problem!” Honestly, it had been a little annoying but worth it. When her family had first moved to the block fifteen or so years ago, they’d immediately gotten an invitation to the McCormicks’ Christmas party. The family around the corner went all out for the neighborhood every year, welcoming everybody in for the merriest food and drink, carols, and a dazzling light show; Shira still remembered being little and standing beside the bonfire, sparks leaping into the air to the jingling of sleigh bells in the background, a marshmallow blackening on the end of her stick. Pure Christmas magic.

When she got home and fell into bed, her hair scented of smoke and caramelized sugar, her first thought was how much fun the evening had been. Her second was We need to show the neighborhood how great the Jews do parties, too. And while it probably would have been more fun to go all out for Purim—like, you’re supposed to dress up, get so drunk you can’t tell the name of your enemy from the name of your friend, and make a racket to drown out Haman’s name whenever he comes up in the reading of the Megillah with special rattles called gragers; how could a holiday be any more raucous and fun?—she figured it would be a lot easier to get her mostly non-Jewish neighbors to come out when they were already off work and primed for general merriment than on (to them) some random night in spring.

And thus the annual Levinson family Hanukkah block party was born.

From the beginning, Shira had delighted in her role as the genesis of the party; whenever her parents would tell people, Oh, the whole thing was Shira’s idea, she’d preen with satisfaction. And then, as the years went on and her specific ideas stopped being things like Let’s give everyone a puppy, she’d taken more and more responsibility until the whole thing and not just the idea was basically her baby. Or her puppy.

Her mom cleared her throat. “I did see something while I was reading the local paper this morning.”

“Did they name it after you, their final living subscriber?”

“That would be so embarrassing,” her mom said seriously. “No. Did you hear about the fire at the deli?”

“Fire at the deli?” Shira blinked for a moment, and then it hit her like a flying sack of potatoes. “No, not Mendel’s?”

Her mom didn’t have to answer. The grim set of her lips was enough.

Shira’s stomach flipped the way it did every time she went to get food at the neighborhood Christmas party and smelled the ham (for some reason ham felt forbidden and bad in a way bacon or shrimp didn’t, even though none of them were kosher). “But they’re supposed to cater the party,” Shira said faintly. She put a hand to her chest, then realized how dramatic that must look, then kept it there anyway because this moment deserved drama, damn it. “They’re the only Jewish deli within driving distance. The party’s in two days.” Maybe they could find someone to make salads and sandwiches, but latkes? No way. Jewish delis were the only places making latkes. “Why didn’t they call me? That’s bad business.”

“Maybe they were occupied with the fire,” said her mom as Shira pulled out her phone. Oh. She had received a couple of phone calls from numbers with her local area code yesterday, which, as usual, she had declined. In her defense, any call she received from a random phone number with her local area code was almost always spam.

Shira cursed. “There’s no way we’re going to be able to find someone else in time.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s you,” said her mom.

Usually Shira loved hearing that. Right now it only made her want to run.

2

Leo David had hit many low moments in his twenty-two years, but this might have been the lowest one. Both literally, because he was flat on the ground beneath the front picture window of his dad’s house, and metaphorically, because he was hiding from his old best friend, who he’d actually very much like to see.

But he didn’t feel ready. That’s what he was trying to explain to Neptune. “She’s going to think I’m a loser. I need some more time.” Time for what? To go back to college and graduate, to get a job where his bathroom breaks weren’t monitored like he was in elementary school again, to achieve something his parents could brag about? He’d be down here for an awfully long time. “Or, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter what she thinks, right?”

Neptune responded by licking his face, which wasn’t weird, considering he was a dog (it would probably be weirder for a planet or the Roman god of the sea to be licking his face). Of course it matters what she thinks, Neptune said with his deep, dark eyes, which seemed to peer right into Leo’s very soul.

Then his tongue dipped into Leo’s mouth, which ruined the moment. “We are not that kind of close, buddy,” Leo said, scooting back on his stomach so that when he stood up, he wouldn’t be in front of the window. So that nobody could see how low he’d stooped.