Goy in the Chuppah (Girl Meets Goy #3)

Chapter 1 And the west is history

“What are we doing on the West Side?” Leah wondered to herself when she got off the L train at the most western stop. She and Gabe were wholly east-siders. They’d lived in separate Upper East Side apartments until they’d moved in together to another Upper East Side apartment that to them felt more like Midtown after they had gotten so used to living in the 90s. They took the 4, 5, 6 Green Line on the subway, mostly, sometimes the N, Q, R if they were going somewhere special after work. The West Side was as foreign to them as Vietnam or Madagascar.

But for some reason that Leah couldn’t fathom, Gabe had asked her to meet him on Eighth Avenue.

“Don’t you mean Eighth Street?” Leah asked, thinking that he probably wanted to go out near St. Marks Place or another trendy Lower East Side spot. But Gabe shook his head.

“I’ll meet you outside the L station,” he said and Leah smiled suspiciously. It wasn’t clear what she was suspicious about. She trusted him completely. He definitely wasn’t doing anything sinister. The chances that he might try to break up with her were slim. Their relationship was perfect for the most part. Sure, there had been fights, disagreements, and sometimes they annoyed each other, but that was par the course over two years.

The investigative journalist in Leah had done some leg work. She’d tried to ask leading questions that might get Gabe to reveal something. She’d tried to peek at his phone when he was scrolling to see if something might come up. It wasn’t spying. She never tried to check his phone when he wasn’t looking. That just wasn’t who she was in this relationship. But, in the end, she hadn’t figured out much and had to just wait until he met her outside the L station on Eighth Avenue.

She stood on the unfamiliar street corner and looked around. It was a typical Manhattan street corner, a bodega selling cigarettes and magazines on the sidewalk, scaffolding lining some of the buildings, and there was a sign for Duane Reade that wasn’t so far off.

“Fancy seeing you here.” She turned to see Gabe walking toward her. “You’re just as beautiful on this side as you are on the east.”

Leah rolled her eyes and she leaned in to kiss her boyfriend. She not-so-secretly loved his compliments, even if they were total exaggerations.

“Where are you coming from?” she asked. “Why didn’t we take the train here from work together?” She and Gabe worked in adjacent office buildings on Wall Street. Usually, they’d meet up together after work and get on the subway to head home or wherever else they were headed. But today, Gabe had asked her to meet him there. Another suspicious act.

“Isn’t it after hours? Can you stop being a journalist?” Gabe responded and grabbed her hand. “This way.” He led her across the street, farther east toward Ninth Ave.

Leah followed, breathing in the warm fall air. After two years in New York, she knew fall was her favorite season. The sticky heat of summer had faded into a sunny warmth that everyone in New York knew was too good to last so they took advantage of it. Everyone was out having picnics, sunbathing, and taking walks anywhere they could find a patch of grass.

“How was your day?” Leah asked, trying to make conversation and maybe get a small clue about what they were actually doing.

“Same as every day,” Gabe responded. “Not interesting.” When they first met, Gabe had loved his job. He said analyzing investments at his hedge fund was like solving riddles and math problems. But after a few years there, he said the riddles were all repetitive, the problems and the solutions were the same. He’d secretly started job hunting, which was tough when his work required him at his desk during normal working hours. “Yours?” he asked.

“It was good!” Leah, on the other hand, loved her job. She was a senior investigative reporter at Club Business and she could pretty much write about whatever she wanted as long as it was somehow related to business. She could spend weeks researching a story about female CEOs or how startups owned by men received larger investments. She wrote predictions about how new legislation could affect companies and why this was important for the working class. Her articles were important. They meant something to her and they helped people. Just that day she had been working on an article about how real estate prices are forcing employees into long commutes and how this was costing companies millions.

Gabe pulled her across Ninth Avenue and then to Tenth where she could see the Hudson River.

“You’re not dumping me in the river, are you?” she asked with a laugh.

“That depends on if you can stop asking so many questions and just trust me,” he retorted and Leah pursed her lips with a smile. Trust him. She did trust him, but that didn’t stop her curiosity.

They continued walking west until they couldn’t. They were right up against the railing stopping them from falling straight into the Hudson. Gabe turned right and they walked hand in hand north. Leah had never walked along the Hudson before. It was strange that in the two years that she had been busy experiencing New York, she had never been here. But that was one of the things she loved so much about New York City. You could never know all of it. You could get to know neighborhoods or trends, but once something became familiar, it morphed. Neighborhoods changed, trends flowed and there were always new exciting things to experience.

The breeze was strong along the Hudson, whipping Leah’s brown curls around her face. She kept pushing them back, but the wind whipped them right around again.

“Here we are,” Gabe stopped and Leah held her curls so she could see where they were. They were in front of Pier 57. She’d vaguely heard of it before. It was a dock lined with big yachts and small cruise ships. “Shall we get aboard?”

“Aboard?” Leah repeated.

“Aboard,” he confirmed. “Tonight, you are going to see Manhattan like you’ve never seen it before. From afar on the Hudson.”

Leah pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows. Impressive. He led her onto the pier and held out his phone to show tickets to a tuxedoed man in front of a white yacht called Carpe Diem . The man welcomed them aboard and they walked down a rickety walkway to where another tuxedoed man helped them into the boat and offered them champagne flutes.

“Wow,” Leah exclaimed. “What is the occasion?”

“Do I need an occasion to pamper my girlfriend?” Gabe did not need an occasion. Leah knew this from when they first started dating. One of their very first dates together had been to see the Christmas tree lighting in Rockefeller Center. Instead of taking her to stand on the crowded streets to see the tree, he arranged for them to watch from above from someone’s luxury apartment. Leah got chills thinking about that night and how they had made love above the lights of the tree.

Gabe liked planning dates the way some guys like watching sports. That’s, at least, the impression he gave Leah. He was known for planning surprises. Surprise trip upstate to go apple picking. Surprise brunch on Governor’s Island. Surprise tickets to a Broadway show.

“Cheers,” he clinked his champagne flute against hers and they both took a sip. “Let’s go up to the roof.” He led her through the boat up a narrow staircase to the top floor where there were a few other travelers onboard. But Leah didn’t look at them, she was mesmerized by the orange and pink sky as the sun started to set over New Jersey.

Gabe put his arm around her and together they stared at the sunset. Just before the sun disappeared Leah grabbed her phone to take a selfie of themselves against the romantic backdrop. They locked their arms together with their champagne flutes and kissed while Leah held out her phone to capture the moment just as the wind flipped her hair over her face. She giggled and brushed it back before snapping another shot.

It was starting to feel too romantic, Leah thought. Was that possible? Or was she just overanalyzing too much, as she often did; a trait that was very useful in her career, but less so in her personal life.

Once the sun had disappeared and the last rays of light faded, the boat pulled away from the pier. It slid slowly on the water, so slowly that it was hard to tell if it was moving or if the light was simply playing tricks on their eyes.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard the Carpe Diem !” a loud voice came out over a speaker system. “This is your captain speaking! I hope you are ready for a beautiful night on the water! We have some light winds, but the weather is clear and the water is calm. We’ll be moving south down the bottom of Manhattan where you will be able to see the One World Trade Center monument and then we will circle around The Statue of Liberty. Feel free to walk around the top deck to enjoy the city’s beautifully lit up skyline or stay in our main cabin where dinner will served shortly. Both the deck and the cabin have a bar where wine and champagne are complimentary. Well drinks and other cocktails can be purchased. If there is anything we can do to ensure you have a wonderful evening, please let one of our crew members know!”

“Should we check out the main cabin?” Gabe asked when the captain stopped speaking. Leah nodded and followed Gabe down a staircase into a brightly lit cabin filled with beige booths and tables. The cabin was fully surrounded by windows that let the lights of Manhattan shine through. A hostess greeted them and offered to seat them at a blush booth next to a window.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been on a boat like this before,” Leah commented while watching the lights of Manhattan pass by.

“Me neither, but my parents like to go on cruises all the time,” Gabe responded. “If this is what it’s like, I can see why.”

Leah chuckled at the thought of Gabe’s parents. She only met them a handful of times. When they first started dating, she had gone home with him for Christmas. It was a strange experience, from learning about his mom’s new hobby of painting nudes to meeting Gabe’s loud and rambunctious nephews who turned him off from children. She hadn’t gone home with him since, but occasionally they had dinner together in the city when his parents came to visit. She remembered that his parents had opted to skip Christmas the last couple of years to cruise in Australia or South America.

A waiter came around to take their order, they could choose from several different salads for the first course and then steak, chicken, or fish for the second. Leah and Gabe chose different things so they could share and taste each other’s.

“There’s the One World Trade Tower,” Gabe commented and pointed to the window. Leah looked out at the tallest tower in the Financial District. Even though she worked in the area, she hadn’t yet been to see the monument. “What a day, huh? Do you remember it?”

Leah shook her head. She was just three years old in 2001, but she knew the effect that day had on the world. How could she not? “Do you remember?”

Gabe nodded. “It’s one of my first memories,” he said. “I was in first grade, and I remember being at school. We could see the smoke in the air from Long Island. I didn’t really understand what was going on, but I remember being scared and I remember that day the teachers just kept us inside and we didn’t do anything all day.”

“Your salads,” a waiter said with a smile, holding two large white plates that he set down in front of them—a caprese and a Waldorf.

The salads were delicious. Light and fresh and perfectly seasoned. When they finished the first course, Gabe suggested they step onto the dance floor. There was light jazz playing and a few other couples swaying on the tiled dance floor in the middle of the ship. Gabe led her from the table pulling her close just as the song changed to a more upbeat salsa dancing song.

“Oh, good thing we know how to dance salsa!” Gabe said as he flicked his hips and stepped forward and backward in count to the music. Leah laughed and followed his lead. They had gone salsa dancing once together, at the beginning of their relationship. One of the guys from Leah’s work was a semi-professional salsa dancer and he was constantly inviting her. It had been a fun evening dancing, but for some reason, they had never gone again.

When the song ended, they walked back to their table for their main course. But when Leah sat down, Gabe didn’t. Instead, he kneeled next to her on the floor and held her hands.

“Leah Rosenberg,” he said. “You’re the wordsmith, not me, so I am not going to try to say anything especially poetic or romantic. But, I hope you know that you are a very special person and I love you. You are my best friend and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. So, will you marry me?”

He let go of her hands and pulled a small box from his pocket. When he opened it, Leah saw a pear-shaped halo diamond ring on a white gold band. The large gemstone sparkled inside its white cushion.

“Gabe,” she breathed. “Of course, I’ll marry you! You’re my best friend too!”

He leaned up toward her and she flung her arms around him, hugging him tightly before pulling back far enough for them to kiss. She held the back of his head tightly as they pressed against each other, the passion as electrifying as it was from the first time they touched. She felt heat flow through her every time they were close. It was something that had shocked her when they first started dating, something she thought would fade over time, but two years later, she still felt the same electricity for him.

Their kiss continued, their lips locked and Leah couldn’t bear the thought of pulling away, but they were on a ship, in the middle of dinner and the kiss couldn’t last forever. When Gabe gently pulled back, he held the ring out to her.

“Want to try it on?” She nodded and picked up the ring as though it were as breakable as it was beautiful. She slipped it on her finger and couldn’t stop staring. It looked perfect, like it belonged there, like it was something she had always had, always known.

“Perfect,” she said, but she wasn’t necessarily talking about the ring. She was talking about everything. About Gabe, their relationship, the way her life was going. She couldn’t believe how lucky she had been these last few years since she had moved to New York City. Everything was working out, she was living the life she had always wanted.

And now this. The cherry on top. She was engaged to her best friend, a man who she loved and who cherished her. A man who challenged her and supported her, a man who would be a perfect partner for the rest of her life. What could ever go wrong?