Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
After the livestream ended, with Kara and Shel walking down the beach as the sun rose fully over the Pacific that no fancy Hollywood stage set could ever duplicate, Tzipi sat very still, phone cradled in her hands.
"You okay?" Jonah's voice was gentle.
"Yeah. No. I don't know." She set the phone on the nightstand. "I just watched my sister get married without me. While I'm hiding in a stranger's apartment because I created a press mess and signed her name to a contract I didn't read."
"Not a stranger. And not your fault."
"You know what I mean."
Jonah pulled back slightly, giving her space. "What do you need?"
Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
She picked it up, expecting another message from Kara—maybe a close-up of the rings, or one of those giddy just-married selfies.
Hey Kara! It’s me. Attaching the contract for your records. Also found this great promo from Friday—perfect for the launch announcement! Can't wait for Monday.
There was the PDF of the contract. And a video file.
Her stomach dropped.
"What is it?" Jonah leaned closer.
She couldn't speak. Just turned the phone toward him and hit play.
Rob's smiling face filled the screen, his arm around her in Kara's designer dress. In his other hand, clearly visible between them: a ChaiCycle packet, logo facing the camera. "Say Chai!" he prompted cheerfully.
And she had. Smiling like she meant it. "Chai!"
The video ended. Five seconds, maybe six.
"Oh fuck," Jonah breathed.
The memory came back to her, sharp and clear. "He asked for a selfie. In the green room. He fumbled with his phone, said he had it on the wrong setting. Then he retook it." Her voice was hollow. "He got me on video first. The photo was the cover."
Jonah took the phone, opening the PDF. His eyes scanned the page of legalese, and she watched his expression darken. "Standard endorsement agreement. Six-figure payout over eighteen months." He scrolled down. "And there, on the signature line..."
Kara Koff
Written in Tzipi's perfect scrawling forgery of her sister's handwriting.
"Jonah?" Her voice cracked. "Tell me this isn't as bad as I think it is."
He was quiet for a long moment. She could see him wanting to lie, wanting to tell her it was fine, they'd figure it out, no big deal.
But he didn't.
"It's pretty bad," he said quietly. "The signature alone—maybe we could argue you had no authority to bind Kara.
But the video?" He gestured to her phone.
"He's got you on camera, as Kara, saying the brand name.
With his product in the picture. Even if we void the contract, he can post that publicly and claim verbal endorsement. "
She caught her reflection in the dark screen of his television. Kara-like extensions even more of a mess now. Traces of her makeup. Kara's life, borrowed for a night that had somehow stretched into a full-blown PR crisis.
Life crisis.
"I need to get this stuff out of my head," she said quietly.
The words meant more than just the extensions. The contract. The video. Rob's smiling face. All of it, tangled up in her skull like those stupid hair beads.
He studied her silently for a moment. Was it his math brain working? Or his glue guy persona…the fixer. She wasn’t sure this could be fixed.
“You don’t have to – ” she started.
“I know.” He was already climbing out of bed, pulling on sweatpants. “But I have an idea.”
He rummaged in the closet, emerging with a red metal toolbox.
“My hero.”
“That is me: Slayer of IKEA instructions. Devourer of HUVUDROLL. Conqueror of hair hardware.”
“Devourer of…what-now?”
“They’re Swedish, they’re in my freezer, and they’re delicious. I’ll make you some later. But first?”
She held up the first long hank for him to inspect.
“Let’s get you back,” he murmured.
“Catching the class guinea pig with pizza in the school cafeteria?”
“Um…that was Kara.”
Tzipi sat cross-legged between his knees, her head bent as he carefully opened another hair bead with his smallest pair of needle nose pliers. Allowing herself to be quizzed on the most memorable Room to Bloom moments.
“Damn, I should’ve known. How about the broken arm episode?”
“All me. Not a prop. Ouch.” As slow and gentle as Jonah was going, he hit a stubborn clamp every now and then.
“Sorry.” He kissed the top of her head and handed her another hunk of hair. She clutched them like the weirdest bouquet. “What happened?”
“Skateboarding on the studio lot with my Bloom brothers. Including Bobby.” She growled. “I’d really like to snap his crayon in half.”
Ugh, that fucking guy. Change of topic.
“Lightening round: How about the Hanukkah one, with the purple bike?”
“When Kreplach fell into the packing peanuts?” She laughed at the memory. “You wouldn’t believe how many takes that damn cat needed.”
“Ah, the real diva!” Jonah joked.
“That episode was both me and Kara, actually. We were still pretty young.”
Another soft click as a microbead gave way, its extension sliding free.
“The Bat Mitzvah episode was all you, though. That was my ultimate favorite.”
“Mine, too!” She exclaimed, turning to face him. “How did you know I carried that one? Kara had mono, by the way. That was the only reason. I was the rookie being sent in last minute to replace the injured star player.”
She tilted her head for him once more. Jonah ran his fingers up her bare neck and into her short locks, feeling for any hidden holdout beads. He loved that she shivered and rubbed back against his hand to meet it, like a cat.
“You were no rookie. And that episode had Ewing Theory written all over it.”
He reached into the toolbox by his side, rummaging for a pair of pliers with a slightly better grip.
“It’s the phenomenon,” he explained like his own basketball coach had, “when a team plays inexplicably better after a so-called star is out for the season. Everyone stepped up. That L’dor Vador scene? Gets me every time.”
“Everyone gets choked up during l’dor vador,” she insisted, tilting her head under the guidance of his hand. “Seeing grandparents passing a Torah to their children, who then pass it to their kid? The actress playing Bubbe Bloom wasn’t even Jewish and she nailed it.”
“The show won a Primetime Emmy that year, right?”
“No, just nominated. But we did win a Kid’s Choice Award that season. Anyway, how did you know I was the Bat Mitzvah?”
“You still bite your lip like that when you mess up, it’s your tell.”
“Good thing there wasn’t a poker episode,” she joked. “Hold on – mess up? I aced that parashah, mister.”
“Nope, I had the same Torah portion. You stumbled during the shalshelet. It’s okay though, I did, too. It was a bitch of a trope.” He plunked two more beads into the small bowl in her lap.
“I had a week to learn my lines!”
Again, she turned. Strands of long hair coming lose between his fingers as she pulled back to regard him. “What’s your excuse?”
“Wait, that was fake? What kind of sadist scripts the worst part of Leviticus?” he demanded.
“Probably the same one who invented hair extensions.”
They had a laugh over that.
“Most likely it was the director’s own…she was always drawing on her childhood experiences,” Tzipi surmised, settling back against him.
“I mean, bring on the leprosy section over that tongue-twister!”
Tzipi chuckled. “It was character-building. As were the five thousand strands of hair that you’ve finally finished stripping from my head.”
“It helped me.” He found himself confessing.
“That episode. I was such a fuck-up as a kid. Just a total goof-ball. But at the same time, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.
Having you – well, Rosie – struggling with the same section made me want to practice harder.
And your hiccup somehow made it okay. I got through the service. So thanks.”
“Glad I could help.” She leaned her cheek against his knee. “And thank you. The circle is complete. Are we done?”
“Almost.”
He ran and got his shaving mirror.
Her natural hair – short, choppy, way more beautiful than those glossy extensions – stuck up in places.
“I look like an electrocuted pixie.”
“But more like you?”
She met his eyes in the mirror. “Is that a good thing?”
Seriously?
He took the mirror from her hands, and she turned into his arms to face him. “Tzipi. You are amazing. With extensions, without, in a blue velvet onesie, in my Rutgers shirt…doesn’t matter. You’re…” He struggled for the right word. “You’re you. The best thing you could be.”
Her eyes got shiny. “Careful, fanboy. Keep talking like that and I might think you actually like me.”
“I more than like you.” The words came out before he could stop them. “I know we have some shit to figure out. Rob, the contract, all of it. But yeah. I like you. A lot.”
She bit her lip – her tell, the one he’d memorized from Room to Bloom and rediscovered last night. “Even though I impersonated my sister, hijacked your night with your friends and dragged you into this mishegas?”
“Especially because of that.” He tucked a piece of short hair behind her ear. “Speaking of friends and mishegas…Avi and Leah are having a housewarming party tonight. Come with me?”
“Did you tell them? About me…you…this?”
“Yes.”
“And?” she groaned.
“Yes, and that if anyone gives you shit about it – which they won’t – they’ll answer to me.”
She covered her eyes. “Your friends will hate me.”
He kissed her. “My friends will love you.”
“They’ll think I’m a fraud.”
Another wrong answer, another kiss.
“They’ll think you’re brave as hell.” He caught her hands. “Look, I get it if you want to stay here. Hide out until Kara gets back. But Tzipi. They’re my found family. I want for them to meet you. Really meet you. The real you.”
She was quiet for a moment, studying their joined hands. Then: “What do I wear? All I have are Kara’s designer clothes. I can’t very well show up looking like I’m going to the Met Gala.”
Relief flooded through him. “Is that a yes?”
“That’s a yes.” She bit her lip. “Actually, I do have one thing to wear…but I may have to borrow a sweater.”
Jonah pretended to think on it. “I have just the thing — wanna help me win a bet?”