Chapter 7
7
Of course, I woke up thinking, What have I done? I literally went back and reread my messages to confirm that I was remembering correctly and hadn’t nightmared up an agreement. But I had indeed committed. It was too late to back out, no matter how much I wanted to. And of course I wanted to. At least that’s what I told myself.
So the rest of the week passed in a blur of me trying to get everything done before I left and mostly failing. Maggie the retiree was indeed glad to come back on board for the week; she even still had her old keys, which was probably not a great thing security-wise, but it worked out well for me now. I stocked up enough coffee so that we wouldn’t run out—what was one more credit card extension?—and made sure my pastry deliveries were paid up. I left a ton of to-do lists, hoping that maybe she’d be a magical cleaning wizard and I’d return to the café looking better than how I left it.
Connor never came to my café, but, as if all the gods I didn’t believe in were laughing at me, I did run into him the night before I left. It was chilly outside, a few flakes of snow swirling through the pools of light on Main Street; I was running out quickly to restock some tampons for next month from the drugstore (many thanks to those same gods for allowing my period to end right before this trip so that I wouldn’t have to deal with it in Seth’s parents’ bathroom).
I had my coat and scarf pulled up to my nose, and I pulled them up higher as soon as I saw his distinctive shuffle, hoping that maybe he either wouldn’t notice me or would allow himself to pretend he hadn’t noticed me. “Hey, Abby,” he said with a grim smile. No such luck. “How’s it going?”
How’s it going? I wished he’d given us both the decency of a quick nod and fast walk in the opposite direction. “I’m actually going that way,” I said, pointing past him, even though the drugstore was in the same direction he was walking. I’d double back. I could use some exercise anyway. So what if I was already shivering? I wouldn’t freeze to death. “Getting ready for a trip tomorrow, so I don’t have much time to chat.”
The latter part of my sentence apparently didn’t penetrate his thick skull, since he said, “A trip? You?” Well, he didn’t have to sound so surprised about it. “Where are you going? Someplace warm, I hope.”
I took a deep breath. Seth and I hadn’t said anything about faking a relationship up here—it would be a lot harder around people we saw every day, who knew our relationship as one of sniping and withheld whipped cream—but we hadn’t discussed hiding our trip, either. “No. I’m actually going down to New York. The city.”
Connor’s eyebrows jumped up so high they disappeared beneath the brim of his hat. “The city? You?” He rubbed at his reddish beard. “To see…your parents?”
One of the reasons he’d called me a “closed-up, frigid bitch I barely even know” (to his credit, he did later apologize) is that I’d refused to ever tell him details about my parents. I mean, why did he have to know? It wasn’t like him knowing would change anything. All I’d ever tell him was that we didn’t talk anymore and it was for the best. He never gave up asking, though. “It’s not like I’m trying to get at some juicy gossip,” he’d say, trying to look me in the eye, even though I was obviously busy cooking dinner or reading a book or something, anything, else. “I’m your boyfriend. We live together. If you can’t tell me the things that hurt you, who can you tell?”
“No,” I told him both then and now. “I’m not going to see my parents. I’m actually going with a friend.”
“A friend? Who?”
“Seth. I don’t think you know him. He comes into the café every morning.”
“So he has good taste in coffee.”
“Yup.” I left out that his good taste in coffee was most of what I knew about him, and that, considering he’d admitted to sometimes drinking instant coffee, it wasn’t even entirely true. “So, anyway…”
“Anyway.” This time he took the hint. “Have a good trip, Abby. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“I’m not looking for anything,” I said automatically, but that wasn’t true, was it? I was looking for successful Hanukkah vendors. And that was all.
—
Seth wanted to play Twenty Questions on our three-and-a-half-hour drive to the city. I shut that down right away. “No car games,” I said, fiddling with the radio. Nothing but static was coming through. “Do you not have Bluetooth to hook your phone up to the car speakers?”
“Never needed it,” Seth said. “I like to sing in the car. I know some great duets, if you’re interested.”
“I am definitely not interested.” I stared out the window, the rush of static and other cars buzzing in my ears, and watched the tree skeletons fly by. Maybe I shouldn’t have insisted on taking his car, but I hadn’t wanted to pay for the gas or the wear and tear on my own. Besides, he’d offered.
A few more minutes of static and he sighed. “The car doesn’t have Bluetooth. But that cord there can connect to your phone manually.”
“Thank god.” I lunged for it before he could reach for it himself and put his own playlists of god-knows-what on. Probably Broadway show tunes or podcasts about cute animals.
But when I started blasting my favorite playlist of girl indie rock from the speakers, he shook his head. “No way.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. I like this stuff,” he said, which was surprising, because every song on this playlist was wildly angry. “But I’m pretty sure it’s a law that when you’re driving somewhere for the holidays and you’re not singing a cheerfully out-of-tune duet, you have to listen to holiday music.”
“By which you mean Christmas music, because Hanukkah options are sparse.” Unless you counted the Maccabeats, the Jewish a capella group, or endless covers of “I Have a Little Dreidel,” which, just shoot me now.
“I actually have a pretty good Hanukkah playlist,” he said. “Search me on Spotify.”
Grudgingly, I did. “I’ll try it out, but I reserve the right to stop at any time.” Hitting play, I nodded in approval when the first song to come up on shuffle was a rock interpretation of “Ma’oz Tzur,” electric guitar included. “Okay, this isn’t terrible.”
“High praise from you.”
I settled into my seat as the Vermont and then the Berkshires forests whizzed by. “So,” I said, once the playlist had started over (because, again, there really weren’t all that many Hanukkah songs on offer, even when you included all the Israeli ones), “what do I need to know about your family and about being in a relationship with the great Seth…” I paused as I realized I didn’t know his last name.
“Seth Abrams,” he said, not sounding bothered by it.
“Seth Abrams,” I finished. “Any siblings whose names I should know? Do your parents erupt at any mention of Marvel movies? Should I talk up my love of classical music to get on their good side? Do you have any weird below-the-belt birthmarks they’re going to quiz me about?”
He removed a hand from the wheel to count down the list one by one. “One: no siblings. Beloved only child here, born when my parents were at the ancient age of almost-forty and were beginning to lose hope. Thus, I was spoiled for most of my childhood. I’ve moved past it. Mostly.”
Interesting how we were both only children and had turned out so differently.
“Two: I don’t think my parents have ever watched a Marvel movie, though they’ll pretend to be interested if you’re into them. If you want to know things that make them erupt, mention e-bikes speeding on the sidewalk or people who let their off-leash dogs tear up the protected landscapes in the park. Three: I think they like classical music, but there are other ways to get on their good side. My mother is a retired podiatrist, and my father is a semiretired lawyer. Their jobs are very boring, so if you want some brownie points, you can always ask questions about them and pretend the answers are very interesting, since nobody else does.
“Four.” He glanced at me sidelong, raising his eyebrows. “If my mother or father attempts to quiz you on our pretend sex life, feel free to pretend you have no idea what sex is or that you’ve even heard the word before. I don’t think that’ll be a problem, though. I don’t think any parents like thinking or talking about their children’s sex lives.”
“Just making sure,” I said. “Anything else I should know?”
He was quiet for a moment as he took an exit toward New York. “We probably won’t just be spending time with my family. I know my friend group wants to get together, too,” he said at last. “This is actually the first time I’ll be seeing them since I moved. We haven’t all been in the same place since before that, but the group chat is already buzzing with plans. You’ll like them—they’re all good guys. And girls. Just. Um.” He swallowed hard. “My ex will probably be there, too. The friend group kind of absorbed her when we dated. And, um, it didn’t end well. The relationship. Last year.” The tips of his ears were turning a brick red. “So she might be a bit cold to you. Don’t worry about it. It isn’t your fault.”
“Well, we’re not really dating,” I said. “So she can be as cold to me as she wants. I’ll be a snowman. Coldness will only strengthen me.”
He gave a relieved laugh. “It’ll be fine, though. Here, let me tell you a bit about my friends. Any real girlfriend of mine would’ve heard some stories.”
The rest of the drive passed quickly with all of Seth’s tales; apparently, kids in the city could get up to way more trouble when they didn’t have to worry about being old enough or too drunk to drive. Before I knew it, we were driving over the Tappan Zee Bridge, the tall buildings of the Bronx and then Manhattan rising up alongside the highway.
By some Hanukkah magic, we managed to find street parking right outside Seth’s parents’ building on West End Avenue. I stared up at the building as Seth grabbed our rolling bags from the trunk. I’d always regarded these grand architectural marvels with envy compared to the boxy modern building I’d grown up in; all the cornices and carved stone flowers decorating the brick gave the building so much charm and old-world glamour. Someone had strung around the entrance lights that would probably twinkle white once it got dark out. People walking fluffy little dogs weaved around me; tall trees made the wide sidewalk feel homey, even though the branches were bare.
“Ready?” he asked.
I drew in a deep breath. “Ready.”