Chapter Five
The night air is crisp and the barren trees provide little protection from the wind.
The city that never sleeps is as awake as ever, and a cacophony of noises accompany us as we walk: the sounds of traffic, dogs barking, the occasional wail of a baby.
And one bearded man in particular, with questionable hygiene, in the middle of a rather heated debate with himself.
I sneak a glance at Caleb, noting the seriousness in his face.
It feels bizarre to walk beside him, just the two of us.
I’m sure anyone passing by assumes we’re a regular couple out for a late-night stroll instead of .
. . well, whatever it is that we are. Not friends, but not enemies either. More than acquaintances though.
I frown. Caleb has yet to speak, but I’m certainly not going to be the one to break the silence.
He said he wanted to talk, so why isn’t he?
He’s either psyching himself up to tell me he’ll agree to the matchmaking scheme but with a million conditions, or he’s trying to figure out a graceful way to bow out.
I almost wish that Jack hadn’t thought of this idea in the first place. I’m teetering on the precipice of sanity as it is, and this new development is pushing me precariously close to the edge.
The traffic light turns red and we come to a stop. Caleb gazes down at me through his ridiculously long eyelashes. He doesn’t say anything and as the seconds tick by, my hands get clammier. Still, I’m determined not to be the one to break the silence.
A pigeon pecks at some garbage on the sidewalk behind Caleb, and it’s killing me not to point it out. The silence isn’t normal. And why does he keep looking at me?
“What?” I yelp, buckling under the pressure. “What is it? What did you want to talk about?”
“Us,” he says simply, as if anything about that word is simple.
“Us?” The pronoun feels entirely too personal, too intimate. Not at all appropriate.
The light changes and Caleb gestures for me to resume walking.
“If we’re going to work together—if you’re going to be my matchmaker—we need to clear the air first.”
“Uhmph,” I reply. Which about sums up my feelings on the topic.
“I’ve been picking up on some hostile vibes,” he says, “starting about fifteen years ago.”
“Have you tried burning sage? That might do the trick.”
“Jews don’t burn sage. Only brisket and kugels.”
I almost smile. “Yes, I hear that, but,” I wave in his direction, “I feel like you need all the help you can get.”
“Reading the antagonism loud and clear, Tinsel,” he sighs. “But I still don’t know why.”
Okay, clearly, one of us is quite stupid. And so far, all signs are pointing at him.
“Beautiful time of year, don’t you think?” I say, sticking my hands into my coat’s pockets. “Not too cold, not too warm.”
“I’m starting to wonder if you missed your calling as a meteorologist based on how often you bring up the weather.”
Laughter slips out of me, and I quickly try to cover it up with a cough.
“It feels like there’s a huge wall between us, Tinsel,” he says in a quiet voice, “and you’re doing everything you can to keep it there.
And for the life of me, I can’t figure out what I’ve done wrong.
” He pauses and I feel the heaviness of his gaze.
“So I’m going to need you to spell it out for me. ”
Any idiot with half a brain would know why I’m mad, and Caleb is as far from an idiot as it gets. How dare he pretend to be one? That’s my brand.
He stops on the sidewalk to face me. “Why are you mad?”
“I’m not.” The words fly out of my mouth automatically.
He gives me a look. “I think we both know that’s a lie.”
“Do we?”
“Want me to walk you back through a timeline of evidence to help jog your memory?”
“I’d rather you offer me a bribe instead.”
He gives me a faintly amused but mostly exasperated gaze. Even as a kid, I used humor as a shield. Joking was my armor against things that made me uncomfortable or sad. Nothing could be so terrible as long as I found a way to laugh about it. Even if it was usually in my own head.
“Ashira—” he begins, but I cut him off.
“I take Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Cash—”
“How is it possible to have the appearance of a grown adult and yet be stuck in a child’s state of mind?”
I gaze at him innocently. “I’m just trying to help.” But the truth is that I can’t let him in. I can’t allow myself to be vulnerable with the man who crushed my spirit all those years ago. I refuse.
“You know what?” he says, continuing to walk. “I’m just about crazy enough to offer you money if you promise to stop joking and take this conversation seriously for two minutes.”
The problem, I realize, is that I want to let him in. I miss Caleb. I miss our friendship. And it terrifies me.
“It doesn’t have to be money, per se,” I reply. “I’m not that mercenary. It could be a designer handbag of my choosing. Or a cute pair of boots.”
“You don’t say,” he drawls.
“Oh, but I do.” I nod. “Just the other day, I found the most adorable secondhand pair of Louboutins on eBay, and in surprisingly fantastic condition—”
“If I had to choose,” he cuts in, “I’d rather talk about the weather.”
“They’re knee-length and shiny, black patent leather.
Now, they are stilettos, which do of course require attention to detail as to where you’re stepping.
If you’re not vigilant, you can find yourself stuck in sidewalk cracks or sinking into grass, so you have to really know what you’re doing in order to—”
“Tinsel,” he exhales slowly. “You and I were close once. Remember?”
I can’t bring myself to respond, but at least I refrain from yapping on about the boots. Baby steps.
He glances at me. “I made sure you did your homework and ate your vegetables.”
“Still traumatized from that.”
“—I made sure to keep you safe—”
“—No one asked you to—”
“—You were like a little sister to me—”
“—I’ll have to take your word for it—”
“—I would’ve taken a bullet for you—”
“You dying would’ve been an easier pill to swallow than disappearing out of nowhere,” I say hotly, my repressed emotions rising to the surface. My mouth drops open, shocked by the words that flew out. Caleb looks equally stunned.
Yet now that I’ve started, I seem unable to stop. “You disappeared overnight, you abandoned me—”
His head rears back as if I had slapped him. “It wasn’t like that—”
“It was exactly like that.”
“I wrote you a letter—”
“Oh, yes.” I laugh and pick up the pace. “The letter that explained your abandonment. How kind of you. It made you slightly better than my father.”
“You don’t mean that,” he says horrified, stopping on the sidewalk.
“Of course I mean it,” I reply hotly. “Did it not occur to you that you left just like my father had?”
He sucks in a sharp breath. “I didn’t leave remotely like that jackass did—”
“Yes, you did!” I’m so revved up that I don’t realize my voice is raised until I notice people staring.
“Then you obviously have amnesia,” he retorts, also raising his voice, “so let me remind you of a few facts.”
“My memory is fine, thank you.”
He looks like he’s debating a few options, none of which end well for me. “Fact number one,” he says in a low, even-tempered voice, “every time I tried calling that first year, you refused to come to the phone.”
“You weren’t calling to speak to me, you were calling for Zevi,” I say, reliving the hurt. I resume walking, and so does he. “I was an afterthought. A chore. Your personal charity project that you could do to pat yourself on the back.”
“Why would you think that? You’ve never been any of those things to me,” he says, eyes flashing at me in anger. “Never.”
“Never?”
“Never,” he repeats. “Not even when you started a fire in my parents’ kitchen and I took the blame for it.”
“Well, that was kind of your fault,” I feel the need to point out. “Who leaves a seven-year-old in a kitchen with the stovetop on?”
“I had to pee, and I expressly told you not to touch anything.”
“And you thought I’d listen?” I make a psshh sound and shake my head.
“You were never any of those things. Not even when you called Aviva and told her I had a crush on her,” Caleb continues.
“You’re welcome, by the way. It worked out for you, didn’t it?” Aviva was his first official girlfriend, and he brought her to the house on several occasions. I always felt a smug sort of pride knowing that I played a role in bringing them together. A born matchmaker, my mother had called me.
“Why did you guys break up, anyway?” I ask.
“It was so long ago.” He shrugs. “I can’t remember.”
“I wish you had talked with me first. I’ve saved a lot of couples from splitting up.”
“I have no doubt that you’re excellent at your job now, Tinsel, but since you were twelve at the time—”
“Convenient excuse,” I sniff.
“It is, isn’t it? Fact number two,” he continues brusquely, “I wrote to you. Both email and paper mail. I even included stickers,” he adds.
“Do you think it was easy to leave the barracks when you’re in pain from all the physical ass-kicking to then drive around until you find a store that sells bunny stickers?
Do you know how rare bunny stickers are? ”
I pause. I hadn’t known that there were stickers in his letters because I threw them in the trash without opening them. My heart softens. And bunny stickers, no less. I did have a thing for collecting those.
And yet, I’ve held on to this resentment for almost two decades. I’m not ready to forgive his abandonment that easily.
“Not even around Easter?”
“Fine, yes, one month out of the year, Tinsel. Good point.” He casts me a disparaging glance.
“I’m just saying, you could’ve bought in bulk.”
He mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like “Un-fucking-believable.”
“Or you could’ve bought dog stickers,” I remark. “I liked those too.” But his glower prompts me to put up my hands and mumble, “Sorry, sorry. And thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He gives a stiff nod. “Fact number three, I came to see you on my first visit home, and what did you do?”