Chapter Two
L eah had no idea what had come over her. What had possessed her to go along with Samuel’s random scheme?
She hadn’t come up with any conclusion when her buzzer rang.
She got up from the couch, crossed the room and looked through the peephole.
Naomi?
What was her cousin doing here?
But all the same, she unlocked and opened the door, letting her cousin in. “Hi?”
“You are the talk of the family group chat,” Naomi said. “But we need to walk and talk because we are on a mission.”
Leah blinked. “Uhhh…”
You and I are going to a photography exhibit,” Naomi said. “It’s an opening at a gallery downtown.”
None of this made sense. “You don’t even like photography at galleries. Why are we doing this?”
“Wedding stuff.”
Which made sense; except… “What…I thought I was done with that for the day.”
Naomi suddenly looked as if she’d rehearsed the story she was about to tell a billion times on the way. And Leah wasn’t going to keep her cousin from delivering a performance. “Judith got a favor from her boss, which means we have tickets to go see the opening of an exhibit put together by the guy who she might want to take the wedding photos.”
Judith, her boss and his legendary favors were enough to make Leah lose her mind. This was…normal in the scheme of things but still strange. Especially after Judith had headed back to Briarwood after the expo, having sworn wedding duties were over for the day. “Okay…but tonight?”
“Yeah,” Naomi replied. “Friends and family. Opening preview night, which means a better chance of both talking to the photographer and seeing the photos.”
“And why am I coming? I was on duty all day. I deserve the night to sleep.”
“You’re both maid of honor and here .”
Here was her Manhattan apartment, more convenient than Naomi’s place in Queens. “That makes sense, as to why you’re stopping by but…”
“This is your responsibility, Maid of Honor,” Naomi said with a laugh.
“She told me I was done for the day,” Leah repeated. “And she’s the bride, shouldn’t her opinion matter?”
“Hers does. And you’re done with her, but not with me. Ersatz planner and cousin reporting for duty. Also, it seems you have a lot to tell me.”
“About?”
From the look in Naomi’s eyes, it was clear to Leah that Judith had said something in the group chat about the bridal expo.
Which meant that Leah was in trouble.
*
Samuel was exhausted.
End of day at the expo was weird and Aaron still hadn’t stopped talking about the moment where Samuel had called Leah his girlfriend.
“She said our crowd control stinks.” He shook his head. “Like a sofer needs crowd control.”
“Someone who uses their looks as a way to drive their sales needs crowd control,” his brother had quipped as they finished loading out. “Also, you’re a multimedia artist, so you’re going to get cross-pollination.”
Aaron had been joking but it was true. And yes, the marketing campaign had been Aaron’s idea in the first place, but it still affected how he was expected to be in public.
Which was something he was thinking about on the way to meet his mentor, Liam Hernandez, at a gallery opening for a photographer he’d been following. He and Liam had been paired up since Samuel had finished design school, which had a pretty big blessing; Liam was a supportive mentor who understand what Samuel wanted out of his career.
“Looking forward to seeing you,” Liam had said in the phone call that got him out of his apartment after load-out knowing he had all of Monday to relax. “We’re going to have a lot to talk about in the next few days.”
And Samuel was excited; there was something about knowing Leah could be back in his life that made him…exhilarated. Not to mention, he decided as he got off the subway and made his way through the streets of Lower Manhattan, there was something in the air and he didn’t mean the heat.
He wasn’t sure what exactly it was, but as he arrived at the door, he was ready for anything. “Levine,” he said to the gentleman behind the podium. “I’m here to see…”
“Sammy,” his mentor said with a grin before turning toward the guy in control of the line. “Liam Hernandez, on the list. He’s with me. Glad you came.”
Samuel focused on Liam’s face instead of the slowly growing crowd. “Me too,” he said.
“How did your thing go?”
Liam’s question was genuine and thinking of it made Samuel realize how tired he actually was. “Good, I think,” he said. “Met people, signed things, and got some commissions.”
“Still enjoying yourself?”
That was the real question, and despite how tired he was, the answer was easy. “That side, doing that kind of work is challenging and I’m enjoying it. But I also want to keep doing posters, and things like that.”
Liam nodded. “You want to stretch your horizons, widen your comfort zone, and grow as an artist, hm?”
That was it in a nutshell. Liam always got it; he knew how to speak Samuel. “Yep,” he told his mentor. “That’s it exactly. I don’t want to stay the same, don’t want to do the same thing.”
“Well then,” Liam replied, a smile as large as the Cheshire cat’s. “We’ve got people to meet and art to see.”
Bolstered by his mentor’s approval, he followed Liam deeper into the crowd and the show. Things were happening and he was looking forward to whatever opportunities came his way.
*
“So,” Naomi said as Leah began to get ready, “what the hell is up with your sister?”
Which was not the question Leah had expected to hear, but grateful for small miracles she replied, “Kool-Aid. My uber-focused, rational, professional sister has been in a relationship. Which means she has decided that everybody else needs to be in one.” She paused and stared at the black blazer she was going to wear. “Or were you asking about something else?”
Her cousin laughed. “Right. Luckily I don’t have that problem.”
“Just wait,” Leah said as she walked into the living room. “Liv will fall hard and it will all be over for you.”
Leah couldn’t help but snicker as her cousin turned incredulous. “Nope. My sister is in love with being in office. Love isn’t happening to her anytime soon. But…”
Leah raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“What’s the deal with you and Samuel Levine?”
The inevitable had arrived; the escape she thought she’d had was no longer. “Do you want the short version or the long one?”
Leah waited as shock colored her cousin’s features.
“You mean there’s a story?”
Naomi loved her stories of course, but then Leah remembered she was being dragged to an opening. “What time is this thing?”
“You’re admitting to a story.”
Leah grabbed her purse in frustration. “I’m admitting to a need for context. You’re asking me about Samuel out of the blue, which means there’s a reason. Most likely, it’s because Judith said something…because that’s the first thing you asked me.”
Deduction was easy and her cousin was flummoxed.
“You’re scary.”
“You remember what I do for a living,” Leah replied as she headed toward the door. “It’s my job to get these details. So what did she say and what do you want to know?”
“She said something about high school,” Naomi said, delivering the goods just like Leah thought, “but also I’ve heard you’re his girlfriend?”
Which means Judith gave a mess of details and Naomi needed everything.
Which sucked.
“We dated in high school,” Leah confirmed, reluctantly passing along the information. “You remember how I was sobbing into my Passover wine our senior year?”
A shock of recognition crossed Naomi’s face as Leah opened the door. “The guy who didn’t stand up for you?”
Which was a pretty good explanation of an incident where a sixteen-year-old girl had to hear her boyfriend sitting silently and even laughing at the cruel jokes made at her expense. “Yeah. He was Mr. Spineless.”
“So the hot sofer who is making your sister’s ketubahs is the infamous Mr. Spineless all grown up?” Naomi shook her head as Leah closed the door behind her. “Wow.”
Wow was an understatement. “It’s something,” she said.
“Well,” Naomi replied as they headed toward the elevator. “Now that you’ve given me the info on the ketubah writer, let’s head out on the town and get your sister a photographer.”
As they headed out, the nagging feeling inside of her was back. The last time it showed up, she ran into Samuel for the first time in a long time. The very last thing she needed was a repeat.
He wouldn’t show up at a photography show the same day of the wedding expo, right?