Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
W hat the actual fuck?
“Gee, I guess you must’ve thought about me a little, then – if you’ve been holding a grudge against me for what? Fourteen years .”
Forget Kismet. This was some sort of bad karma. Was one of Dante’s rings of hell the interstate between Ohio and Pennsylvania? Avi felt like he was in the front row of the rollercoaster funhouse car, a captive audience to this girl’s middle school rehash.
“You really don't remember, do you?" Leah's knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “December fifteenth, 2008? Barely anyone came. And do you know why?”
“Wasn’t that the year of Snowmageddon? Middle of December, upstate New York? Or should I add ‘weather manipulation’ to my list of talents?”
Leah shot him a glare. “A blizzard didn’t stop them. You did.”
“Let me get this straight – wait. December fifteenth?”
“Yep. Jacobsdale Community Banquet Hall. The Battle of the Bands. Music So Hot, It’ll Melt Your Face…and the Snow. Ring any bells?”
“That was my first real show! The crowd was –” Warning bells were beginning to clang in his head as realization dawned. The posters he made to hang all over town with the date and place. Free admission and everything. Being so excited, he could think of nothing else. “ That was your bat mitzvah weekend?”
“Not just the weekend,” she snapped. “The same day . In the same banquet facility, down the hall from your big debut.”
“I was just a finalist, Letty! I had no control over the date – or the location – of the competition.”
“ You hung flyers. In the girls’ bathroom. At temple .” She managed through gritted teeth. “And stop calling me that!”
“I honestly had no idea." He deflated a little in his seat. "I was just excited about?—”
“About stealing my entire guest list? About making my candle-lighting ceremony compete with..." She waved one hand dramatically, “Avi Wolfson's revolutionary Nickleback covers?”
Oh, the gloves were off now. No way in hell he’d ever –
“It was supposed to be my day, Avi. My one special day! Half my guests – even my brother – ditched me to watch you massacre songs that my parents had paid a DJ good money to play the actual versions!”
Now that she said it, he did remember an extraordinary number of kids from Hebrew school and Mussar rocking out upfront. He hadn’t chalked it up to anything but his hot licks… music to melt your face and the snow!
Was he also imagining a face in the doorway…of a crestfallen girl in a sparkling blue dress, come to think of it?
“I guess I forgot…a lot of things,” he admitted. “Believe me when I say I had no idea.” He didn’t want to be the villain in Leah Gellman’s story, not when her dad had done so much for him.
Leah kept one hand on the wheel, her other hand up by her throat. “There was one guest who at least came and stayed the entire time. Miri Lerner.”
Avi’s head jerked at the mention. He’d just been thinking about her on the bus. He wasn’t about to bring that up to Leah right now.
“She said she couldn’t stand your racket. Her words.”
Avi smiled. That sounded like Miri. His honorary aunt always joked that he had inherited her perfect pitch and that he’d understand what a blessing and a curse it was when he was older.
Leah continued to absently rub her neckline, lost in thought. “She gave me this. That day. It’s still my favorite.” She held up a sparkly Star of David on its silver chain. “Despite it all.” There was a slight waver in her voice, a crack in the armor of her anger.
He didn’t even realize his fingers had reached for it until she slapped his hand away. “Look with your eyes, not with your hands.”
“I…it’s pretty. I remember her wearing it.”
“She visited you a lot, I remember.”
“She lived with us.”
It hurt to think of that time – grief he couldn't recall, too young to know his mother had died. His father, once happy, turned miserable again. He learned this later from Miri, his mom’s best friend and godmother.
Then came the grief he couldn't forget: losing Miri to cancer while he lived in Israel.
Avi blew out a shuddering breath. “Listen, Leah, I swear I didn’t know. I don’t know what else to say.”
Unbelievable. Did he need it spelled out for him?
Was he really going to make her?
“How about starting with ‘sorry?’ Sorry you insisted on sucking all the air out of the room that day. And barging into our temple when you had a perfect good one of your own…taking up everyone’s time and energy—and goodwill! Like my dad’s, every Wednesday. While I was left to practice my haftarah by myself.”
The tension in the car was amplified by the dashboard’s pulsing heat. Her face burned, as did the words in her throat. The memory came rushing back—her dad’s tired voice, promising he would help later.
“Your dad? Cantor Joel helped me because my dad asked him to.” Avi had mellowed at the sight of his aunt’s necklace a moment ago, but his dark eyes flashed indignation now.
“I’m dyslexic, Leah. My dad was at his wit's end with me. That’s why I ended up at Anshe Shalom.”
Leah gaped, ready to lob back a retort, then snapped her jaw shut. Avi’s dad had turned to hers? To tutor in secret?
Avi punched down the button to lower the heat, the shell-shocked look on his face mirroring hers. She never imagined having it out with Avi Wolfson, no matter how many furious diary entries she'd scribbled about him as a teen. Yet here they were, fogging up the windows with frustration.
“Do you know what it's like to stare at Hebrew letters and watch them dance around the page? To have your cousins call you the Simple Child at the Passover table, because you couldn’t read even the shortest Haggadah verse in English?” He stared out the windshield. “Your dad found a way to decode it for me. To make them both stay still.”
Avi's words cut deep, revealing a struggle Leah had never truly understood. She'd always assumed Avi had chosen her temple out of spite or selfishness, never imagining he faced an invisible battle with dyslexia that her father helped him fight.
It was a revelation—maybe even a revolution. But revolutions didn't happen overnight. She needed more time to reconcile his truth with hers.
The car heater hummed quieter now, tempering the air but not the weight of fourteen years of misunderstanding.
“I'm truly sorry, Leah,” Avi said softly. “I was a stupid kid fighting my own demons. If I’d realized for a second what that would mean in your life, I'd have dragged the whole battle of the band’s after-party right into your oneg just to make it right, I swear. What can I do to convince you I am not a guy who would ever intentionally ruin such a sacred event?”
She wanted to believe him. The sincerity in his voice made her chest ache, but she couldn’t let go of her hurt—not yet. “I think I’m going to need a few more miles on the odometer before I can put it behind me, but I'll try.” She took a shaky breath. “Maybe it would help if we start over—at mile one, okay?" She managed a small smile. “Hi, I’m Letty.”
“Avi. And are we there yet?”
She rolled her eyes. “Getting there.”