Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
I’ve got my job cut out for me, Jonah thought.
Which one? His inner heckler ribbed. Real or fantasy?
His inner heckler was an asshole.
He’d walked into the green room planning to come clean to Kara, after much deliberation and a pep talk from Nora back at the props. But when he saw that former teen heartthrob chatting her up on the couch?
That didn’t look like an innocent catch-up. That looked like wanting a piece of her. For what, he did not know. But he wanted to put some distance between them.
They had reached the salon, a part of the boat they really hadn’t explore yet.
People kept passing them with plates of elaborately decorated Hanukkah cookies.
The royal icing and fancy sprinkles were Libby’s hallmark, and no doubt Jay had sweet-talked her into lending her skills tonight.
Sure enough, the cookie decorating station had a line that felt like a nautical mile long.
“Hey, want to get your sprinkles on?”
“I hate to pull the diva card, but I honestly don’t think I can brave that crowd. Think there’s a VIP line?”
What would a bodyguard on the clock do?
“Hold that thought.”
Jonah cut through the crowd toward the demonstration table. Libby stood behind it, expertly icing a base layer onto cookie after cookie to prep them for the mad decorating skills of the crowd that had gathered.
“Oh, look! It’s the wandering Jew. Where in green hell have you been all night?”
“It’s not even eight o’clock, Lib. And can you do me a solid? Well, one for that woman over there, actually. She has a sweet tooth for your cookies.”
Her violet eyes widened in disbelief as they followed his gesture. She quickly packed up a kit for him. “Everything you need to satisfy her…sweet tooth.”
“Speaking of satisfying – Gold Kippah doing it for you?”
He gave a subtle head nod toward the main decorating table. The man who he’d seen lighting the menorah earlier was now surrounded by women hanging onto his every word as he demonstrated adding color to the white royal icing canvas of Libby’s cookies.
“Please. That’s Rabbi Micah Wasserman.”
“So he’s a man of the cloth. Well…of the kippah.” He shrugged. “When has that ever stopped you before?”
The look Libby gave him wasn’t one he’d ever seen cross her face. Shadowed, then shuttered. It made him want to sweep her bangs aside and plant a big forehead kiss of consolation. But he realized he might risk an off-set spatula to his ribcage if he got that close.
“Here.” Finally he got a smile out of her, as she handed him the kit. “Go play sweet hero to your movie star.”
Kara clapped in delight when Jonah returned with the box. “This is way beyond your call of duty, thank you!”
“Growing up with a houseful of sisters, I understand the quest for sugar…no questions asked.”
They tucked themselves onto a bank of couches outside the karaoke room, where pendant lights cast warm pools on a low coffee table – perfect for their cookie carnage.
Best of all, it was deserted. People were far too busy channeling their inner superstar on stage to notice a real one, right outside the doorway.
Sitting crisscross applesauce with her shoes off, offering up a nude cookie in each of her manicured hands.
“Dreidel or Star of David?”
“Whichever one you don’t want to eat. ‘Cuz we’re about to have a sprinkle massacre up in here.”
“But those are the best kind!” she insisted, unpacking the supplies.
Libby had included everything: filled pastry bags cinched with rubber bands, paper towels, sprinkles and nonpareils, and the world’s tiniest scissors that were definitely made for right-handed mortals. His thick fingers were no match for them.
“Jeez, haven’t lefties suffered enough?” He struggled with his non-dominant hand. “This is why we are funnier. We’ve had to adapt to a right-handed world.”
“Here…you hold the bags, let me snip the tips.”
He surrendered the scissors over in defeat. She maneuvered them awkwardly, but got the job done. “There. Ready to rock?”
She grabbed the blue icing bag – with her left hand.
And Jonah had a technicolor flashback, from somewhere deep in the trivia vault of his brain.
Of young Rosie Bloom, sitting at the kitchen table and coloring.
Blue was her favorite crayon, like his, but he would’ve remembered if she’d used her left hand, like him.
A more recent memory screeched to the forefront of his mind.
Vanta Blackmore, leveling a Glock at a bad dude.
Using her right. Was that all just a part of acting? Or was that…
…not the woman in front of him now, innocently piping a border around a dreidel cookie left-handed?
“You okay?” she asked, pausing.
“Yeah…” he stalled. “Just thinking how ‘Snip the Tip’ would be a great name for a mohel-themed reality show.”
Another snort escaped. “Oh my God, Max – don’t say things like that while I have a piping bag in my hand!”
An even more recent memory surfaced: at the dreidel table.
She absolutely spun left. Right?
He wished he could go back and rewind the tape in his brain.
“Okay, trained in hand-to-hand combat, hora dancing, and cookie frosting? Major flex.”
He blinked down, surprised to discover he’d piped a perfect Magen David, triangle over inverted triangle, and had efficiently flooded each section yellow. Lost in thought.
“One of my best friends is a pastry chef,” he said slowly. “And it’s more like pen-to-paper combat most of the time. Desk jockey.”
Her face registered instant concern. “Were you hurt on an assignment? Sorry, that’s probably too personal. I know you’re paid not to ask questions, so it should go both ways.”
His accounting brain – highly paid, by the way – began a mental tally. Logging her comments throughout the night. Her assumptions. Her actions.
He reconciled the ledger.
And the only thing that he could come up with?
Not only did this woman think he was her bodyguard.
This woman was not Kara Koff.
It was the strangest audit he’d ever done.
Yet he’d been training for this his entire life.
Because core memories had now been unlocked from his formative years.
Hours of primetime reruns. Years of watching opening montages and closing credits.
Two names playing Rosie in the early seasons. Not just Kara Koff.
Twins.
And this one – the other one – was sitting cross-legged and barefoot, playing the part of the sister who had become a household name and the movie star.
Not just playing him; playing the entire boat, apparently.
His mouth went dry…having nothing to do with licking too much frosting. Every word she’d said that night reordered itself in his head, a puzzle he’d been solving in the wrong language.
His improv brain began firing on all cylinders.
Don’t break character. Follow her lead.
Yes, And?
And roll with it.