Chapter Four
L eah had no idea what she’d been thinking. What she’d done the night before was a desperate play.
But agreeing to go bridesmaid dress shopping with Naomi while she was still trying to figure out where her life was, was practically inexcusable.
“You paying attention?”
Leah looked up at her cousin and the selection of dresses that were sitting in front of her. “I am,” she said. “Enough to get the dress on and veto orange.”
“Good,” Naomi said. “So what exactly was going on last night? I thought the situation with the hot sofer was a combination of high school trauma and crowd control.”
“I don’t know what last night was,” Leah said, trying for honesty. “Desperation.”
“Fate.”
Leah glared at her cousin. “I have no time for this.”
“What do they say? What’s meant to be will be?”
Leah rolled her eyes as she put on the next dress. “I look like a tomato in this dress,” she said, glaring at the bright red concoction of lace and silk she wore. “If you say bashert, I will smack you.”
“Well,” Naomi said. “If it’s right…”
“The only thing that’s right for me,” Leah said, “is the meeting I have with Bruck tomorrow.”
“Meeting with the agency head, hm?” Naomi asked. “Asking for partnership?”
Leah nodded as she opened the dressing room door to display the red disaster for her cousin. “That’s the plan. You?”
“Keep me posted, but take that ugly dress off. You do look like you belong in a lasagna. Once the wedding that kept me from that expo is over, I’ll be able to give Judith more time and talk to my boss about more space and more responsibility.”
Which was something her cousin had been promising for a while. She only hoped that Naomi meant it this time. But all she said, was: “Okay.”
“Good.” she replied. “Now try on the next dress.”
*
Samuel elected to take refuge from the thoughts that still bombarded him on Monday morning by organizing supplies. It was a necessary job and yet kept him from deep thoughts. He was filling his third fountain pen when his phone buzzed. Lifting it up, he saw it was Liam.
He’d actually been half convinced Liam would never talk to him again after he left the gallery with Leah out of nowhere last night. So it was a huge weight off his shoulders when he saw the number. “Glad to hear from you,” he said.
“You’re surprised?”
Samuel laughed. Which was probably better than diving deeply into some kind of apology for his behavior, and then decided to be honest. “I thought that after last night, the chances of this conversation happening were slim to none.”
In reply, Liam laughed, which was a relief. “You’re good at what you do,” Liam said once he’d stopped laughing. “And I was wondering what those rumors about you having a girlfriend were about.”
“We were high school sweethearts,” he said, which was the easiest explanation he could come up with, yet it still sounded strange to his own ears.
“Nice. Bring her.”
“Uh,” he managed. “To what?”
“I’m hosting a party in a few weeks,” Liam said. “It’s fun. Actually, it’s for Oliver.”
“Really,” Samuel said. “You’re hosting a party for Oliver?”
“Yep.” He could hear Liam move papers around in the background. “Isaac brought his wife to one of these shindigs before she married him. She bought me some cool notebooks.”
Now it was Samuel’s turn to laugh. “So you take credit for the matchmaking?”
“I take credit for making it clear to her what she was getting into with Isaac’s friends,” Liam clarified, sounding proud, as if he actually had done the matchmaking.
But all Samuel could say was, “Interesting. When is it?”
“I’ll let you know. But that’s not the reason I called.”
“Oh? What’s going on?”
“You have more space on your schedule for me? This time, slightly more professional?”
He laughed. “I always have space for you. What do you need?”
There was a long pause, and Samuel wondered what was going on. “A friend of mine asked me for a favor, so this one I owe you for if you’re going to agree to do it.”
Which sounded more interesting by the second; a commission possibly? But all he said was, “Okay?”
“Evan Lefkowitz is an old friend of mine.”
He paused. He knew Liam was from Jersey but not much else. Connections were connections, worlds were small and people knew tons of people, but he wanted to make sure. “The Evan Lefkowitz who’s runs Tzedakah Exchange?”
“Yes,” Liam said with a laugh. “That Evan Lefkowitz. He had a wonderful phase where he picked grass while he was supposed to play goalie on our soccer team.”
Having had a similar phase when he was about six, Samuel snorted. “That is amazing. So what’s going on?”
“Evan is apparently involved with raising a charity event from the dead, and yes I’m dragging you with me. He needs some kind of design for the logo.”
“Right,” he managed, desperately trying to erase the image of a zombie charity gala from his head, attempting to focus on the most important part of what Liam was saying. “So you’re taking me to a gala that needs a logo you want me to letter. Okay. So what’s it for?”
“Women and girls and kids in sports,” Liam began. “The thing was supposed to happen this past May, but the whole thing fell apart before Evan’s girlfriend got involved. She was supposed to be honored, but as everything fell apart and she intervened, what she wanted was to honor an organization that was important to her.”
Evan Lefkowitz’s girlfriend was a hockey player. Did she know Leah? Was Leah her agent? Was this an organization that Leah was involved in? Was it a gala she’d go to?
Which meant he had to ask. “What’s the organization?”
“The one being honored?”
He nodded, then remembered Liam couldn’t see him. “Yeah. What organization is being honored?”
“It’s this program out of an ice rink in Westchester? It’s registered as a 4U girls’ program, but they’re not too tight about who signs up as long as they play by the program rules, you know? There are tutus and unicorn horns used apparently? So there needs to be some kind of unicorn with a formal tutu in the gala graphic.”
All he could hear was a program for young kids playing hockey with unicorn horns. It sounded like something Leah would have loved when they were younger, and he’d bet she knew about it now. “That sounds great.”
“Good to hear,” Liam said “Because the plan is that I’m going to sketch it out and Oliver’s going to color, of course, and then I want you to letter.”
As he listened to Liam’s particular ideas for lettering, he definitely thought something was at work. Something he couldn’t quite figure out.
It was too early to say whether he thought it was bashert, but either way, he was going to have to figure out how to contact Leah without getting her deeper into the web they were weaving.
*
As Leah prepped her notes for the early morning meeting, she turned on one of her dramas as a bit of background noise.
She’d seen it millions of times before, but never tired of it. It was the story of two people who agreed to date for a contractually obligated period of time. They were boss and secretary, but as time went on, it was revealed that they shared a secret past. And as time went further on, they realized they’d been in love the entire time.
Childhood sweethearts only got together when they both had intestinal fortitude and grew together, matured together in the same direction.
But something was drawing her and Samuel back into the same orbit, and the last thing she wanted to do was to revisit her past. She didn’t have the time to do that kind of emotional work.
But what about…fake dating? Contractual obligations, public appearances, dealing with her interfering family and whoever was driving him batty, all solved in one fell swoop.
And unlike the people in the drama, she was very well aware of what a disaster she and Samuel had been together. She’d be in no danger of being a fake-dating fail.
Perfect.
If anything was a sign she was going on the right path, it was the email sitting in her inbox from him saying they had to talk. She dashed off a quick reply with her cell number, asking him to call her at around five when she was finished at the office.
This, she decided as she watched the drama’s hero impress the heroine’s family by gathering clams on the beach, was going to be a walk in the park.