Chapter Eighteen
S amuel’s voice rang in Leah’s head for the entire night after the gala. From him waiting with her until Ramona and Shayna headed off, from him walking her to the rideshare car she’d order, then getting in with her.
“You don’t have to,” she said, even though she didn’t want to admit to herself that it felt nice to be like this with him.
“I…you know.”
“You’ll worry,” she said, smiling, cupping his cheek with fingers she knew weren’t sweating, even though her heart was pounding.
“I will,” he said before correcting himself. “I would.”
His chocolate brown eyes practically caressed her in ways that his fingers clearly weren’t going to in the back of the car. His hands settled in hers as she put her head on his shoulder.
He was comfortable.
Waaaay too comfortable.
Which meant sending him back to his apartment when they pulled up by hers was the right decision, putting him back in the rideshare with a “Now I’ll worry. Text me when you get there?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Soon as I step over the threshold.”
Hours later, the look in his eyes haunted her and his voice played in her head like a song.
As did the text he’d sent her.
I’m okay. I had a great time tonight.
She tried to remind herself she wasn’t actually dating him, that it was a situation where she only needed to see his text and not respond to it.
But her fingers didn’t listen to anything, nor did her heart. All those parts of her paid attention to was the tangled web that was bringing her closer to Samuel, and the need to respond to his text.
Glad you got back okay. I’m tired, but I had a great time tonight too.
She wasn’t staring at her phone, wasn’t wondering whether he was responding.
Didn’t hope he was going to respond.
Talk to you soon. Goodnight.
The next thing she knew, she woke up with the phone in her hand, that text from him in front of her. And the blaring alarm from her calendar entry that said she’d promised Liv, Judith and Naomi that she’d meet them in Briarwood.
But all she could see was the look in Samuel’s eyes when he left in the rideshare.
“You’re here,” Naomi’s voice broke through her daydreams. “Earth to Leah. Earth to Leah.”
Leah blinked, looking around Briarwood’s main street. She and Naomi were heading toward Liv, who was supervising the opening of something Leah vaguely remembered was called Briarwood’s ‘Main Street Block Party.’ “I’m here,” Leah said. “Trust me I’m here.”
“Which is fascinating,” Naomi replied, “because up until a few minutes ago, I didn’t think you were mentally here, just a shell of a body.”
Weird, but so was the situation. “So what’s exactly going on again? Because Judith has a meeting…?”
“Judith always has meetings these days.” Naomi said, “Or do you not realize your sister is incapable of slowing down even though she wants you to settle down.”
“It’s saved me,” she said with a smile. “I don’t think we’ve been able to sit down and have conversation, a real one, since the expo.”
“Saved you?” Naomi asked.
“So what’s this whole thing actually?” Leah asked. “Because I clearly wasn’t paying attention when Liv explained it.”
Naomi snickered. “Riight. I’ll give you this one because you admit to not paying attention. It’s this whole revitalization project, where people can walk through the center of town without cars impeding their progress. So.”
Leah nodded, understanding. “Right. Okay.”
Now she understood why she hadn’t actually seen a car since she’d parked in the lot.
“Good. Now we get down to business. How’s it going with Samuel?”
Leah sighed. Somehow ‘getting down to business’ always meant talking about Samuel.
Well.
Not always, but enough…at least in this context, where it did.
But all she said to her cousin as she headed down the block before stopping to get a tumbler of iced coffee was: “Yes. Samuel.”
“How’s it going?”
Telling Naomi the man was still on her mind and had been for at least three days was not happening. Instead she shrugged. “Still going.”
Naomi nodded. “Interesting,” her cousin said as she walked up to the window.
Leah braced herself as she watched Naomi buy an identical tumbler of iced coffee. “How so?”
“It’s been a bit since you played his girlfriend at the expo and he played your boyfriend at the photo exhibit. You’ve gone with him to at least a gala and maybe the cocktail party your boss had. That’s like a bunch of things.”
“So?”
“Shayna’s been running interference with everybody since before the gala, but everybody’s starting to talk about the fact you’re being around him willingly.”
Which in Naomi’s skeptical tone sounded like a mistake. Which it was not. And so she explained it as clearly as she could. “Things are going,” she said. “It’s nice. We’re chatting. We’ve been in situations where we needed help or to bring a significant other. And we just, went with it.”
She didn’t need to know that there was a contract involved.
“I see,” Naomi said. “And are there any other obligations you have on your calendar that will require you to bring a significant other ?”
“I mean he’s got a birthday party that’s going to be thrown by his mentor,” she replied. “And it’s going well. I’ve gotten to know some of these people and…you know. They’re nice.”
“So why don’t I feel like you’re as all in on this as you seem to be?”
Leah shrugged, following her cousin down the street toward some of the benches they’d set up in front of what normally was a big bank of parking meters. “I mean,” she said. “He’s doing Judith’s ketubah, and we’ve been hanging out. How more into this do you think I should be?”
Naomi took a long drink of her coffee. “I’m the last person in the world who should be judging this or you,” she said. “But you need to figure out what you want from this relationship, and what you’re willing to give.”
Which was smart advice, but as they headed toward Liv and brunch, Leah tried to figure out what else she needed. Aside from a few more hours in the day to answer the questions she didn’t have answers to, as well as deal with the fact that Samuel’s voice sang in her head, there wasn’t really anything.
*
Aaron called him on Sunday morning, and Samuel arrived at Aaron and Tommy’s apartment for brunch before heading into Manhattan on a rare Sunday at the office.
“So what’s up?” Samuel said as he sat down in front of Aaron’s desk.
“Just taking stock,” Aaron said. “Liam sent you the payment for the logo, so that’s good. And you’ve got payments from a bunch of the commissions. Things are going well.”
But from Aaron’s tone, Samuel could tell there was a ‘but’ coming. “And?”
“There’s a congregation in Virginia who want you to write a Sefer Torah.”
That was it, wasn’t it? The final frontier toward being a full-fledged sofer. He’d spent the last few years perfecting his craft, working on ketubahs, and then mezuzahs and finally a small congregation in Massachusetts had asked him to write them a megillah.
Right before the ‘hot sofer’ thing had started. Which ground all possibility for a Sefer Torah to a halt.
He was used to pivoting, changing his ideas and choices. He hadn’t expected to be able to go back into lettering, but Liam had been there right when he needed, as the contacts for various lettering assignments came in. One from the Mitzvah Alliance, which led to the poster for the Goldstone Saga series.
And yet he didn’t know how to react to this single pivot. “Wow.”
Aaron looked at him; if he were in a comic panel, he’d have instructions to letter a rather large question mark over his brother’s head. “What gives?”
He loved letters, loved writing them in different ways, but apparently he had the use of none of them in this situation. “I…uh…”
“Not that it matters,” Aaron continued as if he hadn’t said anything, “but I’d think you’d be a little more excited about this. Isn’t this the last test you needed to pass through as a sofer?”
“It is.”
“And what exactly is going on in your head?”
He didn’t know how to answer; that was the problem. Words wove in and out of his head. None of them stuck, except the text he’d sent Leah that she hadn’t responded to.
“Do you have any mysterious meetings this week?”
That he could answer. “Liam wants time with me this week,” he said. “He made a big deal of it at the gala.
“I mean,” Aaron said, the words sounding exactly as annoyed as the sigh heralded they would, “this is nothing new, Samuel. I can see you weighing your options and whatever mysterious whatever that you think Liam is about to throw your way stuck behind a barrier of stress and indecision. Because here’s the thing. You have to decide.”
Predictable as ever. Leah had correctly told him that he needed a poker face, but more importantly, he needed a response to his brother’s inquiry. “I am deciding.”
“Really?” Aaron said. “About what want to do with your life?”
“Yes?”
“Both personally and professionally, and by the agonized look on your face, I can tell that the last thing you want in this world is to do this Sefer Torah, the thing you’ve been working toward most of your professional life.”
It was Samuel’s turn to sigh, and run his hand through his hair in agony. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“No,” Aaron said. “You know what the right words are. You’re just afraid to use them.”
“I don’t want to disappoint Moreh, my teacher who spent years on someone who came from art school,” he said, “or Mom and Dad or you…”
“Hiding behind disappointing people including your teacher, is not the bravery you think it is.”
“I don’t think it’s bravery at all,” Samuel said. “It’s…I just want to make sure things run smoothly, you know?”
“Yes. Exactly. Because perfectionism is really the value you want to exhibit right now. But this is what you need to know.”
“What?”
“You’re not being brave or smart or loyal by stalling You’re not giving people space by vehemently refusing to take up your own.”
“But…”
“No buts, no wondering, no questions. Nothing. Because I’m trying to understand this.”
“Okay,” he said, as if his brother hadn’t dropped enough on his shoulders. “What else are you trying to understand?”
“Leah. What does Leah think of any of this?”
He blinked. The very last thing he expected to discuss with his brother, here and now in the office, was the situation with Leah. “I’m confused. What do you mean?”
“Let’s not beat around the bush. At all. You didn’t just reach for the random person to play your girlfriend at the expo. You want her back, right?”
“I don’t want to ask for miracles.”
“What?” Aaron glared at him, and Samuel felt the exasperation come off his brother in waves. “Miracles?”
He nodded. “Miracles. We’re getting to know each other again,” he said, staying as close to the line as possible. “And I think more than that is a miracle, even though, yes, that is what I want.”
The expression on Aaron’s face went from exasperation to disappointment in two seconds flat. The sigh went internal as opposed to the gusty outside sigh, and the muscles that had tensed loosened, as if there wasn’t any more fight in his brother.
“What?”
Aaron shook his head. “I just don’t get you.”
Which was a far deeper comment than he was prepared to handle. But all the same, he was there, with his brother. So he went for it; rather, he allowed the door to open. “I guess we’re having this conversation?”
“You clearly haven’t told her about what’s happening with you,” Aaron replied, running right past whatever conversation Samuel thought they were going to have into some kind of interrogation or something else of that nature. “You’ve probably introduced her to a bunch of people, and let her dance through your professional life like you do, without the actual work of all of it, right?”
“I’m not following,” he managed.
“The expo, comic con. The gala. You’re doing professional things, but she’s a brilliant person. Do you trust her with your professional dilemmas? Do you trust her with any of your dilemmas?”
“I trust her,” he said. “I do, But she’s a really busy person who doesn’t have time to deal with her own stuff, let alone my dilemmas.”
“My God,” Aaron said, his voice cutting through the thoughts that raged in Samuel’s brain. “Samuel. You’re refusing to reach for what you want, and your insistence of shoving yourself down in front of her makes it look like you don’t trust her. You nincompoop.”
“I’m not a nincompoop.”
“I’m your brother,” Aaron said. “I’m the official department in charge of determining that you are, in fact, a nincompoop. Because the way you’re acting is going to cost you.”
“I don’t want to make the wrong decision, and I don’t want to make her feel like it’s her responsibility to solve my problems.”
“Well, there are many things wrong with that statement,” Aaron said. “We’d be here all day and miss the fun things we had planned if I went through all of them. But don’t ever wait till things are perfect to share, because people might thing you’re either hiding something, or that you don’t trust them, okay?”
As he sat, letting Aaron’s words digest before heading out on the family outing to the Manhattan Museum of Jewish History, aka the MMJH, Samuel tried to figure out what to do. More importantly, what he wanted to do.
*
When she got back from Briarwood, in the privacy of her own apartment, whether it was because the sound of his voice ringing in her head was driving her up the wall, or because she couldn’t help herself, she texted Samuel.
Except she didn’t want to stop texting him. Granted it was late and it was possible he was heading to bed, and would drop off a potential conversation easily and quickly, she got into bed, plugged in her phone and texted him. Good day? Bad day?
There wasn’t a very long pause before there was a reply.
Family outing, so good day, laundry and cleaning filled night. You?
She laughed as she texted him back. Same. Taking care of the aftermath of a family day back in the suburbs.
My sympathies.
She laughed. Not as bad as all that. Liv was overseeing something and everybody else came along for the ride.
There was a familiarity with talking to Samuel that she appreciated, even though she didn’t want to start examining why, or understanding it.
Aaah. Aaron and Tommy wanted to go museum hopping, so I came along for the ride.
Which sounded very similar, if she translated what she knew of Samuel’s family, to her own outing. Sounds good.
It was a nice exhibit at the MMJH. You’d like it.
We should go.
She found herself sitting there, wanting to take the text back, and thinking she’d made a mistake in sending it. She wondered if she could unsend it, and hoped he’d gone to bed, closed his eyes. But right as she was about to put the phone on her night table and go to bed, the light started blinking again.
Looking forward to it. Goodnight.
Except now sleeping was an impossibility, as her heart was pounding way too hard against her chest for her to breathe.