Chapter Seventeen
A rtur put down the last case of wine within his vicinity, having stacked wine, soda, beer, chips and who knew what else. He’d been lifting boxes and bags all afternoon.
Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one; Abe had enlisted the entire quiz show group to help, after all. Leo was doing something in the back, Sapna was organizing the drinks behind the bar, and Claire and her girlfriend were on snack duty. Batya was helping Abe with prep, of course.
It had been a nice afternoon; Liv had been right about how this group of friends didn’t really need a reunion considering how deeply everybody was in each other’s pockets. And Claire’s new girlfriend was nice.
Except Artur couldn’t help but stare at any timepiece that came into his line of sight. A watch, an electronic assistant; anything. This impatience was doing him absolutely zero good. And between bringing boxes and bags from the landing spot to her girlfriend behind the snack table, Claire had been staring at him for the last ten minutes. Undertones of ‘are you okay’ were extremely clear in her eyes.
He was fooling nobody.
Which meant he needed to get to the one person who could talk him off the ledge and prevent him from going splat before Liv got there.
He headed toward the porch where Claire was standing with her girlfriend.
“You okay?” Claire asked as he approached the pair, clearly visibly relieved that she had finally asked the question she wanted to.
He nodded, yanked back to reality. “Need a break from this, so I’m going to try and relieve Batya for a while.” At least that least that was what he intended.
Claire nodded, grinning, “Abe definitely needs something,” she said.
And he could believe it; Batya had been on a tear since breakfast; there was something about hosting a gathering that threw her a little off her game.
Abe just fell into his element, but to Batya, there was a difference between making barbecue and hosting people.
“And what about me?”
Claire snorted. “You look like if you see another case of wine, you’ll create a typhoon of it all over everybody.”
Which wasn’t exactly the problem he had, but the problem he’d admit to at the moment. “You know me all too well,” he told his friend. “Happy lifting.”
“So how will I know who will be here to help me move this?”
He laughed. “Either I’ll be back or Batya will.”
Which is when he waved and headed inside in search of his friend. Of course, if he wasn’t sure where Abe was, he could always follow the smell.
Barbecue meant Abe’s sauce, which was as familiar as the back of his own hand. He even made it once, under pressure at the prelude to the latke fry-off when he’d been Abe’s sous chef.
Now, the smoker was going and it was beautiful, filling the air with hickory joy. The smoke twined with the smells of the sauce in a beautiful hazy cloud that meandered through the open windows, and he followed it into the house and toward the kitchen.
Sauce and hickory haze marked the stage in Abe’s barbecue prep where the barbecue master needed babysitting as much as the food did, a tradition as old as their adulthood. And, more specifically, the reason why they were all here, in the house he’d spent so much of his childhood in.
Abe had lived here as a kid and bought the place from his father about eight years before. His best friend had sold his Manhattan apartment when his desire to work on his barbecue was greater than his desire to live in a space as big as his thumb.
In a manner of speaking.
Lucky for his best friend, his father had been ready to sell. Artur wondered what would have happened if his parents had been ready to sell their house when Abe was ready to buy; only three years after Abe’s father was.
But that was a question meant for different times, considering he didn’t think he’d be able to stay in Abe’s guest room if Abe lived in that house. Lucky for him, that hadn’t been the case.
“Artur,” Batya said as he entered the kitchen. “How goes it?”
She looked harried, slightly uncomfortable at this point. Hot despite the temperature as if she’d been dragging various objects across the house.
Did the vacuum she used for half of her cleaning spree gain weight, muscle or both? Was the house full of that much surface dust and grime?
But she’d actually asked him about his mental state, not his opinion of hers. “It goes,” he finally said. “I feel like I’m going to see dancing wine cases in my nightmares.”
Batya smirked. “As long as you don’t cut them down, they won’t multiply. Did I not teach you anything?”
Movie references. She was answering him in movie references which meant she needed an extra pick-me-up. “I didn’t feed them after midnight,” he replied with a shrug, playing along, “or wet them, so they’re fine.”
Abe’s singular laugh could be heard anywhere, and it was nice to hear it now. “Too many references,” his best friend said, making his presence known as he stood in front of the stove. “Both of them wonderful. Except what’s going on?”
Batya looked at him, and miracle of miracles she knew him well enough to see the cracks and dents in the armor. Both her husband’s and his. Without asking. “You want to take over?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you still cleaning or am I in the babysitting phase?”
“If I see another bottle of cleaning solution,” Batya said, “I will lose my ever-loving mind faster than someone could snap their fingers and say some random Aramaic phrase.”
He laughed. Abe, thankfully, did as well. “Got it,” Artur said.
“Hey,” Abe said with a laugh. “Don’t I get a vote?”
Batya raised an eyebrow, and she turned toward her husband. Their relationship was something he adored and felt ridiculously lucky to be able to be close to as it developed.
“He’s been on front-end lifting for a while,” Batya said, turning toward Abe. “You want I should give him a break?”
The look that passed between them was hard fought and wonderful. Beautiful, even. He was proud of it.
Not that he’d been directly responsible, like he was for the very first campaign he’d done all those years earlier.
But this. This was two people who couldn’t figure themselves out for way too long. He’d just given them a tiny bit of guidance a few years before, and now he watched them with a sense of al-most…pa-ternal?…pride, as they grew and bloomed together.
“What’s that look?” Abe said.
“What look?” Artur replied, knowing that if he actually admitted how he felt about their relationship, neither of them would know what to say.
“Isn’t the normal response to say something weird, like get a room?”
“Have I ever been normal?” Artur asked, knowing the response as well as he knew his friend.
“Nope. And that’s why we adore you and that weird smile on your face.” Batya grinned, pointing at her husband with a thumb. “So why is it you want to go back here with him, exactly?”
“Because,” Abe said, scrutiny in his eyes as clear as the smirk Artur had worn. “If I had to guess, my best friend just happens to be removing himself from a situation where aside from lifting and sorting boxes, he’d been staring at the driveway and driving himself crazy as he looks for a particular guest to arrive.”
“Too many rabbits staring at watches for my taste,” he confirmed with a smile.
“As long as there aren’t any pumpkins riding horses you’re fine,” Batya said.
“That’s North Hollowville, and I’m unconcerned,” Artur replied, wrapping himself in the banter. “If we have a ghostly writer asking how a pumpkin looks in the dark, then we have a problem.”
Abe shook his head. “You are hopeless.”
“You know you love us,” Batya replied, grinning.
This was perfect. Except for the…thing he saw out of the corner of his eye. It took up a bit of the corner of the backyard, on the opposite side of the smoker.
What was it?
A hut. A hut with lights and vegetables on the roof.
But why?
The harvest holiday of Sukkot had passed, as had the celebration his friends had where they erected the sukkah, the hut in question, before he’d started working in Briarwood.
“Speaking of hopeless,” he said, pointing at the glass doors and their view of the sukkah. “Why is your sukkah still up?”
Batya grinned. “We can leave the sukkah up till Thanksgiving,” she sang, echoing a popular parody song. “This is our house; being Jewish is cool.”
“Please tell me it’s not staying up till November,” Abe said. Of course.
“Hey,” Batya said with a grin. “People leave Christmas lights up till January. We can leave a sukkah up till November.”
“But Christmas lights don’t involve produce,” Abe said, echoing what Artur knew to be a long-standing argument.
Batya raised an eyebrow and Artur stepped away from the conversation. “And you think the plastic lifelike items in the sukkah are more perishable than lights?”
Abe turned away from the smoker briefly, allowing Artur to see his eyes. They were bright and twinkly and excited. “Fine,” he said with a laugh. “It’s our, our, our, our…custom.”
Apparently this was just another act, which Artur appreciated.
“This,” Batya said with a laugh of her own, “is why I love him. And why I’m leaving because it’s very clear you need to consult him.”
“Thanks, B,” he replied. “Very much appreciate it.”
And she left the room, leaving him and Abe alone.
*
At five p.m., Liv stretched, and put down the book she’d been reading about the history of the county legislature, knowing Naomi would arrive shortly.
She headed toward the front window of her town house, and lo and behold, Naomi was at her door.
Looking gorgeous.
Not that she usually paid much attention to what she wore beyond the need to look presentable at all times. But her sister always looked more than presentable; she had an effortless sense of style that sometimes, Liv wished she had.
“So, what is this again? Where are we going?”
Naomi also tended to get right to the point, and Liv sighed. “My bad decision.”
It was as if they were taking the sighing baton back and forth between each other. “But,” her sister said, “if someone asks me, and I have a feeling they might, I need to know what you’re calling this. Beyond your bad decision.”
Words, concepts; she had them and they needed to be used. “A barbecue pop-up by the guy who set up the barbecue menu at Levitan’s,” Liv replied with as straight a face as she could, given the circumstances.
Naomi nodded. Then paused, an imaginary lightning bolt of discovery or remembrance flashing over her head.
Which made Liv nervous.
“Wait,” Naomi said. “This is what you were talking to me about at Shabbat dinner last week, right?”
Life had been so wild that she’d managed to forget she’d confided in her sister in the first place.
That made the whole explanation and eggshells awkward as hell. And yet all the same, Liv nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I took your advice and…”
“Which meant I agreed to come to the event I strongly suggested you come to. Even better. So yes. You’ve made a good choice, two of them.”
“What choices?”
“Agreeing to go, and then inviting me.”
In the silence, Liv knew something was wrong. Naomi had gotten too quiet for her own safety if not taste. “Yes?” Liv said. “Because I know you have something on your mind, and you desperately want to say it.”
“You know this is just dinner, and you’re going, right? What do you intend to play this off as?”
This was how she had to explain herself and the situation without disclosing the extent to which she’d already fallen for this guy.
“What swayed me,” she replied, pulling words together that hopefully made some degree of sense, “is that Artur wanted to reinforce new connections that I’ve been making through him that might be helpful.”
There. As professional as she could make it sound, as unemotional and impersonal as it could be.
Naomi raised an eyebrow.
It was a tell of her sister’s; she’d said something Naomi didn’t believe. “And does he know you’re thinking of this as a networking event? Not just for this event, but for events in the future. That he’s introducing you to contacts, not friends? In his hometown?”
It turned out the thing Naomi didn’t believe was all of it. Which meant Liv needed another way of explanation, courtesy of the man himself. “He knows I might,” she said. “He actually suggested something like it, in the event I was nervous about seeming unprofessional or untoward.”
“Untoward is out of one of Melanie Gould’s books…or Penina Alton Schraders,” Naomi replied, rattling off authors she’d recently started reading. “And it would sound worse, except it does in fact sound like it was tailor-made by this guy because he knows you enough.”
Which was a compliment wrapped in an insult and par for the course for her sister. “That sounds worse than it actually is.”
“It’s an out,” Naomi replied. “An excuse, which you’re grabbing onto as tightly as you can so that you don’t have to admit to having feelings of any sort. Which is fine.”
“It is?” Liv managed, surprised at her sister’s easy acceptance of the statement. “Why?”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Naomi replied, running a hand through her long dark hair. “But what I will say, is that in this case, actions speak more than one thousand words. This picture is going to be fascinating.”
She smiled, but then the phrasing brought her to her earlier dilemma. Jeans, a sweater, nice earrings. Perfect for fall. And yet.
She needed an expert opinion, and Naomi would be the ideal person to deliver it. “Speaking of pictures, I have a question for you.”
Naomi raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”
This was it. Here she went, not off the deep end but ready to go. “How do I look?”
“What do you mean how do you look? You look fine—comfortable and ready to go to a barbecue.”
Naomi was so nonchalant, and Liv envied that. Not always, but now, right here at this one. Because going to this really meant something. She could tell. “But…”
Naomi shook her head, and Liv knew she was in trouble. “You’re playing this straight down the middle,” her sister said. “You’re casual but you have a full face of makeup on. So I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to do?”
Liv sighed. How could she explain herself to her sister? How could she express exactly how she felt without telling her.
But her sister knew her well enough to stand in front of her, looking earnest, like she genuinely wanted to hear what Liv had to say. “I want to look…nice but professional, but not too professional.”
Which was enough for Naomi to translate. “Right. Fifty date, fifty professional. Okay.” At which point Naomi grabbed her hand and dragged her into the bathroom and turned on the light.
“Just a little to zhuzh you up a bit.”
Liv nodded, because she knew better.
This was, of course, part of Naomi’s job. Translating clients’ beauty standards and random inquiries into event-ready looks. And she put herself into her sister’s hands, opening and closing her eyes, turning her head, bending down and then lifting up. Liv felt like she was in a workout video.
But this was different.
After what felt like ten minutes or ten hours, Liv wasn’t touched and hadn’t moved, which meant Naomi must have been looking critically or something to that effect.
“Okay,” Naomi finally said. “Look.”
And look she did, in the horrible mirror in the bathroom she had refused to change over the period she’d lived in the town house. But it served its purpose, at least this time highlighting the work her sister had done.
Even she could see it.
The changes were subtle but made all the difference: the subtle additions to the hair and the makeup Naomi had made helped her achieve the look she wanted.
Someone going on what felt like a professional date that wasn’t as professional as she was trying to make herself believe. “This is wonderful,” she managed.
“Thank you, ma’am,” her sister quipped. “You look gorgeous.”
She wouldn’t go that far, but nice was enough, and for that moment, she felt just right. She definitely owed her sister.
“Thank you,” she managed.
Naomi nodded, pride in her expression. “You’re welcome.” And then she paused, and Liv met her sister’s eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“Are you ready?”
Liv looked at her watch and nodded. “Yeah. Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Naomi followed Liv into the cold winter night, their destination Liv’s car and the pop-up in Rivertown. Liv was about to unlock the car when Naomi’s phone buzzed.
Her sister looked down before looking up, an indecipherable expression on her face. “Hold on,” she said.
Liv nodded, hoping desperately that this wasn’t one of Naomi’s work emergencies; the work of a party planner was never done. But the phone call was quick, and when Naomi ended the call, something like a sigh emerged from her sister’s mouth.
“What’s up?” Liv asked. “Nothing too serious I hope?”
“Not really,” Naomi replied. “We just need to wait a little bit.”
Liv raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
At which point, whether in answer to her question or not, a horn honked. Liv looked up only to see a gray SUV pulling into the complex. “Huh?”
“I couldn’t stop him,” Naomi said.
Was that fear? Nerves…what?
“Who?” Liv asked.
“It’s fine,” Naomi answered, sounding ridiculously frazzled all of a sudden. “He’s my guest?”
Liv had no idea what was happening and had less when the car pulled up to where they stood, and the window rolled down, revealing Jason, the closest thing that Asher had to a little brother. And one of the owners of Greenblatt’s Knish Shop.
What? Was he spying on behalf of the chamber of commerce? Of Asher? Or…
But instead of acting like this was out of the ordinary, Naomi grinned in his direction.
“We ready?” he asked as he rolled down the window. “And this is a protection mission,” he continued. “We don’t truck with certain members of the chamber. I’ve got too many contacts to deal with that. So. You’re safe.”
Naomi blinked and shook her head, as if none of what Jason said had made sense. But more importantly, Liv did understand.
“I guess we are,” Liv said.
Liv got into the back seat of the car behind Naomi, who was in the front seat babbling at Jason in an extremely familiar manner that was puzzling in a way Liv couldn’t not notice; she was aware that something interesting was going on between the two of them.
At some point, she’d ask Judith if she’d seen any of this…growing relationship between Jason and Naomi, but if she had to guess, the person who would know would be Leah.
Leah, who Naomi actually confided in.
But for now, the order of the day was pondering how this whole party was going to go. Meeting Artur’s friends, navigating complicated webs of people. As they pulled her and Artur together, it worried her that they pulled them apart.