Chapter Twenty-Eight
T he benefit of Stars and Icing over Cupcake Stop was that on most days, behind a Stars and Icing countertop wasn’t someone who wanted to talk Liv’s ear off.
People were pleasant, of course, but there was a motion about Stars and Icing. People were there for a reason and then went. As opposed to Cupcake Stop where people literally stopped.
Which meant it was a rare joy for her to sit down by the window in Stars and Icing and not talk to a soul.
“Liv,” Naomi’s voice out of nowhere. “Get over here.”
Of course her sister would interrupt her private time with her gelt latte. Of course she would. She still wasn’t ready to or interested in talking to anybody, let alone her sister. “I…what?”
“We need to talk. Now.”
Liv blinked. “No, we don’t.”
“I need to talk to you about something.” Naomi paused, and Liv wondered what the hell her sister was doing.
“More specifically I have something for you.”
“Now is not the time,” Liv said, brandishing her coffee in her sister’s direction. “You need to leave.”
“Not leaving until you talk to me.”
Liv threw her head back, powered by the sigh that could end all sighs. “What could be so important that you are this insistent,” she managed while glaring at her sister.
“There’s something someone else told me,” she said, biting her lip.
Was Naomi nervous?
“Anyway, you really need to know what it is.”
Liv blinked. “What?”
“I have a message for you from Artur.”
And if nothing could switch the mood of the moment and of the room completely, it would be those words and that name.
Naomi pulling a sentence with those words and that name was the very last thing Liv wanted, or for that matter, needed. “No. That is the LAST name I need to hear right now.”
“You need to hear this and I’m not leaving until you do.”
“Excuse me?”
Naomi looked around and gestured to the crowd of people starting to enter the shop. “If you want to make a scene,” her sister said, “fine. I’ll make a scene. But I suspect you don’t.”
Temporary moment of dealing with betrayal and heartbreak over, Liv desperately needed to get back to life, caffeine, and her job. Not to listen to the insanity that her sister felt like she needed to deliver. “I have to go, Naomi. This isn’t a good time.”
“Fine. I’ll head to the office with you,” Naomi said. “We need privacy anyway.”
And in that moment, Liv saw the determination in her sister’s expression. Liv knew that expression, it meant Naomi wouldn’t take no for an answer; the version of her sister who was stubborn and inescapable and tenacious. Naomi was not budging.
“Fine,” Liv said, “but you need to be quick.”
Bargain made, Liv followed her sister to the town hall building, not knowing what she was getting into.
*
Out of nowhere, the door to Jacob’s garage flew open, revealing Isaac, with his best friend close behind.
“Move away,” Isaac said. “And let me work.”
Artur pointed toward the box. “This is what you’ve got to work with.”
“And what do you want me to make out of this—” Isaac gestured widely toward the box “—whatever this is?”
“A dreidl.”
If Isaac had any misgivings, he didn’t show them. Which was encouraging…maybe.
“Let me know if there’s anything you need,” Jacob added. “Tools, materials.”
Isaac shook his head, glancing around at the saws and the fasteners that sat on the work bench Jacob had brought in to the garage. “This should be it.”
And as Isaac went to work, Artur started to pace.
*
Liv lead Naomi into town hall and closed the door to her office behind them.
“So,” she said, looking at her sister from behind her desk. “You said you have to tell me something. Talk.”
“I do,” Naomi said. “I have a message for you from Artur.”
“You said,” Liv told her sister. “And I’m angry with him right now, because he couldn’t tell me what was going on, which means he doesn’t trust me. And we’re done. So unless what you have to say is relevant to information I need to make sure this event goes without a hitch, I don’t want to hear it.”
“Artur didn’t tell you because he was given instructions not to, by his boss,” she said, as if it was the easiest bit of information in the world to figure out. “But because he knew you needed to know, he tried to circumvent it by telling someone who had nothing to do with the team or the celebration.”
And that was interesting, surprising even.
That he’d gone to that distance, even confided in someone who was still on shaky ground with her, to ensure she got the information, was astounding.
And a level of trust she hadn’t anticipated in her upset haze.
“Whoa.”
“Yep.” Naomi nodded, looking slightly vindicated. “That’s why I called you, but because you ignored my call and didn’t call me back, you didn’t know what was going on.”
“I was upset at him and took it out on the fact that he told me to call you,” she said. “But okay. So he chose to tell you what was going on in order to circumvent the NDA. What did he tell you?”
“Now we’re cooking,” Naomi replied, grinning like an LED. “His boss told him not to tell you that the sculpture had arrived damaged. And when he’s working a job like he is, when a company figure slaps an NDA on some kind of policy, even something that isn’t officially one, his hands are tied.”
“Which is great, but then I need to know these things. It’s important, I mean…”
“Which is why,” Naomi said, “stay with me here…there’s a reason we’re talking now.”
Liv nodded, swallowing back…something.
“Anyway,” Naomi continued, “the man engineered a way for you to find out something when he couldn’t tell you himself. Now I don’t know what you think of that or him, but the fact he trusted you enough to try and circumvent a situation when his hands were tied? Should tell you a lot more.”
Which made the conversation with Artur that she’d had much clearer. Much more understandable.
It wasn’t I don’t want to tell you. It was I can’t tell you.
Emphasis on the can’t.
Now much more aware of what was going on and what she was going to be told, she asked, “What’s going on now?”
Naomi tapped her fingers against the table. “My guess is that he’s with the dreidl, attempting to fix it.”
“And what should I do?”
“Act as if you don’t know a thing and decide what you are going to do when you see him.”
She had a lot to do and decisions to make.
*
Artur followed Abe and Jacob out of the garage/workspace into an entertainment area; couches and large televisions dotted the walls of this room just inside the house.
“So?”
Abe and Jacob were both staring at him as he sat down. “Nu? What is this? Is this an intervention, an interrogation, or both?”
“You’re a mess,” Abe said, neither confirming nor denying. “You’re pacing and you’re making Isaac nervous.”
Which was true, he realized as he fought the impulse to stand and pace across the carpeting.
“Don’t,” Jacob added with a laugh. “You’re making me dizzy. So what’s going on?”
Knowing the both of them, he realized that he needed to fess up, which meant he told the story from the beginning.
And what he hoped was going on.
“What’s more important?” Abe asked once Artur finished. “The woman or the job?”
Artur raised an eyebrow. “Non-disclosure…has nothing to do with what I feel is important or not. It’s not my information to play with.”
“Exactly,” Jacob said. “Good answer.”
Except from his tone, Artur could tell that there was something more coming. “But what?”
Jacob nodded. “I think the bigger problem is not about how you didn’t tell her, but that you didn’t explain that in your line of work, there are sometimes situations where you can’t tell her what’s going on, and that in those times, she needs to trust you to know when and how to get her information she needs.”
He nodded. And that made sense, letting him feel that there was a chance, a possible chance to help Liv understand…and fix the argument they’d had.
Now, he had to wait for sundown and the biggest Hanukkah miracle he’d ever hoped for.