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Sharon tilted her head back and forth in thought. “Maybe he should pick you up from the airport. ”
I waved a hand in negation. “That’s really not necessary. But thank you. My cousin Shoshi will be around to help out. ”
“Well. He’ll have to take you out for dinner, then. ”
Because there wasn’t much else I could say to that, I smiled and agreed.
Taking my tea, I slipped deeper into the house. The walls and photos were familiar from a decade of Fridays spent here. I paused in front of a shot of me and Abe playing on the beach on one of our family vacations to Tahoe. I was gangly and smiling up at Abe as though he contained the world. He was tall and golden, the sun sliding over him as he kicked water at me.
Shaking my head at my foolishness, I slipped into Mrs. Krasner’s study, hoping to get a few moments alone before heading once more into the fray. To my surprise, the room wasn’t empty—Abe’s grandmother sat in the easy chair, eyes lidded, a romance novel lying open on her lap. Charlie, the Krasners’ old golden lab, lifted his white muzzle and blinked his rheumy, dreamy eyes at me.
I slowly tiptoed backward, not wanting to wake her, but she shook herself and proved me too late. “Tamar, dear. ”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. ”
“You could never disturb me. But what are you doing back here?”
“It got a little noisy. ”
She smiled as though unconvinced, but let it pass. “And so you’re leaving us. All the way to New York. ”
I smiled and crouched down so I could ruffle Charlie’s soft, floppy ears. He was old now, almost fourteen. He slept almost as often as Mrs. Krasner did. “It’s not so far. You could come visit. ”
She waved a hand. “You know me. I don’t fly. And what do I want with that cold, wet city?”
I laughed. “Your grandson, of course!”
She eyed me slyly; in that way only grandmas do, with all the sleuthing of the heroine of a cozy mystery apparent in her eyes. “Are you going to see Abraham?”
I shrugged and fell down into a cross-legged position. I’d walked into that question. “Oh, I’m sure. We’ll probably grab lunch sometime. ”
My false nonchalance failed to fob her off, and her expression softened in a manner that made my stomach tighten. She reached down and patted my arm. “He just needed to grow up, you know. ”
I knew exactly what she meant, but preferred not to admit it. Still, playing the fool under her watchful gaze would’ve been worse. I looked down for a moment as Charlie rested his warm snout on my thigh. “How about you? Any exciting plans this winter?”
She shook her head at my blatant evasion but went along with it. “I’m going to visit my sister in Arizona for two weeks. ”
I smiled and nodded, and we rested in comfortable silence. I stroked Charlie’s head again and again, especially those long silky hairs behind his ears, and felt some of my tension finally leave me, even if the memories wouldn’t.
The last time I’d been in this room, some four years ago, I’d caught a glimpse of a green and white friendship bracelet tucked under a pile of Sharon Krasner’s papers. It had been a punch to the gut. I’d made that bracelet for Abe the Hanukkah I’d been fifteen. Put my whole heart into it, but he didn’t care. At least she was too sentimental to throw away. I’d thought about filching it back, but that seemed too pathetic.
It was probably long gone by now. Eight years was a long time to keep hold of a sentimental trinket.
When I’d graduated two years ago, I’d sailed out of college with bright eyes and bushy hair, and the absolute certainty that I was going to make it. I’d earned good grades and I’d been marginally active in two clubs—culinary and band. I’d been editor of my school newspaper.
I’d grown up watching Gilmore Girls. The world was supposed to be my oyster.
Then I graduated in a recession and moved back home with my parents. That was not an oyster. All my friends seemed to be doing productive things with their lives, by which I meant going to grad school or getting unpaid internships. Gabi had swung a production assistant position in L. A. , while our other best friend, Cindy, was getting her education master’s.
I didn’t get any of the jobs I applied for. And I didn’t get into J-school. And I started to realize that I wasn’t such a special snowflake, after all.
The moment you realized that you weren’t going to be the best of the best was one of the strangest in the world. I mean, I knew there wasn’t room at the top for everyone.
But I thought there would be room for me.
Mostly, I stayed at home and taught SAT classes at the local high school and worked part-time at the local newspaper. I freelanced a bit and applied to other things, but searching for jobs was exhausting when you already had one. I applied for the dream jobs, the one I’d give my right arm to have, but never expected to hear back from.
Like the one I’d just landed in New York.
Conglomerates like the Today Media network didn’t usually hire journalists with small-town clippings, no matter how many college awards they’d won. I used to think being the managing editor at the Berkley newspaper meant something, but that was before I realized most writers had journalism school credentials or had unpaid interned their way in.
But I lucked out; I freelanced a piece on withdrawing the salaries of coaches that got picked up by one of the major online news sites, and within two weeks garnered hundreds of comments. Okay, most of them were angry with me, but it still looked impressive in my résumé.
In a second serendipitous stroke, Tanya Jones, editor of Sports Today, received my application, read my piece and lost one of her writers to New Today, the media group’s mainstream news source, all on the same day. She had her assistant call me up and asked where I lived. I lied and said New York, giving my aunt’s address. They asked me to come in for an interview; after some wrangling, I got it scheduled for a week later, when I’d be in town for my aunt’s birthday. Twenty-four hours after the interview, they offered me the position with a low salary and few benefits. I jumped at it.
I’d pushed off starting the job until Rosh Hashanah, but it seemed silly to ask them to let me have an additional week for Yom Kippur, especially when we really just went to some Temple friends’ house and chilled. I’d start on the twenty-fifth, and arrive on the twenty-second, giving me several days to get used to the city and unpack before jumping straight into a new job.
Mrs. Krasner leaned forward and caught my hand, her own warm and papery. “Give him another chance, Tamar. ”
“He’s not even interested. ”
She shook her head and didn’t let go. “When he realizes he is. Promise to give him another chance. ”
And how could I refuse, despite knowing full well how uninterested her grandson was in me? “Of course. ”
New York
My plane circled JFK five times before landing due to storm winds. When we finally plowed through the clouds, the turbulence caused the three children behind me to burst into a high-pitched rendition of Mozart’s “Haffner Serenade. ” The eight-month-old did a particularly impressive tribute to the violin solo. Beside me, the fifty-something man cursed quietly as he continued to play solitaire on his iPhone.