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“The youth need education!” she shouted, pointing her finger up in the air as if to say THIS. “I wasn’t a good enough cook. I could go down the list forever.” She chewed the inside of her cheek, looking pensive. “Maybe his mom made him break up with me. I can’t see him standing up to her.”

“I don’t know,” I said, because it was true, I didn’t know. “I’ll try asking him and seeing what I can find out.”

Her face brightened. “You’d do that?”

“Sure,” I said. Why not?

She leaned in as if to hug me—oh no—but, a Hanukkah miracle: the door opened and in flowed a group of girls, eyes bright with alcohol and skirts tight and glittery. “Oh. My. God,” one said. “I love your sweaters. Like, I’m obsessed.”

“Oh my god, thank you,” Freya said. She clasped her hands under her chin like a Disney Princess. “I love your hair. I’ve always wished mine curled like that.”

“Well, I love your shoes,” another girl said back, and before I could get drawn into the drunk-girl-in-the-bathroom compliment circle, I slipped out.

Back at the table, Seth turned to me with a concerned smile. “You were in there for a while. Everything okay?”

Great. Just what I needed: everybody at the table thinking I was undergoing some kind of smelly gastrointestinal distress. “Fine, just had to fix my makeup,” I said breezily. I cast my eyes around the table, eager to find something else, literally anything else, I could use to change the subject. “People’s drinks are looking pretty empty. Are we moving on to the next place soon?”

Indeed we were. Once Freya came back, her face carefully composed, we went to a Christmas-themed bar, then to a gothic place that seemed right out of a Tim Burton movie. I was careful to stick with mocktails to keep my head clear and my body under control. Every time Seth smiled at me or draped his arm casually over my shoulders, I repeated the same mantra to myself. It’s not real. You wouldn’t want it to be real anyway. Do it for the café.

By the time our final stop rolled around, I was exhausted and sick of talking to myself. To make everything worse, Seth grabbed my hand on the way out of the gothic bar. He decidedly had not been limiting himself to mocktails, and his eyes were fuzzy, his words a little slurred. “I’m really glad you’re here with us,” he told me, squeezing my hand.

It’s not real. You wouldn’t want it to be real anyway. I painted on a smile. “Me too.”

“There it is!” Dan said.

There it was: the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. It rose tall as a building, wide and majestic, sparkling all over with red and green and blue lights. The star topper glowed gold.

A lump rose in my throat. I couldn’t speak, even if I wanted to.

“Group picture!” Kylie yelled, beckoning us all in. Crowds jostled around us as we tried to meld into one selfie-able blob. Seth held tight to my hand the whole time, making sure we wouldn’t be separated.

What did it matter? I pulled my hand away. “I can just take it,” I said, but Kylie waved me away.

“No way. You’re part of the group. Get in here!”

Later on, when she sent the picture to each of our phones, I was surprised to see I was smiling. I didn’t remember doing it.

12

The next morning, my eyes popped awake with the excitement of an idea. Without bothering to think it through, I leaned over the side of the bed. “A sufganiyot latte.”

Seth winced, covering his eyes dramatically with his arm as if my teeth were the sun. If anything, he should be covering his nose, I realized belatedly (the morning breath multiple drinks had given me could have wilted grass). “Good morning to you, too.”

“Did you hear me?” I asked.

“I heard you. Something about a doughnut coffee that was entirely lacking in context for being shouted at me this early in the morning.”

I hadn’t been shouting. Had I? Maybe. The idea was that exciting. I pulled myself over to the edge of the bed, dangling my bare feet over the side, dangerously close to where Seth was stretched out on the rug with his meager pillow and blanket. It was a good thing we weren’t in a real relationship, or I’d probably be self-conscious about my feet. I’d always had ugly feet, scarred and knobbly with an oddly long second toe and a scrunched knot of a pinky.

But enough about my feet. “A sufganiyot latte,” I said, then added context. “I’m thinking I set up my booth at the fair with some Hanukkah coffee specials. I already thought about a latke special based on that cocktail I got, and now a sufganiyot latte with flavors of strawberry and powdered sugar. A chocolate gelt cappuccino. I’m thinking of a few other ones, too. I can sell them at the fair and see how popular they are, then rotate the more popular ones at the café with all the Christmas specials next year.”

Seth pulled himself slowly to a seated position against the wall, wincing. Hopefully, at his back and not my idea. “You look very angry about this.”

“That’s just the resting bitch face,” I said impatiently. “I’m very excited. What do you think?”

He tipped his head as if in thought, though it might have been because he was all lopsided from sleep: his hair flattened one side and flying free on the other; all the blood in his face red in his one cheek. “What do I think?”

I realized I was holding my breath. That was stupid. I needed to breathe.