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And then she struck. “That all sounds unnecessary,” Lorna said. “Why do you need to call in all these special vendors from the city? I’m sure they’re charging extra for travel.”

I took a deep breath. The air chilled my lungs. “They do cost a little more, true, but it just means we get a smaller percentage of their—”

“And I really want to insist that we have some kind of holiday tree,” Lorna said. “It’s not a Christmas thing to have a tree. Wasn’t it a pagan tradition to begin with that we adopted? We as in Christians. Anyway. Vermont is full of trees. There’s a big evergreen tree in the middle of our flag, so you can think about it as celebrating our state. Do it in Hanukkah colors. It’ll be beautiful.”

But it was a Christmas thing to have a tree. I ground my teeth in frustration. I’d heard it so many times. Christmas is basically secular now. Is it really that big a deal for all the kids to wear Santa hats? It’s not a religious thing. We’re all singing Christmas songs at the holiday concert, it’s not like we’re at church or singing prayers.

Whether they viewed those things as religious or not, they were all part of a holiday celebrating another religion. “Lorna…” I said.

“I really must insist,” she told me. “Anyone who comes up here for a holiday festival will be expecting a tree. There’s a reason the Christmas festivals have been so successful. People expect certain things when they go to one.”

Then why didn’t you just decide to have a Christmas festival? was what I wanted to say. But my new self-righteousness was already wilting along with my curls under my hat. Was it really that big a deal to compromise a little? I didn’t want to fight with Lorna. If I did, who knew what she’d do? Maybe take me off the project altogether and do it herself, a Christmas festival reskinned in blue and white. “Fine. We could have a tree.”

“Wonderful. I knew you’d be reasonable,” Lorna said. There was almost no ambient noise on her side of the phone, and I pictured her outside in her backyard, the mountains hushed behind her, snow falling silently on the grass. Unlike what she was hearing from me. Just in the last minute, we’d had someone cursing at an e-biker who’d almost hit them, screaming children at a birthday party, and a runner blasting his shitty music for all the world to hear. “And I was thinking a holiday light show, too. People love those. My friends tell me they’re very popular at their festivals. And isn’t Hanukkah the festival of lights?”

That didn’t seem like so big of an ask. “I guess we can.”

“Great, I’ll get the vendor from my friends. I don’t know how much Hanukkah-specific stuff he has, but obviously we’re not going to pay to have someone lug all that from New York,” Lorna said. “What else did you have in mind?”

The rest of the conversation made me feel like I was slowly shrinking, leggings puddling around my legs, feet swimming in my fluffy boots. She grudgingly okayed me bringing some kosher food vendors up from New York, but not all of them (“They’re so expensive, Abby. Why are they so expensive?”), and she insisted that we include some of the vendors from up there that people were familiar with (“We already know everybody loves the corn dog guys and waffle makers. Not everything has to be a special Hanukkah food”). She understood why I wasn’t going to have a Santa but badgered me with questions about a possible replacement (“Parents love having their kids take pictures with someone, and you can charge so much for them. Doesn’t Hanukkah have some kind of mascot? Can we make one up? Can we just say that Santa’s in town and felt like stopping by for a doughnut or whatever?”).

By the time Lorna sighed heavily in my ear and said, “Okay, it sounds like we’ve got a good start. Let me know if you have anything else you want to run by me, okay?” all the fight had gone out of me. I was limp. All I could do was nod and give her a quiet goodbye before she hung up.

Seth had, of course, been there the whole time, looking off into the distance and pretending not to eavesdrop but obviously overhearing everything at least on my side. “Everything okay?” he asked carefully.

My mouth opened, instinct strong. I would tell him that yes, of course, everything was fine and I had it all under control. Nobody had to worry about me.

Except he’d just shared a bunch of really personal stuff and let me poke and prod at his most sensitive spots. This wasn’t even one of my sensitive spots, just an annoying thing that was happening. So why not share a little bit? Maybe he’d have some ideas on how to help.

So I sighed. “I was excited about all the plans we came up with for the Hanukkah festival, but Lorna’s not totally on board. I’m pretty sure she just wanted to have a Christmas festival but there wasn’t room for another one in the market, so she wants to technically have this be a Hanukkah festival but have it really be a Christmas festival.”

“Why didn’t she just plan it herself, then?”

I shrugged. “Bad publicity? There have been all those stories about cultural appropriation and cultural insensitivity. Maybe she didn’t want to be featured in one.”

“So instead she piled it on the shoulders of the only Jew she knew but figured she would control it all anyway,” Seth said slowly. “So that if they did get any bad publicity for this Hanukkah festival being a whole lot like a Christmas festival, she could point to her token Jew and be like, ‘She’s Jewish and she planned it, so it’s fine.’ ”

Sounded like Lorna. A sour taste filled my mouth. “I don’t like being used like that.”

“I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t, either,” said Seth. “What if you told her that it was your way or the highway?”

“What?”

“Like, if you told her you were going to do it the way it needed to be done, or else you were out.”

“I can’t do that,” I said. I took a deep breath. I wasn’t quite ready to share how badly my café was doing, and how much I desperately needed an influx of tourists to keep it afloat. That was too much like exposing a bruise for him to poke at. I said, instead, “Even if I can only change her plan a little bit, isn’t that better than nothing? I’m just thinking of all these excited Jewish tourists flocking in for their tiny scrap of representation and finding Santa Claus and Christmas trees.”

Seth squinted at me, as if he suspected there was more to it that I wasn’t sharing, but he didn’t press me. “I guess.”

It didn’t make me feel any better.

It was nice to spend the rest of the morning being lazy, considering how busy we’d been the past few days. Even if I had to be on my tip-top best behavior regarding our fake relationship, since Bev and Benjamin were around the entire time. Bev somehow produced an entire lunch spread from nowhere, bagels with cream cheese and lox and pickled red onions and capers and scallions, multiple salads on the side. The woman was a food magician.

Naturally, the bagels were the best I’d had in a very long time. To be fair, I hadn’t had a bagel in a very long time. Vermont had great food, but those round bread rolls they called bagels didn’t deserve the name. I had no idea if it was the New York City water or not that made New York bagels so chewy and doughy and delicious, but they clearly did something right here that they didn’t do anywhere else.

“So, Abby,” Benjamin said to me over lunch. “I thought your ideas for Hanukkah drink specials in your café were excellent. Have you thought about expanding or diversifying your business?”

I huffed a little laugh, spraying a few bagel crumbs back on my plate. “To be quite honest, I’m focused mostly on keeping my one location alive and running. Business…could be better lately. That’s why I’m so determined to make this Hanukkah festival a success.”