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Maybe I could find somebody nearby who wasn’t a fraud, who knew things I didn’t or could ask around in my place. I mean, there were Jews in places like Nepal and Tanzania. There had to be at least a few of us within fifty miles in this country with the second-highest Jewish population in the world. But how to find them? If only there was an app for that.

Wait. There was an app for that. Wasn’t there? For dating? Like Tinder, but for Jews. I wasn’t looking to date, but as long as I made that clear on my profile, nobody could fault me for trying to connect. Right?

Before I could convince myself it was a terrible idea, I’d opened up the app store and begun the download. Only a few seconds and, with a ping, it was prompting me to set up my profile. I had to look like someone nice and friendly who probably wouldn’t try to murder a potential partner, so I took a few minutes to scroll through pictures on my phone. There weren’t a lot of great options: I wasn’t one for selfies, and…was it sad to say I didn’t get out and do much worth taking pictures of? It wasn’t like I could populate my profile with photos of my lunch specials and seasonal coffee offerings.

Sad or not, the thought was making me feel some kind of way, so I hurriedly picked a few that weren’t terrible—one the local paper had taken of me at work at the café; two of me and Connor together where I had to crop him out—and made my profile go live. Heart pattering with anticipation, I went to start swiping. And I swiped.

Once. Because there was apparently only one other Jew—or at least only one other Jew on the app—within fifty miles of me. I stared at my empty screen, blinking not so much with shock but with maybe a little surprise. I’d been so amped to go that I hadn’t even looked at the profile of that one person, assuming I’d have at least a few more to go.

My phone buzzed. Match! Could it be bashert?

I rolled my eyes. No, we were probably not soulmates.

A fact that became even more obvious when I saw the profile photo. That cheerful grin not even slightly impeded by the dark beard surrounding it. That stupid name I didn’t even bother scrawling on the coffee cup anymore.

Seth.

I didn’t like to think much about my parents, but my mom popped into my head right now anyway. She was short, like me, and just as pale, her dark hair cropped into a pixie and her lips always pursed. Or at least they had been the last time I’d seen her, over five years ago—it was an undeniable fact that I’d gotten my resting bitch face from her, though she was a lot better at covering it up with genuine-looking smiles. She’d always claimed to “just know” if someone she met, or an actor on a show she was watching, was Jewish. It’s all our shared trauma as a people, she said once, tone grandiose. It reaches out to the other. Forms an immediate connection knowing that we’ve survived all the same things.

Apparently, my own Jewdar was broken, because I’d never felt anything like that from Seth. Just grating annoyance and the overwhelming desire for him to leave my presence immediately.

I had to unmatch him. Whether it killed the festival or not, there was no way—no way—I could let him see my face on this app or let him think that I’d purposefully swiped right on him. Ugh. The Hanukkah festival could burn like the First Temple. Just the idea of him thinking there might be more than a business relationship between us made me want the ceiling to collapse on me again—this time leaving no survivors.

But just as my thumb reached for the bright red button, my phone buzzed. With a message. And considering I’d only swiped right on one person, there was only one person it could be from.

Ugh.

Well, what was done was done. I might as well read it. Hey! Is this the Abby from Good Coffee?

I briefly fantasized about saying no, then letting him think I just had a look-alike in the area with the same name. But that was not plausible, given how few people there were around here. Yup.

His response came immediately. I see! I wasn’t sure. I thought there might be another Abby in the area who smiled every so often.

I raised my eyebrow at the gall. I was smiling a lot more in my pictures than I did around him, but there was a reason for that. Maybe I smile all the time when you’re not around.

No response came immediately that time. I sighed. God help me, I was actually feeling a little twinge of…bad. So I added, grudgingly, By the way, thanks again for changing that lightbulb. That was a nice thing to do. It really helped me out.

Those three little bubbles indicating typing appeared, then disappeared. To distract myself from what he might be struggling to say—not like I cared—I clicked over to his photos.

His profile pic was a full-body shot from far enough away where you could barely see his face, a posed shot of him standing triumphantly atop the summit of a—hey, I knew that mountain. Back when I had days off instead of “days off,” I used to drive an hour east toward the New Hampshire border and do this exact same hike. I’d had to hike a lot of mountains to find this perfect one: a steep enough slope where I sweated and panted going up but that wasn’t so steep where I felt like I might fall off or had to clamber my stumpy legs up too many menacingly smooth rocks; long enough where I got a good workout but short enough where I didn’t have to stress about being stuck there overnight if I twisted my ankle; a stunning view of rolling trees and sky and tiny dollhouses to reward me for making it to the top.

Maybe I’d even hiked by him at some point. Nodded at him in the universal greeting of hikers.

So that I didn’t have to think too much about how there might have been a time when I didn’t find him extremely annoying, I swiped to the next one. This one was a close-up of him mid–giant smile, eyes half-closed as the pudgiest corgi I’d ever seen licked his face.

I was not immune to the power of an adorable corgi. It took me a few seconds to swipe past it, and I had to make myself scowl to erase the tiny smile playing on my lips.

The rest of his pictures were standard dating profile flair: him with a group of carefully less-good-looking friends; him smiling with a young child to show how unthreatening he was; even one of him in a suit wearing a kippah, a nice pander to the more observant users of the app. No photos of him with a fish he’d caught or with a tiger, which I’d learned over many years of swiping were often warning signs of bro-dom.

My phone buzzed with a message. You’re welcome. So. Want to meet up and talk about something other than coffee?

That corgi flitted through my mind. Maybe if he brought his dog, spending time with him wouldn’t be quite so insufferable, because I could ignore him and play with the dog.

No. Down, Abby. You’re here for a reason, and you need to be up front about it. Which was a good thing, actually, because it would immediately take whatever expectations Seth might have from me off the table. Just FYI, I’m not on here looking for an actual date. I’ve been drafted into planning a Hanukkah festival and am looking for help from whatever local Jew I can find. Could you maybe help with that?

I stopped. Wondered why he might offer to help me without anything in return—there was only so far this sunny “all I want is to know I helped you out” attitude could take me, surely. So I added, Free pumpkin spice lattes all winter if you can. I stared at the screen grudgingly for a moment. With extra whipped cream.

Those three little typing bubbles popped up, then disappeared. Popped up again, disappeared again. Sweat prickled on the back of my neck. What if he blew me off? Took a look at what I’d asked for and what I’d offered, and figured it wasn’t worth it?