She steps closer, close enough for me to really see her expression. I can’t quite decipher it. She’s not flustered—not exactly—but she’s not exactly relaxed.
She shoots me a halting smile. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I’m trying not to stare. But her cheeks are so pink, and her eyes look extra Disney, and her face is closer than usual.
She’s taller. Just barely. Maybe her shoes. She smells like flowers.
“You look so pretty,” I say softly. “Your hair . . .”
She blushes, nervously fingering the ends. “Thanks—I . . . my friend Shelby has a hair straightener.” Her eyes keep flicking down to my mouth. “You look amazing, Jamie. This whole place is amazing.”
I glance back over my shoulder. “Yeah, the decorations came out really nice. Want to see the ballroom?”
She nods mutely, taking my hand.
But Drew, Felipe, and Nolan intercept us before we can even swing by the gift table. “Maya!” Drew hugs her.
“You look gorgeous,” Felipe says. “Stunning.”
Maya laughs and hugs them back, and suddenly everything’s weirdly, maddeningly normal. Nolan whispers something in Maya’s ear, and she elbows him. “Shut up!”
Felipe takes her hand to lead the way to our table. I have to admit: Mom knocked it out of the park with the reception space. The ceiling’s strung with pastel paper candy necklace medallions, and a giant chalkboard out front reads Sophie’s Sweet Shop. The table numbers are also on chalkboards, surrounded by washi-taped jars of lollipops, chocolate balls, and gummy bears. And there’s a self-serve candy display in Sophie’s after-dinner teen room.
Maya scoots her chair up close beside me. “What a great party theme.”
“Aunt Lauren is an event-planning genius,” says Rachel.
The ballroom fills slowly as people make their way to their tables. Sophie’s holding court near the back, at a long, rectangular table with her friends. I turn to my group, trying to follow along as everyone argues about a serial killer stalker show they all binged last year. But Maya keeps sneaking glances at me, and I keep losing the thread.
“He has your last name.” Felipe pats my shoulder cheerfully.
“Hmm?”
“The murderer.”
I nod distractedly. “Great.”
“Hey, guys!” I look up just as Mom leans over my shoulder. “I’m so glad you all could make it.”
“Thanks for having me,” says Maya.
“Are you kidding? I was hoping Jamie would bring you as his plus-one.”
My plus-one. Mom had to go there—of course she did—and now my cheeks are practically blazing.
But Maya doesn’t correct her.
She’s just staring at me with this searching half smile.
Mom turns to me. “What do you say we give people twenty minutes or so to settle in? Then I’ll do my welcome speech, and we can move into your toast and the challah.”
Maya scoots closer as soon as Mom leaves. “Are you nervous?”
“Kind of.”
“Okay. Come with me.” She grabs her tote bag and tugs me up—and the next thing I know, she’s leading me out of the ballroom. I follow dazedly, reeling from the fact that she’s holding my hand.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see. Come on.” We head down the stairs toward the entrance, but instead of leaving the building, Maya takes a sharp left, opening a door off the main lobby. “I saw this on my way in. It’s a coatroom.”
“Where are all the coats?”
“Jamie, it’s July.” She laughs.
And then she shuts the door behind us and locks it.
Holy. Shit. Is she . . . about to kiss me? Are we about to kiss?
But—okay. The toast is in twenty minutes. Less than twenty minutes. Should I set a phone alarm or something?
Maya settles onto the floor, tugging me down beside her. “I brought you something.”
I just look at her, stupefied.
“My mom told me this story about getting stage fright at her wedding. My dad calmed her down by smashing a piece of cake in her face. But,” she adds quickly, “I don’t want to ruin your face.”
“You can ruin it.”
She laughs. “No! You look so . . . nice. Really.”
I look at her. “So do you.”
I swear, every molecule of air in this room feels electric.
“So, I’m not going to smash it in your face,” she says after a moment. She opens her tote bag, revealing a plastic take-out bag from Intermezzo. “But I did bring cake.”
“I love cake,” I say.
Love. Wow. That word just keeps tumbling out today, doesn’t it?
Maya presses her lips together. For a moment, we’re both silent.
“Should we . . . talk about earlier?” I ask.
Maya’s brow knits.
“We don’t have to,” I add quickly. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. I’m—”
“Please don’t apologize.” She takes a deep breath. “You know, I haven’t stopped thinking about what you said.”
“I haven’t either.”
“Jamie. I—really like you.” Maya stares at her knees. “So much. I’ve been going crazy all day. I don’t even know how to say this out loud.”
I scoot closer. “You’re doing great.”
“Thanks.” She smiles nervously. “This is just really new for me. You’re my best friend. I’m not supposed to want to kiss my best friend.”
“You want to kiss me?”
She smiles slightly. “Um. No. Maybe. Yes.”
But the clouded look in her eyes stops me short. I meet her gaze. “You okay?”
She hesitates. “Yeah.”
“You look worried.”
“Yeah. I’m just . . . trying to figure out how this works. My parents . . .”
I nod slowly, trying to follow. Her parents?
“It’s mostly my mom. She’s kind of . . . I don’t know. We’re really close, though. I’m going to talk to her about this. Tonight.” She nods resolutely. “I really think she’ll understand.”
My head’s spinning. Maya thinks her mom will understand . . . understand what? That Maya wearing lace makes it hard for me to think straight? That I can’t stop staring at her lips? How I’m so desperate to kiss her, it actually hurts?
“Anyway.” Maya leans forward. “We better eat some of this cake. We have to be back up in, what, seven minutes?”
I smile. “And you’re sure this will fix my stage fright, even without the cake smash?”
“I’ll smash it where no one can see,” she says, her eyes suddenly widening. “Oh my God, I don’t mean—I just mean, like, under your sleeve or something.”
“Under my sleeve?”
Maya takes my hand and rests it palm-up on hers. Then she pushes up my jacket sleeve and the shirtsleeve underneath. “Here we go.” She runs her finger through icing, and traces a tiny chocolate heart onto my wrist. She looks up at me. “Cake smash.”
And I stare dumbly at my wrist, barely breathing.
The minute Mom hands me the microphone, it hits me.
I’m about to speak. In front of one hundred and fifty people. Including Sophie’s terrifying friends and State Senator Mathews and basically everyone I know.
And Maya. Who meets my eyes quickly, smiles, and taps her wrist.
I tap my own wrist, feeling suddenly calm. Well, not calm. But definitely calmer.
I clear my throat. “Hi.” It comes out booming, and I startle. Everyone laughs warmly. I slide the volume down. “Sorry. Hi. I’m Jamie, Sophie’s big brother, and I’m not really good at public speaking, and challah’s really delicious, so I’m going to keep this short.”
“Go, Jamie!” someone calls from the back of the room.
“Thanks, Andrea.” There’s a burst of giggling from one end of the teen table, but I tap my wrist and keep going. “I really wanted to get up here and mildly embarrass Sophie with a story from childhood. But, uh.
Instead I’m going to tell you about the time Sophie invited herself to come knock on doors with me. For the Jordan Rossum campaign. So . . . yeah. I was pretty sure she just invited herself because Mom was being really intense about the decorations—which came out amazing, by the way. Shout-out to Mom.”
A bunch of people cheer, and Mom grins up at me.
“Anyway, I expected her to be kind of whatever about the actual canvassing part, but in true Sophie fashion, she nailed it.” I shake my head. “She didn’t even have to look at the talking points. So, I brought it up later. Like, wow, Soph, your memory is amazing. And she was like, actually, I’ve been researching the candidates for weeks.”
Sophie beams up at me.
“For weeks! She’d just been there quietly studying this stuff. Because she actually cares about it. It really floored me.” I pause. “The truth is, it’s a weird time to be coming of age. The world’s really messy right now. And it’s so hard to be twelve or thirteen or fifteen or seventeen, where you’re old enough to get it, but . . . you can’t vote. Maybe you can’t drive. You can make phone calls and hang posters—which, by the way, you guys should all check the bathrooms. For some, uh . . . reading material. Sorry, Mom.”
Mom’s eyebrows shoot up. But she’s smiling.
“Except nothing feels like enough. The bad stuff feels so big. It’s easy to feel helpless.” I turn back to Sophie, who’s gazing earnestly back. “But Sophie’s strength of purpose gives me hope. Soph, I’m really proud to be your brother.”
Sophie wrinkles her nose, smiling faintly. Even from across the room, I can see her eyes are shining.
“Anyway. Uh. That’s . . . oh, right! Baruch ata, Adonai Eloheinu, melech ha’olam, hamotzi lechem min ha’aretz. Amen. And now we eat!”
“I didn’t know you knew Hebrew.” Maya grins up at me on the dance floor. We’re not really dancing together. I mean, we are. But it’s all of us—the guys, Rachel. Even Gabe has temporarily unglued his eyes from his phone to join us. The DJ’s been wooing my mom’s friends since the first course ended, with “Take on Me,” “Sugar, Sugar,” and “Walking on Sunshine.”
“Just the hamotzi,” I say. “It’s the only thing I remember. And iparon. That means pencil.”
Maya laughs and touches my arm. “Noted.”
I feel so fizzy and light, I swear I’m practically carbonated. How is this moment even real? I can’t believe I’m here with Maya. I can’t believe she wants to kiss me. I can’t believe I survived Sophie’s toast. More than survived it.
I think I actually kind of nailed it.
The DJ switches to a slow song—“Unchained Melody”—and I swear, the whole room can hear my heartbeat. It feels like everyone’s watching me. Random Jewish ladies, family friends, strangers. Definitely Sophie’s friends. That spotlight feeling.
Felipe and Nolan fall into an easy embrace, swaying to the tempo.
Maya smiles. “Want to slowmance?”
I just stare at her, trying to catch my breath. “Of course.”
She steps closer, arms encircling my neck, and my hands fall to her waist. And suddenly, we’re so close, our foreheads are practically touching. I breathe in the floral scent of her hair and try to hold on to every tiny detail of this moment. The way her face tilts toward mine, the paper medallions above us, the long sighing notes of music, the self-conscious lilt in Maya’s voice.
“I feel like people are looking at us,” she says. “Is that crazy?”
I laugh softly. “I’ve felt that all night.”
“I think I’m just nervous.” She bites her lip. “Sorry I was kind of incoherent in the coat closet. I’m not good at this. But I really . . . oh God, Gabe is looking at us. He’s, like, grinning.”
“I’m legit going to throttle him.”
“It’s not even just him. Everyone’s watching us.”
I nod. “At least now I get why Sophie was so dead set on a teen room.”
Mom sidles up to us as the main course is served, planting a hand on my shoulder. “How are you guys holding up?” she asks.
“Great!” Maya says.
“Jamie, you were wonderful. I loved the toast—”
“Wait. Really?”
“Yes, really!” Mom laughs. “Look, you made the political stuff relevant. You were adorable up there. I’m just so proud of you. Both of you.” She turns to Maya. “You guys have been working so hard this summer. I’d be shocked if you didn’t get that car, Maya. Such a good idea. What a cool reward to work toward.”
My brain skids to a stop. A car?
Maya looks frozen. She stares at her plate.
“And I guess it’s safe to say canvassing turned out to be more fun than you expected. Win-win.” Mom smiles, patting our shoulders, before moving on to greet Felipe.
Maya looks at me. “Jamie.”
“So . . . your parents said they’d give you a car if you went canvassing with me.” Her face falls. “Which is fine,” I say quickly. “I get it. A car is a car—”
“No! Jamie. That’s not why I canvassed. Okay, it kind of was at first, but—”
“You don’t have to explain.”
“No, I want to.” She grabs my hand under the table, lacing our fingers together. “I mean, yeah, I wasn’t really all in at first. It was something my mom roped me into doing. But then it started feeling more and more important, you know? With the racist guy and H.B. 28 and all the Koopa Troopas—”
“Yeah.”
“I promise it wasn’t just about the car.” She squeezes my hand. “I started to feel like we were making a difference . . . and I like spending time with you. Obviously.”
“So do I. I mean. Obviously.”
“This is really hard,” she says softly.
“What is?”
“Being in a room full of people. Not sneaking away to the coat closet again.”
“Oh.” I exhale. “No kidding.”
Sophie’s friends disappear to the teen room after dinner, but it feels like only moments before they’re herded back in for the hora. Hands joined, feet moving forward-step, back-step, around and around in circles. I keep my hand locked with Maya’s, feeling dizzy with joy. Like I’m threaded with something ancient, something larger than life. I feel so Jewish. I don’t think anything’s made me feel this wholly, utterly Jewish since Fifi. But this is the opposite of Fifi. The precise polar opposite.
The circles stall in place, and everyone steps back, clapping—everyone but a few of Mom’s burliest family friends. The DJ brings out a chair, and Sophie clutches the bottom and shrieks when she’s lifted. Then she comes down, and it’s Mom’s turn. Then it’s mine. At my own bar mitzvah, all I could think about was how many people were down below. How many people were watching me. But now I only see Maya.
I run back to her as soon as my feet hit the ground. We hook elbows and dance in the center of the circle. “Jamie, I swear,” she says, breathless from the movement. “Everyone’s looking at us.”
“Because we’re—”
“Not because we’re in the middle. Jamie. Look.”
I peer around the circle as I dance, and my heart thumps hard in my chest. Maya’s right. Sophie’s friends are openly staring. And giggling. And holding up their phones. Maddie’s glaring at Maya, looking close to tears all over again.
“Super weird, right?” Maya says. “It’s not in my head.”
“Definitely not.”
Everyone switches partners, so I leap toward Sophie. “Why, hello,” she says, linking our arms.
I cut straight to the point. “Why are your friends staring at us?”
I half expect her to deny it. Or say I’m imagining it. But she just shrugs and says plainly, “It’s probably the picture.”
My whole body goes cold. “The picture?”
We switch directions, still dancing, “Hava Nagila” still playing. I barely hear it.
“The one Maddie took of you and Maya kissing,” Sophie says. “Gabe put it on Grandma’s Instagram. And the Ross
um account. I think it went kind of viral.”
I stop short.
Kissing? But we didn’t—we didn’t kiss. Believe me, kissing Maya is pretty much all I’ve thought about for weeks. I would fucking know if it happened. But Maddie took a picture? Why the hell was Gabe looking at Maddie’s pictures?
And it went—
No. No way.
I reach into my back pocket, hands shaking. Sophie eyes me nervously. “You okay?”
The hora circles have disbanded by now, and everyone’s trailing back to their tables for dessert. But I’m frozen on the dance floor. “I don’t understand.”
I tap into Instagram. Grandma’s account.
“Jamie, what’s happening?” Maya rushes toward me. “Is everyone—”
Her voice falls away.
I stare dumbfounded at the screen.
It’s us. On my car. In the temple parking lot. Our faces inches apart.
There’s a caption: We’re feeling the love! And hey, don’t forget to give Rossum his happily ever after on July ninth!
It’s been up for four hours. Twenty thousand likes. Over eight hundred comments.
Maya looks like she’s about to throw up.
Chapter Thirty
Maya
This isn’t happening. It can’t be.
Jamie’s searching for Gabe. To yell at him. To make him take the photo down.
Me? The same three words are running in my head on a loop: This. Isn’t. Happening. It could be some sort of hallucinatory dream. I’ve had them before—fever dreams, where I show up to school pantsless and everyone laughs at me.
But this isn’t a dream.
Jamie and I almost kissed.
Maddie took a photo.
Gabe shared it on the Rossum account.
The picture went viral.
Jamie deleted the one that got posted on his grandma’s page, but it’s on the official Jordan Rossum campaign feed, and a bunch of other places. The same photo over and over again, like endless infinity mirrors of us. The image is burned into my brain. Jamie and me sitting on his car. Our shoulders brushing against each other. Looking into each other’s eyes. My hair obscures a bit of the image. You can’t see we hadn’t kissed. Judging from what everyone is saying, we may as well have.
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