Page 79 of The Hanukkah Hoax
Before Marisa even had the thing fully open, Eden burst through the door and immediately plopped one of the bags, a brown one, on Sal’s counter. “Payment for early entry.”
The suspicious pizzaiolo arced a large bushy brow before wiping his floury hands on his apron, reaching into the bag, and pulling out a glistening, crusty elephant ear pastry easily the size of a calzone.
“Is that from De Luca’s?” Marisa asked, her mouth already watering.
“Yup. The first of many stops on this morning’s Eat Our Feelings But Not Our Pride parade route.”
Before Marisa could question her friend further, her hands flew out to keep her soda from toppling as she was greeted by a flurry of bags being dropped on her table. From the corner of her eye, a flash of white curled itself around the brown paper bag. When she looked back, Sal was gone, along with the elephant ear, a thin cloud of flour dancing in his wake.
“Damn, that man moves fast. What else was in that bag?”
Eden winked as she finished setting up her spread. “I got the last of the Christmas struffoli before they started switching out cases with the New Year’s desserts.”
“Oh, you are a queen.”
“I know.” She grinned. “Now, here. I got the good coffee from Alice’s Coffee and Kitchen, hazelnut with almond cream, of course. Then I got the good bagels from Beta Bagels and Bites over on Claremont. The French toast ones were right out of the oven, but they also had those whole wheat sesame ones you like. Grabbed some scallion cream cheese, too, along with the walnut raisin. They didn’t mix it with as much cinnamon this time, I’m guessing. The color’s a bit light, but I already taste tested it and can confirm it’s equally delicious, as always. They might have some new employees making the cream cheese. Not sure, but still so good. Yum.”
Marisa marveled at the spread before her and breathed in each distinct scent that had already gotten to work on loosening the pressure behind her ribs. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, and never forget,” Eden said, lifting a heavily schmeared French toast bagel to her lips, “carbs and caffeine will always love you back.”
“Amen.”
After they saluted their cream-cheese-smothered bagels and proverbially clinked paper coffee cups, the euphoria of Marisa’s creature comforts had begun to settle in enough that she was finally able to have an adult conversation with her childhood best friend.
Except this time, boys were sure as hell off the table.
“So, what are your plans for the New Year?” Eden asked.
“My parents need help putting their Hanukkah stuff away. They said they’d pay me in hot dogs and sparkling rosé, so I don’t think I’m in a position to turn that down at the moment, given the state of my fridge.”
“Of course. What fool in her right mind would say no to a couple of Hebrew Nationals and a three-dollar bottle of not-Champagne? And on New Year’s Eve, no less.”
“You joke,” Marisa said, feeling the need to defend her gloomsday meal, “but it’s not like I have anything better to do. You chose to betray me as well.”
“It’s not betrayal. It’s a job. A holiday-pay-rate job. I’m a bartender. It’s literally my tax season.”
“Still feels like betrayal,” Marisa muttered, “even if it is understandable.”
“I’m just saying, there are better places to be than château de Silver right now.”
“I know, but this is likely the one time where my parents’ total lack of enthusiasm for my career might be beneficial. They probably won’t know what happened. I can’t imagine they follow me on social media, so I won’t have to rehash anything. I can just clean off all the candle wax like a good little robot and check the box for visiting them when they asked me to.”
“What if they ask about Alec?”
“They won’t.” And oh boy, did she spit those words out almost as fast as she thought them. “They already knew he was going to be rejoining his team after Christmas. If they keep prodding me with anything else, well, that’s what the three and a half bathrooms are for. After such a long GI-straining holiday, no one would question why I would need to excuse myself so often. Besides, they invited me to their block’s small fireworks show, so, you know, there’ll be an eventual time when conversation about me would have to stop so my mother and Aunt Gail could resume their favorite topic of community noise complaints.”
“Your family members are the literal last people on the planet who I would think would want to be anywhere near fireworks.”
Marisa took a sip of her coffee. Mmm. So good. “My mother calls anything spicier than a campfire fireworks, but it’s literally just a cul-de-sac of sparklers. At any rate, even though it breaks my bed by eleven rule, avoiding my family altogether would only put more attention on myself eventually.”
And that was something she definitely did not want. After her time as Alec’s fake girlfriend, she’d had all the attention she could take for a couple of lifetimes.
When Eden didn’t immediately fill the silence like Marisa expected, she lowered her coffee cup and sized up her friend. Sure enough, the woman was staring way too intently at a bottle of ketchup on the table and had started using her finger to scrape nonexistent cream cheese off her plate.
Marisa thinned her lips and kicked Eden’s leg.
“Ow!”
