Vanilla

“Your mom didn’t get back to you?”

“She said it was okay if you took me home.” William’s phone hummed, and he looked at it. “She says she was running late at yoga and to tell you thanks for picking me up.”

“No problem, kid. My pleasure.” Traffic was still fairly light, though in another half an hour it might start to get heavier with rush hour commuters all trying to merge onto the highway. It was only late April, but one of the first days that promised summer after a bitter and seemingly endless winter. “Hey, you wanna go get some ice cream?”

William shifted to look at me. “Right now? Before dinner?”

“Yeah, of course, before dinner. That’s the best time to eat ice cream.” I shot him a grin that he returned.

Instead of turning right to head over the bridge to get him home, I kept going a little ways so I could head across town to our favorite ice cream shack. Every year I figured would be its last, that competition from chain frozen ice places would put it out of business, but so far the Lucky Rabbit was still around. My twin brother, Evan, and I had both worked in the Lancaster location during the summers in our long-ago teenage years, flipping burgers and scooping the homemade churned ice cream into waffle cones. Time had weathered the Lucky Rabbit sign and left huge potholes in the parking lot, but that was what Pennsylvania winters did to all the roads, left them pitted and rough.

I pulled into the gravel lot and avoided the ditches as best I could and found a spot near a splintery picnic table. We ordered not only sundaes but also onion rings. Not even a bare nod to providing a reasonable dinner, because aunties don’t need to do that.

“So, how’s it going?” I asked around a mouthful of hot fried onion dipped in chocolate ice cream.

William shrugged. He’d ordered mint chocolate chip with caramel sauce, a combination that made me shudder. “Okay, I guess. My Torah portion is really long.”

“You have time. Another three months or so, right?” His Bar Mitzvah was scheduled for his birthday weekend in late July, which meant a sucky early summer of tutoring and attending services.

He shrugged again. We ate mostly in silence after that—William devouring most of the onion rings, all of his ice cream and the rest of mine that the late sushi lunch had left me incapable of finishing. We talked a little bit about the school year that was coming to a close. His new video game. His best friend, Nhat, who might be moving to another school district. William lingered over the last few bites, drawing it out until I finally asked him what was wrong.

“I don’t want to go home,” he said.

“How come?” I gathered the trash and watched him from the corner of my eye as I got up to toss it.

William shrugged again. It was becoming his favorite response. “Just don’t.”

“Is something going on at home?” I sat again on the picnic table bench, wincing at the scrape of the rough wood on the back of my thigh below my hem. I’d be lucky to get out of here without a bunch of splinters in my butt.

“No.”

I knew he was lying, but I wasn’t going to prod him. William looked like his mother, but he was his father’s boy in personality. My brother had always held things close to the chest, and poking him to get him to talk never worked.

“You have to go home, kid. It’s a school night. Your dad will be home soon, and I’m sure your mom is wondering where you are.”

“I bet she’s not.”

I paused at this, but decided not to push. “C’mon, let’s go. Hey, maybe you can come and spend the weekend with me. You haven’t done that for a while.”

“Can’t,” William said sourly. “I have to go to services.”

I loved that kid, but there was no way I was going to volunteer to take him to the three-hour Saturday Sabbath service. I’d fallen off the religion wagon long ago, a fact that killed my mother on a daily basis. Her angst about it had probably contributed a lot to my lack of observance. Sometimes you twist a knife because you can’t help it, even if you’re ashamed to admit it.

“How about Saturday night? I could pick you up after services. We could go to the movies.”

“I’ll have to ask my mom,” William said doubtfully.

“Like she’ll say no?” I scoffed, but stopped myself from reaching to ruffle his hair. “I’ll talk to her. But it’s a plan. Okay?”

That earned a ghost of a smile from him, which relieved me. In the car, just before we pulled into his driveway, I said casually, “You know, you don’t have to be perfect at this Bar Mitzvah thing. Nobody’s going to be expecting you to nail it without any mistakes, the rabbi and the gabbaim are there to help you if you need it. You’re not performing a play that you have to memorize. It’s okay if you’re not exactly perfect.”

He shook his head. “Mom says she expects me to do my best.”

“Your best,” I said as I turned off the ignition. “Not perfection.”

I went into the house with him, both to make sure there was someone home before I dumped him off and to talk to my brother if he was there. Evan wasn’t, but Susan must’ve made it home right before we got there because when we came into the living room from the front door, she was coming down the stairs with her hair in a towel. Without missing a beat, she told William to put his stuff away and set the table for dinner. She barely looked at me.

“Thanks for getting him,” she said, clearly distracted. “I ran late at yoga. It’s this new class...”

“No problem.” I waited a second or so, but my sister-in-law wasn’t going to give me the time of day. I was used to that. We’d never been close, and I’d never been sure why, but it had stopped bothering me years ago. I took in her wet hair and the smudges of mascara under her eyes. The traces of lipstick in the corners of her mouth. She wore a pair of yoga pants and a loose T-shirt, but also a pair of pretty dangling silver earrings, along with a matching bracelet of hammered links. Not exactly the sort of accessories I’d have picked to exercise in, if I ever did such a thing.

“I was happy to do it,” I added when she didn’t answer me. “You know, the shul is only a few blocks from my office. I’d be happy to pick him up anytime if you need me to. Or he can walk down and hang out with me—”

That got her attention. Frowning, Susan shook her head. “Walk to your office? In downtown Harrisburg? He’s not even thirteen yet, you want him to get mugged?”

I didn’t point out that it was literally less than a mile walk along public streets in the middle of the afternoon, not a saunter through back alleys at two in the morning. “If you need me to, that’s all.”

“Thanks.” Her chin went up, and she finally looked at me, though her gaze skated away from mine without holding it. “Yeah, that might be great. It’s this new class. It runs—”

“Late, got it.” Awkward silence hung between us, and I could’ve eased it but frankly, I’d long ago decided that whatever problems my brother’s wife had with me were of her own making. However, since Evan wasn’t home, she was the one I had to talk to about William. “I invited the kiddo to stay with me this weekend. I can pick him up from services on Saturday, if you want. I’ll bring him back Sunday.”

“He has religious school Sunday morning.”

“So I’ll take him to religious school,” I told her easily. “I’ll make sure he gets there on time. Anyway, it’ll give you and Evan a date night. You can even sleep in.”

A short, harsh bark of laughter rasped out of her before she swallowed it. She did meet my gaze then, for a second or so. “Sure. That sounds great. Thanks. I’ll make sure he has a bag with him. Thanks, Elise.”

“No problem,” I said again. “I love having him.”

Another few beats of awkward silence moved me toward the door. I shouted out a goodbye to William as I left, but he didn’t answer. Susan shut the door so firmly behind me there was no question about how happy she was to see me go.

Some people love you. Some hate you. Some tolerate you for the sake of keeping the peace, and if everyone in the world managed to do even just that, we’d have a lot less woe in the world.

3 (#ulink_5423a293-91e6-53f4-b95a-a67daf3bdd6a)

I want to see you tonight.

Not may I, or I wish, but I want. I hadn’t been expecting the message, though as far as surprises went, it was definitely a pleasant one. With my phone tucked into the front pocket of my purse while I shopped for a quick cart of junk food for my nephew’s sleepover, I’d missed the message when it came in twenty minutes before. I thumbed a reply as I waited in line to check out.

I can’t tonight.

To my additional surprise, JohnSmith is Typing appeared at the top of the app. That meant Esteban had read and was replying immediately, which wasn’t usual for a weekend. In the beginning, we had connected late at night in those dark hours between midnight and three, when smart people were asleep. Most of our conversations now happened during the workweek between two and four in the afternoon.

I really want to see you.

Before I could type an answer, my phone rang. Even more surprised now, because Esteban never called me without asking me first for permission, I thumbed the screen to answer. “What’s wrong?”

The woman in front of me gave me a curious glance. I lowered my voice. “Are you okay?”