Her smile twisted into something he couldn’t read. “You’re either incredibly modest or you don’t spend much time on the internet.”
“Well, it’s not door number one,” he said with a self-effacing grin.
“I beg to differ,” Sarina said, looking down at her phone, “but more importantly, do you know that videos of you have been viewed more than twelve million times?”
Judah reached for his water, clutching the glass but not taking a drink. “That doesn’t—”
“And that there are three different BuzzFeed articles about or featuring you?”
He rubbed his thumb into the moisture on the outside of the glass, keeping his gaze on the table. “Haven’t seen those, no.”
“How about that the Kleinatics Facebook group is nearing fifteen thousand members?”
At that, he wrenched his eyes up to meet hers. “What’s a Kleinatic?”
She smiled wide enough to reveal a crooked bottom incisor. “That’s a member of your fandom.”
“Myfandom?” Judah felt mildly dizzy. “I, uh, did not, no. That’s… nice.”
“You really didn’t know.”
He shook his head but remembered she was recording and that Lev would kill him if he squandered this opportunity to court said fandom. “I really did not. But I appreciate that people are interested in my music. The response to my Chanukah album definitely exceeded my expectations, and I just hope I can deliver again.”
“Does this mean you’re looking to hang up your hat as a wedding singer?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Judah replied, although he’d certainly thought it plenty. It was hard to maintain your joy at chuppah after chuppah when you’d spent years coming to the realization that you might never have your own. But “weddings feel increasingly like salt in a gaping wound” probably wouldn’t play well with his fans.
Anyway, they were the most reliable part of his livelihood, and they did occasionally come with a bright spot.
Not that he still pictured Arielle Becker’s pleading eyes and teasing smile when she asked him to pretend to be her boyfriend for a night.
He must’ve been easier to read than he thought, because Sarina folded her arms on the table and sized him up with an investigative look in her eye. “You’re single, right?”
Judah winced and immediately regretted it. “I am.”
“How’s that go? A single wedding singer? And it’s pretty common for Orthodox Jews to get married on the younger side, right? How old are you?”
“I’m just fine being single,” he lied, wishing she would get back to music already. “And I’m thirty-two.”
“But you were on a date in that video.” Sarina’s eyes sparkled, as if she had him trapped. “So you date. A lot?”
Judah looked back down at his water, feeling a bit like the ice cubes shrinking by millimeters with every passing second. “I really don’t thinkNotedreaders are interested in my dating life. But I’d love to talk some more about my musical inspirations—”
“Are you kidding? The wedding singer who’s finding fame on the hunt for his own wedding? I think that’s gold. Don’t you?”
He absolutely did not. “You know,” he said instead, “I read some of your articles after you reached out. I loved the deep dive into Rolling Stones cover bands.”
“Ah, that was a fun one. I don’t think my shoes ever fullyrecovered from the floors of all those dive bars, but there’s not a lot I won’t do for a truly excellent take on ‘Paint It Black.’”
“Love or hate the one by Vanessa Carlton?” Judah asked. He tipped an ice cube into his mouth and rolled it over his tongue.
“Are those the only options?” Sarina’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
“You know they are.”
She nodded, a pleased smile of acquiescence on her lips. “Love. Love Ciara’s too. It’s a song that feels made to be covered by women.” The smile dropped as she looked down at her notes. “You don’t perform with women though, right? Your choir was all boys. The bands you sing with are all men. You’ve only appeared on albums by men.”
Judah contemplated steering the conversation back to dating; it would probably be easier to discuss than this. “One of the many laws relating to interactions between men and women in Orthodox Judaism is ‘Kol Isha,’ the prohibition against men listening to women sing,” he said carefully. “There are certainly famous Jewish women singers, but no, observant men and women generally do not perform together.”
