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“It’s not the same everywhere,” she said, her tone measured. As though there was a lot more she wanted to say. “I mean, sure, some of it is. But here, it’s different. It’s frustrating.”
“Why do I get the feeling this is the reason you haven’t been to services in a while?”
She sucked in a hard breath over the line and he smirked, pleased with himself but also amused at the situation.
“Okay, I tell you what,” he said, turning over onto his side. “How about you send me an address after you’ve had time to consider. Tell me where to meet you and what time, and I’ll show up.”
“That’s clandestine,” Shoshana said after a moment. He decided to take that as a good sign.
“Well you’re familiar with the place, I’m not,” he pointed out. “Look, Shoshana, I really want to see you again. I want to get to know you. I get that you don’t want to be super-involved in the community and that’s fine. But I’m not going to sneak around, and I don’t think you should either. We have lives to live, the community will deal.”
“Boundaries. Good. I can work with boundaries.”
“Good, so I’ll see you Monday.”
“Monday it is, then,” she said, and there was a long pause. David grinned, settling back into the pillows again.
“Great, Monday’s good.”
“Mm,” she said, making a noise to the affirmative. There was another of those pauses again. But she didn’t end the call, he noticed.
“One of us should probably hang up,” David pointed out, pleased with himself for not making a joke about being a teenager. Because it was a very teenage impulse. Except, he didn’t want to be the one to do it. He felt more than heard her intake of breath on the line.
“We could do that,” she said slowly, “or--”
“Or?” He smoothed his tee shirt over his belly in a quick, nervous movement. “Or we could…?”
“Or we could keep talking,” she said quietly. “If it’s not too late for you, I mean.”
“It’s not too late,” he said, matching her tone, “Let’s talk.”
Seven
Baxter thought she looked like hell, but he had the decency not to say so to her face. Instead, he took one look at her when she walked into the showroom the next morning and handed her the box of donuts. Shoshana’s brow furrowed, but she snatched the box out of his ironic hand, clutching it to her chest as she stumbled to her office.
The music playing over the sound system switched abruptly away from the rockabilly station to a smooth jazz when she was halfway to her office. She didn’t acknowledge it, but she appreciated his effort. Shoshana wasn’t a morning person at the best of times. Her office door’s lock was tricky, and she glared at it, jiggling the key until finally she just gave the door a solid fwump with her hip.
It opened, the windowpanes rattling, and she made a mental note to see about getting it fixed. This was the same mental note she made every morning. It never happened. But it was nice to have a routine.
She tossed the donut box on the desk and fell into her chair. The office used to be a supply closet, she’d commandeered it her first year after college, and she couldn’t bear to move into the official office that used to be her father’s. Instead she let Baxter use it, reasoning that as bookkeeper/office manager/floor boss he probably needed more space to move around. Besides, Shoshana had the whole workroom to herself and that took up the entire back half of the building, practically.
She shifted in her overstuffed, tatty velvet desk chair and reminded herself it was a bad idea to curl up like her cat to sleep. That wouldn’t do and she knew it. She just had to give herself space to wake up and pray to God the hours of sleep she lost wouldn’t catch up with her when she was with a customer. Or in front of the camera.
“Orange juice or coffee?” Baxter said from the doorway, brandishing a bottle of orange juice in one hand and a bottled Starbucks frappe in the other. Shoshana made a face at the Starbucks bottle and grasped for the orange juice.
“Thank you,” she said, opening the bottle of orange juice and taking a healthy swallow. “I thought I was going to be really late.”
“I got your text,” Baxter didn’t point out that her text message had been just this side of overwrought and she appreciated his discretion. “What happened last night?”
“Shabbat service,” Shoshana said, taking a bite of one of the jelly donuts. She talked around the mouthful of food, “With Abi and Leah.”
“Right, I remember you said. Was the rabs everything you dreamed of?” Bax said, popping open the Starbucks bottle himself and sipping thoughtfully.
Shoshana answered him by shoving the rest of the donut in her mouth and chasing it with orange juice. Then she belched.
“Sho,” Baxter said, not even trying to hold back his laugh, “what the fuck?”
“Hot Rabbi was indeed hot,” she said, taking another donut from the box.
