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Of course, I’m not feeling particularly charitable to them right now because I woke up to an email from my dad forwarding me a marketing newsletter from a local college and commenting that maybe my few college credits could transfer and I could have a bachelor’s degree “in no time!”
Peter and I made several colors of icing and decorated the sugar cookies. After reading a few articles for decorating tips, I figured out how to flood and use toothpicks to fix mistakes.
And then I made an ombre dreidel cookie with blue and white icing.
And a Star of David with blue and yellow marbling.
“Goodness, those look good,” Nora says while leaning to inspect my work.
“It’s fun. I don’t typically get to mix bright colors like this.”
Peter’s cookies next to mine don’t look so great. He attempted the marbling but ended up with a green blob in one corner where he overworked the blue and yellow together. His lines are squiggly, and some of the flooding spilled over—okay,a lotof the icing spilled over, and I tried not to watch when he used a finger to wipe it off the counter and then sucked the icing off his finger.
He did it a lot.
I ate my fair share of icing, too, and I’ve got that feeling in my mouth that my teeth are coated in impending cavities.
Nora doesn’t remark on Peter's cookies, instead choosing to squeeze his waist and ask, “Did you have fun?”
My parents, who were strict about the course work that “mattered,” like math and science, would constantly praise us for creative pursuits. No matter how terribly our art projects came out, or how much of a mess we made, or if we got less than an A, it was fine because my dad would say that those were “just electives.”
Peter returns the hug. The three of us gaze at the piles of cookies.
“Perhaps we can eat all mine before Juna sees them?” Peter suggests.
Nora pats her stomach. “I already snuck the two of the worst ones while you weren’t looking. No more for me, so you’re on your own.”
He releases his mom and picks one of the sugar cookies up. It was supposed to be stripes of red and white, but the lines blurred. A flash of...mischievousness? Whimsy? Some foreign feeling passes over his face and rolls through my stomach as he holds the cookie up to me. “Kara? Take one for the team?”
“Nope. Nope, nope, nope,” I say, backing away and trying not to laugh. “In fact, I’m going to go brush my teeth.”
Peter advances, fighting a smile.
“Go pawn that sugar abomination on someone else!” I spin and run for the stairs.
In the afternoon,while the storm still rages, we read until sunset, light the menorah, and say the blessings again.
Peter’s grandmother naps. Most of the adults read books. I’m curled up on the couch with an e-reader. Juna and I swapped devices, and after perusing hervariedandeyebrow-raisinglibrary, I settled on a Sierra Simone book.
Peter, Tom, and Noah play with a dreidel in the corner, gambling with what Peter tells me is gelt. At some point, Peter shouts “gimel” and raises his fists in victory while Noah groans. Peter sweeps all the gold coins over to his pile and then flings one at me. I peel the gold back and let the Swiss chocolate melt on my tongue.
The fire crackles, and the only thing we can see outside the big glass window is snow piled up several feet.
Sylvie heaves a big sigh. She is draped over the opposite arm of the couch from me.
Ah, to be an angsty teenager where nothing your family does is fun anymore.
She plays with her hair. Her clothes are baggy, which is fine: I like baggy clothes too sometimes. But Sylvie has this air of skulking about, hiding herself. Her face is bare and has been since last night, and that gives me an idea.
I leave the e-reader on the arm of the couch—closed so Sylvie doesn’t get curious and read something she shouldn’t—and climb the stairs.
When I return to the family room, she barely glances at me. Instead of sitting on the couch, I sit on the floor in front of it, facing the couch, and set my makeup kit on the cushion.
With a few clicks, my favorite pallets and tubes are splayed out, the mirror up. Over my shoulder, I can see Peter watching me.
“That looks like work,” he says, but the corner of his mouth tilts up enough that I know he’s teasing.
“Do what you’ll love, and you’ll never work a day in your life,” I parry back, taking a cream concealer out and dotting my imperfections with it: a blemish here, a freckle there. When I have a smooth base, I take out a darker color and suck my cheeks in, tracing along my cheekbones.
