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Like an integer, he was positive and negative. Yet whole. A thing complete in itself.
Eli had the power to make all of her problems at work disappear with one phone call. Nora knew this. Yet…
Yet.
“Libby’s my roommate, actually – but is spending the holiday with family because she leaves New York right after New Year’s for Switzerland.” As desperately as Nora needed to find a replacement to help with rent, there was truly no replacing Libby Sugarman. While they hadn’t been as instantly close as she and Talia, their personalities – and their pitiful salaries – were perfectly suited for sharing five hundred and fifty square feet of Hell’s Kitchen. But Nora couldn’t fault her friend for jumping at the chance to study under a master chocolatier for a year.
Eli’s doing, no doubt.
Nora was sure he had a few Swiss contacts, not to mention a few Swiss bank accounts.
Leap and the net will appear.
That was the last thing she heard from him, a week ago, via IsraelPost. Who takes the trouble to write one sentence, find a stamp, and airmail it across the world?
Eli, apparently.
If she needed that kind of advice, she could go buy a greeting card at the corner store. Because shehadconfided in him. About Britesmith. And he had totally let her down.
“Maybe next year,” Nora said, which to her ears sounded just as disingenuous as uttering “Next year in Jerusalem” after Passover Seder. “There’s always next year for all eight of us.”
ChapterSeven
If anyone had told him, as he boarded his plane at DSM that morning for New York, that he’d be ending the day licking sugar off the arm of someone like Nora Ruben, he’d have thought they were out of their goddamn mind.
Now, Alex wondered if he had lost his.
This is a business trip. For your family business.
She is technically your employee.
He’d never believed in angels or devils on his shoulders before tonight, but they had apparently boarded the boat with him.
Not if I walk away from Myers and Sons.
In all fairness, it was something he had thought about doing before he even knew of Nora’s existence.
Just tell her.
She’d had a bad workday and didn’t want to talk about it.
So what? You’ve had a badyear.
Well, Nora was doing a pretty good job pushing that thought of out his head. They had managed to find their way back to what they had been doing before her friend had interrupted them.
You’re not from around here.
Her friend Sylvie’s observation mixed with his dueling conscience. As did her parting words: To take good care of each other.
Just give us this one night.
He didn’t know if he was asking this of the angel, the devil, Grandpa MyZ”L, his Uncle Marty, or Nora herself.
Nora, who was on the verge of letting him pull that bow and unwrap her like the best Hanukkah gift.
One night, that’s all I’m asking.
“You probably have a train to catch,” she started, “when we dock.”
