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“I’m going to get the soup,” Tzipora said loudly.
“Normally we have gefilte fish,” Raina’s mom continued, barely acknowledging as her husband walked through the doorway and waved to everyone. “Avraham, take a seat. We usually save that for Friday nights, and Raina doesn’t like it much. It’s such a shame she’s never been interested in learning how to cook our ancestral dishes. They're part of our heritage. Don’t you think, Nicole?”
“Yes,” Nicole said with a straight face, and while she may have fooled Raina’s mom, Jesse had to cover his mouth to hide his smirk.
“We do have challah, though, and cholent and kugel. Now Raina, tell me about your studies. Will you be taking the SATs soon? They’re important to get into a good college, you know. Raina will be applying to the Ivy League schools,” Sarah Cohen said as she turned to Nicole. “Only the best schools for my Raina. It’s sad that she has no interest in applying to a Jewish college, but I suppose the Ivys have good Jewish communities. And if she goes to one near here, she can come home every weekend.”
“I suppose so,” Nicole answered.
Jesse shifted awkwardly in his seat. Raina had not been wrong in wanting to warn him about her mom.
“Oh wow, this soup looks great!” he interjected, hoping to divert Raina’s mom from college-talk.
Sarah Cohen was undeterred. “Raina needs to do well in her classes this year. Why, last year she got an 87 in science! I knew we had to move her to a better school, one that could give her the help she clearly needed. And a 94 in math, one of the lowest grades we’ve seen in my community. My friend’s daughters are surely going to get into an Ivy League college.”
“Actually, Raina is the reason two of my cousins passed math last semester,” Jesse cut in. “Without her, they would have failed.”
“That’s very nice, Jesse, but if she’s neglecting her own grades to help others, then Raina’s the one who won’t be accepted into college,” Raina’s mom said matter of factly. “And have I mentioned that she isn’t even taking Bible classes anymore? Why, when I was her age, the majority of my classes were Judaic. And she spends all of her time on that phone of hers. We had no phones when I was in high school! We had a landline we could use after school for a couple of minutes if we were lucky. Teenagers spend too much time on social media these days. On Tak-Tok and Facebook and Tweeter.”
Nicole’s affronted expression was a dead giveaway of how she felt about that statement. Jesse wondered which part of Sarah Cohen’s statement annoyed her most—the fact that she called Tik-Tok ‘Tak-Tok’ or that she thought they still used Facebook and ‘Tweeter’.
The rest of the dinner passed in quiet conversation between friends or siblings, occasionally broken up by Raina’s mom talking over the rest of the table. After that, Raina’s siblings began bickering amongst themselves, and Jesse focused on eating his food as quickly as possible.
“We should get going,” he said in an apologetic tone as soon as the plates had been cleared. “I think the plan was to reach Nicole’s before dark.”
Sarah Cohen frowned. “How are you getting there?”
“We were going to call an Uber,” Jesse said. “Tomorrow, we’ll swing back through and pick Raina up on our way to Trinity. Nicole’s parents’ driver will take us back.”
“Well, thank you for coming,” Raina’s mom said graciously.
“Thank you for having us. It was so nice meeting you all,” Jesse said, standing.
He leaned over to shake Raina’s dad’s hand, smiling at everyone else. Nicole echoed his sentiments and moved toward the door, clearly eager to make her escape.
“Take me with you,” Tzipora whispered when they passed by her chair.
* * *
As soon as the door closed behind Jesse and Nicole, Raina swallowed, acutely aware she was now alone with her mother. Her siblings had all disappeared to their various rooms, and her dad was already working again. Apparently, there had been a late-night misunderstanding between two guests at the hotel he managed, so he’d hopped right on the computer and put on his work headset.
“Your friends seem nice,” her mom said as they began tidying up the kitchen, putting the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. “Jesse is…well behaved for a boy.”
Raina hid her amusement, knowing that was the best she was going to get. “He’s a good friend. It’s different at Trinity—boys and girls mix openly. All of our classes are shared.”
At her first high school, a mere five minutes away from her house, all classes were separated by gender, and the best one could hope for was sneaking a peek across the barrier at morning prayers. The girls hadn’t been the nicest, and Raina had jumped at the chance to leave. Trinity had definitely been an adjustment, but it was a welcome one.
“How odd. Your father and I didn’t grow up that way.”
“I know. But we live in a pretty mixed world now,” Raina said carefully. “And both Jesse and Nicole are interested in learning about Judaism. Isn’t that cool?”
“I suppose,” her mother agreed grudgingly. “Do they know where they want to go to college?”
Raina resisted the urge to curl under a rock and hide there until her college graduation. “We haven’t talked about it, no. Most people are planning to start looking in the summer.”
“Well, you’re not most people. In fact, I’ve gotten you the best SAT prep book available. Everyone recommends it. It’s got a special focus on math, you know, to help bring that grade of yours up a little. The book has quite a few practice tests in it, so I figure you can take one tonight and we can see where you’re at.”
“Ema,” Raina said carefully, “this is my break from school. I don’t really want to do math.”
