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“Now, sometimes I hate the idea of an elected president. Like a monarchy was working fine, right? Wrong. But an election always causes a lot of fighting and drama and whatever else you see on those family sitcoms those giggly freshmen like to watch,” Mr. Kingston stated, having moved on to a different government system while Jesse was lost in his thoughts. “So I hate the election system. I hate it so very much. I—I—really—this is not me being silly, although it might sound like it. I think elections are the stupidest thing our species has ever done, and I include Justin Bieber fans in that list of stupid things.”
Jesse snickered. “So we can’t watch Justin Bieber videos in class?”
“Oh, hell no,” Mr. Kingston declared, his eyes widening. “If we ever do, you have my full and express permission to leave. In fact, if I ever start playing Justin Bieber videos, please take me with you.”
Raina leaned close to Jesse. “Were you ever one of those giggly freshmen?” she whispered.
“I don’t ‘giggle’,” Jesse replied. “I’m not Theo or Zara. I watch manly things like Marvel movies or action movies or—”
“My Christmas Romance?” Raina asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jesse flushed and Raina grinned at him, clearly remembering the time she’d come to one of their lunch hang-outs and found Jesse lying on a picnic blanket, engrossed in the rom-com. He’d made his excuses, but Raina refused to believe that was the only sappy movie downloaded on his phone.
“I told you, Zara stole my phone and deleted all my other movies,” Jesse insisted. “Speaking of movies, there’s a newRomeo and Julietremake. Want to watch it together?”
Raina was silent for a minute, a very long minute, in Jesse’s opinion. He tried to gauge her facial expressions but couldn’t. In the end, his gaze dropped to where she was twisting her fingers together in her lap.
“Okay,” she said finally.
Something tingled in Jesse’s chest. He and Raina might not be 100% okay, and he might not know what was going on between them, but he was glad that he’d asked. “Okay?”
Raina gave him a small smile. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
* * *
As soon as the bell rang, Raina gathered her things and tore out of the history classroom, Jesse hot on her heels. Lunch was their last chance to review presentation details, and the duo had decided to head to the science lab ahead of time and start setting up. Mrs. Dixon met them at the lab, unlocking the door with a sharp “be careful”, and agreed to supervise from the staff room next door, leaving Jesse and Raina alone in the classroom.
“Grab the burners from the closet,” Raina directed, taking charge. “Each table should have two.”
Following Jesse, she pulled their presentation poster from the bottom shelf of the closet where, after hours of painstaking preparation, they’d stored it for safekeeping.
Jesse cleared his throat. “I have the opening, right?”
Raina nodded, moving supplies as she spoke. “Yeah, we start with general poisons. You talk for a few minutes on that, then I’ll transition to Shakespeare-specific poisons. Next you talk about potions, and we link that toRomeo and Juliet.”
“And then it’s potion making time,” Jesse said gleefully, setting a burner on a table. “Theo delivered everything yesterday, and I checked—they all have that little kosher symbol you showed me.”
“Perfect.” Raina grinned. She ran through her mental checklist, and when she finally realized everything was ready, only then did she relax. “Fun fact -- it's not just the ingredients that I have to pay attention to when keeping kosher. Jewish people who follow the rules of keeping kosher more strictly, like I do, use separatepots and utensils as well to make sure their food never touches something not kosher. So even though the ingredients of our potion are all kosher, the pots we'll be using aren't - they may have been used for non-kosher ingredients in the past - so I won't be able to have any. But it was really sweet of you to think of that.”
“That doesn’t seem fair. Is it annoying to not be able to eat everything?”
“Kind of,” Raina admitted. “But…it’s something I’ve grown up with. Sure, I don’t go out to eat often, and I feel bad when Gracie invites me to sleep over and I have to say no because I can’t eat the food at her house.”
“Did you eat anything at Nicole’s?” Jesse asked.
“I had some snacks, and she had kosher cereal I could eat at breakfast,” Raina explained. It was second nature for her to check everything she ate, especially at someone else’s house. “I used a paper bowl so I didn’t have to worry about her servingware.”
Jesse nodded. “All I remember is rushing to get back to Trinity. But that must be hard. Would you ever consider not keeping kosher? Or doing something else, religion-wise?”
“That’s…” Raina released a shaky breath, working through the answer in her head. “That’s a difficult question. I think there are some aspects of Judaism I don’t agree with, and I’m learning there are alternate options now. At home, everyone is on the same level of religiousness. Here, I’m exploring what religion and Judaism mean to me. I think keeping kosher is something I’m always going to do, and so is keeping Shabbos. Things like wearing skirts down to my knees are a bit different, so I’m working on figuring out what I want to do. There are so many rules and traditions, and even different ways of interpreting what some of the rules specify. There are varying practices depending on the sect of Judaism, or the community you livein, and it feels like everyone has their own opinion of what you should and shouldn't do.”
“You’ll figure out what you want to do,” Jesse told her, an encouraging look on his face. “I know you and your mom don’t always see eye to eye, but your mom’s not here. She’s not you. And you need to figure out what’s best for Raina Cohen.”
Raina turned to move another burner, unable to look at him anymore. Did he know he was the reason she was so confused? That this non-Jewish boy who had become such a fixture in her life had turned her entire world upside down?
“What if what I want directly contrasts with my religion?”
Jesse was quiet, but she heard the thud of moving pots behind her. “This might feel like a cop-out answer, but compromise? It’s like we learned in class with the city-states. Maybe you don’t have to choose one or the other.”
