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We make our way over to the table, where a green salad waits in the serving bowl, along with plates of the most exquisite pasta I’ve ever seen.
“Do you want to do the honors?” he asks, gesturing to the candles.
I hold the unlit candle up to the other one and begin the blessing. Miles’s voice threads with mine as we recite the prayer I’ve known longer than I can remember. Barukh ata Adonai Eloheinu, Melekh ha’olam, asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat.
He’s warm next to me, and if I get much closer, his scent might render me useless the rest of the night. I realize Irish Spring is a very common soap. There is no earthly explanation for why Miles makes it so appealing.
Then, with two precut pieces of tape, we affix the flames to the candles. Part of me wonders whether what we’re doing is blasphemy, but a stronger part feels certain it would be okay. Much of Judaism is about making do with what you have, and I’ve always loved that there are so many ways to observe.
This is ours.
“I assume this is exactly how you do it at home,” I say, touching a hand to the fake flame.
“To the letter.” He dips his fork into a salad that probably cost more than any salad should. The food is incredible, but I’d be just as touched if he’d served us burgers from the Olmsted dining hall. “I miss it. I know I see my mom almost every day, but it’s not exactly the same.”
“What kinds of things did you do growing up?” I ask. “Did you do Christmas and Easter too?”
“We did,” he says. “They’ve never had any religious significance for my mom, though. Christmas has really only been celebrated as a secular holiday in Japan for a few decades. New Year’s Day, Shogatsu, is our most important holiday. My mom will go all out—we’ll do a deep clean of our house, put up decorations, and drink amazake, which is this sweet sake that’s mostly alcohol-free. And if we’re visiting my grandparents in Texas, which we usually are, my grandma will make her ozoni—that’s a mochi soup, and it’s one of my favorite things.” He gets this dreamy look on his face. “I’ve always felt so connected to that, and to the Jewish holidays.”
“I love that.” I twirl some pasta around my plate, imagining Miles giddy over his grandmother’s soup. “That you get to have both.”
He nods. “I’m not half Japanese, half Jewish. I’m both—Japanese and Jewish.” He takes a bite of pasta. “What about you?”
“We went to synagogue pretty regularly when I was younger, but after my bat mitzvah, we started going less and less. We still celebrate Hanukkah, which is usually our chance to get each other the most ridiculous gift we can find.”
“Even without having met your mom, that sounds perfectly in character for you both,” he says, which sparks this strange, shimmery feeling in my stomach.
“And we do Passover with my mom’s family. That’s always been my favorite. Nothing tastes better than a hard-boiled egg after you’ve waited forever to eat.”
“Or a bitter herb,” Miles adds. “I would die for maror by the middle of the seder.”
“God, too true. And your dad—he teaches Jewish history?”
A nod. “Growing up, there was a lot of emphasis on the origins of the holidays,” he says. “He’d quiz us—me and my brother—on history and specific traditions. It was always important to him that we knew why we were eating unleavened bread or reclining at the seder table.” Then he lets out this small, disbelieving laugh. “This might be the first time I’ve had this kind of conversation outside of my family.”
“Me too,” I say, and it’s nice, connecting with him like this. “Were there many Jews at your school?”
“Hardly. I think there were eight of us? And I was the only Asian Jew, which always made people do a double take when they learned I was Jewish. I’m guessing it was the same at your school?”
“Yep. I’d been hoping to meet some here.”
Beneath the table, he taps his foot against mine. “I guess we both did.”
Miles Kasher-Okamoto: not an awful person, I’ve realized. A week ago, this kind of dinner would have been stilted, awkward. Uncomfortable. But now, despite everything that happened earlier, it might be one of the best Wednesdays I’ve ever had.
“Making lifelong friends is another thing on my list.” I flutter my lashes at him. “Miles, I don’t want to get too ahead of ourselves, but I think we’re bonding.”
He rolls his eyes, but I don’t miss the way his jaw softens to hint at a smile. It’s not a full-on ball-pit smile, but it’s more than I usually get, and you know what, I’m going to celebrate that.
Once we’ve finished eating, he refuses to let me help clean up because, well, it doesn’t matter. Another silver lining.
“Thank you,” I say as Miles undoes the top button of his collar. “For all of this. Not just tonight.” For helping me feel less alone, even if neither of us has any clue what we’re doing.
“I have to admit that you were right—it’s been a lot more fun than I imagined it would be.”
“And we haven’t even robbed a bank yet.”
When he works to smooth out a wrinkle in his collar, I have to fight the urge to reach across the table and do it for him. There’s the tiniest sliver of tan skin beneath it, and I wonder if he’d be smooth or rough if I touched him there. Hypothetically.
