cups of grape juice and slices of challah, laughing, so at ease with each other.
My fingers twitch for my phone, for the hundreds of messages that have most likely accumulated in my group chat with Amy, Elle, and Samira. Our chats are always most active once the weekend begins because school is now, in fact, a thing.
Molly makes eye contact with me and smiles. I look away, embarrassed she caught me watching them. When I glance back in the general direction of their table, Nash is gone and Molly is in motion, walking toward Ollie and me.
“Halle!” Molly leans in for a hug like we’ve known each other forever, not just a week. I’m still sitting. Should I stand? I can’t decide, so I wrap one arm awkwardly around her, turning it into a weird sort of half hug. “We’ve been waiting for you to come over and say hi!”
I step out of the awkward hug and blink. Molly and Nash were so deep in their conversation, there didn’t seem to be a moment to interrupt. Also—I don’t believe Molly. There’s no way they were thinking of me before I awkwardly made eye contact.
“Hi, Molly,” Gramps says, fondness in his voice.
“Hey, Professor Levitt,” Molly says. For a second, I expect Molly to hug Gramps—but she just smiles at him. “How are you?”
Gramps nods. “I’m glad you’ve met Halle.”
“Oh yeah! We have a lot of classes together. Didn’t she tell you?”
I did not. In all fairness, though, it’s not like Gramps asked.
“I’m Ollie,” Ollie says with a small wave, pulling focus.
Once again, Ollie is my hero.
“Hey! Nice to finally meet. You have classes with Talia Davidson, right?”
Davidson. Sawyer’s sister?
Ollie nods. “We’re the only sophomores in pre-calc.”
Molly sits in the empty seat next to me. “Right! Mr. Benson is tough, but he grades on a curve. I still have my notes, if you need them.”
Ollie looks surprised. “That’d be great.”
“Of course!”
Gramps coughs. “You kids good here? Don’t want the boys to feel like I’m ditching them for a cooler crowd.”
By the boys, Gramps means a group of men seventy and over, all in patterned button-down shirts, kippahs on top of their gray and/or bald heads, who seem to be saving a space for him in their circle. It’s kind of adorable and exactly why I’m glad I came tonight.
“We’re good,” Molly answers for us.
Gramps excuses himself and Molly turns her attention back to me, tucking a flyaway curl behind her ear. “It’s so cool you’re here. I mean, I assumed you were Jewish because your grandpa is, like, in the brotherhood. But also, you can’t assume anything, right?”
I nod. “Right.”
“You should definitely join USY. I’m on the executive board of the local chapter. We’re doing a beach cleanup in two weeks with a few other Jewish communities across the state—you should totally come!”
Ollie and I look at each other. What’s USY? Other Jewish communities? We’ve never had a Jewish community.
It’s always just been another thing that has sort of isolated me. In Charlotte, I was the only Jewish kid in my entire class. The only one whose mom and dad forced us to skip school on the high holidays. But here, school is closed for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I didn’t even know some schools did that, that some areas are overwhelmingly Jewish and actually care about their Jewish population.
“Maybe,” I say, ripping my challah into smaller pieces.
“Awesome,” Molly says, like maybe means yes. “I’m trying to get my sister Sarah to come home for it. She’s a sophomore at Boston University. It’s right before the high holidays, so I figured she’d be coming home anyways. But she doesn’t want to celebrate them this year. It’s honestly bizarre.”
Molly takes a sip of grape juice.
“You have an older sister?” I ask.
Molly swallows. “Two. But Rebecca is doing her PhD at Oxford, so, like, that’s obviously not happening. It’ll be the first high holidays without my sisters.”
“It’s our first away from our parents,” I say. “If that makes you feel better.”
Molly smiles at me and tips her cup so it clinks mine. “Solidarity.”
I smile back. I like Molly. It’s easy being around someone who does all the talking.
“Hey.” Nash is suddenly standing above us with a plate of cupcakes. My cupcakes. “I come with cupcakes. Which is pretty nice of me, considering I was totally abandoned.”
The calm I felt moments ago, clinking cups with Molly? It’s gone.
Molly rolls her eyes at the word abandoned and pats the empty seat next to her for