My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories(68)

“Thought what? That I was big city?” Then he looked up at her and something in her expression must’ve given her away. “Oh,” he said. “You thought I was a jock on scholarship.” His tone was still light, but a little guarded now. His version of a just kidding.

“Sorry,” she said. And she was. More than that. A bit devastated. Somehow Sophie had gotten it into her head that she and this guy had something in common. The optimism that had been speeding along all night crashed into a brick wall.

“Nothing doing,” Russell said, his expression saying otherwise. “Lemme guess. Basketball.”

Sophie had lost the thread of conversation. “What?” she asked. “Oh, right, I guess.”

Russell made a sound, kind of like a cough. Sophie snapped to, looking up at him. She expected anger or derision but it was worse than that. He was like a Christmas tree after you unplugged the lights. Sophie had joined the ranks of dumb commenters. She had let him down. Part of her wanted to explain why she’d thought that, and how she really hadn’t, and to tell him about her black best friend and growing up in Brooklyn and all her big-city (urban) bona fides. But she didn’t. Because somehow, he had let her down, too.

*

Just as the evening spectacularly stalled, Lorraine arrived with all the food stacked up her arms. Pie with cheese. Pie à la mode. Hash browns with applesauce. Only instead of sour cream, she brought cottage cheese. Figures, Sophie thought.

The food just sat there, cooling on the table between them. Sophie was desolate, miserable, and terribly homesick all of a sudden. This had to be the worst What the Hell Have You Done, Sophie Roth? moment so far.

She’d come here for knowledge but Sophie felt herself growing dumber by the minute. Case in point, what had just happened. It wasn’t as if she was unaccustomed to being around rich people, all kinds of rich people. Though her neighborhood had been gritty and cheap when her mother leased their rent-stabilized apartment before Sophie was born, over the years it had gentrified. When Sophie was ten, a family bought one of the nearby brownstones and gutted it before moving in. They had a daughter, a girl Sophie’s age named Ava, who quickly became one of Sophie’s close friends. Over the years, Ava always offered to pay for Sophie, for her movies, for her dinners, for weekends away. At first the gestures—BFF subsidies, Ava called them—had been sweet, but then they had stopped feeling sweet and had only made Sophie hyperaware of what she lacked. She started declining the subsidies. Ava carried on offering. Sophie started resenting her for it. Sophomore year they’d had a huge falling out. “I’m not a Neediest Cases,” Sophie had screamed. The offers stopped. And the friendship died soon after. Sophie felt bad about it, but was never sure how to repair things.

She wasn’t sure how to repair things now, either, but as the food sat there untouched, a glaring reproach, she knew she had to. Russell had already rescued the first half of the evening. Not just by making her laugh and getting her away from a possible sweater orgy, but by giving her some space to be herself again. She hadn’t realized how much she needed that. Of all the things and people she missed lately, it was odd to find herself at the top of the list.

She took a deep breath and out of the silence said: “What I was going to say before was that I thought you were like me.”

He looked at her again, which was something, but it was clear from his foggy expression he didn’t get what she meant.

So Sophie told him what she hadn’t told anyone else here, though she knew it was nothing to be ashamed of. It was something to be proud of.

“I’m on scholarship. I guess I thought—hoped—that if you were too, it meant you might be like me.”

The silence between them stretched. Sophie wasn’t sure her admission had done anything to save the night, though it had righted something in her. But then Russell said, “Who says I’m not?”

He slid the cheesy pie across the table toward her. She was unsure if this was a challenge or an olive branch. Either way, she picked up her fork, and though the pie looked profoundly unappetizing—the cheese had bubbled into a blister—she took a small, tentative bite.

And. Oh. My. God.

The sharp tang of the cheddar brought out the hint of savory in the crust, and contrasted with the sweetness of the apples. And then there was the collage of consistencies: gooey, crumbly, juicy, all of it warm.

She took another forkful, larger this time. Russell watched her. He seemed amused. She took a third bite. Now he was smiling, a sort of shit-eating grin.

“What?” Sophie asked.

“Thinking I won that bet,” Russell said.

*

They demolished the pie and most of the hash browns. They weren’t too bad with the cottage cheese, after all. Pretty soon all that was left was a sad lump of ice cream. When the check came, Sophie reached for her bag. Russell shook his head.

“I was planning on paying when I thought you were rich, so wouldn’t it be patronizing to let you split it now?”

Sophie laughed at that. “Wait, you thought I was rich?”

Russell quirked an eyebrow and attempted to look bashful.

“So, does that make us even?” she asked.

“Not really keeping score,” Russell said. “But it does make things interesting.” He laid a pair of twenties on the table.

“Thank you,” Sophie said. “For everything. But especially for the latkes. Those will probably be my only ones this year.”