The needle scratches across the record. Everyone turns and stares.
He blushes. “I meant Christmas. She looks like Christmas.”
“You can’t tell a girl that she looks like a holiday,” Gen says.
“He was right the first time,” Hattie says. She’s standing on the periphery, as far away from Josh as possible. “You look like an old lady.”
“Isla.” Josh’s voice catches on my name. “You look beautiful.”
Because I see it in his eyes, I feel it in my heart. He takes my hand. His skin touches mine, and he’s real again. And then we lose restraint, and he sweeps me into an embrace and kisses my cheek. And then again. I hug him. He squeezes me too hard in return, but it’s wonderful and perfect and sublime.
Dad examines Josh with a renewed distrust. “When will you be home?” he asks me.
“I don’t know,” I say honestly.
“The gala is usually over by midnight, so she’ll be home no later than that,” Josh says. “Would you like to speak with Brian? He’s our driver-slash-security tonight.”
My dad brightens at the mention of security. He peeks through our curtains and then waves at someone down on the street. Brian, I assume. “That’s okay.” He scratches his thick beard, worries somewhat assuaged. “Midnight it is.”
I make a move for the front door. “Don’t want to be late.”
“Wait!” Gen holds up her phone. “Just one picture.”
“Two,” Maman says, reaching for her own.
I groan with embarrassment, but Gen cuts me off. “Oh, come on. It’s not every day that my little sis gets all dolled up.”
“What do you mean? Isla wears a stupid dress every stupid day,” Hattie says.
“Manhattan. Darling. Shut your mouth,” Maman says.
A dozen pictures later, Josh and I are out the door and in the hall. As soon as we turn the corner – away from the gaze of the keyhole – I throw my arms around his neck. He leans into me but quickly pulls back. “Your lipstick.”
“I don’t care.”
Josh pushes me against the wall. We kiss with everything we have, tasting each other, aching for each other. His lips are cracked with winter. He’s brushed his teeth recently, and his mouth is sharp and clean. His hands slide across my back and down my hips. Our kissing grows more intense, frenzied from longing. A tremor runs through my body into his, and he bursts apart from me, gasping for breath.
“Your parents,” he says. “They’ll be watching from the window. Waiting for us to appear.”
We stumble downstairs, laughing and hurrying. He wipes off the lipstick from his mouth, I wipe it off the skin around my mouth, and then we stroll out of the building as if we’ve been deep in conversation. I’m sure we look guilty as hell. I glance up to the window, between the bare limbs of the climbing rose, and Maman and Gen wave down happily. Dad gives a brisk nod. Hattie isn’t there.
A solid-looking man with stylish grey hair and a security earpiece opens the backseat door of a black town car. It’s the same man who took the package from me at Josh’s house over Thanksgiving. “Good evening, mademoiselle.”
“Oh! You’re Brian.”
He gives me a wide grin. “It’s nice to see you again. You look enchanting. Easy to see why our boy here talks of little else.”
I glance at Josh, pleased, and he shrugs in a “what did you expect?” way.
We climb into the car, but as Brian moves towards the driver’s side, Josh’s smile drops. “This isn’t my usual mode of transportation, you know.”
“I don’t know,” I tease. “Seems like the two of you spend a lot of time together.”
“Well, yeah, but usually at home. Or my dad’s office. I don’t want you to think that I’m always…chauffeured around like this. I take the subway.”
I soften. “It’s okay. I wasn’t judging you.”
“I know, I just—”
The driver’s side door opens, and Brian slides in with a surprising amount of elegance and pizazz. He turns out to be a great storyteller, which is helpful, because it keeps me from wishing that this posh car were even more posh – say, a limousine with a partition for privacy – because all I want to do is re-jump my boyfriend. Instead, I touch up my make-up. I don’t want to arrive looking like a dishevelled floozy. Even though that’s probably what his mother thinks about me anyway.
Brian wasn’t lying. He knows enough about me to ask if I’ve heard back from Dartmouth. He winks at Josh in the rear-view mirror, but Josh doesn’t notice. His eyes are only on me. I tell Brian the truth – I’m waiting to hear back from them. I still haven’t told Josh that I’ve heard from the other two schools. I still haven’t told him that, so far, the only school that wants me is in France.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the most European-looking structures in Manhattan. As Josh leads me towards the entrance, it feels as if we’ve time-travelled back to October. Back to Paris. The white facade, the gargantuan columns, the long steps. If only we were headed towards a date at the Musée d’Orsay and not this meet-the-parents extravaganza. If Josh’s mom is that intimidating, what will his dad be like?
Josh catches my expression and squeezes my arm. “You’ll do great.”
“Your parents hate me,” I say.
“They don’t hate you. They hate me.”
“Let’s go back to my place and make out in the hallway.”
He grins down at me. “This place has a lot of hallways.”
I’ve been here many times before, but the museum’s Great Hall is still impressive. The domes and arches of its grand entryway – so reminiscent of the Panthéon near our dorm – are decked with gold ribbons, swags of evergreens, and giant ornaments and baubles. The echoing hall is filled with a buzzing stream of men and women in black tie. I’m glad Maman helped me dress for the occasion. At least I have confidence there.
Josh hands our tickets to an elderly woman in pearls and a black spangled top, and then we follow the crowd towards the party in the Medieval Sculpture Hall. He leads me in a gentlemanly manner, adultlike and formal. The surrounding couples move in a similar fashion. They look as if this stilted sort of behaviour is routine, but it’s a first for us. I want to walk against him, wrapped into him, arms and hands entangled in one mess of limbs. This careful entrance only heightens my self-consciousness.
He guides me like this towards the distant sound of a string quartet – aside the main staircase, through a narrow room of Byzantine artefacts, through another room with a masterfully marble-carved altar canopy, and straight into the bustling Sculpture Hall. The room is larger and taller, though still not as big as I’d remembered. Banners of heraldry in mixed patterns of red, blue, yellow and white hang down on each side. Below them, the walls are covered in tapestries of stags and ladies in medieval garb. And in the centre of the room – the clear star of the collection – is a massive iron gate. From previous visits, I know it’s a choir screen from a cathedral in Spain.
Centred before the screen is an equally massive blue spruce surrounded by hundreds of crèche figures from the eighteenth century. The tree itself is covered in angels and cherubs and lights that look like candles. It’s dramatic, to be sure, but it’s also…stiff.
“Merry Agnostic Christmas,” Josh says. “Welcome to the most Jewish Christmas party in America.”
I smile.
“There.” He smiles back. “More of that.”
We scan between the alabaster sculptures for his parents. Best to get this over with. We find them along the edge of the room beside a rough-looking statue of a clown. When we get closer, I realize that the statue’s pointy red hat is a pope hat. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t say any of this out loud. I still feel stupid.
Josh’s parents have their backs to us. They’re holding glasses of white wine and conversing with a short man in perfectly round spectacles. “Judge Lederman,” Josh whispers in my ear. “New York Supreme Court.”
Yeah. Sure. No big deal.
“J
oshua.” The judge smiles and waves us over.
I try to act like it’s normal for a state supreme court judge to know my boyfriend on a first-name basis. Josh’s parents turn around. Their initial reaction is happiness, but it’s quickly masked by a demeanour better described as professionally pleased. With a layer of curiosity. And perhaps another layer of mistrust.
Josh guides me forward by the small of my back. I imagine that I look like a mouse, weak and easy to discard from the premises. “Judge Lederman,” Josh says. “It’s good to see you.” How bizarre to hear his interview voice being spoken live from his actual mouth. “This is my girlfriend, Isla Martin.”
The judge shakes my hand. “A pretty little thing you are.”
Gross. I smile. “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”
“Mom, you remember Isla,” Josh continues as if our last encounter wasn’t a shame-filled agonyfest. “Dad, I’d like to introduce you to my girlfriend. Isla, this is my father.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Senator.”
Wait. Was I supposed to call him Senator? Mr. Wasserstein? Senator Wasserstein? I should have said “sir”. Why didn’t I say “sir”? Oh no! I called the judge “sir”. Was I supposed to call him “your honour”, or is that only in court? But Josh’s dad smiles and reveals a comforting pair of familiar dimples. He pumps my hand. “Great to meet you. I’ve heard so many stories that I feel like I already know you.”
I’m taken aback. He sounds sincere, but…is he? It must be that practised politico charm. I hadn’t realized how lucky it is that our first meeting is in public. Josh’s father has to pretend like everything is cool, even if it’s not.
“Sam,” he says to Judge Lederman. “Isla studies abroad.”