After the service, during the reception, while everyone was eating miniature quiches and dancing to the Hora, Sophie walked over to the back row. Elena was still sitting there, alone, holding a crumpled napkin.
Are you really going to fake sick tomorrow?
No, Sophie typed. Then deleted it. Then typed: I don’t know. -No estas invitada a mi bat Mitzvah-
Maya snorted. “You’re her best friend. You tell her.”
“You’re being stubborn,” her older brother, Josh, said from the couch, where he was pretending to do homework but was actually watching her. After the service, during the reception, while everyone
“You’re still not invited,” Sophie said. “Not to the party.”
“You’re being a brat.”
Sophie Abramson had planned her bat mitzvah since she was nine. Not the Torah portion—that came later, with the sweating and the cracked voice and the tutor who smelled like dill pickles. No, Sophie had planned the guest list . In a pink marble notebook, she’d written names in order of importance, with little stars next to the ones who would get handmade invitations.
It felt good. Final. Like slamming a door. The weeks leading up to the bat mitzvah were a blur of Hebrew practice, dress fittings, and centerpiece arguments (Sophie wanted succulents; her mother wanted roses; they compromised on succulents with one single rose in the middle, which satisfied no one). Sophie didn’t think about Elena. No, Sophie typed
“I’m being principled.”
Two weeks before the big day, an invitation came in the mail. It was from Elena—to her bat mitzvah, scheduled for six months later. The envelope was addressed in Elena’s loopy handwriting, complete with a heart over the i in Sophie .