The girl drew back and looked at him, then at their little group, her gaze deliberately rounding the table from one blond head to the next, and finally to Lewyn, on which it lingered.
“First Seder?” She grinned, as if she didn’t know the answer.
“I got permission,” was all he could think to say.
“And I gave it, if you’re who I think you are. Six people, no vegetarian, no gluten-free. Right?”
“I’m gluten-free, actually,” said O’Something, and Mark said, “Dude, you should have told Lewyn!” But the girl was already off to the next table with the salad bowl in her other hand. She was short, with wildly curling dark hair. Lewyn stared after her.
The boys fell upon the food: brisket after the soup, and asparagus, and potato kugel. Mark put charoset on his meat. Jonas took a bit of matzo, made a face, and asked if there were any dinner rolls instead.
“No rolls,” said Lewyn. “No bread.”
“Maybe in the kitchen?” said Mark.
“No, no.” Lewyn was shaking his head. “You can’t bring bread in here.”
“Why not?” said Jonas.
Lewyn’s head hurt. It was like having to explain gravity.
Then the rabbi switched on her mic and the lost afikomen was invoked.
For the next ten minutes, the room erupted in childlike glee, as roughly half of its occupants leapt to their feet and tore around the building’s ground floor. Lewyn, who seemed incapable of motion, listened to the sounds they made, the yelped encouragement as curtains were pulled aside, books displaced along the bookshelves. Then, a jolt of victorious laughter from the other side of the doorway as a knot of ZBT brothers returned, bearing their prize. This they presented to the rabbi, with a promise that the ransom would be donated to the Jewish Peace Fellowship, so she should feel free to double it. The negotiation continued for a few good-natured minutes, with a circle of cheerleading onlookers.
“I don’t get this,” said Mark.
“Wait,” said Sawyer. “Are they doing a deal or something?”
“Technically it’s a ransom.”
The girl in the blue sweatshirt was back. Lewyn looked up into her face. She was laughing through her disapproval.
“Didn’t you prep these guys?” She stood between Jonas and Mark. She was so little, she barely rose above their very blond heads. “Never mind, we’re all strangers in a strange land. All away from home, so we try to make it fun. Witness the stampede of regressed adults crawling under the tables. You didn’t want to try?”
“I didn’t realize,” said the Virginian, with what looked like real regret. “But you know, I’d have felt bad if I’d been the one who found it.”
The girl raised an eyebrow. “Non-Jewish guilt,” she said. “How refreshing.”
“Is it over now?” Mark asked, and the girl shook her little head.
“No. There’s a bit more. You should stay if you can.”
“Of course we’re staying!” he assured her. “I wouldn’t miss a minute. It’s a privilege. So grateful to all of you. And Lewyn, of course.”
All of them looked at Lewyn, then. All of them. He felt himself get hot, as if someone had turned a knob at his ankle and the flame climbed upward: knee, hip, breastbone, temple. He stared helplessly at his plate, with its unlovely smear of brisket and carrot, feeling faint and ill and thinking, as had always been his curse, of how much better his brother and sister would be parrying this absurd combination of circumstances. As for the boys—his friends, he supposed—they looked on in bland affability. Jonas even clapped him on the back. And she slipped away again.