About the only thing Mom and Zeydeh agree on is the importance of family dinners. And—that Zeydeh should cook. Zeydeh is a gourmet, while Mom is still trying to perfect microwave popcorn. But tonight, she’d insisted on cooking dinner in honor of my first day of camp. Zeydeh said at least he would make a pot of matzo ball soup—homemade chicken broth with fluffy dumplings.
So the chicken breasts would be dry, the green beans would be mushy, the red potatoes would be half cooked, and the rolls would be burned on the bottom. But the soup would be great. The rich scent of carrots and chicken had spread through the house, and ever since I’d gotten home from camp, I’d been walking around sniffing and listening to my stomach growl.
Finally, Mom called us down, her face flushed from the oven with her hair pointing in six directions. She wore her hair in a bun almost every day. She said it was easier that way, but her hair was even straighter than mine. Strands kept popping loose and she was forever stuffing them back in the bun or behind her ears. Mom had natural beauty—which was lucky, because she rarely bothered to fix herself up.
Mom sat at one end of the oval table and Dad sat at the other. Dad is six feet, and the only one in our family with sandy-colored hair and blue eyes. In summer, he works outside so many hours, he gets weird tan lines from his sunglasses that make him look like a raccoon. Benny and I call him Skippy Raccoon. That’s actually his name—Skip.
He loves designing yards and picking out the right mix of trees, bushes, and flowers. He has a crew who can do the planting and maintenance, but he says he likes getting his hands dirty. Which they usually are.
Benny sits next to me. He’s going into seventh grade but still acts like a kindergartner. He has the curliest hair of all of us, and he slicks it back with this goop that smells like gym shorts after a week in a locker. You can always smell Benny coming.
Zeydeh sits across from Benny and me. Usually, he asks us both lots of questions about whatever, but not tonight. Tonight, he kept sipping the soup and then shaking his head. It had to be the contest. For five years, Zeydeh had been trying to win the Har Zion Cooking Contest. Har Zion is his synagogue, and he’d never finished better than second. This year, he was thinking about entering his matzo ball soup.
Mom passed me the potatoes. “So tell us—what do you think?”
“The soup is too salty,” Zeydeh said.
She shot him a look. “I was asking Ellie about camp.”
He shrugged. “Am I stopping you?”
She rolled her eyes and looked back at me. “So?”
“So, it was good.”
“That’s it? Just good?”
“Did they do the secret Christian handshake?” Zeydeh asked.
“I didn’t see any handshakes.”
“Exactly,” he said, pointing at me with his soup spoon. “That’s because it’s secret.”
I laughed and reached for a roll.
“Did you get recess?” Benny asked.
“Recess?” I peeled off the burned bottom. “We get forty-five minutes to eat and a ten-minute bathroom break in the afternoon.”
“You’re kidding,” he said. “What if you’ve got to pee?”
“You have to sign a waiver before camp relinquishing all rights to pee.”
His eyes widened a second, then narrowed. “Ha. Ha.” He stabbed a piece of chicken with his fork. “Sounds lame to me.”
“Anyone you recognize from speech tournaments last year?” Dad asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, a couple. You know how tournaments are. There are so many kids from different schools. Even if you break through to the later rounds, you never see everyone.”
“Maybe it’s the parsley,” Zeydeh said, smacking his lips together. “You think it’s the parsley?”
“The soup is wonderful,” Dad said.
“The parsley is perfect,” I added. I slurped up another spoonful.
Zeydeh shrugged off our compliments. I’d never seen him so tense.
“So what else about the camp?” Dad asked.
Mom shoved Benny’s napkin onto his lap. “Who’s going to be the toughest competition?”
I took another swallow of soup and set down my spoon. “There’s this guy named Devon Yeats.”
Mom’s eyebrows lifted. “Any relation to Doris Yeats? The one who offers the scholarship?”
I nodded. “Devon is her grandson. Apparently, he’s just moved here and he’s going to Benedict’s next year.” Megan had gotten the whole scoop from a girl in her class.
“And he’s good?” Dad asked.
“That’s the rumor, but it’s too early to tell. He’s smooth, though, I’ll give him that.”
“Does anyone else taste the salt, or is it only me?” Zeydeh asked.
“Would you stop already with the salt?” Mom snapped.
“Of course,” Zeydeh snapped back. “Don’t worry, my soup is a disaster. So what if I should lose the contest again and my name is not etched onto a plaque. Who needs immortality?”
“Zeydeh, the soup is great,” I said. I showed him my empty bowl to prove it.
He shrugged halfheartedly.
Mom’s bangs ruffled in the hot air she blew out. “For heaven’s sake,” she muttered.
“If you want, you can come and watch me perform during lunch this Friday,” I offered. “We’re doing a mini–mock tournament. I’m not sure what it’s about, but parents are welcome.”
“I wish I could,” Mom said. “I’ll be teaching summer school.”
Dad smiled at me. “The rest of us will be there. Right, Benny?”
“What?” Benny mumbled around a mouthful of food. “Who said I was coming?”
“Of course you’re coming,” Zeydeh said. “We’ll all go.”
Benny groaned and slouched in his chair.
“It’ll be fun,” Dad said. “We can see this Devon Yeats in action.”
Against my will, Devon’s eyes flashed in my mind … that moment when we’d locked eyes.
Mom suddenly leaned toward me. “Are you cold?”
“What?” I blinked. “No. Why?”
She rubbed my shoulder. “I could’ve sworn you just shivered.”
“Salt,” Zeydeh muttered. “It must be the salt.”