“I had thought you had already done your interview,” Helena asked as she watched Alice make for the door.

“I did, I just have a few, uh, follow up questions,” Alice explained shouldering her purse. She smiled at Helena and told her she’d see her later before hurrying out the door.

“So, how did you meet this Leonard?” Her mother asked. Jenny cut the carrots slowly and thought about her first meeting with the publisher. She placed a bit of carrot in her mouth a chewed slowly.

“My writing teacher introduced us. She said I had great potential and he offered to read some of my work,” she explained munching thoughtfully. She thought it was nice, though, making dinner with her mother. She had called some of their relatives over when Jenny had finally made it back to New York.

“Such an occasion demands a feast,” her mother had said. She looked over at her mother busily making Challah with Jenny’s Aunt Lucinda. They were laughing over something Lucinda had just said in Hebrew and Jenny had found herself wishing she had payed more attention to her studies as a child.

Jenny took it in as her family busied themselves in the kitchen, her cousin egging her on. “Is he handsom? This Leonard?” Jenny smiled and cut the carrots carefully again showing her ineptability when it came to the task. She held the knife in a death grip and forced through the carrot awkwardly.

“I suppose, he’s not bad looking at least,” she commented. Her cousin, Esther, grinned and pretended to dance with the potatoes she was carrying.

“If I could meet a handsome man who thought I had potential,” she went on dancing in circles.

“Then he would wake up and realise he was confessing his love to Kugel which we won’t have if you keep dancing about the kitchen like a lunatic,” Aunt Lucinda commented and threw a tea towel at her. “Our Jenny would not do such nonsense,” Aunt Lucinda finsished.

Jenny’s mother shook her head. “No, Jenny is my good girl. My sweet Bubeleh. She would not run of with some paper writing fool at a drop of a beanie,” she said. Jenny grinned.

“Hat, mom.” she corrected.