Ben's Bakery and the Hanukkah Miracle

by Penelope Peters

  He was about to put the phone away when he had the idea.

  Finding the video on YouTube didn’t take long: just a couple of minutes of a few failed searches before it turned up. Three years ago, a crash on the ice during the finals for the American Cup Short Track Skating competition in Lake Placid. It wasn’t a long video – maybe five minutes. Adam had seen short-track before, and it was easy to pick out Ben at the front of the pack, easily ahead of nearly everyone else. He skated so smoothly that watching him was mesmerizing. Adam held his breath with every turn, even though it was clear that Ben knew exactly what he was doing and did it perfectly.

  It wasn’t boring, either – the kid on Ben’s tail was clearly anxious to overtake him and tried several times to pass him. Each time, Ben skillfully blocked him, gliding faster and faster with every attempt. The skaters behind jockeyed for third and fourth, but it was obvious that Ben was set to win the race – and according to the excited commentary, be the number one skater in America.

  The crash happened on the last turn. The kid tried one last time to pass Ben – the scrum of skaters behind tried one last time to solidify their positions in third and fourth – the field was dangerously tight for a moment—-

  Something happened in the scrum. A skater went flying.

  He skidded across the ice into the second-place kid who—

  Slid and knocked Ben’s legs out—

  Crashing into the boards at the side, a trail of blood smeared on the ice behind him.

  It happened so fast, no one had time to stop: they skated right past, through the trail of blood, leaving thin red dashes across the rest of the track, all the way to the end.

  But Ben was still flat out on the ice, unmoving.

  BEN HADN’T MEANT THE restaurant to serve as a test. He honestly hadn’t thought of it as anything at all, except that he knew they served really good food and were a casual place for a date. The kosher part had occurred to him after he’d thought of it.

  But Adam hadn’t seemed that concerned about it. If he had, Ben would have shrugged and tried to think of somewhere else they could go. Surely there were kosher restaurants somewhere in the city, though apart from the deli a few blocks away, Ben couldn’t think of any off-hand. And he didn’t want to take Adam to a deli. Not for a date, anyway.

  Ben had the bakery cleaned up and the morning items prepped well before Adam showed up at the door. It gave him enough time to take a quick shower and check that he looked presentable.

  Adam looked pretty good too: it was clear he’d gone back to the hotel and showered, given the way his hair was already starting to freeze a little bit. Ben hurried to unlock the front door to the shop and let him inside.

  “You could have come around the back,” he scolded Adam. “You do know how to get into my apartment.”

  Adam shook his head. “I wasn’t sure if the invite was one-time only.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “Oh, I think you’ll probably see my apartment again before you go.” Adam’s eyes widened a little, and Ben could feel himself flush. “If you want, anyway.”

  “Yes,” said Adam, low. For a moment, Ben thought about skipping dinner altogether – except his stomach was already rumbling. All he’d had for lunch was a blueberry muffin without enough crumble on top and therefore unfit for sale.

  “Then the sooner we start the date, the sooner we can end it,” said Ben, hoping he made it sound seductive. It must have worked, given the way Adam caught his hand and pulled him in for a kiss.

  “Starting out on the right foot,” murmured Adam against Ben’s lips.

  “Indeed.”

  There was a brisk wind coming off the Charles, enough that Ben’s nose was numb when they finally descended into the T station. Adam fumbled with his token, but they caught a train easily enough, and it wasn’t horrifically crowded either.

  “This is my favorite part,” said Ben as the train came up to cross over the river. The view of the city, bright against the nighttime sky, was magical.

  “I can see why,” said Adam. Ben flushed and pretended not to notice that Adam wasn’t looking at the view.

  The wind was just as brisk and chilly when they finally came out of the subway system. They tucked their hands into their pockets and leaned into the wind, silent against the onslaught.

  “It’s not far,” Ben told Adam.

  “Still warmer than Montreal.”

  “I went to Toronto once,” said Ben. “And Niagara Falls. But that’s the extent of my Canadian experience.”

  Adam twisted his lips, almost as if he was in pain.

  “I’m sure Montreal is lovely,” added Ben.

  “Sorry. I spend a lot of time with preteen boys,” said Adam grimly. “Sometimes I can imagine the sorts of things they’d say.”

  Ben grinned. “Are you my Canadian experience?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  Ben chuckled. “It’s not that I wouldn’t want to go. My parents went to Quebec City once and didn’t stop raving about the food for two months.”

  Adam laughed. “Yeah, I guess it’s not bad.”

  The restaurant was about half full, and to Ben’s relief, the waiter put them at a table midway back – not too close to the kitchen, not on display by the window.

  “So the kitchen’s not strictly kosher,” explained Ben as they flipped through the menu, “but they’re really flexible about dietary restrictions. I had a tea—ah, a friend who had issues with dairy and fish, and they were really great about making sure her food was always safe.”

  Adam nodded, studying the menu. So far, he was turning out to be the perfect date: friendly, showered, and willing to overlook Ben’s stupid mistakes, like almost mentioning that he’d had a teammate, which was sure to bring up all sorts of questions Ben didn’t want to answer. “That’s fine. I’m pretty flexible about eating out. Probably left over from my Q days.”

  “Q days?”

  Adam glanced up. “Oh – um. Junior league hockey. The minors.”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, dietary stuff makes traveling hard.”

  Adam smiled wryly. “Not just traveling. The Q is pretty serious stuff. My team was based out of Quebec City, so I boarded with another family. Catholic. Any aversions I had to a non-kosher kitchen, I got over ‘em real quick.”

  Ben couldn’t imagine the culture shock that must have been on both sides. “Must have been tough.”

  Adam shrugged. “It was that or not play. And I couldn’t not play.”

  “Were you good?”

  “Yeah.” Adam shifted in his chair, focusing on his menu and not Ben’s face. “That’s what everyone said, anyway. It was a long time ago. I haven’t played seriously in ten years.”

  The waiter returned for their orders and dropped off a basket of breadsticks. Ben resisted the urge to grab one and tear it into tiny pieces.

  Adam, he noticed, was very careful about questioning the waiter on his order, and seemed perfectly satisfied with the answers. He ended up ordering something vegetarian with lots of cheese, while Ben squirmed and despaired over how he’d already been making the conversation uncomfortable and weird.

  “Sorry,” Ben said when the waiter finally disappeared with their order. “I’m not very good at this.”

  “This?”

  Ben waved his hand around. “Dating. Working doesn’t really give me a lot of time to meet people.”

  “It can’t be easy, running your own business,” said Adam. “My mother talked about trying it sometimes, but she always said she was too busy to really make a go of it. And she was just talking about the occasional batch of cookies.”

  Ben smiled wryly. “I don’t know how good at it I am, honestly. Sheldon says I give away more things than I actually sell.”

  “I’m not sure I can trust the financial advice of a person who’s giving me a thousand dollars to take you out to eat.”

  Ben chuckled. “He really does know his stuff, though. He’s the only reason I’m still open. The previous owners
didn’t really do very well, so I didn’t inherit many customers. And then I made the prime stupid move of changing everything – including making the whole thing kosher-style.”

  “It wasn’t kosher before?”

  “No, that was my idea.”

  Adam folded his arms on the table and leaned in. “Can I ask why?”

  Ben chuckled. “Sure, but it’s probably the stupidest of reasons. The kitchen was in horrible shape when I took it over, so I decided to clean it from top to bottom. I’d been reading about the ritualistic cleaning before Passover, and stupid me thought, ‘Well, now’s the perfect time to try that.’ So I did. And since I’d gone through all of that...” Ben smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. It sounds worse when I say it out loud, that the whole reason I’m kosher-style is because I wanted to play with blow-torches.”

  Adam at least didn’t look horrified, just thoughtful. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve heard. And it does make sense from a logistics standpoint. It’s at least better than my first host mom buying me my own set of paper plates because she thought I wouldn’t eat off her dishes.”

  Which was horrifying. “Oh, no.”

  “She meant well,” added Adam. “She was actually a really nice lady; as soon as she found out I was Jewish, she did some research and asked around. She always went over the menu with me, and she never tried to serve me anything I wouldn’t have been able to eat. She kept all that stuff for when I was away for games.”

  “She sounds nice enough,” said Ben. “How many host families did you have?”

  “Three. The others weren’t so bad. One was vegetarian, which made most of the food rules moot. Except I felt guilty every time I went out for burgers with my team after the game.”

  Ben laughed. “How old were you when you left home?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Wow.” Ben leaned his chin on his hand. “I know lots of kids move away to pursue sports. I didn’t even much like the idea of leaving for college, honestly.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Oh, just Boston U. It was fine, I had a good time. Made friends, learned stuff, started working here. Well, at the bakery. The rest is history. I’m boring, honestly.”

  “I don’t think you’re boring,” said Adam.

  There was something about the way he said it: so honestly, so matter-of-factly. There couldn’t be any doubt that he wasn’t being anything but truthful.

  Ben could feel the joy ease through him, warm and hopeful.

  This feels good. I really like this guy. We could really...

  No, we couldn’t. He lives in Canada. The best I’ve got is a few more days.

  Well. I guess that just means I have to enjoy every minute.

  Ben smiled at Adam. If enjoying it meant fully committing to whatever this was – fling or re-emergence into life or whatever Sheldon was hoping Ben would do... then Ben would do it.

  Fully, completely, whole-heartedly.

  Somehow, he had the feeling Adam was going to make it easy.

  “Thanks,” Ben said.

  Adam’s forehead wrinkled. “For...?”

  Ben wasn’t sure how to put it in words. “I don’t know yet!”

  Adam laughed. “Well... then okay.”

  THE REST OF THE DINNER went a bit smoother – Adam attempted to explain the rules of hockey, even though it was obvious that Ben only pretended he understood them. Adam laughed at Ben’s increasingly ridiculous tale of how he came to make his own bagels because he couldn’t find any that held a candle to the ones he’d eaten on a trip to New York.

  Dinner was cleared away and the dessert menu refused when Adam finally realized that the customers were slowing down. He glanced at his watch, suddenly worried that his plan for a romantic ending to their date might be ruined just because they couldn’t stop talking – though that would at least have been a good excuse to skip it, too.

  Ben bit his lip. “Oh, Lordy, I wasn’t even thinking of the time. Did the boys give you a curfew?”

  He could have said it teasingly; it didn’t sound that way at all, as if it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that the boys could have enforced a curfew. Adam liked that.

  “It’s only nine,” Adam assured him. “I was thinking – do you want to go on a little walk, before heading back?”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Bernard, you sound like a man who has been planning.”

  Adam grinned. “Maybe a little. It’ll only take as long as you want it to.”

  “All right.”

  They tousled over the bill, agreed to split it, and donned their coats and hats for the walk. The wind had died down, so it wasn’t terrible, although Adam got turned around twice in the narrow streets until he finally had to give up and admit he had no idea how to get to their destination.

  “I figured,” laughed Ben. “Tell me where we’re going, and if I know it, I’ll lead the way.”

  “Boston Common,” said Adam, relieved. “Somewhat near the Public Garden?”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “This isn’t about feeding the ducks, is it? Because I think they’ve gone south for the winter.”

  Adam shook his head, electing to be mysterious. Ben led the way, with all the confidence Adam only pretended to have. Within minutes they had made their way out of the twisting North End and were walking down a more contemporary street to the wide expanse of green that made up Boston Common.

  “Does Montreal look anything like Boston?” asked Ben.

  “Parts of it,” said Adam. “The modern parts.”

  Ben nodded. “I think those always look the same. But maybe two hundred years ago, people said the same thing. One shiny building looks like another shiny building, and one brick building looks like another.”

  “The older parts look like Europe,” said Adam. “Or so I’m told. I’ve never been.”

  “I have,” said Ben, but he didn’t elaborate. His words were so clipped, Adam wasn’t sure he wanted to elaborate.

  “Where did you go?”

  “Finland. I don’t remember much, except it was cold.”

  Which was a good way of stopping further questioning, thought Adam, even if Adam hadn’t already seen the speed skating pictures on Ben’s wall and learned of Ben’s failed sports career from Sheldon.

  We thought we’d be seeing him in South Korea...

  “I’ve been to Israel,” offered Adam. “Several times. Pretty cliché, I know. Even my father said it was cliché. But we still went, because he loved it. Spiritual renewal, despite the trouble it took.”

  Ben smiled wryly. “My parents are planning to go next year. They want me to go with them, but I’m not sure I can afford to close the shop for that long.” He paused. “I don’t think it’s cliché, though. I mean, Muslims go to Mecca, right? It’s not cliché if you’re going to renew your faith. It’s... nice.”

  Adam glanced at him. “You should go with them, if you feel that way.”

  Ben laughed. “And maybe educate myself on the evils of lemon cream sufganiyot?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of that,” protested Adam. “I just think – if every Muslim should go to Mecca, every Jew should go to Jerusalem.”

  “And every Christian to Rome?”

  Adam shrugged. “Or Bethlehem, or Galilee. Wherever it takes to reconnect with their faith.”

  Ben hummed acknowledgement – but the hum came up short as they crested the hill and saw their destination.

  The ice skating rink was tiny in the large green space. It didn’t need to be very large; it was more tourist attraction than actual skating rink, meant for families out for a fun hour or two in the cold. Adam had seen rinks like it a dozen times or more, laughed about them with his friends, eschewed and ridiculed the people who went on them when there were much better ice rinks nearby where one could rent better skates for less money, and have nicer ice, too.

  Then again, he’d never taken anyone to an indoor rink for a date before. There was something a bit romantic about skating outside, hand-in-hand with
someone you wanted nearby.

  “Oh,” said Ben, coming to a stop. “I forgot they had this every year.”

  He sounded stilted, like he was picking his words very carefully. As if he was the one speaking a second language, and not Adam.

  “It’s only open for another hour,” explained Adam. “I wasn’t planning on doing anything more strenuous than laps.”

  Ben paused, and then took a deep breath that looked extremely fortifying. “Okay. Sure. A couple of laps.”

  Adam’s heart surged in his chest. “My treat. Well. Sheldon’s treat.”

  Ben’s laughter sounded forced. “Sheldon. Of course.” Coming from Ben, Sheldon’s name almost sounded like a curse.

  The skates were the terrible plastic variety that closed with snaps on the side instead of laces, but at least they had the correct sizes and were reasonably sharp. The ice wasn’t as awful as Adam feared, either; it helped that the Zamboni was finishing up what was probably its last round as Adam and Ben switched into the boots. There were lockers for their shoes and other belongings, but given how sparsely populated the rink was, both Adam and Ben decided to chance it and left their shoes under a bench.

  “It’s been a really long time since I’ve skated,” Ben warned Adam as they stood up. There were already a few people on the ice, a pair of kids and their mother, laughing as they slid around and tried to find their balance.

  “You can hold onto me,” Adam assured him.

  Adam stepped onto the ice first. It was still slick from the Zamboni, but there were plenty of dry patches already forming away from the entrance, which was always a lost cause. Despite the terrible boots, despite the glass-and-metal buildings that ringed the green, Adam felt exactly the thrill he always felt when he stepped on the ice: the heady anticipation that in a moment, he’d be zooming across, the scratch of metal under his feet, the wind in his hair, the adrenaline that came with leaning into the curve, a stick in his hand and the puck begging to be kissed.