Chapter One, Jamie.
Oranges don't have nipples, says Sophie.
I park our cart by the display pyramid,
pointedly ignoring her.
You could say there's a part of me that
doesn't want to discuss nipples with my
12-year-old sister in
the Target produce section.
And that part of me is all of me.
They're tangelos, Sophie adds.
Tangelos have.
Good for tangelos,
I tear a plastic bag off the roll.
Look, the sooner we get everything,
the sooner we can leave,
which isn't a diss on Target.
No way, Target's the best.
It's kind of my personal wonderland.
But it's hard to catch that
anything could happen, big box,
general merchandise vibe when I'm
here as my cousin's errand boy.
Gabe is the assistant campaign manager for
a special election in our district.
And he never seems to run out of
random jobs for Sophie and me.
This morning, he texted us
a snack list for his volunteers.
Oranges, grapes, chocolate, pizza bagels,
Nutri-Grain bars, water bottles,
no apples, no pretzels,
all caps, in true Gabe fashion.
Apparently, crunchy foods and
political phone banking don't mix.
Still think they look nipply,
Sophie mutters as I reach for
a few tangelos near
the top of the pyramid.
I like the ones that are so
bright they look photoshopped, as if
someone cranked up the color saturation.
I grab a few more because Gabe's expecting
at least ten volunteers tonight.
Why does he even want oranges?
Sophie asks.
Like, why pick the messiest fruit?
Scurvy prevention, I start to say.
But two girls step through
the automatic doors, and
I lose my train of thought completely.
Listen, I'm not the guy who can't
function when a cute girl walks by.
I'm really not.
For one thing, that would imply I was
a functional person to begin with.
Also, the issue isn't that they're cute.
I mean, they are cute,
around my age, dressed for
Georgia summer air conditioning
in zipped up hoodies and jeans.
The shorter one, white with square-framed
glasses and brown spiral curls,
gestures emphatically with both
hands as they approach the carts.
But it's her friend who
keeps catching my eye.
She's South Asian, I think,
with wide brown eyes and wavy dark hair.
She nods and
grins at something her friend says.
There's just something so
familiar about her.
I swear, we've met before.
She looks up suddenly, like she senses
me staring, and my brain stalls out.
Yep, yep, okay,
she's definitely looking at me.
My friend Drew would know what to do here.
Eye contact with a cute girl.
A girl I'm pretty sure
I know from somewhere,
which means there's a built-in
conversation topic.
And we're in Target,
the definition of my comfort zone,
if there's even such a thing as a comfort
zone when cute girls are involved.
Dude, just talk to her.
I swear to God, it's not that deep.
I wonder how many times
Drew said that to me.
Eye contact, chin up, smile, walk over.
Okay, Mr. Heart Eyes, Sophie nudges me,
I can't tell which girl you're looking at.
I turn quickly back to the tangelo
display, cheeks burning as I grab
one from the bottom of the pyramid,
and everything comes crashing down.
First, the pyramid trembles,
followed by the thwack, thwack,
thwack of oranges raining to the floor.
I turn to Sophie, who claps both hands
over her mouth and stares back at me.
Everyone's staring at me.
A mom pushing her baby in a cart.
The guy manning the bakery.
A kid, pausing mid-tantrum near
the packaged cookie display.
Of course,
the two girls are front and center.
They stand frozen by their cart
with matching uh-oh expressions.
Thwack, thwack, thwack, and
again, without pause, and
thwack, the last tangelo falls.
I'm a cartoon character, Sophie finishes.
Okay, yeah, I can fix this.
I squat down right where I'm standing and
start passing tangelos up to Sophie.
You take these.
I tuck a few more into the crook of
my arm and attempt to stand, but
I drop a bunch of them before
I'm even upright, crap.
I bend to grab them,
which sends a few more tumbling down,
rolling toward the apple display, which
you'd think wouldn't happen with tangelos.
Shouldn't the nipples
keep them from rolling?
I scoot on my knees
toward the apple display,
hoping nothing slid too far under,
when someone clears his throat loudly.
Okie-dokie, my dude,
let's keep you away from the apples.
I look up to find a clean cut guy in a red
polo shirt and a Target name tag, Kevin.
I scramble up, immediately squishing
a tangelo beneath my sneaker.
Sorry, I'm sorry.
Hey, Sophie says, Jamie, look at me.
She's holding her phone up.
Are you filming me?
Just a little Boomerang, she says.
She turns to Kevin, the employee, meet my
brother, Butterfingers Von Klutzowitz.
I'll help you clean this, I say quickly.
No, you're totally fine,
I got this, says Kevin.
Sophie peers down at her phone.
How do you send stuff to BuzzFeed?
Out of the corner of my eye,
a flicker of movement.
The girls in hoodies veering
quickly down a side aisle.
Getting the hell away from me, I guess.
I don't blame them one bit.
20 minutes later, Sophie and
I park at the Jordan Rossum State Senate
campaign satellite headquarters.
Technically, the side annex of Fawkes and
Horntail,
a new-age bookstore on Roswell Road.
Not exactly the Georgia State Capitol
building, or
even the Coverdell Building across
the street, where mom works for
state Senator Jim Matthews
from the 33rd District.
The whole state capitol
complex looks plucked from DC,
with its columns, and balconies,
and giant arch windows.
They've got security teams at
the entrances, like an airport.
And once you're in, it's all heavy
wooden doors, and people in suits, and
fidgety groups of kids on field trips,
and those bright,
gleaming Coverdell Building bathrooms.
I know all about those bathrooms.
No suits or
security teams at Fawkes and Horntail.
I cut straight to the side access door,
hoisting two dozen bottles of water,
while Sophie trails behind
me balancing the snack bags.
We're here so much,
we don't even bother knocking.
Hey, bagels, greets Hannah,
the assistant field coordinator.
She means us, not the snacks.
There's a bagel chain in
Atlanta called Goldberg's.
And since we're Jamie and
Sophie Goldberg, people sometimes, yeah.
But Hannah's cool, so I don't mind it.
She's a rising junior at Spelman.
But she's staying with her mom
in the suburbs this summer,
just to be near the campaign office.
She looks up from her desk, which is
stacked high with canvassing flyers.
The ones Gabe calls walk pieces.
Is this for the phone bankers tonight?
Y’all are the best snack team ever.
It was mostly me, Sophie says,
handing her the snack bags.
I'm like the snack team captain.
Hannah, halfway across
the room with the snacks,
looks back over her shoulder and
laughs, except I drove, I mutter.
I pushed the cart, carried all the water.
But it was my idea, Sophie jabs me
with her elbow and smiles brightly.
Mom literally made us.
Okay, well I’m the one who
didn’t knock over a display, so.
Hannah walks back over and
settles into her desk, hey,
y'all are coming tomorrow night, right?
Believe me, Sophie says, we'll be there.
Mom never lets us miss Rossum
campaign events these days.
Lucky us.
They're all the same.
People milling around with plastic cups,
making overly familiar eye contact.
Me forgetting everyone's names,
the moment I hear them.
And then everyone gets super
extra when Rossum arrives.
People laugh louder, angle toward him,
sidle nearer to ask for selfies.
Rossum always seems a little
startled by the whole thing.
Not in a bad way,
more like in a who me kind of way.
It's his first time running for office.
So I guess he's not used
to all that attention.
But the thing about Rossum is
that he's amazing with people,
I mean, his platform is great too.
He's super progressive, and he's always
talking about raising the minimum wage.
But a lot of it's just the way he speaks.
He can give you goosebumps,
or make you laugh, or
make you feel purposeful and clear.
I always think about the people who
shake the world with their words.
Patrick Henry, Sojourner Truth,
John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King.
I know Rossum’s just a guy running for
state senate, but
he makes it all feel huge.
He makes this race feel like a moment,
a brand-new dot on Georgia’s timeline.
He makes you feel like you’re
watching history change.
I can't imagine being able to do that.
Tomorrow’s event is an interfaith
outreach dinner at a local mosque,
which means mom’s extra excited.
We aren’t the most observant
Jews in the world, but
she lives for this kind of
religious community-building stuff.
Should be fun, says Hannah,
opening her laptop.
But then she stops short,
glancing back up at us, right,
you need snack reimbursement, don’t you?
Gabe’s in the VIP room, I’ll grab him.
The VIP room?
A supply closet.
Hannah emerges moments later,
followed by Gabe,
who’s wearing a crisp
blue button-down shirt,
with a picture of Jordan Rossum’s
face stickered onto his chest.
People sometimes say Sophie and
I look like Gabe, since he’s tall and
has brown hair and hazel-green eyes.
But he’s got bigger lips and
archier eyebrows and
a weird sprouting pseudo-beard
he’s always working on.
And he’s 23, which is a solid six years
older than me, so I don’t really see it.
Gabe clasps his hands and grins,
I was wondering when I'd
see your faces around here.
We were here on Monday, Sophie says.
And Sunday, I add.
He’s unfazed, you’ve been missing
out on some sweet canvassing action.
You should sign up for a slot,
or maybe you could swing by for
phone banking tonight?
It's gonna be lit!
He pitches his voice high when he says it,
tilting his palms up like
he’s about to raise the roof.
I sneak a glance at Sophie, who seems
caught between laughing and choking.
So are you in?
Gabe asks.
Russum needs you.
This time I glance down at my feet.
I wanna help Gabe, but
I'm not a phone-banking kind of person.
Envelope stuffing?
Absolutely.
Postcards?
Even better.
I’ve even sent out what Gabe
calls peer to peer text messages,
though anyone old enough to vote is,
by definition, not my peer.
Of course, the thing that throws
me the most is canvassing.
I'm not exactly great at
talking to strangers.
And I don't just mean cute girl strangers,
it's everyone.
I get really in my head about it.
And thoughts never seem to travel
smoothly between my brain and my mouth.
I'm not like Sophie, who can walk
into any room, befriend anyone,
join any conversation.
It's not even something she tries to do.
Sophie is just fundamentally
not self-conscious.
Like she farted on the school
bus once in fifth grade and
was downright giddy about it afterward.
Being embarrassed didn't
even occur to her.
If it were me,
I'd of shriveled up on the spot.
Maybe some people are just destined
to always say the wrong thing.
Or no thing, because half the time,
I just stammer and blush and
can barely form words.
But hey,
better that than the alternative, which,
as I now know, involves phlegm,
a touch of vomit,
and State Senator Mathews’s
black oxford shoes.
Let's just say, I'm not the master of
persuasion you want on the frontlines
of your political campaign.
I'm not a history changer.
I don't know, I shake my head, I'm just.
It's super easy, Gabe says,
clapping me on the shoulder.
Just follow the script.
Why don’t I put you down for
phone banking tonight, and
we’ll find you a canvassing
slot while you’re here?
We have Hebrew school, Sophie says.
Sweet, Big J, I didn’t know
you were still taking Hebrew.
I'm not.
Sophie cuts her eyes toward me,
lips pursed.
The patented
Sophie Goldberg STFU Jamie Face.
Jamie is taking Hebrew, she says loudly,
because he needs a refresher so
he can quiz me on my haftorah portion.
I nod really fast, haftorah, yep.
Dang, Gabe says, that’s a good brother..
He is, and I'm a good sister,
Sophie says smacking my arm,
an extremely good sister, too good.
I glance at her sideways.
You have your moments, I say.
Karma though, wow.
Sophie may have been lying about
Hebrew school tonight, but
from the moment we step through
the kitchen door, it’s clear.
We're in Bat Mitzvah planning hell.
My mom and grandma are huddled at the
kitchen table in front of mom’s laptop.
I mean, that's not the weird part.
Grandma's always here.
She moved in with us when I was nine,
right after my grandpa died.
And the huddled-over-a-laptop part’s
not weird either, since mom and
Grandma are both big-time tech geeks.
Mom runs campaign analytics sometimes for
Senator Matthews, and obviously Grandma
is our resident social media queen.
But the fact that mom’s working from home
in a bathrobe at 4 in the afternoon is
concerning.
As is the way Boomer, grandma's mastiff,
is pacing nervously around the table.
Not to mention the fact that the table
itself looks like a paper apocalypse
strewn with centerpiece mock ups,
printed spreadsheets, washi tape,
binders and tiny envelopes.
I'd say there's a 0% chance I'm making it
out of the kitchen tonight without a stack
of place cards to fold.
Sophie dives in.
New RSVPs.
Soph, let grandma pull up
the spreadsheet first, mom says,
reaching for a large binder.
Also, I need you to look at this floor
plan so we can think about the flow.
We'll mostly be in the ballroom with
the dance floor there, the tables here.
Then we have two options for the buffet.
One, we can stick it on the side near the,
Tessa Andrews accepts with pleasure.
Sophie slams a card down happily.
Hell yes.
Sophie, don't cuss, says mom.
Sophie tilts her head.
I don't really think of
hell as a cuss word though.
It's a gateway cuss, I say,
settling in beside mom.
Boomer parks his chin in my lap,
leaning in for a head scratch.
Here, I've got the spreadsheet pulled up,
says grandma.
Sophie, are you listening?
Says mom.
Now the other option for the buffet is
this bonus room at the back of the venue.
But is it not weird having the food
that close to the restrooms?
I shrug, at least it's convenient.
Jamie, don't be gross, Sophie says.
My God, for hand washing.
Mom rubs her temples.
I'd like us to utilize the space
since we'll be paying for it anyway.
But, hey, Sophie perks up.
What about a teen room?
Mom narrows her eyes.
But Sophie raises a finger.
Hear me out.
It's a thing.
You've got the adults,
all of your friends, family.
You all get the nice party
in the ballroom, right?
And then we get our own super chill
smaller party in the other room.
Nothing fancy.
That's ridiculous, says mom.
Why wouldn't you wanna be with family?
I'm just concerned about some of the music
being a bit much for the old people.
This way y'all can play shout or
whatever in here.
She pokes the middle of
the ballroom on the floor plan.
And then we can have Travis Scott,
and everyone's happy.
Travis Scott?
Now, isn’t that Stormi’s dad,
says Grandma.
We’re not having two separate parties,
says mom.
Then why’d you ask my opinion?
Says Sophie.
Why am I even here?
Why am I even here?
I mutter to Boomer who
gazes back at me solemnly.
I mean, let's be real.
Mom didn't even want my input
when it was my own bar mitzvah.
I didn't even get to pick my own theme.
I wanted historical timelines,
mom made me do around the world,
with chocolate passports for favors.
I guess it ended up being sort
of cool in an ironic way,
since I've only been to one other country.
My dad's been living for
years as an expat in Utrecht.
So Sophie and I spend a few weeks
in the Netherlands each summer.
Other than that,
we don't talk to him much.
It's hard to explain, but when he's
physically present, he's present.
He takes off work when we visit and
everything.
But he's not really a phone guy or
a text guy.
And he's barely an email guy.
And he's only been back to the states
a handful of times since the divorce.
I doubt he'll come to Sophie's bat
mitzvah, especially with it scheduled so
close to our summer trip.
He skipped mine,
though he did mail me a congratulatory
box of authentic Dutch stroopwafels.
I didn't have the heart to tell him they
sell the exact same brand at Kroger.
Jamie's toast, my mom says.
I jolt upright, startling Boomer.
My what?
You're giving the pre-challah toast at
the reception, and the hamotzi of course.
No, I'm not.
My stomach drops.
Come on, it will be good for you.
Mom ruffles my hair.
Great speaking practice and
pretty stress free, right?
It's just family and Sophie's friends.
You want me to give a speech in front
of a roomful of middle schoolers?
Is that really so intimidating?
Asks mom.
You're going to be a senior.
They're not even freshmen.
I shake my head.
That sounds like hell.
Jamie, don't gateway cuss, says Sophie.
Grandma smiles gently.
Why don't you think about it, bubula,
it's not all middle schoolers.
Drew will be there.
Philippe and his fellow will be there.
Your cousins will be there.
No, mom rests her hand on my shoulder.
We're not doing the negotiation thing.
Jamie can step out of his comfort zone for
Sophie.
She's his sister.
Yeah, I'm your sister, chimes Sophie.
This isn't a normal brother thing.
Where are you even getting this?
If anything,
you should be giving the toast.
Andrea, Jacob's sister gave a toast,
Sophie says.
And Michael Gerson's brother,
and Elsie Feinstein's brother,
though I guess he just said, mazel tov and
then belched into the microphone.
Don't do that.
Hey, maybe you could do
your toast in verse.
I stand abruptly.
I'm leaving.
Jamie, don't be dramatic, says mom.
This is a good opportunity for you.
I don't respond.
I don't even look back.
I can't.
I'm sorry.
No offense to Sophie.
Trust me, I'd love to be the awesome
brother who can get up there and
be just the right balance
of sentimental and funny.
I wanna charm all her friends and
say all the right things.
Sophie probably deserves
a brother like that.
But the thought of standing in front of
a packed ballroom trying to form words and
not choke, or have a coughing fit,
or burn the whole banquet hall down.
It's impossible.
It's a job for some other Jamie,
and unfortunately, I'm just me.
