"If you don't knock next time, I'm going to take a picture of you while you're in the shower and e-mail it to your entire school."
"That's enough," Mr. Katz says, putting on his kippah and motioning for Ben to put his on, too.
In the kitchen, Jess and I help place soup bowls filled with matzoh ball soup on the table.
Mrs. Katz sets up two Shabbat candlesticks with candles in them and takes matches out of a decanter on the credenza. "Amy, would you like to do the honors?"
Me? I usually watch while Jessica or her mom lights the candles and does the Hebrew prayer. "Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
The entire room is silent as I clear my throat. Striking the match, I light both candles. When they're lit, I cover my eyes with my palms and say, "Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu, melech ha'olam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat. Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has made us holy through His commandments and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath light."
I take my seat at the table, abandoning the candles in the corner, when Mrs. Katz says, "Amy, did you make a wish?"
"A wish?"
"Yes, over the candles. It's our custom to do the prayer, then make a silent wish to God. Or a thank-you to God... whatever your heart feels like saying."
Standing up and walking back to the bright yellow burning candles, I cover my eyes again and think about what I want to say.
"Ask God for Ben to accidentally have his orthodontist wire his mouth shut," Jess says.
"Ask for Jess to grow boobs," Bens voice chimes in.
Ignoring both of them, I say to God, Please take care of my Sofia in Israel. She has cancer and needs your help. And also, thanks for giving me this family to have dinner with tonight so I'm not alone.
I look up, expecting everyone to be staring at me and to ask me what I wished for. But they're not; they respect my private Shabbat wish and thanks to God. I love Jessica and her family. Even Ben.
"I saw Amy's boobies upstairs," Ben says, then wags his eyebrows up and down at me.
Okay, maybe not Ben.
Mrs. Katz slams her hand on the table. "Can I please have a respectful Shabbat?"
"Listen to your mother," Mr. Katz says. He stands while picking up the silver Shabbat wine cup and pours the red wine until it's almost overflowing. "Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu, melech ha'olam, boray pri ha-gafen. Amen."
After he takes a sip from the cup, he passes it around for everyone else to take a sip. Ben puts on a big show of gulping down the wine, but then he coughs so it splatters across the white tablecloth.
Jess rolls her eyes, takes a sip, and passes the cup to me. I'm not a wine drinker, but this wine is so sweet it's like drinking sugary children's cough syrup.
Ben lifts the embroidered cloth cover off of the challah, the Shabbat bread which is expertly braided at the kosher bakery down the street. "Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu, melech ha'olam, ha-motze lechem min ha'aretz," he says, then makes a big show of singing, "Aaa, aaah, maaaaaaiiiiinnn."
Jess and I mumble, "Amen."
Ben tears a chunk of the challah off and tosses everyone a small piece from the chunk. I think he tried tossing it into my cle**age, but I'm not sure. And when it comes to tossing a piece to Jess, he whips it at her. I think the kid needs to go to therapy, or at least be locked up until he turns eighteen.
"How is the conversion class going, Amy?" Mr. Katz asks me as he takes a spoonful of matzoh ball soup.
"Good. Rabbi Glassman is really nice."
Mrs. Katz puts her hand over her husband's. "He married us, you know. Twenty-two years ago."
I wonder if Rabbi Glassman will officiate my wedding one day. Even though he's not Orthodox, he won't officiate a marriage between a Jewish person and a non-Jew.
He's kind of strict about that, even refused to marry his own sister because she married a Christian guy. I want to marry someone Jewish because I think it will head off lots of arguments. It's important that my kids are Jewish; it's important that my family doesn't eat pork or shellfish...or mix meat and milk products.
"Are you going to the youth group meeting tomorrow?" Mrs. Katz asks.
Jessica nods her head and says, "Are you coming, Amy?"
"I wasn't planning on it."
"You should go. It's fun."
After dinner, Jess and I convince her parents to let us go back to my place to crash. We spend the rest of the evening Ben-less, talking about boys and bras and books until we're tired. Then we take out ice cream from the freezer and watch movies on TV until I convince Jessica to call Mitch.
He isn't answering his cell, so she tries his house. Unfortunately, she gets reamed out by Mitch's dad for calling past eleven o'clock. He doesn't even tell her if Mitch is home or not.
What do two parentless teenagers do at eleven at night? I have a brilliant idea. "Let's call my cousin in Israel. It's eight hours ahead there."
Before Jess can tell me it's a horrible idea, I start dialing the gazillion digits to get access to the Israeli phone system. "Allo?" my Doda Yucky answers.
"Doda Yucky, it's Amy," I yell into the receiver.
"Ah, Amy'leh. Mah nishmah?" The woman thinks I'm fluent in Hebrew, but really my dad told me mah nishmah means "how is everything?" It's a staple phrase for Israelis.
"Great. Is Osnat there?"