Had Kayla been expecting to tag along with her today? But… she always spends Purim with her friends

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lla’s mishloach manos are packed in Lucite boxes with four custom cupcakes in each, a glass Coke bottle tied with a swath of fabric ribbon. Tzippy’s is an all-green concoction — “everything green I could find in the candy aisle,” in her own words. Shoshana hands out gift bags, every item inside labeled with a little poem to fit her theme. Cool.

Other years, Mimi’s baked something for her friends’ mishloach manos, but life is so busy these days. She’d found a set of mugs with friendship quotes, though, and filled them with chocolate and marshmallows. Comfort food for comfortable friendships, nice, easy, done.

When they finish inspecting each other’s masterpieces, oohing and aahing and thanks soooo much, Mimi and her friends amble over to Tzippy’s place. It’s always busy there, and on Purim, it’s a veritable action station: siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews; Tzippy’s mother’s students and the families belonging to her father’s kollel; music and nosh and friends and neighbors and a wide-open door.

From the kitchen, where they’re helping Tzippy’s mother prepare the seudah, Mimi watches the crowds come and go.

“Now this is Purim,” Ella says.

Mimi thinks of Ella’s house. It had been quiet when they’d met up there, save for the sounds of Juanita vacuuming the upstairs carpets. Ella’s mother was in the kitchen, rearranging a lavish mishloach manos display, and her father, who had spent the night seeing an endless stream of meshulachim and shpielers, hadn’t been around.

Her own house is a happy medium, Ma dispatching kids and deliveries and answering the door, Ta driving carefully planned routes to drop off the many mishloach manos Ma has prepared. And Kayla…

What’s Kayla doing?