Why did my neighbor designate me as her Internet goy?

Aidel: I thought we were friends, and friends help each other out.

Nina: I admire your standards, but I’m not sure why I should be paying the price.

Aidel

“Shiri, that looks great!” She gave me back the rolling pin and I handed her the knife. “Here, cut the dough into triangles, and then you can sprinkle it with the chocolate mixture.”

Shiri pushed a loose hair out of her face. “Never would’ve guessed it’s fun to make rugelach.”

“Sure it is, almost as much fun as eating them, right?”

Shiri hesitated a split second. “Yeah.”

I looked up at her for a fraction of an instant. Was that a shadow? “You gonna help me taste test when the first batch comes out? Make sure it’s good before I let the troops loose?”

Shiri laughed. “Sure. Can’t say no to fresh rugelach. Especially yours.”

The moment was over. Okay, good. I’ve known Shiri for years, she lives right next door, but it’s only recently that she’s started hanging out here. She comes over to help me bake, asking for some help with her Chumash assignments, throwing out the odd question here and there, all casually, but I can tell she comes for something else.

“How’s school going?” I asked, as we transferred the rolled-up pastries to baking sheets and switched the trays with the ones inside the oven.

“Yeah, same old, same old.” Shiri rolled her eyes. “Teachers piling on the homework and Mrs. Stark coming after a bunch of us for wearing nail polish to school. I mean, how did she even know? Are the teachers, like, sneaking around scrutinizing our nails while we take tests or something?”

“You know that teachers have better things to do than look for ways to get their students into trouble,” I remarked, a little drily.

“Some teachers, maybe,” Shiri grumbled. “Oh, I don’t mean like you, Mrs. A! I’m just… whatever. There’s this one teacher, she’s totally out to get m— to get girls into trouble. Like, she gets this victorious look when she finds someone doing something wrong. I’ll bet she was the one who told Mrs. Stark about the nail polish.”

“Hmm.”

Luckily, I didn’t teach in Shiri’s school, so I had no idea who she was talking about. The girl had a chip on her shoulder, that was for sure. If she was opening up to me, I knew I had to handle with care.

The door banged open. My girls were home.

“Ma?”

“In the kitchen!”

“Smells amazing!”

Shiri gave my daughters a small smile. When they were younger, they’d been friends of sorts, playing outside together and running around each other’s houses. But they go to different schools, and by now they don’t have much to do with each other anymore.

I knew she wouldn’t hang around much with my girls busy in the kitchen. I packed up a few of the cooling rugelach and handed Shiri the bag.

“Here, enjoy. We’ll talk more, okay?”

I knew we would; Shiri would be back. As a seasoned high school mechaneches, I was used to this; Shiri’s not the only kid on the block who’s found her way over to my house to talk things through. High school politics, seminary applications, even shidduchim coaching — my kitchen table has definitely heard its fair share of secrets.