Deena had no reason to feel awkward. And yet, Chana’s simplicity, her authenticity, made the idea of using this event as a business opportunity feel… wrong

Leaning against a tree a safe distance from the grill, Deena tapped on her phone and read. Ruby Blaine, founder of Ruby Rubs, winner of the James Beard award…

So this Ruby wasn’t some show-off wielding long-handled tongs in black-gloved hands; she was the real deal, a culinary school graduate who regularly participated in competition shows — and won.

Deena looked her up on Instagram. She had 120K followers.

Whoa.

What a collab this would be. If she could somehow story this party without mentioning who the attendees were… Even a simple post to shake things up on her feed a bit. Grilling with pitmaster @rubyblaine on Sunday afternoon – worth a Michelin star IMHO. Tag, tag, tag.

Ruthie locked her stroller and pulled the canopy down. “Will you introduce yourself?”

Possibly, if you weren’t clinging to me like static.

“Maybe.” Deena stuffed her phone into her bag. She watched Ruby grind pepper over a pan. “Who’s sponsoring her?”

“B’yachad. I told you they know how to do stuff.”

Ugh. She was going to eat organization-sponsored steak. Not cool.

Although she hadn’t come to the party to eat. She was there for one reason only, and that was to invite guests to join the tour — so she could earn commission. If eating sponsored steak was what it took to increase her income, well, then… um.

“Should we go check up on the kids?” she asked Ruthie.

They walked down a path to the clearing where a bunch of kids crouched on the ground, scraping sidewalk chalk on the pavement. They were doing the geometric pattern thing, masking tape stretched across the ground to shape triangles. Deena spotted Miri, vigorously coloring with pink chalk. Nechama squatted beside her, watching raptly.

She’d been worried how Miri would take to the idea of this barbecue. But Miri had surprised her.

“So all these girls don’t have fathers?” she’d asked.

Deena had explained that some of them had fathers, but their fathers didn’t live at home, which Miri had found interesting.

A petite woman in a short auburn wig walked over to Deena and Ruthie. “This weather is unreal, isn’t it?”

“Totally,” Ruthie said.

Two other women joined their circle. “I hate sidewalk chalk,” one of them grumbled. “The kids get filthy, ugh.”

Small talk, Deena. You got this.

“Yeah,” Deena said. “It gets all over. Under the nails, in the hair, really ugh. It’s straight into baths the second they get home.”

But as the small-talk conversation flowed along — from chalk to bubbles to PlayDoh to sensory sand — she lost the thread. Her eyes traveled back to the knot of kids, to Miri, in serious conversation with another girl, trading chalk, debating colors.

She looked so... normal. Happy.