This was hard — I was trying to pry the keychain ring apart with my fingers, but it kept closing on me and scraping my nails. My manicure was demolished. And Ari would be home from Maariv any minute.

Finally I wrangled the sriracha-to-go keychain onto Ari’s key ring, Ari loves the stuff and I came across it while doing market research for a packaging company. Should I say something, or just wait till he notices? I’ll wait.

I’d gone to the gemach tonight and everything was exciting and easier. I still have to physically organize stuff, but at least I knew what to look for. And scanning items with the app looked so impressive. I even came home early.

I gave myself the night off — I had asked Ayelet to organize all my contacts and divide them by categories, as well as organize my form e-mails by subject, told her to clock herself. She thinks she knows it all, I might as well make sure she does, see what she can do. Thankfully there had been no response to that release she sent out without asking me, it sounded nothing like anything I would put out, a little harm, but no foul.

I heard Ari outside the door stamping the snow off his boots. I jumped, quickly put Ari’s keys back on the counter, and scurried to the sink, pretending to wash dishes we hadn’t used tonight.

“We must talk Purim,” he said, closing the door behind him.

“Purim? That’s over a month away.”

“I know.” Ari walked over to the kitchen table, pulled a chair out for himself and then one for me. He’s serious about this. I sat down.

“I’m really excited for Purim this year.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said. I wasn’t really sure what that meant.

I hadn’t given Purim a second thought. Honestly, I’ve mostly avoided Yamim Tovim since I was 26, when I officially became an older single. I did what had to be done, lulav and esrog, Arba Kosos, shalach manos, but it was more about getting through Yom Tov than planning and experiencing it. I’m just realizing now, I may have to reevaluate.

“Yeah, I’ve always loved Purim, but the older I got, the sadder it got. Not so much me, but the other older single guys, they’d just use it as an acceptable day to drink and escape, be miserable in a different way. And the seudah invites were always tricky. I’d want to go to a normal seudah, but my married friends would only remember me like a day or two before and by that time I’d have already been invited by those people who invite older singles.

“I never wanted to be that flaky opportunist single guy, so I’d go there first, then leave early and head to my friends. By then the party would basically be over and I was the guy helping the wife clean up and schlep tables because I was sober because I was driving, and the same thing would happen every year.”

“So you want to party on Purim?” I asked. My father was always smashed on Purim, I’m okay with it.

“No,” Ari said, and he looked at me so intensely, I closed my eyes for a moment. “I want to be Purim.”

“Be Purim?”

“I want to host a seudah, I want us to get dressed in coordinating costumes and give out pretty shalach manos, instead of me just giving my chavrusa a Danish and coffee in the morning.”

“Oh,” I said, sitting back. I hadn’t thought about any of this. Or really experienced this version of single life. I guess living at home has its perks. As does being female.

“Whaddya think?” Ari asked, giving me a huge smile, but it faltered after a second, like he was depending on me for his happiness. I want to give this to him. But there are so many buts. Who has time to plan a seudah? And matching costumes, you’ve got to be kidding me. I licked my lips and stroked my sheitel.

“I want to make this happen,” I started, “but I just have to think about how to make it all work.”

Ari nodded slowly, I saw him trying to decipher my words.