I won, but it suddenly didn’t feel like it. I looked at my clarinet on the basement floor, tears streaming down my cheeks, and it hit me all at once. Nothing changed. I would never be my dad’s first choice. And… it was suddenly so clear to me, the thing I had never let myself admit: I didn’t even like the clarinet! I just didn’t know how to have a relationship with my dad without it. So I practiced, alone and in tears, until my blisters had blisters.

But for what?

I would never be Aaron Jacobson’s protégé.

And from that moment on I knew… I’d never love the clarinet, either.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

I stir my straw in my root beer absentmindedly, watching Reid behind the piano as tonight’s stand-in for Lincoln Street Blues. We haven’t kissed since the Oops-I-Deleted-Your-Audition-Tape-in-a-Moment-of-Passion fiasco, haven’t even mentioned it, and okay yeah, it’s only been four days—but it’s been four long days full of no sleep, rehearsals, studying for midterms, and being professional in front of the cast.

It’s like, sometimes I almost forget the kiss even happened.

I hate how much I don’t want to forget.

Mom, Delia, and I are sitting with the Callahans at a corner booth at Olive & Twist, the restaurant where Lincoln Street Blues has a new regular gig. Charlie’s sub, Tony, called in this morning with the flu because Lincoln Street Blues has had the worst luck with pianists lately. This isn’t the first time Reid has subbed in for the band in a time of need.

It is the first time his parents have been here for it though, thanks to Chanukah. It’s been tradition for as long as I can remember, the Callahans and Jacobsons in a jazz bar on the first night of Chanukah, listening to the mellow tunes of Lincoln Street Blues before everyone comes back to our house for latkes and a small gift exchange.

Hannah laughs. “The fedora looks ridiculous.”

Delia shrugs. “He sounds good, at least.”

I roll my eyes in an attempt to act bored—to act like myself. As if anyone is paying attention. Mom and Reid’s parents aren’t even listening to the music or watching Reid in his element. Instead, they’re chatting a million miles a minute about how the Fisches—a family from Temple Beth Elohim—got a bernedoodle puppy. Granted, that puppy is adorable, but they need to chill with the cooing and creating the false sense of hope that maybe Delia and I will be able to convince Mom to get us a dog.

Meanwhile, Delia and Hannah catch me up on the latest seventh-grade drama.