Everyone seems to be having an awesome time.

Does that mean that, despite Natalie’s family always showing off their money, a lot of people still like them? I think about my relationship with Natalie: She gets on my nerves sometimes, but it wouldn’t be truthful to say I don’t enjoy spending time with her. I didn’t like it when it felt like she was trying to steal Honey from me. But looking back, I can see she probably just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to be left out. If Tali and Sophie are best friends, and me and Honey are best friends—but Honey wasn’t in our school, so me, Natalie, Sophie, and Tali were a foursome—it would make sense that with Honey suddenly there, Natalie was worried she would be a fifth wheel.

Anyway, Natalie Aronovich’s bat mitzvah is definitely an extravagant affair, but nothing too wild happens. I flutter around all night with my friends, dancing and laughing at all the different entertainment booths. It’s too bad Honey isn’t here. She’s missed out on a really fun party. But then I think: Honey probably really doesn’t care.

The next day, my mother prints out an e-vite and pins it to the bulletin board in the kitchen.

With gratitude to Hashem, it is our honor to invite you to join a special women’s Megillas Esther reading on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Adar, Purim eve, 6:30 p.m., basement meeting hall of Congregation Ohav Shalom, where our dear daughter Hencha will, G-d willing, celebrate her Bas Mitzvah.

I smile to myself at the incongruity of the wording—the Wines using the more traditional Ashkenazi pronunciation of “bas” rather than “bat” about Honey doing something so edgy and modern as leining megillah at a women’s service. She really is brave to have decided to do this, and to have actually managed to convince her family. Only Honey, I think, shaking my head at my friend.

“Good luck,” I mouth to Honey later that week, waving wildly as soon as my mom and Aunty Steph and I enter the bright basement meeting hall on Purim eve.

Purim is definitely the most fun of all the Jewish holidays. We bake jam-filled hamantaschen cookies, deliver food baskets to our friends, give charity, and dress up in costumes. My favorite part is hearing the megillah, the Purim story, which talks about “v’nahafoch hu,” or things being turned around. In the story, evil Haman devised an amazing reward for King Achashveyrosh to honor a most-loyal adviser—thinking that adviser would be himself—but instead it went to Mordechai the Jew, Queen Esther’s uncle. And instead of the Jewish people getting destroyed, they were saved. Anyway, not only is Purim super fun, but it makes us Orthodox kids feel less weird about the fact that we don’t celebrate Halloween.

Honey is already sitting up front with her mother, Miriam, Aaron, Dan-Dan, her grandmother, Aginéni, and Susie. Naomi Dayan is standing with another woman at a large lectern where the megillah has already been placed. I try not to make eye contact with Aginéni. What if she yells at me for not coming over to visit her yet? Honey grins and gives me a thumbs-up, gesturing for us to find a seat in the quickly filling room.