Page 65 of Business or Pleasure

What strikes me the most, though, is when I glance next to me and find Finn’s lips moving along—because of course they are. He grew up with this the way I did.

We were raised on these same songs, spoke this same language. It’s like discovering we have the same favorite book, and not only that, but that we love all the same parts—that we’ve highlighted and underlined them and folded over pages when we probably should have been using bookmarks.

When we retreat to the foyer for snacks, Finn introduces me around.

“Is that Finnegan?” asks an elderly woman in a mauve floral dress.

He shines a genuine smile on her. “Hi, Mrs. Haberman. Shabbat shalom.”

“Shabbat shalom,” she says, giving him a hug. “All of us were whispering before the service, wondering who your lovely companion is.”

“This is my friend Chandler Cohen. Chandler, this is Ruth Haberman.”

“Your friend,” Mrs. Haberman says, a glint in her eyes as I shake her hand.

Some version of this repeats a few more times, with Mr. Barr, Mr. Lowenstein, and Mrs. Frankel, a woman who tells me she taped every episode of The Nocturnals on her old VHS player.

“Going to be worth a lot of money someday,” she says, and he just shakes his head, giving me the impression they’ve had this joke for years.

“Everyone here really loves you,” I say once we have a few moments to ourselves. We’ve filled small paper plates with carrots and hummus, challah and jam.

“Don’t sound so surprised. I’m very lovable.”

I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean. You have this whole community here.”

He pierces a grape with a plastic fork. “I’m lucky,” he says simply. “I grew up going here, and when my mother decided to go to rabbinical school, this was the only congregation she wanted to lead. Even though it’s not as swanky as the new temple on the other side of town. So I really have known all these people forever.”

“I had no idea,” I say, taking a bite of challah. “There isn’t much online about your religion.”

“Ah. It’s strange, having a name that isn’t Jewish coded.”

“Walsh is your dad’s name?”

And he gives me this look, like he can’t believe he hasn’t explained this to me yet. “No—it’s a stage name. Finn has always been real, but I legally changed my last name in my twenties. My dad’s last name, the one I grew up with, was Callahan, and my first manager told me Finnegan Callahan was too much of a mouthful to be booking anything. Too many consonants.” A grimace. “But I haven’t been Finn Callahan in years. I have about zero attachment to it. I’ve been waiting, actually, to be Finn Walsh longer than I was Finn Callahan, and it’s coming up. A few more years. One less connection to my dad.”

“I’m glad.”

“When I decided to change my name, I spent a lot of time thinking about whether I wanted one that was visibly Jewish or not. And every so often, I wonder if I made the right choice,” he says. “I’ve been pretty safe from antisemitism, but now... I don’t know.”

Without my voice recorder, I try to commit his words to memory. His Judaism is important to him: the community, the traditions, the history. The chapter that starts with an image of that menorah in the background of Ms. Mistletoe is going to be an absolute knockout—I’ll settle for nothing less.

“Speaking as someone with a name that’s instantly recognizable as Jewish, it’s a mixed bag. I love that immediate connection I can have with someone because of it, but on the other hand...” I think back to a listicle I wrote back at The Catch, “Eight Unexpectedly Jewish Movies to Watch This Hanukkah”—a fluff piece, really, something that should have been innocent—where the comments had to be turned off when they veered antisemitic, which usually doesn’t take too long when you’re visibly Jewish online. Horrifying images started showing up in my DMs and I had to lock my social media accounts for weeks. I tell him this, and he shakes his head, disgusted.

“Fucking horrible,” he mutters. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

I attempt to shrug it off, because I accepted it long ago as a side effect of moving through the world with my last name. But then I stop myself. “Yeah,” I say. Firmly. Solidly. “It was fucked up.”

An older man stops by our table, asks if he can take a photo for his granddaughter.

Before we get up, Finn places a hand on my wrist again, a whisper of contact before he drops his arm back to his side. “Chandler? In case I haven’t said it lately, I’m really glad you’re the one writing this book.”

chapter

eighteen

RENO, NV

The con that afternoon passes in a blur of capes and Sharpie ink. Afterward, we wind up at a karaoke bar where the bouncer scrutinizes my ID with its February 29 birth date for a few extra moments, something I got used to years ago and that Finn finds hilarious. It’s a dive with neon signs and crackly speakers and, most important, Finn’s best friend from high school. Krishanu is tall, Indian American, with wavy dark hair beneath a Reno Aces cap. He’s a high school English teacher, and his boyfriend, Derek, a white guy wearing a college sweatshirt and easy grin, coaches the school’s football, swimming, and baseball teams. “Budget cuts,” he explains with a shrug.

---