Bizarre Love Triangle (lgbtq+)

7 THANKSGIVING

"Have you got any plans for the holiday?"

It was only weeks before Thanksgiving. I had known Elia for some time now, we usually met once a week with the group and several times alone, depending on how clingy her latest fling was.

I knew Elia was going to go home for Thanksgiving. Noel was going to go home. David was going to go home, and Nasreen with him.

"Don't know. Writing that paper for International Law. Watching TV. I found this new show called Legacies."

She didn't stop looking at her hands and nodded. "You could come to my family's," she said, so quietly that I thought I might've misunderstood her.

"What?"

She turned to me. "You could come with me to see my family. We don't really celebrate Thanksgiving, so it's only going to be my parents, my siblings and us. I guess that Thanksgiving probably means a lot to you so I just thought you might like not being alone. I'm going by car, it's only like two hours. You don't need to– "

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes. I'd love to."

"Cool."

"Cool."

"You can't wear tweed though."

"If I do wear tweed, will you feed me cheese?"

She laughed. "Maybe."

"Maybe? I want a 'definitely', otherwise I'm not coming." I crossed my arms.

"You can definitely have this carrot." She took a carrot from the counter and held it in front of my face.

"So, I have two hours to tell you everything you need to know."

We were sitting in Elia's car on our way to her parents' house.

"Shoot."

"We live in Waukesha, Wisconsin."

"Sounds like quite the hotspot."

"It's not that bad. It's right outside Milwaukie."

"Cool."

"My parents are called Aliya and Levi. My siblings –"

"Meira and Asa, I know."

"Right. We usually speak English, only some words in Hebrew."

I nodded.

"They know I'm a lesbian, but we don't talk about it."

I nodded.

"The food is the best you're ever gonna taste. You Americans just don't know how to cook."

I nodded. "That's probably true."

"We're celebrating Shabbat, so there's gonna be a big dinner on Saturday with another family from our neighborhood, but we can skip it if you don't want to join."

As a response to my questioning glance, she explained to me that the Jewish holiday started every Friday with sundown and ended on Saturday with sundown. There was a set of rules like no one was allowed to make fire, that's why the food was cooked for 16 hours from Friday until Saturday when the whole family met to celebrate. She went on about the differences between Israel and home. That everyone stayed in the house, and there was no public transportation on Shabbat since cars needed a spark to start. She explained what Jews were allowed to eat, and what not, and why it was important to live in a community with a certain infrastructure.

"That is why I never eat meat at university," she concluded.

I nodded, the picture of shechita – the ritual slaughtering of animals – still in my head.

"You got any questions?"

I shook my head. "No. That was plenty."

She laughed. "It's okay. My parents are very open minded. They won't hold it against you if you make a mistake."

And she was right. Her parents were the nicest people on earth. I slept in Elia's bed, she on the mattress next to it. We spent the day in Waukesha and in the evening, sat together in the living room. I was asked what I ate and what not (I'm a vegetarian, but I don't want to be a burden). If I had ever been to Milwaukie (No, I haven't) and if I wanted to go on Friday. If I had ever been abroad (Yes, in Canada and Argentina). What my family was like (Very different from this one). If I had siblings (Yes, three sisters). If I was religious (Yes, Catholic). Which languages I spoke (English, Spanish, and some French). Which career I was pursuing (Journalism and International Affairs, like Elia), and where I wanted to work (Anywhere but the US).

I was thankful for the attention, and for the education. When they talked, I listened. I learned very much about their culture, about their family. At the same time, I had so much fun, we played games and shared stories. I felt less like an outsider than in my own family.