Blue and White
Queenie spends her afternoon submitting her statement about the Obscurus Event, Newt’s creatures, and Jacob Kowalski at the Woolworth Building. Tina hires a bike messenger to take a note to their cousin in Lower East Manhattan. Dov had sent them a package of Chanukkah cookies and invited the sisters to a community gathering later in the holiday—they didn’t always attend, as the Goldstien sisters are less orthodox than their cousins and Chanukkah isn’t a Biblical holiday to begin with, but Tina feels that they both could benefit from the support of their extended family and community right now.
Queenie will look as ravishing in powder blue and silver as she does in pink. Tina, always a bit more conservative in her wardrobe choices, favors one of her mother’s old, Victorian, milk white blouses and sets out a skirt in a light shade of navy blue.
Newt finishes his morning rounds with his creatures sometime between 10 and 11 and pops out of his case with a sharp knock to announce his presence. He hears her rummaging around in the bedroom and calls her name.
Tina’s response is muffled, her tongue impeded by a mouthful of rugelach. There’s a smear of apricot jam on her upper lip. Unlike the mustard moustache she sported when they first met Tina catches the jam when she licks her upper lip, swipes it off with her thumb, then sticks the digit artlessly in her mouth.
“Sorry,” she says, extending a blue and white box toward him, “Help yourself. They’re the best in Manhattan.”
Newt’s eyes dart between the box and the stockings neatly folding themselves upon the skirt, lain out on her bed. The skirt has thin, white lines along its pleated trim, American sailor style. “Special occasion?” he inquires, breaking off a spur of a blue sugar cookie shaped like the Star of David with his teeth.
She nods sharply. “We’ve got some cousins who’ve invited us to a community gathering. They’re more orthodox, so it’s just polite to dress a little more traditionally.”
“Oh,”
Tina pauses and appraises him with her eyes. “Would you like to come? It won’t be as uptight as it sounds. We’re just expected to dress and eat the part, not necessarily play it.”
Newt’s bronze eyebrows rise and he folds his hands over the cookie, a flattered smile pulling up the corners of his mouth. “I’d be delighted.”
Tina’s heart lifts and she smiles broadly. “Good.”
“I’ll whip up something appropriate to wear. Transfiguration was never my forte, though. When is the party?”
“Oh, um…”
“Yes?”
“Transfiguring clothes, well, there’s no rule against it, but it is strongly frowned upon.”
His mouth and brows crumple in distress. “A faux pas. Right.”
Newt’s coat will do fine, blue as it is, but his wheat-yellow vest doesn’t fit the occasion, so Tina has him stand in her room while she rummages through her cedar chest for something suitable. She digs out an off-white vest trimmed in blue, blossoming forget-me-nots on the pocket and a matching bowtie. She pauses, running her fingers across the fine embroidery fondly.
Fyvel and Rebecca Goldstien had worn their wedding clothes every anniversary, and Tina had bright memories of playing ring-bearer or flower-girl reenactments during her childhood, of messily piping icing on a small cake every June. Getting chocolate fingerprints and kisses on her parents’ pristine wedding clothes, painting the white roses on her mother’s lace veil red and pink so that they looked more real (to a child’s eyes, at least).
She turns to Newt and holds the vest up to his chest, sizing it up.
“’Kay, I this should fit just fine, though we may need to take the waist in a little. You’re thinner than my father was.”
His eyes go wide as saucers and he ducks his head. “Your father’s? Tina, I can’t possibly…”
“Newt, please let me do this for you. You’re our guest. Besides, these clothes haven’t been worn in over fifteen years; I’d like to see them put to good use for once.” She folds up the vest neatly and drapes it over his forearm, her expression earnest.
Moved by her sincerity, Newt turns the partially eaten cookie over and over in his hands, and changes the subject. “Do you think Jacob’s pastries could compete with your cousin?”
“Do you?”
“His patzki were most impressive.”
“I hope he gets his loan for his bakery someday. I’d like to find out.”