Deja Vu (3 page)

Daria and Asi got married first. 

To be precise, Daria and Asi decided to get married right after Daria found out that Amir had proposed to me, which was just over a year after Amir and I became a couple. I was surprised by his proposal. At this stage of our lives, we were already living together and knew it was a serious relationship, but Amir wasn’t a great romantic; the fact that he bothered to buy me a real, though small,  diamond ring and get down on one knee at the same café where we’d first gone with Daria and Asi amazed me.

Of course, I said, “Yes,” although it was clear to both of us that we wouldn’t be getting married anytime soon. We both began our studies: I was studying economics and accounting and he was majoring in software engineering. I made my living mostly from temporary waitressing jobs, and he spent more than half his nights guarding empty buildings for a living. We didn’t have the time or the money to get married, but it was important to Amir to ‘show seriousness,’ as he explained to me later.

About six months after Amir gave me the ‘commitment’ ring, as we liked to call it, we met up with Asi and Daria.

“What’s this?” Daria pulled my hand toward her and looked closely at the diamond ring that adorned my finger. “Is this new?”

“Not really -”

“It’s the first time I’ve seen this ring.”

“It means we don’t get to see each other enough. Or you don’t look at me enough,” I smiled.

“Believe me, I look at you a lot.” I didn’t doubt it; Daria always made sure to scan all the people around her, more specifically all the girls, from head to toe, making sure that no one met her standards. “The fact that we hardly see each other is another story altogether... you know how busy I’ve been with school and work.” Daria rolled her eyes. She already had her beauty diploma and had a job. She didn’t have to deal with the burden of academic studies in addition to waitressing.

“Well?” She wouldn’t let it go and went on whining, “What is this ring?” She fingered the ring. ”Is it a diamond?” she asked, surprised.

“A small one,” I apologized.

“It looks quite like an engagement ring.”

“Why only ‘like’ one?” Amir burst into the conversation.

Daria’s blue eyes widened in amazement. “Are you getting married?”

“Yes,” Amir said.

“At some point,” I added.

“You can’t be serious!” she almost shouted. “This is how you tell me?”

“There’s still nothing to tell. We don’t even have a date yet. We just decided to declare our intentions.”

“Declare?” she said in a defeated tone. “If I hadn’t asked, you wouldn’t have even told me.”

“Because there still isn’t much to tell.”

Daria wasn’t reassured. The friendly gathering ended early with a bad atmosphere. I wasn’t sure if it was because I didn’t tell her, or that she was hurt that she wasn’t the first to receive a marriage proposal, but a few days later Asi dropped down on one knee, and almost a year later, Asi and Daria were married in a lavish ceremony.

At Asi and Daria’s wedding, Amir asked me when I wanted to get married. He was afraid that I was jealous or nervous. I wasn’t jealous. Nor was I nervous. I knew he wanted me and that someday we’d get married. A year later, we were also standing at the altar and a few months after that, Inbal and David exchanged rings as well.

In less than two years, the three of us had gotten married and each wedding was different from the others. Our wedding was pretty standard: dusty hall, cliché flower arrangements and an ambitious three-course meal that tasted dull and was served by exhausted waiters. Daria and Asi’s wedding was all luxury and innovation. Asi's father was a successful importer who made sure his beloved son’s wedding lacked nothing. Daria switched between three dresses during the evening, which revolved all around her. The wedding was held over a pool against the backdrop of impressive water fountains, and the dinner was gourmet fare. Since I got married after Daria, it was impossible to say that I even tried to copy her wedding. While I enjoyed her wedding, which was fancy and joyful, I didn’t have the time or the money to invest too much in planning my wedding because I was a student and a full time waitress. I didn’t try on dozens of dresses. I didn’t sit for hours planning the design of the tables. Nor did I attend countless other weddings just to see the various bands available, so that I could design the perfect event for myself. Amir and I were exhausted from school and work. This was certainly reflected in our wedding, which was dull and drained, just like us.

Of the three weddings, the wedding that was most beautiful and exciting, in my opinion, was actually Inbal and David’s. They spent perhaps half of what Amir and I spent and most probably a fifth of the cost of Daria and Asi’s wedding. It was a modest and touching event. Inbal and David invited a handful of friends and close family to a small and intimate café on the beach at Herzliya. The food served at the wedding was simple, but tasty, and the makeshift dance floor was full of friends who danced and rejoiced until the small hours. Inbal and David promised to be faithful to each other at sunset. Inbal's eyes sparkled when David put her wedding ring on her finger. She looked at him with such love that my heart twisted in jealousy. I loved Amir, but never did we exchange glances with such love as Inbal and David had.

Inbal had made her dream come true. She married her childhood sweetheart, who learned to love her as she loved him. Throughout the evening, Inbal and David didn’t leave each other even for a moment. It was the most modest and happy wedding I’ve ever attended. Of the three of us, Inbal had always been the least attractive one, and though I was happy that she and David had a loving relationship, they always looked like an unbalanced pair because of the difference in their appearances. He was one of the most remarkable men I've ever seen – tall and muscular with masculine facial features and dreamy blue eyes. He could have had any girl he wanted, and out of all the girls in the world, he chose Inbal, who had always been a little chubby with brown-blonde curly hair that she always found difficult to manage. Her features were nice, but because she always was slightly overweight, her face was too plump to be considered beautiful. The only thing she shared with David in terms of appearance was an amazing pair of eyes. David had dreamy blue eyes and she had huge gray-green eyes. In her simple wedding dress, with makeup that emphasized her eyes and her braided hair, she was amazingly beautiful. All her delicate inner beauty, which David had learned to know and admire, broke out in full force on her wedding day, and David couldn’t take his eyes off her.

This was the first time I remembered being jealous of Inbal, and I hated every minute. Inbal had always been a loyal and loving friend. She always knew how to offer praise and give to others. For the first time since the accident, I felt that maybe I’d made a mistake by rejecting David. All that joy and love could have been mine. Mine.

And I’d given it up.

Since I had no recollection of my childhood, I didn’t remember emotions either. I didn’t remember ever experiencing jealousy. Since the accident, I’d had no reason or time to be envious. It's not that I wasn’t jealous of anyone. I envied a student who got a better grade than me in a test, or a soldier in the army who received a certificate of merit at my expense. The Dean's List that was hanging on the faculty notice board made my jealousy stir as well. I was on the list, but not in first place. It's not that I’d never envied, but never before did jealousy eat me up from the inside as it did after Inbal and David’s wedding. Maybe it was because I've always sensed that the jealousy I felt was repairable - I could learn better for the next test, or be a more disciplined soldier. But this great love that Inbal enjoyed could have been mine, and I’d lost it forever.

Amir was a great spouse, handsome, hardworking and educated. He cared for me and loved me. I had no real reason to be jealous. But the jealousy that was born the day of Inbal and David’s wedding became a part of me. For years, I’d secretly sniggered at Daria, with her conduct always fueled by envy and her desire to present herself as more perfect than others. Unlike me, Daria’s jealousy was motivated by materialism. She always had to show everyone that she had the best out there before anyone else had it. Daria, for example, didn’t really appreciate Inbal’s wedding. It was far too simple for her taste, not her style at all. She wasn’t envious in the least. 

As far as Daria was concerned, she’d won because she finally had the most beautiful party. As a child, Daria’s birthday parties were the most simple and meager of all. Her parents were simple, warm-hearted people, and they did everything they could to make their four children happy, but they didn’t have the means to indulge them. When we were in third grade, Daria's mother organized a birthday party for her, inviting the entire class, just a week after Oren’s birthday. Oren was the richest kid in class. The gap between the two parties was so big that Daria could barely raise a smile at her own birthday party. Just a week after the whole class had enjoyed an abundance of sweets, a magician who amazed the kids with his talents, and prestigious party prizes, the same children gathered in Daria’s simple living room and enjoyed a handful of snacks and sweets, mostly made by her mother. Daria's big sister organized the party games and gave out prizes that were very simple. When Oren won one of the games, he received a balloon as a reward. “Balloon?” he sniggered when he received his prize from Daria. “This isn’t a prize!” he declared and then resumed his seat, tossing the balloon to Sigal, who agreed to accept the pitiful award. That was the last time Daria hosted the class at her home. She even played down her Bat Mitzvah celebration and said she was celebrating only with her family. Thanks to Asi, she had finally organized an event she could be proud of. Daria's wedding was certainly one of the most impressive and exclusive weddings I’d been invited to, but for me, Inbal and David’s wedding was all I could have ever wanted, and stupidly gave up on.

Two weeks after the wedding, Inbal sent out wedding pictures by e-mail. For two weeks, I’d tried to convince myself that it was all in my head and I was imagining my feelings, but the images only fanned my jealousy. Inbal and David looked even more in love in the pictures than I remembered.

“What is it?” Amir asked when he saw me studying the computer screen with such great care.

“Pictures from Inbal and David’s wedding.”

“Really?” Amir pulled up a chair and sat next to me. “Let me see.”

Amir ran through the images and roared with laughter when he came to a picture of him and Asi making faces behind Daria’s back.

“What do you think about the pictures?”

“Pretty pictures.”

“And the wedding?”

“Nice wedding.”

“You're not sorry we didn’t have a wedding like that?”

“What do you mean, a wedding like that?”

“A more modest style.”

“Your parents would never, ever put on such a small wedding.” He was right. 

“But you don’t think this wedding was more exciting than ours?”

“No,” he frowned. “Why? Do you think it was more exciting?”

“I don’t know... ” But, really, I did know. “Look at this picture.” I focused on a picture of Inbal and David looking into each other's eyes. “Look how excited they are, how in love they are.”

“Obviously they were excited, but they don’t seem to be more excited or in love than any other of the dozens of couples I know.”

“Including us?” I asked uncertainly.

“Especially us,” he laughed and I joined him.

He was able to reassure me, but not for long. The jealousy in me grew, and instead of chucking it out, I tended it with dedication and obsession, and it became an integral part of me. The more I dug deeper in me, the more the jealousy intensified. I was disgusted with myself every time I tried to showcase our relationship as better than theirs. Even Amir felt it, and he wasn’t usually quick to pick up on emotions. Whenever we met up with Inbal and David, I tried to find a crack in the wall of love that surrounded them. I wanted to discover that not everything was perfect. I tried to forcibly drag them into arguments and put them in uncomfortable situations.

One of these occasions occurred about three and a half months after Inbal and David had gotten married. We met with them and Daria and Asi to see a movie, and Inbal excitedly told us how, a few days earlier, David had surprised her and invited her out to the café where they were married in honor of their first hundred days as a married couple. Amir and I hadn’t celebrated our first hundred days as a married couple, and when I counted the days in my head, I discovered - to my dismay - that Amir and I had no excuse for forgetting that exciting, momentous date. We were both on summer break from university, and my residency with my large accounting firm had not yet begun. 

“We celebrate each and every day!” I said and flashily leaned against Amir, who embraced me warmly. For Amir, the embrace was enough, but I continued to fawn over him and make out with him throughout the evening. He didn’t stop me, but I felt he was embarrassed.

“What’s going on with you tonight?” Daria asked me as we sat drinking coffee after the movie ended.

“What do you mean?” I asked innocently.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “You're all over Amir, acting as if you only met a couple of days ago.”