Gravity (3 page)

Bubbie turns on the radio while I’m still chanting the prayer after meals. I glare at her and leave her to finish the cleaning up by herself. Down on the dock I slap a few mosquitoes, then I decide to go up to bed.

I say good night to Bubbie as I pass her in the living room.

“Sleep well,” she says.

In my dark room, I extend my arms, feeling for the bed. I bump my knee against the bed frame.

“Are you all right in there?” Bubbie asks from the living room.

“Fine.”

“Do you want me to come in and turn on the light?”

“No, thanks.”

“Can I do it anyway?”

“No, that’s okay.” I climb into bed.

Bubbie sighs. “I’ll get you a night-light for next week.”

“Oh, good idea.”

I don’t turn the lights on because
Shabbos,
the Sabbath, is a day of rest. All work is forbidden, including driving, cooking and lighting fires. Observant Jews don’t turn lights on and off or use the phone or radio because using electricity is like lighting a fire. We even unscrew the light bulb in the fridge so the light doesn’t turn on every time you open it. We pre-tear the toilet paper because even ripping is a form of work.

Bubbie thinks this is totally crazy. Neshama also thinks it nuts and has refused to leave the lights alone for ages. She even re-screws the light bulb in the fridge. Ima and Abba just ignore her.

I like not using electricity on
Shabbos
. It’s not that I think flipping a switch is work, I just like the different feeling. The weekday rush isn’t followed by weekend chaos, but by stillness and calm. No radio or
TV
, not even any cooking. Each restriction or change reminds me that it is good to rest. At home we have light timers, so it’s not like we’re stumbling around in the dark.

In the living room I hear Bubbie playing with the radio and then finally turning it off. She flicks off the lights and the sliver of yellow beneath my door vanishes. I turn over in bed and let the quiet of
Shabbos
fill the room.

Two

I
get down in the weeds to watch a small green frog tremble at the edge of the water. Dew soaks through my T-shirt, causing goose bumps to form up my legs. The frog croaks high and light, not soft like the peepers, or throaty like the bullfrog. I edge closer, slowly, shivering in the damp grass, legs tangled in wet skirt. The frog has shiny webbed feet, no definitive spots or stripes, probably
rama clamitans
. I lie still, watching its tongue dart out; then I reach out, tentative, hesitating. It jumps away, scared by my approaching hands.

Linnaeus looked at nature, and where others saw chaos, he saw order. Clear lines, hierarchies of phylum, class, all the way down to individual species. Taxonomy. God’s creations in neat sets. Judaism is a lot like taxonomy, even if Bubbie and Neshama think it’s only oppression and patriarchy. It’s also beauty and concision and order. There’s a rule or law for just about everything, an order or right way to do things, from how to get married, to how to put on your shoes. Give me any week, and I can tell you what Torah portion you’re supposed to read, what lesson you should learn.

Bubbie keeps asking me if I’m bored. I’m not, not for a moment. She shakes her head and wonders aloud how many teenage girls want to spend all day alone or hang out with their grandmothers. I just tell her I’m busy. And I am. For the past two weeks, I’ve prayed each morning in the trees behind the cottage. I mumble through the prayers quickly, my voice muffled by the branches. My voice sounds thin and lonely without the other girls from school or the
shul
congregation. I rush through without thinking about the words. After breakfast I practice swimming with Bubbie, splashing around, trying to keep water out of my nose and mouth. The rest of the time, I only want to sit and watch and, even more, to listen. I never knew nature was so noisy. The sun heats up, the dew evaporates, and a chorus of croaking frogs, chattering squirrels, squawking ducks and wind-rattled leaves fills the air. Fish gurgle and make small splashes on the lake; the waves lap against the dock. The longer I sit, the more I hear.

I wade farther into the snarled weeds, water creeping up my skirt and into my bathing suit when I crouch down. Thick mud squishes between my toes. The frog’s eyes move, its cheeks pulsing. I cup my hands, anticipating the webbed feet against my palms.

“Hey,” a voice calls out across the water.

I startle, jerking upright. The frog hops into the weeds. A girl approaches in a canoe. I haven’t seen anyone else up here except when we go for groceries in Northbrook.

The girl calls out across the water, “Hey, where’s Craig?”

I stand up. My skirt sticks to my legs. “Who?” Shading my eyes, I climb onto the dock. The girl paddles over.
She has long blond hair twisted into two loose braids down her back. She is wearing jean shorts and her tank top reveals fair-skinned, freckled shoulders.

“Hi.” I wipe mud off my hands onto my skirt.

“Is Craig here?” she asks, pulling up alongside the dock.

“Craig?”

“This is his cottage.”

“My grandmother rented it this month—”

“Oh.” She gazes across the bay.

“Um, is that your own canoe?” I admire the glossy red shell, the wood interior.

“Yeah,” she says, distracted. “How long are you staying?”

I sit down at the end of the dock. “Until the end of August. I’m Ellie.”

“Lindsay.” She tosses her hair and looks me up and down. “What were you trying to do over there?”

“I was...well, I saw this frog. I was trying to catch it.”

“Catch a frog?”

“Yeah, I wanted to see what kind it was. I couldn’t tell without picking it up.”

She laughs. “You’re kidding, right?”

I don’t say anything.

“Are you into science or something?”

I shrug. A pair of loons surfaces, their white necklaces distracting me. “I didn’t know there were other people around,” I say, staring past her at the birds.

“Yeah, down the bend.” Lindsay points over her shoulder.

I rinse my feet in the cool lake water. “So what do you and Craig do here?”

“Hang out. Fish.” She twirls her paddle in her hands.

There’s a pole I keep eyeing in the basement of the cottage, but Bubbie says she doesn’t know how to use it. “I’d like to go fishing,” I blurt. “There’s a pole and all, but I don’t know how...”

Lindsay grabs hold of the dock. “You just cast and reel in. I suppose I could show you.”

I lean forward. “Really? That would be great.”

Lindsay looks up from her paddle. “Well, whenever.” She reaches out to push away from the dock. “See you then.”

“Wait.” I stand up.

“What?”

“Well, if you have some time later, maybe you could...”

Lindsay sighs. “I suppose we could go for a paddle now. I don’t have my pole.”

I smile. “I’ll be back in a moment.” I try to walk slowly up to the cottage for a life jacket and paddle.

When I come back down to the water, Lindsay is standing in the middle of the canoe, floating a few feet from the dock. She looks at me and grins. “Watch this.”

She leans over and balances her hands and then her feet on the gunwales. I watch, fascinated, as she raises herself to a crouch. She’s stripped off her tank top and jean shorts to reveal just three small patches of white fabric held together with string. All the girls I know dress modestly; even their swimsuits are like my plain old one.

Lindsay’s breasts hang full and pendulous in the cups, her hips naked except for the little ties. She slowly stands up, thigh muscles flexing, arms outstretched, eyes focused.
When she is fully upright, she breaks into a smile and gives her hips a slight toss, rocking the boat. “Now watch.”

As if I could take my eyes off her. I squint into the sun and hold my breath, staring in amazement as she bends her knees and lifts her arms. She swings them down and hurls her body into the water beside the canoe. The canoe heaves wildly and flips over, and Lindsay lands with an impressive splash. She surfaces, her hair slick against her skull.

“Neat, eh? I’m trying to do it without flipping the canoe.”

I nod. She didn’t even check the depth first.

“Wanna try?”

“Neh.”

“Oh, come on, it’s fun.”

“Maybe later.”

Lindsay shrugs and dives toward the canoe.

I couldn’t possibly do that. Besides not being a good swimmer, I have lousy balance. If I actually could screw up the courage to jump, I’d probably bump my head on the boat. And I could never parade around wearing so little.

Lindsay grabs hold of the canoe and kicks it back toward the shore. “So how old are you anyway?”

I zip up my life jacket. “Fifteen.”

She stands in the water and flips the canoe. Her nipples, pointy and brown, show through the white material of her bathing suit. My stomach tightens into a knot. “I thought you were younger,” she says.

Even though I’m already five-foot-eight, I still get mistaken for twelve. “How old are you?”

“Same.” Lindsay glances up at me. “Don’t you want to change into shorts or a bathing suit or something?”

I shake my head and roll up my skirt at the waist a few times.

Lindsay steadies the wobbling canoe as I step into the bow. “Keep your body low,” she instructs. She expertly jumps in and pushes us away from the dock. I kneel like Lindsay does, and plunge my paddle into the water, crushing my fingers against the side of the boat. I draw in my breath.

“Have you never been in a canoe before?”

“Ah, not really.” I turn around and smile at her.

She rolls her eyes. “Okay, put one hand at the top of the paddle and the other lower down. Draw it through the water, like this.”

I try again, splashing myself. Even so, the canoe edges forward.

We head out into the bay. I can see gulls bobbing in the protected water of Horseshoe Island. The wind picks up and the canoe rocks underneath me, small waves slapping against the sides. My arms tire and my back gets sore, but I keep paddling. When we get to the middle of the bay, Lindsay leans back in the boat, and using her lifejacket as a pillow, tips her face up to the sun. I flip my legs around to face the center of the canoe, watching the blue ripples all around. I imagine paddling along the shore and not coming back to the cottage. I know some lakes eventually lead to salt water, to throbbing jellyfish, purple and orange sea stars, rubbery sea cucumbers.

“You’re not
that
bad for someone who has never been in a canoe,” Lindsay admits.

“Thanks.”

Lindsay undoes her braids, releasing her long, dark blond hair. The wind tosses it across her face, rippled strands catching on her bikini straps.

My own brown hair is always limp. Even when I blow-dry it with my head upside down and brush furiously, it’s greasy and lifeless within twenty minutes. I drift my hand in the cool water and close my eyes. Her hair would be silky between my fingers. I flick open my eyes.

On the way back Lindsay asks, “So, how come you’ve never been in a boat before?”

“I just never was. I’m from Toronto.”

“Didn’t you ever go to camp or a cottage?”

“Just day camp. In the city.”

“Only swimming pools?”

“Sort of.” I think of the girls’ turn to go in the water, all those shrieking voices. “My sister’s working at a camp.”

“Yeah? How come you didn’t go?”

“It’s an all girls’ camp—not my thing,” I tell her, trying to sound cool. That’s not the real reason. I wanted to come here, to see the lake.

“Only girls? That would suck.” She pushes her rippled hair out of her face and tucks it under her bikini strap.

We head toward the dock, the wind pushing us from behind. I don’t splash once.

Lindsay maneuvers us back up to the dock, grabs hold of the edge. “So I’ll see you around.”

“If you have some time, you know, maybe, you could show me how to cast.”

“Yeah, maybe sometime.” Lindsay looks down at the boat.

I climb out of the canoe, my foot catching on the edge of my skirt. “Okay,” I say after I untangle myself. “Bye then.”

As Lindsay paddles away, a shiver travels from my neck down through my body and exits out my knees.

“
DO YOU WANT
to go for a walk?”

“I think I’ll stay behind.”

Bubbie shrugs and grabs her droopy straw hat.

I flop down in the hammock with my book about the sea and try to read about the lifecycle of a periwinkle. I keep glancing over the water.

It’s been three days since Lindsay came by. I’m no longer fascinated by my nature guides or
Linnaeus: The Man and His Work
. I can’t concentrate. I’ve studied the frogs, identified trees, watched the sunfish from the dock, the cardinals, blue jays and hummingbirds from the hammock. I’ve gawked at the loons, the occasional merganser and blue heron. I’ve caught moths, swatted black flies, horseflies and mosquitoes. I’ve watched the squirrels try to raid the bird feeder, and even though I saw a deer in the trees, I’m bored.

“Do you wanna go check out the mini-golf?” Bubbie asks when she gets back.

“Neh.”

“What’s with you?” Bubbie leans against the maple tree, gives the hammock a push.

“Nothing.”

Bubbie smirks.

I sigh. “I was hoping that girl down the lake would take me fishing.”

“So walk over there,” Bubbie says, exasperated.

“I thought you could only go by boat.”

Bubbie points to the trail leading off through the woods. “Just follow it past the campground and you’ll come to their cottage. It’s a huge A-frame with skylights—brand new—you can’t miss it. More like a chalet than a cottage,” Bubbie sniffs.

I head over in the afternoon, following the trail through the woods. I pass a swamp, where a dumped car’s rusted metal frame is slowly yielding to the elements, and enter an area of low-lying sumac bushes. The forest opens up to reveal a manicured stretch of lawn, an elegant house on a hill. A new dock juts out over the water, a chaise longue and glass table angled to catch the sun. Sliding glass doors and tall windows stretch across the front of the cottage, revealing long fans turning in a row across the open front room.