How to Ruin Your Boyfriend's Reputation (4 page)

33

"Amy, we can't go anywhere alone. It's against base rules."

"But I'm your
girlfriend,
not some
random?

I hear snickers behind Avi. Leaning so I can see who's behind him, I notice Nimrod standing with four guys and a girl all in sand-colored uniforms like Avis. The girl is covering her mouth to suppress her giggle. She's not wearing a stitch of makeup on her perfectly flawless skin, has long sandy blond hair with natural streaks in it tied up in a ponytail, and is really tall. To add insult
to
injury, she's got normal-sized, perfect boobs. I bet they stand at attention without a bra, while (as my mother always reminds me) God blessed me with boobs that need a little help being lifted.

I feel like an ogre next to this Israeli girl.

I would give her my famous sneer, but she's got a rifle so I figure it's in my best interest not to piss her off. I then notice they all have big rifles strapped to their backs. Avi does too.

Guns scare me. Especially big ones with bullets in them.

"Attention!" Sergeant B-S barks at me. I stand next to Nathan with my hands stiffly at my sides. We're still in front of everyone, so I guess our punishment for talking isn't over. This sucks.

The sergeant says something to Avi and his posse, then they all stand back and watch. "Ready," the sergeant says to Nathan and me. It's not a question.

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Ready or not, I'm about to march. In front of the rest of my unit, and in front of Avi and his friends.

"Small. Small. Small-yamean-small. Small Small. Small-yamean-small.
ⁿ
Nathan and I follow the sergeant as we demonstrate how to march. I'm all too aware of Avis gaze on me, and I want to die from embarrassment because I'm royally screwing up. I'm
smalling
on the
ya'means and ya'meaning
on the
smalls.
It's not that I'm uncoordinated. I'm just nervous.

Glancing sideways, I catch sight of Avi. I can't tell what he's thinking because he's got a composed, soldier like expression.

As my eyes meet Avi's, I stumble into the sergeant, who must have stopped and barked stopping orders while I was still
smalling
and
yameaning.
"Oops," I say as my nose bumps his back. Actually, my boobs bumped him first because they're a gazillion times bigger than my nose, but I hope nobody noticed.

"B'amakom atz'or
means you stop." Ronit clues me in.

"Got it. Thanks." I salute her because I want to be all military-like, but the saluting just brings more snickers from Avi's friends until he glares at them.

Oh, God, I hope he's not ashamed of me. What if his feelings for me changed since he came to visit back in January? What if he likes the gorgeous streaked-blond girl with the big rifle?

That very girl whispers to my boyfriend, then looks in my direction. Avi nods. Our eyes meet again, and I wish I

35

could speak telepathically. But he just keeps up that stern military expression. It's driving me nuts.

I've seen Avi smile and laugh. I've
made Avi
smile and laugh.

Ronit calls out, "Girls, follow me! Guys, follow Susu!"

While we're scrambling to obey, Avi is at my side. The warmth of his fingers on my elbow sends shivers down my spine.

"What are you doing here?" he asks me. "I thought you were staying on the
moshav
with your dad."

"I was. Until I realized Jess and Miranda and Nathan were going to be on the same base as you. I thought you'd be happy to see me. Obviously I was wrong."

"Gefen,
zooz,"
the sergeant barks out.

Avi turns his head to the sergeant, who doesn't look happy that Avi's talking to me. "I gotta go."

"So go," I say sarcastically. Okay, I know I'm acting like a complete brat but seriously... I came all the way to Israel and signed up to play soldier for ten days just to be with him, and he doesn't seem the least bit excited to see me.

"Amy..." he says, but I shrug his hand off me.

"Go," I repeat.

He sighs and walks away.

36

Chapter 7

Israel is .004% of the earth's surface.

They say the most valuable things come
in small packages.

So now I'm depressed and want to go home. Seeing Avi in all his military splendor grilling me on why I came here wasn't exactly how I imagined it. I'm sluggish as I follow the girls inside a building and we all sit in chairs in a classroom. To my surprise, the snickering girl from Avi's unit came with us and is obviously about to teach us something.

"This is Liron," Ronit explains. "She's one of the few female operations specialists assigned to a new IDF commando unit called Sayeret Tzefa. They've just come back from parachute training and are spending a few weeks on our base before they head off to Counter Terror School. We're very lucky to have them here to train you."

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The other girls are immediately impressed by Liron.

Even though she's not an official member of SayeretTzefa, by working alongside it she's as close as a female can get.

We spend the next two hours listening to her talk about the state of Israel and the countries that surround it.

"Who can tell me why Israel is so significant?" she asks.

I definitely know why it's significant to me, especially since for the past year I've been taking conversion classes at my synagogue. My mom raised me with no religion, and my dad is Jewish. Last summer when I came to Israel, I connected with my Jewish heritage and wanted to learn all I could about it.

I raise my hand along with a couple of the other girls, totally ignoring the fact that my sweaty armpits smell like rotten eggs.

"You, in the pink tank top,'' Liron says, pointing to me, Your name is Amy, right? Avi's
chaverah?

"His girlfriend," I clarify.

"Chaverah
means girlfriend."

"I knew that."

Liron smiles at me, and I notice not only is her skin Wawless, but her teeth are perfectly straight. "So Amy, why do you think Israel is significant?"

I sit up straight in my hot metal chair, which my thighs

have stuck to from the heat. My skin rubs on the metal with each movement, making a squeaking sound. It hurts.

11 probably have thigh-burn later on. "Because it's the

Jewish homeland," I answer.

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Liron nods. "You're right. As Americans, you share the same democratic freedoms we do here in Israel."

"The Palestinians don't have it so easy here," Jess chimes in. "I mean, I'm proud to be Jewish and would never want to be anything else, but when will the fighting stop?"

Oh, no!
"While Tarik would be proud of Jess for sticking up for his people, I'm not sure this is the best place to debate the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. And while I am usually all for a knock-down-drag-out verbal sparring session, I'm not sure anything but trouble can come out of a political discussion on an Israeli military base.

I decide to intervene. "I think my friend Jess here is trying to say that, uh, while Israel is the Jewish homeland, not everyone feels the same way. No need to go into the specific differences, though. It's all cool. Discussion over."

Liron walks down the aisle and stands in front of my chair. "It's against regulation for a soldier to talk about the political situation in Israel while in an IDF uniform. But I guarantee that you can get into a long political discussion with any Israeli out of uniform. And I also guarantee that you'll get a hundred and fifty different opinions if you talk to a hundred Israelis."

Whoa, that's a lot of opinions.

"Girls, my job in the IDF is to protect Israel. As a private, or new trainee,
your
job is to take orders. You will be treated like a real Israeli soldier, and you will act like a real Israeli soldier. When we say get in formation,' you get in formation or you'll be doing twenty pushups. When we say

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'run,' you run. When we wake you at the crack of dawn, you'll be ready and in formation within seven minutes. "We're going to test your will and your spirit. We're going to test you physically and mentally. You're going to hate and curse your instructors while you're going through it, and love us and feel like a stronger person in the end. Any questions?"

I raise my hand. When Liron points to me, I say, "Do we get free time?"

"Maybe," she answers curdy. "Why are you here, Amy?"

To spend time with my boyfriend, so Israeli girls like you don't steal him away from me,
I want to say. But instead I say, "To feel what it's like to be an Israeli soldier."

An instructor named Gili comes in and talks to us about the state of Israel. "Israel has a population of about six million Jews," she explains. "We are a minority in the Middle East. It's no secret we cannot afford to lose even one war. To do so might mean the end of the state of Israel. That's why every single Jewish Israeli citizen must serve in the military. Israeli Druze and Bedouins serve in our military as well."

For the next two hours, Liron and other instructors take turns teaching us. I haven't paid much attention to the other girls in my unit, but being in a small classroom gives me the opportunity to check them out.

During the bus ride to the base, I learned that five of the girls are friends from New York. They all have straight brown hair and the same basic "look." They're taking this whole boot camp thing seriously and are determined to be

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obedient soldiers. I swear these New York girls can't wait to get down and dirty in the Israeli dirt. I think they're under the impression that at the end of our military basic training program they'll be ready for the front lines of battle. I don't have the heart to tell them they've got a demented view of reality.

We have four girls from California. They're all really pretty and two of them are fakey-blond.

Then there's Tori, our resident bitch. She's a total loner, by choice. She rolls her eyes at everything, and makes snide comments to just about everyone on the trip. I think her goal in life is to insult every person she comes in contact with. Her hair is long and blond, but when she turns around and her hair parts you can see that underneath she has a sheath of black hair. It's totally two-tone, but I have no clue if she wants it that way or if it's a bad dye job. Either way, it's definitely unique.

The rest of the seven girls in our barracks are from different states scattered around the country, although two are actually from Canada and I want to laugh every time they say the word "about" because it comes out as "ah-boot."

Right now we're being dismissed from the classroom. How can I break it to Ronit that I'm "ah-boot" to go search for my boyfriend?

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Chapter 8

Breaking the rules feels great while you're breaking them, but horrible while you're paying for them.

Getting free time here is proving to be nearly impossible. After our classroom discussion, we're led back to our
bit-tan
and are instructed to pick a bunk and unpack. This is also a bathroom break time, but I'm not going in that place again until I absolutely have to. There really isn't unpacking to do because each of us only has a little cubby to put our stuff in--just big enough to fit my shampoo, conditioner, and makeup bag. I'll just have to live out of my suitcases while I'm here.

Because Jess, Miranda, and I got to the
bittan
late, Jess and I can't share a bunk. I sit on an unoccupied one.

"That's mine," Tori says, standing over me. "I called it first. You can have the top bunk."

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I look around for an empty bottom bunk, but there aren't any left.

"That's fine," I say to Tori, who seems pretty pleased to boss me around. I would argue that I didn't hear her "call it first" or that I'm afraid of heights and I'll probably fall off the top bunk while I sleep, but all I want to do is find Avi. I couldn't care less about Tori and her bottom bunk.

Just when I think free time has begun, it's time for the next activity. Ronit hands out pillows, sheets, and a very thin wool blanket. For the next hour, she teaches us how to make our beds. We have to keep unsheeting and re-sheeting until we get the A-okay from Ronit that we've finally done it to IDF standards (picture tight hospital corners). I can tell you right now that making tight hospital corners on a top bunk is tons harder than on a bottom bunk.

My bunk is two away from Miranda's and across from Jessica's. I can tell it'll be close to impossible to have private late-night chats.

"Everyone line up outside!" Ronit yells.
"Yala, zooz!"

I don't exactly know what
"Yala, zooz
means, but from her tone I guess it means "Come on, hurry up." I have a feeling I'll be hearing those words a lot while I'm here.

Jess pulls me aside before we go. "Switch bunks with me," she says. "You want a bottom bunk, right?"

"Yeah, but--"

"Well, it's right by the door so you can get fresh air." Jess is already bringing her stuff over to my cubby and switching my stuff out. "Just do it. We've got to hurry and