Like No Other (27 page)

“What happened?” Ryan asks. But I can tell he already knows.

“It’s over,” I say.

“Dude, I’m sorry.” He gets up and puts an arm around my shoulders.

“I tried,” I say.

“I know you did,” he says. “You tried your ass off.”

“That’s poetic, Ry,” I say with a laugh, grateful for the levity. I give him an affectionate pat as we start to slowly make our way back to the road that will lead us home.

D
evorah

S
EPTEMBER
21, 4
PM

O
n my first day at Monsey, I thought the bright flower paintings hanging on Rabbi Perolman’s office walls were simple and childish, no more than geometric blobs floating on thin, anemic stems. But as I stare at them now, I see chaos teeming below the surface, a mess of haphazard brushstrokes, shapes reaching in vain for one another across vast rivers of blank nothingness. Then again, maybe I’m just trying to distract myself from the fact that I’m in the middle of being mercilessly prosecuted for ruining my own life.

My parents, who arrived from Brooklyn just as the rabbi and I were returning from our disastrous outing in the park, are serving as both judge and jury on this case. Rabbi Perolman is their lawyer, and I am the fool representing myself.

“I was perfectly polite,” I say, defending my behavior with the Kaplans, which my parents seem to think they know an awful lot about considering they weren’t even there. “But how could you honestly expect me to be enthusiastic about something I never wanted?”

“You have no idea what you’ve just squandered,” my mother says. “David was the best you will ever do. Believe me, I’ve already been through
shidduchim
with Rose—and two disasters with Isaac—and I know what’s out there. And now, after what happened today, who’s going to even want to meet you, knowing some crazed lunatic might show up at any moment?”

“I already told you,” I say as calmly as I can manage, “I ended it with Jaxon. I thought you’d be happy.” It still breaks my heart a little to say it out loud, that it’s over. That I sent away that wonderful boy who wanted so desperately to prove to me how things could be different. Who wanted to marry me, someday.

“We are a long way from happy,” my father says, his voice deep and threatening like far-off thunder.

“Devorah,” Rabbi Perolman jumps in, “ending your relationship with Jaxon was a crucial step, and I think everyone feels positively about it.”
Not everyone
, I think. I feel a twinge of longing but try to push him out of my brain, at least for now. Jax paved the way for all of this, and even if we can’t be together I’m not going to let everything we went through be in vain. I have to make them understand. “But the concern now,” the rabbi says, “is that you get reinvested in the Hasidic faith rather than distancing yourself even more. If I’m hearing right, your parents are fearful—and so am I, frankly—that if you continue to criticize and reject the Hasidic lifestyle, you’ll lose opportunities that you’ll later regret.”

“I understand that you don’t want to be married right now,” my mother says. “But trust me, Devorah, within a few years you will change your mind. And if you burn all your bridges, you’ll end up alone.”

“Childless,” my father adds, which causes my mother to recite a prayer under her breath.

“But I see it in reverse,” I say. “
I
fear that if I continue on the path that’s been set for me, I’ll look back later with resentment.”

“Who will you resent?” the rabbi asks, adjusting his glasses.

“My husband, my children, my parents . . .
you
,” I say. “It’s not that I reject our entire culture. I just want to see what else is out there. I just want to feel more free.”

“Free will is an illusion,” my father barks. “There is no freedom in deciding what kind of skirt to wear or who you would prefer to marry. The only real freedom comes from living your life according to God’s will.”

I look down at my lap. There’s no way I’m getting into a theological argument with my father. He’ll never understand what I’m feeling. “By that definition I’ll still never be free,” I mumble.

“Devorah, you’ve said a few times in our sessions over the past week that you desire freedom,” the rabbi says. “And I’m interested to know what that means to you. Can you tell me what you associate with a feeling of freedom? It seems as if you have something specific in mind.”

“Well,” I say, glancing over at my parents, “actually, it’s from a family story my mom used to tell me.” My mother’s face pales as I recount my favorite legend; she must be mortified that she unwittingly planted the seeds for my rebellion.

“Hmmmm,” the rabbi murmurs as I finish, massaging his beard. “You see, to me that seems to indicate the presence of God, not free will. Your grandmother was moved by a force of nature, not by her own desires.”

“Ayelet, are you okay?” my father interrupts. My mother’s eyes have filled with tears. She nods, but I can tell that she is definitely not okay. When she’s in a room, Zeidy likes to say, she uses up all the oxygen. My mother is many things, but a pale, shivering mute she is not. I don’t know what I’ve said to upset her so much, but I wish I could unsay it.

“Could you give me a minute alone with my daughter?” she asks the rabbi softly.

“I’ll get us some coffee,” he says as he rises and heads for the door. My father joins him, and soon my mother and I are alone in the bright, homey office, staring at each other from opposite couches. As the middle child of seven, it’s possible I haven’t been alone in a room with my mother in years, and I’ve forgotten how much I crave her undivided attention. All I want to do is leap across the coffee table and bury my face in her sweet-smelling scarf, have her hush me and sing to me, telling me it’s all going to be all right in the end.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” I say.

“
Sha shtil
,” she says tearfully. “I’m the one who owes you an apology. I shouldn’t have told you that story.”

“Why not? I love it.”

My mother gazes out the picture window at the empty courtyard. “I was making a fairy tale out of something that wasn’t,” she says. “Maybe I was editing history a bit to deal with my own feelings.”

“What do you mean?”

“Devorah,” she says, “the night your grandmother was out on the beach in the storm, it wasn’t because she was feeling happy and free. It was because she felt trapped. She was out by herself late at night because she was trying to run away.”

The words sink in like footsteps in wet sand, the way I always imagined her running, picking up speed before her unexpected liftoff. “But . . . they had just gotten married,” I say. “Weren’t they on their honeymoon?”

“You couldn’t call it that, really,” my mother says. “They didn’t even have much of a wedding. It was very rushed.”

“Why?” I can’t believe I’ve never heard this before. Or—yes I can. There are many things good Hasidic girls just don’t discuss.

“Because once they were discovered,” my mother says, bristling, “there was a lot of pressure on my mother to convert.”

“What do you mean, ‘discovered’?” I ask.

“She was a secretary at the office where he worked,” my mother says. “His first job. They were both seventeen.” Her cheeks flush pink with embarrassment, and I realize that what my mother is trying to tell me is that Grandma and Zeidy had an affair before marriage.

“Did she even
want
to marry him?” I ask.

“I doubt it,” my mother says. “They were never what you would call happy. Or at least, she wasn’t.” My grandmother died when I was eight, so I have few firsthand memories of her and Zeidy together. I only know that in family photos, they wear glossy, faded smiles. And that Zeidy still talks about her all the time, calling her “my
motek
.” My sweetness.

“How did
you
know?” I ask breathlessly.

“She used to sit in the armchair in the living room at night when we were getting ready for bed, drinking beer,” my mother says. “In the morning, Varda and I would find the cans lined up by the fireplace. Once I remember counting nine of them.”

“Did Zeidy know?”

“He tried not to see it, I think,” my mother says. “Almost everyone tried not to. But I couldn’t ignore it. She was my mother, and I felt her sadness like it was my own.” She looks at me for a long moment, her eyelids crinkling with concern. “I hope you don’t feel that way,” she says.

I shake my head. Before the night of the Shomrim incident, in fact, I can barely remember a time when I saw my mother truly unhappy. She seems to love the life she leads, which may be why I feel so guilty for not wanting to emulate her path. After all, how can something that brings my mother—and my idolized big sister—such joy and fulfillment feel to me like such a desolate prison? Doesn’t one of us have to be wrong?

My mother must be thinking the same thing, because she gets up and moves to my couch, putting a cool hand on my cheek. “I have no idea what it’s like to feel so trapped,” she says. “But I know how much it hurt my mother, and I don’t
ever
want that for you.”

“I wish I didn’t feel this way,” I say.

“I know, sweetheart,” she says, pulling me into a tight hug. “But you do, and we have to deal with it.” She holds me out at arm’s length and studies my face. “What would make you happy?” she asks.

I take a deep breath and prepare, for the first time in a long time, to tell her the absolute truth.

• • •

“What do you mean, college?” my father asks. He’s been invited back in at my request, after my mother briefed him on the finer points of our heart-to-heart. But unlike my mother, my father doesn’t feel a deep-seated emotional compulsion to see my forbidden dreams come true.

“Not yeshiva,” I say, gathering my courage. “A regular four-year college.”

“A secular college?” he asks with a derisive laugh. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Aaron,” my mother says patiently. She’s taken on the role of the rabbi since Rabbi Perolman got called away to counsel another patient, which is fine by me. “She’s just asking to look, and only at local schools. We’re not committing to anything.”

Like the rabbi telling me I “just” had to meet the Kaplans, I decide to allow my parents to believe that they will have a choice when it comes to my higher education. “I want to start looking now,” I say, “And when I apply next fall I’ll pay for all the applications.”

“What if you get in?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Then I’ll go.”

“Feh, why not just move out now?” His tone is still angry, but his eyes have gone slack and sad.

“Because I’m still sixteen,” I say. “I can’t make it on my own yet, and I don’t want to. I miss my family, and I just want to go home and sleep in my own bed.”

“She’s promised to abide by our rules in the house,” my mother adds.

“She’d better,” my father mutters.

“But I have some rules, too,” I say. My father’s eyes widen at my chutzpah. “First, you can’t meet with a
shadchan
about me behind my back or involve Jacob in any discussions about my life. I tried to run once, and I swear I’ll leave if you ever pull anything like that again.

“Two, I want a cell phone with my own number. One that you know about, no secrets. You’ll get the bill each month, so you’ll be able to keep tabs on who I call, and that way I can have more free time out of the house without you having to worry.”

“More free time?” my father asks.

“Yes, that’s number three,” I say. “I want a later curfew.”

“Naturally,” he says, smiling a little bit despite his furrowed brows.

“So what do you think?” I ask hopefully.

“I think you’re making a mistake,” he says, frowning. “I had hoped for a different life for you, and I pray you’ll come to your senses before it’s too late.”

I clutch the couch cushions underneath my skirt, holding my breath, waiting for the three-letter conjunction that will tip the scales in my favor.

“But,” he says with a sigh, “I suppose I would rather have my daughter under my roof than out on the street. If I had to
choose
.”

“Is that a yes?” I ask.

It is. Twenty minutes later my father is shaking the rabbi’s hand as he signs a release form at the CRTCM front desk, and twenty-five minutes later we are turning left onto NY 59 E on our way back home, where I will step back over the threshold of my same-old house into what I hope with every fiber of my being is a brand-new life.

J
axon

S
EPTEMBER
22, 8
AM

I
t’s Monday morning in the freak hallway, and even though I don’t feel back to normal, not by a long shot, I’ve got to fake it for now—at least until after first period, when I’ve made it through Mr. Misery’s first philosophy test, the one I forgot I had until I got home last night. Ryan has taken pity on me (he says it’s because he knows I need the grade, but I suspect it also has something to do with the epic dumping I sustained about seventeen hours ago) and is quizzing me as I forlornly eat a banana while slumped against my locker. To paraphrase Descartes, I mope, therefore I am.

“Okay,” Ryan says, reading from the practice questions that end the chapters of our philosophy textbook, holding it open so that creepy-eyed marble bust of Aristotle is staring me down from the cover. “‘Which of the following is not considered an aspect of the soul by Plato? (A) The appetitive part, (B) The spirited part, (C) The emotive part, (D) The rational part.’”

“Uh . . .” I stare up at the ceiling. Those all sound like valid soul parts to me.

“You know this,” Ryan says. “Here’s a hint: You use this aspect all the time.”

“Wait, I thought the answer was
not
an aspect.”

“Well, right,” Ryan says. “According to Plato. But you still do it.”

“D, the rational part?” I say hopefully, and Ryan snorts.

“If that was true, we wouldn’t have spent two-thirds of our Sunday on a bus just to get yelled at by a rabbi.”

“Point taken. C, emotive.”

“Correct!” Ryan cries triumphantly, but I don’t feel like celebrating. I can accept that it’s over between me and Devorah—hell, she didn’t give me a choice—but it hurts whenever I think about it, like breathing with a cracked rib.

“Ask me another,” I say.

“‘Why do we make mistakes, according to
Meditations on First Philosophy
?’” Ryan reads. “‘(A)’—”

“Seriously?” I interrupt.

“What?” Ryan looks confused.

“The question is seriously ‘Why do we make mistakes?’” He nods. “Oh,” I say guiltily. “Sorry, I thought you were screwing with me.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Ryan says. “And for the record, I don’t think you made a mistake. You went for it, man, balls to the wall. And I respect that.”

“Thanks,” I say, laughing. My mom said the same thing last night—not in so many words, and definitely not saying “balls,” but the sentiment was still there. She told me that when it comes to telling people how you feel, you’ll only truly regret
not
saying anything, and that the temporary humiliation that comes with rejection can’t compare to the agony of wondering what could have been if you only spoke up when you had the chance. And when I think about it that way, I do start to feel better.

“Do you still want the question?” Ryan asks.

“Nah,” I say, tossing my banana peel into the garbage can at the end of the hall—a three-point shot. “I know why we make mistakes. Because we have to realize that we’re imperfect, right?” This was written somewhere in my notes, but I don’t have to read them over again to know it’s true. I’m far from perfect, and I’ve even done some things in the past week that start to cross the line from harmlessly imperfect to actually pretty douchey—like bailing on Cora with no explanation—but it’s not too late to undo some of the damage, clean out that grease trap, and start fresh before I gunk it up again. I’ll go over to Wonder Wings after school and give her back her forty dollars, plus interest. And then I’ll take out the garbage.

“I think we’re good to go,” Ryan says. “We should go now to get seats early.”

“We have fifteen minutes!” I protest.

“Yeah, but there’s some kind of electromagnetic force that keeps you from getting there on time,” he says, hoisting his bag onto his shoulder. “So we need a buffer.” And as if on cue, Polly appears in the doorway, her sneakers squeaking against the brown-and-black-checkered linoleum floor. She smiles at us benevolently, like some visiting dignitary from the land of the popular.

“Hey, guys,” she says. “Where you headed?”

“We’ve got a test,” I say.

“And unfortunately no time,” Ryan adds.

“Oh, okay.” She kind of lingers in the doorway as we slide past her into the rush hour hallway traffic. “I’ll walk with you, then!” She jogs to catch up and squeezes in on my right side. Ryan shoots me a look. “How are you feeling?” Polly asks. I’m about to give her the honest answer—my good old emotive aspect kicking into gear—but then I realize she’s talking about my more visible injuries.

“Better,” I say. “My shoulder is still sore, but it’s going away on its own. Must not have been too bad.”

“Sometimes things feel worse than they are at first,” she says warmly, and I smile down at the top of her head, her thick black ponytail swinging with every step as she struggles to keep up. I hope she’s right about that.

“Where’s your posse?” Ryan asks as we hit the stairwell up to the fourth floor, swimming against the current of freshmen on their way to the science labs.

“I don’t have a posse anymore,” Polly says self-consciously. “I quit step.”

“Sorry,” I say.

“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad.”

“But wasn’t that, like, your dream?” Ryan asks.

“
No
,” she says, laughing. “I have bigger dreams than that. And the people were kind of . . . not awesome.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” I say under my breath as we reach the landing. Ryan and I start down the hallway toward our classroom when Polly stops short by the water fountain.

“Hey, guys, give me one second,” she says, shifting nervously against a flier advertising the Model UN’s “Around the World” luncheon. “I just want to say that I’m really sorry I ditched you guys last year. It wasn’t cool, and I’ve been feeling horrible about it.” She smiles apologetically and adjusts her glasses. “I think I just wanted to feel accepted so badly that I kind of ignored the warning signs that it wasn’t right for me, you know?”

“Yeah,” I say, smiling despite the ache in my chest. “I think I do.”

“So . . . maybe we can hang out again on the regular?” she asks hopefully. “Like we used to?”

“Playing it close to the vest, Jadhav,” I say, raising my hand for a high five. “Why don’t you just admit that you love us?” Ryan cracks up, but Polly just blushes and taps my palm gingerly.

“You got me,” she says, not looking up.

• • •

The test goes okay. No bells and whistles like you see on TV when someone’s the thousandth customer at the Food Emporium, but okay. I’m pretty sure I pulled at least a B–, which should be enough to keep my average from plummeting before I have a chance to get my head back in the game.

I’m on my way to Spanish when Mr. Zenarian, the guidance counselor who heads up the tutoring program at Brooklyn Tech, pops his head out of his office. “Hey, Jax!” he calls. His receding brown hair is streaked with gray, and his gray button-down is streaked with brown coffee stains; a perfect inverse. I grin and jog over.

“Hey, Mr. Z!”

“You’ve been a hard man to track down,” he says. “I’ve been looking for you since last week.”

“Yeah,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I’ve been a little distracted lately.”

“Listen, do you have a minute?” he asks. “I have a proposal for you.”

I make a face. “Sorry, I can’t—I’ve got class,” I say. “How’s tomorrow morning?”

“Might be too late,” he says, frowning. I look down the hall to the door of my Spanish class, where Señor Diaz is already doing his
bienvenido
. “Okay, here’s the thing,” Mr. Zenarian continues. “There’s this citywide Big Brothers mentoring program that the borough president is starting up.”

“Marty Markowitz?” I grin, remembering our laughter on the bridge.

“Right, right,” Mr. Z says, getting distracted. “Anyway, I’ve been asked to nominate a student for the program, and I think you’d be perfect.”

“Why me?”

“You’re great with your tutoring kids,” he says. “I get glowing reports from parents. You have a natural charisma, you’re motivated, you’re top of your class. I don’t know, I just thought it was a no-brainer. You’re a natural-born social worker.”

“Right,” I hear myself saying. And he
is
right. I’ve never thought about it that way, but the one thing I know I want to spend the rest of my life doing is helping people find their way in life, whether it’s my sisters, my tutees, or other people I love who shall go unnamed.

“Anyway, the deadline for applications is Friday,” Mr. Z is saying. “And I’m happy to work with you on it if it’s something you think you might want to do.”

“I don’t know,” I hedge. “I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on.”

“Well, just think about it,” he says, stepping back into his office. “I think it could be great for you. And those kids.”

“Okay,” I say. “All right. I will.” And it occurs to me, as I break into a sprint down the hall to get to class before
la puerta
closes, that maybe, just maybe, I’m not lying. I mean, who knows, right? I could do it. I could find the time.

Crazier things have happened.