Like No Other (5 page)

For some reason I immediately picture him in an apron, braiding challah. “You do?” I say with a smile.

“Hell yeah,” he says proudly. “I run a mean vacuum. With four little sisters you can’t wait too long to clean or you’ll be knee-deep in glitter pens and Barbie heads.”

“Don’t tell me you cook, too,” I tease.

“Not really,” he says. “But I work part time at Wonder Wings, so I can get you a discount.”

I smile as I try to imagine sitting at a table with Jaxon, dipping chicken into blue cheese sauce. A portrait of
treif
if ever there was one.

“How old are your sisters?” I probe. I don’t even care, really; I just like hearing him talk.

“Edna and Ameerah, the twins, are fourteen,” he says. “Then there’s Joy, who’s ten, and Tricia, who’s eight.” It’s sweet to think of Jaxon surrounded by a bunch of girls. I bet he’s a great big brother.

“I have three sisters,” I say. “The littlest one, Miri—Miriam—she’s eleven. Hanna’s fifteen, and Rose is eighteen.”

“Rose is the one with the baby?” he asks, his eyes widening. I nod, and he whistles. “That’s young,” he marvels.

“Not where I come from,” I say.

“My mom was twenty when she had me,” he says. Then he looks up at me and grins. “But I was an accident.”

I’m blown away by his honesty. Hasidic girls don’t have accidents. Or if they do, they’re sent away so that no one will ever know.

“I don’t know why I just told you that,” he says, looking down at his sneakers. “I don’t even know you.”

“No, I’m glad,” I say. “I mean, I’m glad . . . you’re here.” He looks back up at me, and I look at him, and this silence is much different than the others. It’s like the oxygen changes. I think back to what Rose said earlier—
two air masses converging over water
—and wonder if I’m tempting fate.

“So,” I finally say, searching for a segue and finding there is none, forcing me back into my census-taker role. “You don’t have any brothers?”

“Nah,” Jaxon says. “My dad and I are in the minority, but we deal. You?”

“Three,” I say.

Jaxon smirks. “Three brothers, three sisters. Your last name isn’t Brady, is it?”

“No, it’s Blum.”

“That was a joke,” he deadpans. “You know,
The Brady Bunch
?”

“Am I supposed to?”

“It’s a TV show,” he says, waving a hand dismissively. “But it’s old, like from the fifties or something.”

“Oh,” I say. “I actually don’t watch TV.”

Jaxon feigns shock. “By choice?”

I’m not sure how to answer that. It’s not allowed in my house, which is my parents’ rule, not mine. But I choose not to watch it even when I have the opportunity, like at friends’ houses, or in the back of taxicabs, or tonight in the hospital waiting room. Then again, am I choosing not to watch it because I truly don’t want to, or because I want to please my parents?

“I was raised to believe that TV distracts us from more important things,” I say carefully.

“Isn’t that the point?” he asks, laughing.

“I never thought about it that way. Maybe.” School and homework, setting the dinner table and helping my mother cook, tutoring Miri and Hanna, even doing mind-numbing inventory at the store—in a flash I imagine how light and easy these tasks would feel if I knew that at the end of them I got a distraction. A distraction like this.

“No TV, huh?” he says, shaking his head. “No TV, no McDonald’s. No candy. No cursing. No tank tops. What else?”

“You make me sound like an alien,” I say, crossing my arms defiantly. “Aren’t there things
you’re
not allowed to do?”

“Good point.” He thinks for a minute. “I’m not allowed to drive my dad’s truck,” he says. “I’m not allowed to make rice, ever since I accidentally set a dish towel on fire . . .”

I hang my head and bite my lip to contain my smile.

“I’m not allowed to get home after dark,” he continues, counting off the rules on his long fingers. “I’m not allowed to illegally stream HBO on the computer, and I’m not allowed to stay home from school unless I’m dead . . .”

“Don’t joke about that!” I chide, sounding like my mother.

“But I’m serious!” he says. “My parents are crazy. If I don’t go to college, I’m pretty sure they’ll disown me.”

I feel a flash of jealousy. Jaxon will graduate high school, just like me, but he’ll get to decide where he wants to go and what he wants to do with his life, while my parents will go to a
shadchan
to find me a husband, whether I’m ready or not. Forget that my grades are better than either of my older brothers’ ever were. Forget that I study English and math and science, much more well-rounded than their almost entirely religious education. It is simply expected that my education will end when I am married. My father likes to brag that I will be easy to match into a good family. Some girls, the ones with plain faces or poor manners or bad reputations, will have to be paired with husbands outside the community, who don’t know about the shame they’ve brought to their households. But not me. I will be someone’s prize. I level my eyes at Jaxon, wondering what he would think of me if he knew. I decide that if he smiles at me right this second, I’ll tell him.

It’s an easy bet to lose.

“My parents,” I say, leaning forward a bit to give my heart more room to bang around wildly in my ribs, “would disown me if they knew we were talking.”

He raises his eyebrows. “This right here?” he asks, gesturing back and forth between us. “This is a cheeseburger?”

“I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” I say. “Or to be alone with any man besides my father or brothers.”

Jaxon processes this for a minute and then starts nodding slowly. “When I first laid eyes on you, I knew you were a rebel,” he says. “I said to myself, I gotta be careful with this girl. She’s dangerous. Look at that cardigan! I bet she throws paper onto other people’s property, and probably runs around getting stuck in elevators all over Brooklyn just for the rush.” He’s making fun of me, but this time I don’t mind so much. The flirtation in his voice is intoxicating.

“Stop it,” I say with a laugh, and then steady my voice. “I’m serious. For me, this
is
dangerous.”

“No, I get it,” he says, the sly smile disappearing. “I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. We can stop talking if you want.”

I shrug. I don’t want to, but I don’t want to
tell
him I don’t want to. Then maybe it really will get dangerous.

He holds up a finger in a “give me a minute” gesture and fishes his cell phone out of his pocket. He types something and then slides it across the floor. I pick it up and look at the screen.

Let’s not talk
, he has written, the words floating inside a bright green bubble.
Don’t want 2 get u in trouble
.

When we first got stuck I balked at having a conversation with Jaxon, but now I feel like I never want to stop. I press the return key and painstakingly form a reply using the finicky touch screen
: It’s OK.
I gather my courage and add,
I like talking to you.

He grins when he reads it and points to his chest. “Me, too,” he mouths. He types something else and passes the phone back.

Compromise: listen 2 some music w/ me?

I look up at the light filtering down from the darkness above, feeling like G-d is testing me. It’s not that I’ve never heard secular music before—even though I live by Chabad rules, I still live in the world, a world with car radios and custom ringtones and mariachi bands in the subway—although, like television, it’s not welcome in my house. But I’ve already given up so much ground in this little box, stuck in limbo between two floors, what’s one more transgression? My English teacher, Mrs. Goldman, has a saying about girls who read or watch or listen to things they aren’t supposed to: “
frum
to
frei
in sixty seconds.”
Frei
literally means “free,” but it’s meant like a slur.

I nod at Jaxon, and he pulls a knotted, grimy pair of headphones out of his pocket, making a face as if to apologize for their condition. Then he scoots toward me, and I instinctively freeze.
I have to sit right next to him.
Somehow I had not considered the possibility.

He’s respectful and sits a foot away, but as he’s handing me my earbud, our fingers brush, and a current shoots through me as though I’ve stuck my finger in a light socket. The warmth from Jaxon’s body radiates across the space between us. He smells like rainwater, heady and sweet.
That’s stupid, Devorah
, I think.
It’s raining. Everyone probably smells like rain.

You pick
, he types, handing me the phone. Uh-oh. I scroll through the mostly meaningless names, searching for something familiar to grab onto. Finally I spot something: Doesn’t Zeidy always say that Grandma Deborah had a soft spot for the Shirelles? I tap the screen, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Jaxon smile to himself, like I’ve picked something that has a special meaning to him, too. We sit back and listen as the softly metallic clang of a song recorded decades before we were born fills our ears:

Tonight you’re mine completely

You give your love so sweetly

Tonight the light of love is in your eyes

But will you love me tomorrow?

• • •

One verse in and I’m so scared I’m sure I must be visibly vibrating. It’s a beautiful song, but it feels so
intimate
. Worse than talking, almost. I think back to Rose and Jacob’s wedding. Even they weren’t sitting this close to each other, and they were married. I clasp my hands in my lap, staring at the floor, keeping my head down. No good can come of this. Only—

It
feels
good.

I glance over at Jaxon. He’s got his legs pulled up, arms crossed over his knees, with his chin resting on top, his eyes closed, head bobbing with the rhythm of the melody. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know I’m looking, but for the first time since I met him he’s not awkward at all. And his face isn’t plain; how could I have thought that? It’s lovely. Beautiful, even. He opens his eyes and looks at me, like he can read my mind. And once again the air stands still.

Tonight with words unspoken

You say that I’m the only one

But will my heart be broken

When the night meets the morning sun?

• • •

I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to lean over and kiss him; part of me wants to vault through the hatch and climb until my arms give out. Neither are good options. I am
never
, I decide, even thinking about drinking ginger ale again. It’s not worth the ethical or hormonal agony.

But then Jaxon smiles, and my anxiety melts away. In fact, I relax so much that I lean into him more than I mean to, and my hand grazes his thigh. I pull it back like I’ve been bitten by a snake, accidentally knocking the headphones out of our ears. And almost at the exact same second, the lights come on and the elevator jolts to life.

The only thought I have time to process before the doors clang open is
It’s over
.
It’s over before it had a chance to begin.

J
axon

A
UGUST
28, 8:40
PM

I
t figures that it takes being trapped in a confined space for me to finally get up the nerve to flirt with a girl, just like it figures that the first time I’m actually
getting
somewhere—sharing headphones and meaningful glances, that’s big for me!—the moment is ruined by something out of my control.

I know Devorah didn’t mean to touch me. I know we weren’t about to make out or anything. I mean, I’m pretty sure just sitting next to me was like second base for her. But I felt something, and I think she did, too. Listening to that song, the one I downloaded during a pathetic, late-night pining session for Polly, after I actually Googled “unrequited love songs”—seriously, I was in pain—I finally realized you can’t force moments like that to happen. I’ve been trying to create chance encounters with Polly for more than a year, doing dumb shit like standing outside her physics class so that I could “pretend” to bump into her, or strategically positioning myself close to her at school dances so that I might be the one she turned to when a slow song started. But just now, with Devorah—that was the opposite of planned. That felt real. And suddenly I’m filled with dread that I’ll never feel it again.

The elevator starts moving up, creaking at first but gaining speed, and I know I have only a few seconds. I look at the phone in my lap and sputter, “Can I get your number?”

She shakes her head helplessly. “I don’t—”

Of course. She doesn’t have a phone, idiot. This girl lives in a bubble, a bubble I’ll never be able to get inside.

“Can you remember mine?” I ask as we slow to a stop, springing to our feet, the chaos of the ER already seeping in, voices shouting over one another. Devorah looks so overwhelmed I’m not sure she’s even listening, but I start to tell her anyway.

“Jaxon,” she says quickly, cutting me off after the area code. “I’m sorry. But I can’t. Please, just act like you don’t know me.” Her eyes are wide with fear.

• • •

As the doors open, all I can think to say is “Call me Jax.”

There are a few dozen people gathered in front of the elevator bank, way more than I remember being in the emergency room an hour ago, but as soon as they see us, 99 percent of them grumble and disperse, and I realize that they were just waiting to see if their missing friends and loved ones were in here. As the crowd parts, I see Ryan, waving maniacally with his good hand, standing next to a skinny dude with a full beard in a dark suit and hat who looks pissed.

“Jacob!” Devorah cries, rushing out like she’s been held hostage or something. “I was going to look for you in the cafeteria and the elevator shut down and—” She glances back nervously at me. “It was
awful
. I was so afraid!” It feels like a punch in the gut. Maybe I did make up all that chemistry I thought I felt. It wouldn’t be the first time.

As I jog reluctantly over to Ryan, I hear Devorah ask that Jacob guy if the baby is okay, and he says yes, that she’s stable and Rose is in the NICU with her right now, and I steal one last look at those big gorgeous eyes filled with happy tears. That’s all I need to start to feel all right again. At least someone gets a happy ending. And hey, better her than me.

“Dude, I am
so
glad to see you,” Ryan says, raising his hand for another high five, which I grudgingly accept. “At first I thought maybe you left, but then I thought, ‘Nah, Jax would never do that to me,’ but then after like an hour when you didn’t respond to any of my texts, I started to second-guess myself and thought maybe you
were
mad at me, so I thought I’d call your house to see if you were there—”

“You called my mom?!”

“Yeah, and she’s, um . . . not pleased,” Ryan mutters.

I look down at my phone, which has finally found a signal and is filling up with increasingly threatening texts.

Ryan just called, says he is at Interfaith in the ER and u have gone missing. Tell me this is a joke.

And:

Bad enough u lied to us, driving in this weather could get us killed, how irresponsible can u be??

And:

TEXT OR CALL ME RIGHT NOW. I’M NOT PLAYING. >:-(

“Ryan!” I say, low enough so Devorah can’t hear me but firm enough so he knows I’m mad. “I was stuck in an elevator; what was I supposed to do, climb out?”

“Sorry, man, I didn’t know what else to do. And I’m in trouble, too, because now I have to go home to
my
house.”

“Great,” I say. “There’s a silver lining.”

“The good news,” he says, not missing a beat, “is that your dad is picking us up in the truck.”

“That is
not
good news.” I would rather sleep at the hospital than have to listen to this story told and retold for the rest of my life as part of my dad’s lecture series, Things I Have Sacrificed for My Son. I clamp my lips shut in frustration and taste a sweet hint of chocolate: proof, at least, that I didn’t imagine
everything
.

“What was up with that girl, by the way?” Ryan asks as Devorah and Jacob disappear down the hall. “She looked hot.”

“Shut up.”

“No, I mean literally
hot
. What is she, an Eskimo?”

“Shut
up
.” I’m tired, and I know I’m about to get my ass verbally whupped; would it be so hard for Ryan to let me have a minute of peace?

Apparently. “During the blackout I tried to talk to this college girl with an eye patch, but she was pretty heavily medicated,” he says.

“That’s great, Ryan.” I see my dad’s red Ford pickup pull up in front of the emergency room doors. He’s got the tarps tied down tight, although I’m sure he’s moved his gear inside for the night. My father is a contractor/carpenter and professional tinkerer, but most of his income is from house-painting jobs, and there are never fewer than half a dozen paint cans stacked beside the front door, scenting the whole apartment with that tangy titanium dioxide smell.

I lead the way to the exit with my head down. The wind and rain are brutal as we dash the ten feet or so to the curb, shielding our faces from the stinging droplets with our backpacks. Since I’m sure we’ll be dropping Ryan off first, I squeeze into the middle seat, panting, and Ryan takes the window, holding his skateboard between his knees. My dad looks down at it like it’s a bong.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter, but he just stares straight ahead and nods, not like he accepts my apology but more like he knew I wouldn’t be able to come up with something better.

“Save your sorry’s for your mother,” he says, and sighs. “I’m just the chauffeur. And we’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

“We?” I ask, and he fixes me with a warning look.

“Yes,
we
. You’re gonna go door-to-door with me offering storm-damage home repairs. And then, you’re grounded until school starts next week.”

“But Dad,” I say, “that’s not fair! I didn’t do anything—” I’m about to say
wrong
, but I swallow the word before it has a chance to get past my lips. I need to quit lying before I dig myself in deeper.

My father clears his throat. He’s a big man with a deep voice, and when he’s getting mad you can hear it coming, like a growl emanating from a dark cave. “Whoever told you life was supposed to be fair?” he asks, nostrils flaring. Then he turns the wipers all the way up, shifts the truck into drive, and steps on the clutch, easing away from the curb and into a foot-deep river that’s running down onto Atlantic Avenue. A vein bulges in his temple, and I think back to what Mr. Jadhav said to Polly: “Do you
know
these boys?”

Maybe my parents don’t know the real me. Hell, I don’t know who I want to be half the time. But I do know one thing for sure: I was more myself in that elevator than I think I’ve ever been anywhere else.