Next Year in Israel (10 page)

“You first,” she prodded.

“Nah. You.” I thought of the hospital—the tubes in my arms. But it wasn’t like I could confess what I had done. She’d think I was a psycho.

“Drinking and breaking curfew.” She rolled her eyes. “It does sound kind of lame. What about you?”

“I’ve never done anything wrong.” I fake-smiled.

“Inquiring minds want to know.”

My hands went cold.
This is dumb
, I thought.
She doesn’t know about my past.
All I had to do was come up with a half-baked story.

“C’mon,” she nudged.

I took a breath. “Skipped school.” It was true. Those were mental health days. No school. No Pugly.

Mia opened her eyes wide. “Skipping school. I thought the honors crowd wanted to go to school.”

“They were no-test days. You’re looking at the master of forged notes and phony calls.” I felt lightheaded.

She reached for her phone and texted:
Hanging w/R on Yom Kippur. Sorry about the stuff I’ve done wrong. Miss you.
“I bet Jordyn doesn’t get back until one minute before curfew,” she said. “Your face’s pale.”

Nobody here knew about what I did. Why was I obsessing about it? I tried to focus on Jordyn’s fuchsia sheets that had arrived in a care package with Pringles potato chips. “I feel sick all of a sudden.” I ran to the sink.

The room spun. At the hospital, Mom and Dad had stayed at my bedside, crying, telling me how much they loved me and how devastated they would have been if I hadn’t been found. Well, I wasn’t thrilled to be so lucky, but it was hard not to see what I had done to them. Mom didn’t freshen up her hair and makeup in the afternoon like she normally did. She didn’t even go home to take a shower or change her clothes. Dad didn’t leave either—not for work or to hang out with his friends. He blew his nose into stiff tissues and looked away from me to cover up his tears.

Mia gave me a bottle of water. “You don’t have to fast if you’re sick. Want some crackers?”

“Nah.” I crept into my bed and tried to forget.

~ * * * ~

Tova hugged me like I was family when I arrived at her house the following weekend for Shabbat. “Avi’s in his room.” The apartment smelled like roasted chicken and rice. My stomach growled. Lunch at the
kfar
had been wilted salad. I immediately parked myself on Avi’s bed next to his backpack.

He was sitting at his desk with a spiral notebook wedged between two open textbooks. “I have an Arabic test on Sunday. You want to go to the beach tomorrow?”

Sounded perfect to me. “Sure. I brought homework. Can we turn on music?”

He flipped on the radio. “I think about my test scores all the time.”

“I don’t get as much homework at the
kfar
.” Might as well stick to the overachiever lie.

He looked up for a moment. “That’s because you have to work. I don’t go to a
kibbutz
school.”

He definitely wouldn’t help anyone cheat on a test. I took out my notebook and wrote my name in Hebrew, which was the only thing I could write in Hebrew. He tapped his pencil on one of his books, repeating Arabic words. His head bobbed back and forth like he was chanting lyrics instead of memorizing. I smiled, thinking how I sounded like I had a speech delay when I tried to memorize Hebrew.

At dinner, Tova handed me a plate of chicken and rice pilaf. “I’ll take away your food if you speak English.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“
Lo
. You won’t learn unless we force you.”

I was struggling with Hebrew. The symbols confused me. I turned to Avi. He could make her stop.

He shrugged.

Ugh. They were making me speak Hebrew.

I bit into the chicken. The garlic melted in my mouth. I couldn’t tell her how delicious it tasted because I didn’t know the words.

Tova and Avi started talking as if I wasn’t there. I sipped my water and tried to remember the Hebrew word for
water
.

“
Mayim
,” I said, hoping I didn’t mispronounce it.

“
Mayim
, what?” Tova asked.

My mind went blank.
Please
was one of the first words I had learned.

“Please,” I said foolishly.

She scooped the rice on my plate into an extra bowl. A cooked raisin fell on the tablecloth.

“
Be
…”Avi started for me.

“
Be’vakasha
,” I finished.

She put the rice back on my plate.

“
Toda,
” I said. “Thanks.”

“Good,” Avi praised.

Tova yelled at him in Hebrew.

“I can speak English. I’m fluent,” he said.

Tova answered him in Hebrew.

“
Lo.
” He shook his head.

I spooned rice into my mouth. His best-in-school competitiveness came from her.

She got up from the table and returned with a photo album. Avi took it well while she showed me pictures of him and his brother, who was a taller version of her. In most of the photos, Avi had a closed mouth like he purposely didn’t want to give in to whoever was telling him to smile.

“No more,” he said when we came to a nursery school photo of him standing in the middle row, his hair in a bowl cut.

I followed him to his room and tripped on a CD on the floor. It was The Fray. Great. I was being spastic. I picked up the CD. “Here.”

“You want to hear it?”

“Yes.
Ken
.” If I had to speak Hebrew, I might as well listen to music I liked.

“It’s my brother’s.”

“Your mom kept saying his name at dinner. She spoke too fast for me to understand.”

“She talks about him all the time because he’s in the army. It’s annoying.”

“My mom would do the same.”

“She thinks he’ll get hurt like Dad.”

I had assumed his dad’s limp was arthritis. “How did he get hurt?”

“During the Lebanon war.”

“Aren’t you upset about having to serve?” It was mandatory for almost everybody at eighteen. I would be scared to enlist if my dad had been injured.

“
Lo.
Who else is going to stand up for my country unless I do it?”

“What does your Dad think?” I asked.

“He’s happy to be alive.” He touched my fingers. “Hand me the CD.”

I felt warm. I handed him the CD and moved my hand away self-consciously.

He turned around to start the music. “What’s your favorite Fray song?”

“It changes depending upon my mood. What’s yours?”

“I’m not a big fan. It’s for you.”

When I went to bed that night, I wished I hadn’t pulled back my hand.

~ * * * ~

At the beach the next day, I took off Mia’s white cover-up that I’d borrowed, and reminded myself Jordyn had said I should be wearing a bikini. Avi wore black swimming trunks instead of the skimpy brief suits that some of the other Israelis had on. It seemed like we were on vacation as we sat on the edge of the shore, our legs glistening in the wet sand, and watched people body surf. Avi wrote our names in Hebrew, English, and Arabic. Three guys waved at us.

“Who are those guys?” I asked. They were walking toward us.

He took my hand. “Friends.”

My heart pounded as they stopped in front of us.

“This is Rebecca,” Avi said, not letting go.

“Your American friend.
Shalom
,” said the one wearing yellow swim trunks.

I kept my hand in Avi’s. “Hi.
Shalom
.”

“You want to come into the sea with us?”

“
Lo
,” Avi said.

“
Lo
,” I repeated.

“What’s the American English… See you,” said one of the others.

“Bye.” Avi said.

I watched them blend into the swimmers and waited for Avi to let go.

He squeezed my hand. I leaned in and said, “I know how to write my name in Hebrew.” His beautiful eyes moved closer. I closed my eyes like we were the only two people on the beach, and our lips touched.

~ * * * ~

“We are so gonna be in trouble,” I said as we walked toward the landscaping tractor the next morning. As usual, we had ignored Leah’s wake-up call.

“Ben and I hooked up on Friday night.” Mia pulled her hair into a ponytail.

“Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

“You weren’t awake.” Our room had been empty when I got home from Avi’s, and I had fallen asleep waiting for Mia and Jordyn to come in before curfew. They hadn’t woken me up when they got in.

“Details?” I said.

“After Shabbat dinner, I went to the senior dorm with Jordyn. It was time for my entrance.”

Jordyn? After all of my hard work, she picked Jordyn for her coming out instead of me.

“I didn’t want to go alone,” she said. “That’s why she was with me.”

Still, there could be a new alliance that didn’t include me. It had been a month since Jordyn had passed me the Mia note that Jake destroyed. Maybe they had decided there was enough room for two at the top? Well, jealousy wasn’t gonna get me. I had been kissed, and the loser in me seemed to be gone.

Naim waved at us and pointed to the wilted red flowers on the side of the dining hall. We picked up shovels by the tractor. “Anyways,” Mia continued, “we were drinking lemonade and vodka in Ben’s room, and I drank too much and threw up on his floor.”

“Eww.” I squatted down and pulled out the flowers, dragging the roots. A few petals drifted to the ground.

Mia pitched her shovel in the same spot and dug out the remaining roots. “Jordyn left after I threw up. She said my puke stank. How embarrassing.”

“Yeah,” I said. Jordyn leaving didn’t sound like much of a pact to me.

She stopped raking. “He helped me clean up; I used his toothbrush to freshen up, and we made out when Jake left.”

“He’s a senior.” I grabbed another bunch of red flowers.

“By the way, Jake wanted to know where you were. I told him you have an Israeli boyfriend in Tel Aviv.”

I smiled. The kiss made me normal.

“Why are you smiling?”

“No reason.” Gorgeous Avi thought I was okay enough to kiss, and it wasn’t a joke to verify my slut status. I was far from the non-kissable girl I had been. My reinvention was happening.

“Hey, what’d you do at Avi’s?”

“Listened to music. Went to the beach.”

“You’re blushing. What’d you do at the beach?”

“Kiss.” I wondered if I could get away with shouting it out loud.

“I told Jake he’s your boyfriend.”

“Must be fate.” I walked over to the water cooler. It was because Avi knew nothing about my past.

“Do you want him to be your boyfriend?”

“Yeah.” After the kiss, I thought his smile might be a polite thanks-for-the-kiss thing, but when he walked me to the bus stop, we held hands until I got on the bus. He wouldn’t have held my hand if he didn’t like the kiss.

“Ben’s cute and nice,” she said.

“Is he your boyfriend?” I asked.

Naim stood in front of us with one of his friends.

“The water is not for you,” Naim’s friend said. “It’s for those who don’t waste time.”

“Sorry.” I smirked.

Naim’s nostrils flared.

Mia picked up her rake and said something in Hebrew.

“Get to work,” Naim’s friend said, ignoring Mia.

“He’s cranky today,” I whispered.

“You’re finished working here,” Naim’s friend yelled. “Don’t come back.”

I didn’t answer. They could yell all they wanted.

“Deleck,” Mia said.

“Um hmm,” I said.

~ * * * ~

At the Deleck, I ordered our usual. “Two pita ‘n chips.”

“No falafel. Extra fries,” Mia told the cashier.

“Falafel in mine, please.” I wanted it my way, sans the fries.

At the last open table by the window, I knocked soil off of my hands, so they weren’t filthy. Mia handed me a pita with fries.

“Didn’t I order falafel?”

She bit into her sandwich. “I’ll eat your fries if you don’t want them.”

I waved my sandwich at her, annoyed that my order was wrong. “Take one.”

“Hey, fired workers.” Ben and Jake walked over to our table from the door. “Heard you were mouthy,” Ben said with a cigarette hanging from his lips.

I wanted to dab the grass stains on his shirt with a wet napkin.

Mia smiled. “Give us an easy job. Please.”

Ben stopped at our table. “Dorm eight needs two maids.”

Jordyn had told us cleaning dorms was quick and easy. Neat freak me would be doing what I did best. “Excellent,” I said.

“Thanks.” Mia kissed him on the cheek like he had been her boyfriend forever.

Jake raised his empty hands up. “Ben, can you get me something? I don’t have any s
hekels
.” Ben got up and headed to the food line. Jake looked me and blinked. “Mia said you’ve got an Israeli friend.”

“His name’s Avi,” I said.

“Is he your ‘maybe’ boyfriend?”

Mia kicked me under the table.

“Maybe,” I said. Boyfriend! He could absolutely be my boyfriend.

Ben returned to the table, bearing two pitas. “Did you hear about the terrorist attack in Haifa?”

Mia shrugged as if he was talking about the weather.

“Two bombs.” Ben handed one pita to Jake.

“That’s too bad,” I said. “Haifa isn’t that close to us.”

“We need to be careful at the bus stop.” Ben put down his pita. “It’s been blown up before.”

“So?” Mia scrunched her eyebrows.

“Stay away from anybody dressed in tons of clothes.” Ben looked pissed. “They might have a bomb.”

“I’ve heard this a million times before.” Mia drummed her fingers on the table. “I’m not living in fear.”

Jake raised his eyebrows at me. I sipped my Coke casually and offered him the can.

“Don’t be dumb,” Ben said. “Terrorists—”

“Oh, just kiss and make up.” Jake took a swig of my soda.

Ben pulled Mia out of her chair and kissed her hand. Mia kissed him back on the lips.

“Get a room,” Jake said.

Ben took his sandwich, and he and Mia walked away. I wondered what to say. Terrorists weren’t on my easy-conversation list. Music had worked with Avi. If I really got desperate, I could talk about Leah.

“I’m calling you Becca,” Jake said.

“No one ever calls me that.” I pictured Derrick calling me Pugly at school.