Next Year in Israel (9 page)

“Yosi, Avi, Rebecca’s here,” Tova screamed, then lowered her voice to say, “Avi’s your age.”

Grandma didn’t tell me about a son my age. Then again, she didn’t tell me Tova was younger than her usual friends. Yosi, Tova’s husband, limped into the hallway. Avi was right behind him.

I noticed his blue eyes right away. His jean shorts and red Nike shirt were Americanized, but instead of tennis shoes or flip-flops, he wore brown Teva leather sandals, also fairly popular back in America. My mind went blank. I was glad to be wearing Mia’s Tel Aviv University tee shirt. I didn’t want to look like a tourist.

Avi took my backpack, which had a change of clothes. Tova had insisted I stay the night for the holiday. “Nice to meet you,” Avi said in perfect English. “I’ll put your bag in Ilan’s room. By the way, Ilan’s my older brother.”

Talk about good fortune. There I was following a good-looking guy who could speak English well. This was my chance to move up from one-word conversations with boys. Ilan’s room was decorated with basketball posters. I shifted my weight as Avi put down my backpack. What kind of question should I ask? Where do you go to school? Nah, that was something my mom would say. What’s your favorite subject? That was even worse.

“I’ll show you my room,” he said.

Please don’t let him be into sports like his brother
, I thought. We’d have nothing to talk about.

He had a Beatles poster on his wall. It got better when I saw his bookcase. He had hundreds of CDs, ranging from classic rock to pop and rap. There was even a concert stub from a Black Eyed Peas concert. The CDs stacked haphazardly on the floor were Israeli bands I had never heard of.

“I like it all,” he said.

His room gave me an idea. “The Black Eyed Peas played here in Israel?” I asked.

“This isn’t Greenland. They played here a couple of years ago. Have you seen them in concert?”

“Not yet. My last concert was Bruno Mars.” It had been my only concert. Dad got tickets for my birthday, and I had been relieved to have somebody to go with, even if it was Dad.

“What’s the word I’m thinking… cool. You want to listen to music?”

“Yeah.” I smiled like Mia and Jordyn did around guys.

He turned on his CD player.

I sat down on his bed. His mattress was five times as thick as the thin plank I slept on at the
kfar
. I had to say something before I lost my
chutzpah
. “How many encores did the Black Eyed Peas do?”

“Two. I’m missing one of their CDs. See if you can figure it out.”

His CDs were slopped together according to artist, so I alphabetized them. “What happened to
Bridging the Gap
?”

“Borrowed. Did you know some of the students at your school… behave badly?”

“Delinquents. They seem okay. It’s like a
kibbutz
,” I said, although he wasn’t the outdoorsy, farmer type, and I couldn’t picture him living on a commune.

“
Kibbutz
,” he said, as if it were beneath him. “Do you like the
kfar
?”

“Yeah.” What wasn’t there to like about not being a loser? “Do you like your school?”

“It’s one of the best in Tel Aviv,” he said.

“What’s your favorite subject?” Oops, that slipped out.

“Music,” he said.

“For real?”

“Science. What’s your favorite?”

“English. You speak well.”

“Thanks. I watch
Saturday Night Live.
Do you speak Hebrew?”

“Nah.”

Tova popped her head in. “Dinner’s soon.”

I got up and walked toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Avi said.

“To change for dinner.” Mom and Dad insisted I dress up on holidays at home.

Avi squinted, puzzled. That confused me. “Don’t you celebrate Rosh Hashanah?” I asked stupidly.

“Yes, there’s no school tomorrow.”

“I’ll go change,” I said.

“You don’t have to change.”

“Okay,” Casual clothes were fine by me. Maybe there were Israeli customs I didn’t know about, like dressing up after dinner.

At dinner, I sat down at the table across from Avi. Tova handed me a plate with potatoes, green beans, and two slices of roast beef. Yosi spoke in Hebrew that I didn’t understand.

“He doesn’t speak English,” Avi said.

“How’s the
kfar
?” Tova asked.

“Good.” The roast beef had a distinct taste from a mysterious spice, but the potatoes and green beans were mouthwatering.

Tova poured me water. “What’s your job?”

“Landscaping.” I wasn’t sure what to say next. Certainly, I didn’t want to complain about my jerky supervisor.

Tova continued the inquisition. “What are your roommates’ names?”

“Mia and Jordyn.”

“Are they Israeli?” Avi asked.

“American.”

“Do you get along with them?” Tova said.

Tricky question, considering I was living with an unpredictable backstabber and a kindhearted social queen who were frenemies. “Yes. Dinner’s delicious. Much better than
kfar
food.”

“
Toda
,” She beamed and turned to Avi. “What’d you get on your Arabic test?”

Avi rolled his eyes. “Ninety-five.”

“When will the new school basketball court be done?” she said.

Avi answered her in Hebrew.

I wondered what kind of prayers Avi, Tova, and Yosi would say when the sun set and Rosh Hashanah officially began.

“Can we be excused?” Avi said.

I stopped cutting my meat. Leaving the table early must have been a regular occurrence because Tova didn’t seem to mind when we stacked our plates in the sink a few moments later.

In Avi’s room, he pulled out his desk chair, turned it around, and sat down.

“What time does temple start?” I tried to sound peppy. I had packed my blue flowered dress and strappy sandals to wear.

“Don’t know.”

I raised my eyebrows. Didn’t everyone in Israel go to temple on Rosh Hashanah? It was a national holiday.

“I don’t have to go to temple to be Jewish,” he said.

I was beginning to like him more and more.

“You can go with my parents.”

“Nah.” I said.

“What’s
nah
?”

“No.”

His mouth opened slightly. “You mean
lo.
”

My pulse raced. “
Lo
. I don’t want to go. Do you do Shabbat prayers?” I thought of Leah lighting candles at the
kfar
every Friday.

“
Lo
. You say them at home?”

“Never,” I said. “We say them at the
kfar
.” I had memorized the prayers by the third time.

“If you come next Friday, I’ll ask my parents to say them for you.”

I smiled at the thought of another visit. “Who borrowed
Bridging the Gap
?” Was it at a girlfriend’s house?

“
I loaned it to my friend.”

“Does he still have it?” I said.

Avi turned down the volume. “I guess. He tells me he forgot it. Finally, I’m at his house months later and ask for it again. He tells me it is lost, but he doesn’t offer to replace it or let me download the songs using his account. He’s not my friend anymore.”

“The word is ex-friend.” Kind of drastic for a CD. I would have let it slide to maintain the friendship.

He picked up a CD from the floor. “You want to listen to Israeli music?”

I nodded. Sitting on his bed, I closed my eyes for a moment. Thanks to Grandma and music, I was talking to a pretty boy. What a turnaround from the horrible situation at home!

Not that I never tried to change things there. Two weeks after I received the first slut note, I’d decided I couldn’t take it anymore. Was my secret admirer right? Was I a slut? A whore? Ugly? Obviously, I was kind of a loser; otherwise, Derrick wouldn’t be dissing me. Whatever I was, it wasn’t who I wanted to be, and the respect that I had for myself was slipping away. I needed to take charge and become me again. When Mom came home from work that evening and tossed her purse on the kitchen counter, I begged her to transfer me to a different school.

Mom had given me a hard look, and I knew from her puffy eyes she was exhausted from sitting in traffic after a long day of work, and she’d rather I tell her school was wonderful and let her
ooh
and
aah
at my schoolwork. Like always, she thought I was overreacting to the name-calling. I ran to my room, slammed the door shut, and called Dad, hoping I could transfer to the school in his neighborhood. But Dad said Mom and I lived near the better school. Well, he had said it all: I was strictly a weekend daughter, and that was how he wanted to keep it.

Avi turned up the volume on his stereo. “I love this song.”

“Louder,” I insisted. He moved the CD pile over and sat down on the floor, then threw an Israeli CD my way. “Put it in the pile by your hand.”

I caught it and smiled. Whatever we were listening to sounded different than anything I had heard before: hip-hop and folk music mixed together. I couldn’t understand the lyrics, but I was happy to listen to it, because I was with Avi.

Later, we raided the refrigerator for leftover falafel and my new favorite: red-pepper hummus. Tova and Yosi came into the kitchen as I dipped my last piece of pita into the hummus. Yosi spoke too fast for me to understand, but I watched his light blue eyes, anyway. Eventually, he limped over to the couch and turned on the TV. Tova opened the fridge and put another bowl on the counter.

Avi ladled his pita into the bowl. “Baba ghanoush.”

I dunked a new piece of pita in. The consistency was the same as hummus, and it tasted similar except that eggplant replaced garbanzo beans as the main ingredient. “Good.”

Tova nodded and spoke Hebrew to Avi. She took out a jar of honey from the cupboard and grabbed an apple from fruit basket. Avi poured honey into a bowl.

“Will you be coming to synagogue tomorrow?” Tova asked.

I waited for Avi to answer.

“
Lo
,” Avi said.

“Rebecca?” Tova sounded like Grandma would have. There was a slight
You-should-come
in her tone.

“
Lo
. Thanks for the offer, though.”

Avi handed me an apple wedge. I dipped it in the honey.

Tova wiped the counter with a sponge and said something in Hebrew, ending it with, “Rebecca.”

My face flushed. I should go to temple. A good guest follows the hostess, yet I was acting as if I was part of her family by refusing to go.

Avi puckered his mouth. “
Lo
.”

She shooed her hands at him, then a dry laugh bubbled from her mouth.

Avi and I should have sat down at the table to eat properly. Snacking at the counter like I lived there was rude.

“No English for the rest of tonight,” Tova said. “We take away your crutch.”

She couldn’t be serious. “Don’t you want to practice English?” I asked. “Everybody at the
kfar
practices their English on us.”

She walked over to the couch and sat down next to Yosi.

“I told her we should wait,” Avi said.

“Thanks.”

“The word is
toda
.”

“
Toda
,” I said, loud enough for Tova and Yosi to hear as we walked past them to his room.

He turned on his stereo. “
Ma sh’mech?
”

“English,” I pleaded.

“
Lo.
” He blinked his black eyelashes.

“Rebecca,” I said, like a baby. He wrote my name with Hebrew letters on his notebook. We both stayed quiet for the next hour while we listened to music.

Later, I found a radio station playing English pop music.

“Can we speak English yet?” I begged between songs.

“
Lo
,” he said.

“Please.” He didn’t answer. I threw in the Hebrew word for
please
: “
Be׳vakasha
.”

He finally smiled at me. “Okay, Rebecca. We break the rule for music.”

Chapter 9

“WAKE UP,” MIA SAID TO me on the morning of Yom Kippur. “I need something to do.” I pushed my hair off my face. Mia stood by my bed and looked like she was ready to shake me. Jordyn’s bed was empty. Of the three of us, Jordyn always got out of bed first. Her hair and makeup took a long time. Mia was usually the second one up. Once she had doused her face in cold water, she’d remind me to get up.

“Jordyn with Caleb?” I asked unnecessarily. Where else would she be? Both Mia and I had heard Jordyn get up, tiptoe around, blow-dry her hair, then close our door. She hadn’t said anything because she wasn’t supposed to be going to Caleb’s room at the crack of dawn.

Mia nodded. “Want to go to temple?” It was the Jewish Day of Atonement.

It was fine to wake me up. I was used to our little routine. But waking me up to go to temple? That was wrong. “Nah, I don’t like the once-a-year confession.”

“Who does? Leah said there’s a temple a half-mile from here.” Mia went back to her bed and flopped on the pillow. “Ben and Jake are walking and said to meet at the school courtyard if we want to go.”

“Let’s go to the beach instead,” I said in my best persuasive voice.

“My parents make me to go to temple on Yom Kippur. Don’t yours?”

“Never.”

Mia scrunched her eyebrows. “Do you fast?”

I stretched my arms. Grandma was the only one in our family who went to temple and fasted. “Nah.”

“I don’t feel like going to the beach,” she whined. “I’ll skip temple, if you fast.”

The
kfar
was serving meals for those of us who weren’t fasting. “Okay.” I hoisted myself up. Over by Mia’s bed, her Egypt postcard fell off the wall. It was a split picture of pyramids and a gold sphinx, with cursive writing on the back that said
Having a great time
. I picked it up and pressed it against the wall underneath her photos. “Is this where it goes?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“The pyramids look cool. Who went to Egypt?”

She got the tape out from Jordyn’s cubby. “My grandparents, last year. I want to go someday. Maybe when I’m in college.”

“Where are you applying?” I asked.

“Not sure. My parents say not to worry about it until next year. Shouldn’t we say we’re sorry for what we’ve done wrong?”

“Isn’t that why we’re fasting?”