It's a Whole Spiel

by It's a Whole Spiel- Love, Latkes

  She could tell everyone that they didn’t have Shabbat dinners at her house, but she wasn’t quite ready to admit the thing she and Aaron had in common was really only his. Before tonight, she’d wondered if sharing a religion indicated they were meant to be together. That if she aced this dinner, it might smooth out the awkwardness in their infant relationship.

  Instead, all she could utter was “Sorry” as she stared at her lap.

  That was when the table started shaking.

  ***

  5:37 p.m.

  Miri had been through the earthquake drills, which started back in kindergarten: Drop. Cover. Hold on. Once, when she was twelve, she’d come downstairs for breakfast, and her mother had asked if she’d felt the quake in the middle of the night. The news said it had only been a 2.2. Miri had slept right through it.

  This was completely different. The house felt alive, possessed by some otherworldly force. Photos on the walls bounced in their frames. Their food skidded around on the table. Instinct took over, and Miri blew out the candles in one breath. It was probably wrong to do that on Shabbat, but the alternative could have been much worse.

  “Everyone under the table,” Naomi said, a ribbon of panic in her voice, but they were already on their way.

  The jingles from the emergency preparedness videos looped in Miri’s head as they all ducked down. She clung to a table leg. Next to her, Aaron did the same.

  It felt at once earsplitting and silent as furniture banged around in this beautiful home. In the kitchen, she heard what must have been plates and glasses crashing, smashing on the floor. Talia whimpered, and Naomi made reassuring sounds. The lights cut out.

  Over and over, Miri’s heart crashed against her rib cage. It’ll be over soon. It’ll be over soon. She thought about her sister and her cat and her parents, hoped all of them were okay, wondered why she’d thought about her cat before her parents, felt guilty. Her thoughts flew to her car, which was most likely crushed beneath a fallen tree at this very minute. She tried to take deep breaths. Failed.

  Aaron was trembling. She wrapped a hand around his. “It’s okay,” she said, though she was scared too and didn’t entirely believe herself. Even in the dark, she could tell his eyes were wide and uncertain.

  He swallowed and nodded, gripping her hand back.

  It reminded her of one of the reasons she’d started liking Aaron in the first place. So many guys at school were insecure about their masculinity, trapping their true emotions behind layers of testosterone. But Aaron had never felt the urge to prove anything. She’d seen him cry, at school last year when his grandpa passed away, and he wasn’t ashamed of it. He’d let his friends hug him with such fearlessness. She’d wanted to hug him too.

  “Is it over?” Talia whispered when the ground stopped shaking, seeming for the first time that night like an actual eleven-year-old.

  “Let’s stay here a few minutes,” Dan said. “There might be aftershocks.”

  Naomi let out a long breath. “Not quite the dinner you were expecting, Miri?”

  Her heart was still somewhere in her throat. “Not exactly.” Her voice shook. Aaron laid a hand on her knee, which she was too rattled to properly enjoy.

  When the house had been still for a while longer, they crawled out from beneath the table. Their dinner now lay on the floor around them, green beans mixed with shards of plates and glasses. The challah had been flung all the way across the room. In the kitchen, the entire contents of the cabinets covered the floor. Half a coffee maker stuck out from beneath a cast-iron skillet. Everything swam in a pool of wine. Apparently, Aaron’s parents had had a lot of wine. In the adjoining family room, blinds hung crooked from a window, near where books had toppled from their shelves.

  It was horrifying how much damage thirty seconds could do.

  “No one’s hurt, are they?” Dan asked. Everyone shook their heads, but he still examined Talia’s face and arms, just to make sure. Fortunately, no windows were broken, and nothing heavy had moved more than a couple of inches.

  “Oh no, oh no.” Naomi gestured to a small glass sculpture that Miri had seen on the family room mantelpiece before sitting down at the table. It was now in a hundred pieces on the wood floor. “That was my grandmother’s.”

  “Mom, I’m so sorry,” Aaron said.

  “I should call my—” Miri started, pulling out her phone, then suddenly felt guilty because she couldn’t recall whether you were allowed to use electronics on Shabbat.

  “Of course!” Naomi said. “Go ahead.”

  It took her several tries to get through.

  “Miri? Are you okay?” Her mom sounded frantic.

  “I’m fine, Mom. Just freaked out. Are you guys okay? Hannah? Alfie?” Alfie was their cat, a perpetually grumpy ten-year-old tortie.

  “We’re okay!” Miri heard Hannah call from the background. “Alfie actually let me hold him the whole time, can you believe it?”

  “Alfie! That doesn’t sound like him at all.”

  Miri’s dad came on the phone. “Stay where you are for at least a few hours, okay? The roads are going to be a mess. And I don’t want you driving if there are aftershocks. If everything seems safe by nine o’clock, we’ll come get you.”

  That was a relief—Miri didn’t want to drive either.

  “Love you,” her mom said, and Miri echoed it back.

  She hung up the phone. “My parents want me to stay here for a while,” Miri said. “If—if that’s okay. I don’t want to impose or anything.”

  “Absolutely. You can stay here as long as you want.” Naomi pulled her in for another hug of the night. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

  The floor rolled beneath them, pinballing Miri from Naomi to Aaron. Aaron grabbed her arms to steady her, but the aftershock lasted only a couple of seconds. Somehow that wasn’t even the scariest part of this whole thing. She was trapped in someone else’s house with a trio of strangers and a boyfriend she still didn’t feel entirely herself around.

  “We ought to find a radio,” Naomi said, “in case we lose our phone signals.”

  Dan nodded. “There should be one in the office.”

  “I’ll grab it. We should conserve tap water, too, in case the lines get turned off. We have a bunch of reusable water bottles—well—on the floor right there.” Naomi pointed. They were scattered among the plates that had shattered. “I’ll work on filling them up. Oh—and we should fill up the bathtubs.”

  Everyone in the Northwest, it seemed, had gone through earthquake-preparedness training.

  “Miri and I can do that,” Aaron volunteered, maybe a little too quickly. Miri furrowed her brow, and then realized—this would take her and Aaron away from his family, at least for a little bit. And while her emotions were all tangled right now, she felt a burst of excitement sneak in. She tried to make her face look appropriately solemn, or however a face belonging to someone about to fill up a bathtub to conserve water after an earthquake might look.

  “Come right back, okay?” Dan asked.

  Aaron nodded. “It’s upstairs,” he said to Miri, and together they waded through the debris.

  5:51 p.m.

  Once they were in the bathroom with the water running, Miri let out what felt like her first breath since before the earthquake.

  Aaron was bent over the tub, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Sighing, he moved backward so he could lean against the wall. “I know,” he said quietly. “Not how I pictured this night going. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s your fault, so you should be,” Miri said, tugging on her bird necklace.

  “If only I’d learned to control my powers. I’m too strong for my own good.”

  The medicine cabinet had spilled lotions and liquids all over the floor and counter, but fortunately, there was no broken glass. She tried not to look at their reflections in the
mirror, but every time she caught a glimpse, she couldn’t help wondering if they looked good together. Or what they would look like if they were even closer.

  She didn’t know how the first move was supposed to happen, but she figured proximity was a good place to start.

  “Hi,” she said in what she hoped was a flirtatious way, inching closer to him.

  He gave her a weak smile and raked a hand through his hair. Then he blew out a long breath, as though coming down from the earthquake adrenaline rush too. “Hi. I like your dress. Did I already tell you that?”

  “If I recall correctly, you actually complimented the welcome mat.”

  “Right. I try to treat all inanimate objects with respect.”

  “I like yours, too.” Daring herself to be brave, she laid a hand on his sleeve. “I mean—I like your shirt. It’s very…”

  “Shirty?”

  “Exactly, what with the buttons and the sleeves and the collar.”

  Aaron glanced down at her hand, at her gray-painted nails. “I really don’t take that long in the shower, I swear,” he said. “Like. My showers are a very standard length.”

  Miri bit back a smile and, feeling even braver now, said, “I’ve…had my share of long baths.”

  When it dawned on Aaron what she meant by this, he turned the deepest shade of red.

  Miri pressed on, wanting to pull the conversation back to the topic of Them as a unit, a pair. “So…when did you know you liked me?”

  Aaron blushed even more fiercely, and for a moment, she was convinced he wouldn’t respond. Miri knew he was shy. Was it that, or was he regretting the relationship already? Was their trivia swapping more friendship than flirting? She supposed five days wouldn’t be the shortest relationship in history, but she was really hoping to make it at least to ten.

  The bathtub continued to fill. They could be doing anything in here, and no one would be able to hear them.

  “Last year,” he said finally, and she let out what she hoped was not an audible sigh of relief. “The regionals. You were the only one who knew the answer to the final question. The mod told you it was wrong, but you were insistent, politely but firmly asking him to look it up. You knew you were right. And of course”—he gave a little laugh here—“you were.”

  “Kaffeklubben Island,” she said, remembering. “The northernmost point of land on the planet.”

  “Right. I…couldn’t stop thinking about you the rest of the weekend. And then I just—kept thinking about you after that too.”

  “Oh,” she said quietly, unable to stop the grin from spreading across her face. They were finally talking about this in real life, not ignoring each other, not relying on their phones to keep them safe, distant. Could it really be this easy?

  “When…did you know?”

  “Hmm.” She probably should have had a response prepared. “It wasn’t really one singular moment, I guess. I liked being on the team with you, and talking to you, and…” With a shrug conveying more discomfort than nonchalance, she trailed off. She wasn’t exactly ready to admit she’d liked him for years, but compared to Aaron’s, her answer sounded so impersonal. Should she have been able to pinpoint one moment she thought, Yes, this is a person whose mouth I would like to touch with my mouth, the way he had? It just hadn’t happened that way for her, and she hoped she hadn’t disappointed him.

  After a silence, he changed the subject. Thank God. “I really am sorry. About all of this.”

  “On the plus side,” Miri said, “your parents have probably forgotten I tried to grab some challah before they were done with the blessings. So thanks, nature, for saving me from embarrassment.”

  Aaron pushed away from the wall. “It wasn’t a big deal,” he said as he turned off the bathtub faucet, but there was a tightness in his voice she wasn’t used to hearing.

  “My family isn’t very religious.” She rushed to fill the sudden quiet in the room. “I didn’t have a bat mitzvah.”

  “Become a bat mitzvah.”

  “What?”

  “That’s the right term. Become a bat mitzvah, not have a bat mitzvah. It means ‘daughter of the commandment,’ so it’s something you become, not something you have.”

  Miri really didn’t want to see what she looked like in the mirror now, didn’t want it to reflect her clear discomfort. She was half convinced her forehead would appear with the words WORLD’S WORST JEW stamped across it.

  “Well. I’m not one, then.”

  “Oh,” he said, and she couldn’t quite interpret his tone. “That’s…okay.”

  Judgmental. That’s what it sounded like.

  “Knock knock.” Aaron’s dad pushed open the bathroom door. “How’s it going in here?”

  Miri hoped he hadn’t thought anything had happened between them. She imagined an alternate universe in which she and Aaron had taken this opportunity to steal a passionate kiss, one in which they’d glance at their make-out-mussed hair in the bathroom mirror and laugh. A universe in which he hadn’t informed her what she’d already been terrified was true: that she wasn’t Jewish enough.

  “Bathtub’s full,” Aaron said.

  His dad nodded. “Good. Your mom found the radio.”

  “Good,” Miri echoed, her voice sounding hoarse.

  A silence overtook them.

  “Since we’re going to be stuck here for a while,” Dan said, “who wants to play Scattergories?”

  6:16 p.m.

  The game was a good distraction. They ate what they could before sweeping off the table to play where their dinners had been, though Aaron’s parents wanted to wait a few hours before attempting to clean up the rest of the house.

  Miri and Aaron sat next to each other, legs crossed but not touching. The bathroom conversation looped in her head. She wasn’t trying to keep her Judaism Lite a secret, not necessarily. She’d just hoped she and Aaron could have discussed it during a slightly less emotionally fraught evening. Now he was barely looking at her. All she wanted was more time alone with him, but her words always seemed to take a detour to Awkwardville somewhere between her brain and her mouth. So maybe his family as a buffer was a good thing.

  To make things worse—because with her OCD and anxiety, things could always be worse—she itched for her car keys, to hear the jarring but oddly comforting beep when she hit the lock button. She could see through the window that her car was okay, but she couldn’t be sure it was still locked. When she got a chance, she’d find her purse, find her keys, and make certain. Her therapist always told her she had to be okay with uncertainty, that there was no way to be one hundred percent sure of anything. “Do you know for certain someone hasn’t stolen your car while you’ve been in this office?” Dr. Dunn would ask. “Do you know for certain Alfie’s still alive?” Against all her instincts, Miri would have to tell her no.

  She craved certainty, and logically, she knew her quest for it was making her miserable.

  “All right, everyone count up their points for this round,” Naomi said.

  “I’ve got eight,” Aaron said.

  “You got me. I only got six,” his mom said.

  Talia pouted. “Five.”

  “Nine,” Miri admitted, and she could have sworn she saw the corner of Aaron’s mouth tip upward in—what? Pride, maybe? It was too dark to tell.

  “You’re wiping the floor with us!” Dan exclaimed, and Miri offered a weak smile in return.

  They tore the sheets off their notepads, and Talia rolled the die for the next round.

  “I know this isn’t ideal,” Naomi said. “But we really are glad to have you here, Miri, and I hope we see you for many more Shabbats.”

  “Roger that,” Dan said. “It sounds like the team is doing well?”

  “Going to regionals next month,” Aaron said, and Miri nodded.

  “Yeah. We have a r
eally solid team this year.”

  “We’ll be there to cheer you on!” Naomi cupped Miri’s shoulder. “We always hoped Aaron would date someone Jewish.”

  Miri’s stomach rolled over. Everything she’d felt during their abbreviated dinner and in the bathroom came rushing back. And I was the only option? she felt like saying, but then a worse thought gripped her. Was this the only reason Aaron had agreed to go out with her? Was she his default Jewish girlfriend?

  “Obviously, it’s a challenge in Seattle,” Aaron’s mom continued as Miri’s insides sloshed around. “I grew up in New York. It was completely different there. All my friends were Jewish.”

  “Did you have a theme for your bat mitzvah party?” Talia asked. “Mine’s going to be in June, after I turn twelve, so I was thinking of having a beach theme.”

  They didn’t even blink when another aftershock rocked the house, scrambling Miri’s thoughts. She wanted out of this conversation. Out of this house. Her breathing turned shallow, and she struggled to catch it.

  “I—um,” she started, unable to confess again that she hadn’t had a bat mitzvah. No—that she hadn’t become a bat mitzvah. She sucked in as much air as she could, trying to avoid sounding like she was literally gasping for it. “A—a beach theme sounds great.”

  “What was your Torah portion?”

  “Talia,” Naomi said. “Don’t badger her.”

  Miri offered Aaron’s mom a weak smile, but her feet urged her to move.

  “You never told us what temple you go to, Miri,” Dan said. “We haven’t seen you at Kol Ami, have we? Do you go to Beth Am?”

  Air. She needed air. “I— Excuse me for a minute,” she managed, springing out of her chair so quickly she almost tripped on it. Slightly dizzy, she turned back to Aaron’s family for a moment. “Bathroom.”

  She headed for the staircase, wanting only to get as far away as possible before she gave in to her mounting panic attack. In the past, she’d always been at home for them. She’d curl up in a ball on her bed, shut her eyes, and wait for her breathing to return to normal.