The toddler blinks at me, his eyes bright brown like his mom’s. I’m not really a political person. I know there’s important stuff happening, but adults spend a lot of time yelling at each other on Facebook. And I can’t vote yet, so what’s the point of getting into that mess?
But the school shootings do freak me out. Last year, there was almost one at my cousin Rebecca’s middle school. They found a gun in this kid’s locker and all these messages on his computer about his plan to shoot up the school. It’s scary knowing we could have lost her just like that. Off to school one morning and never coming home again.
“The protest is tomorrow, ten in the morning,” Brit says. “Right here on the Mall.”
“It’s going to be a great crowd,” a guy says, turning to us. He’s wearing the same red T-shirt, which I now see reads GUN CONTROL NOW. “Can you make it?”
“Um…,” I say. “I’m here with a Jewish thing, and we’re not supposed to leave the hotel on Shabbat.”
“I’m Jewish too!” Brit says. “I actually got involved with fighting for gun reform after that horrible shooting at the Pittsburgh synagogue.”
“Oh God,” I respond. “That was horrible.”
I remember Mom telling me about the shooting, hearing the names of all those victims, feeling the immense pain of losing so many Jewish people at once. I remember the fear that it could happen at my own synagogue and anger that people still hate us enough to murder us.
“So can you make it?” the guy asks. “Totally understand if not.”
“Um…,” I say again.
I’m not exactly a rule breaker. If I’m caught leaving the hotel without permission, I could get kicked out of JZY. My local chapter events are important to me. They’re some of the few social things I almost feel comfortable at.
Also there’s no way Rachel will go with me. Shabbat is her favorite part of the convention. Supposedly you get to know people really well when you hang out with them for a full twenty-four hours, and I have a feeling she wants to get to know Zeke very, very well during this Shabbat. We should basically have an eleventh testament that reads And on the seventh day thou shall rest, and thou shall also make out.
So Rachel won’t go with me, and there’s no way I’m going to go to a super-crowded place on my own. It seems like a cool experience. It seems…important. But it’s not going to happen.
“Maybe!” I say in a way that probably sounds like no.
“Well, keep the flyer just in case,” Brit responds. “There’s a script on the back, so even if you can’t make it, you can give your local representative a call and ask them to support safe gun laws.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I slip it out. Rachel. “Hey,” I say, spinning toward the stairs.
In the distance, I see her waving at me. “Mary Todd,” she says, her voice deep again. “The time hath come for our departure. We mustn’t be late to the the-a-ter.”
* * *
***
Services are held in a giant convention center room, like we’re at one of those megachurches they put on TV. We sit in a row of seats with Zeke and his friends. Rachel sits between Zeke and me. They keep playing with each other’s hands during services. It’s basically hand sex. It’s gross, and I’m weirdly a bit jealous.
Ukulele guy is on my left, so of course I keep glancing to my left. He’s not having hand sex. Instead, he’s praying, actually praying. Siddur opened in front of him, doing the little daven knee bend and head bob.
It’s weird to see him without his instrument. He seems younger or something. I spot a couple of pimples on his jaw, along with a few errant hairs he missed shaving. I bite back a smile. Somehow knowing he’s just a teenage boy makes him even cuter.
After services end, we wait for the crowd to slowly pour out of the giant room and into a different giant room for dinner. The crowd seems even larger than this morning, as if more busloads of Jews have been arriving every half hour. Rachel finally drops Zeke’s hand and slides my way, her cheeks flushed. “I’m starving,” she says. “You starving?”
“Worked up an appetite, huh?” I ask.
She winces. “Sorry, I’m being obnoxious, aren’t I?”
“Possibly yes.”
“He’s just so cute.” She glances at him, unable to keep the smile off her face. “But I’m the worst. I’m sorry. How are you holding up? Want to grab some food and go eat just the two of us?”
The offer is tempting. Maybe we could even sneak up to our room, eat in our hotel beds while watching people watch other people renovate their homes. But Zeke has already secured a table and is waving us over, and I know Rachel wants to spend more time with him. It’ll be time for bed soon enough. And besides, maybe I’ll finally learn the name of ukulele guy.
“Nah,” I say. “We can sit with them. You can make it up to me by letting me pick our Netflix binge on the bus ride home.”
“The Good Place again?”
I grin. “Obviously.”
My stomach grumbles as we approach the buffet tables. Hot food. Thank God. We have to keep kosher on these trips, and since the far majority of road food isn’t kosher, we can only eat cold dairy to be safe. But now I smell roast chicken and potatoes and veggies, and ooh, that’s a lot of challah.
We pile our plates with food, then join Zeke at his already packed table. I end up between Rachel and ukulele guy again. This time he looks right at me. “Hey,” he says, extending a hand, voice muffled by the piece of challah in his mouth. “Adam.”
I steal a quick breath before shaking his hand. “Eve,” I say.
He bites off a chunk of the challah and grins. “Funny.”
“You’ve probably heard that before, haven’t you?”
“Never with such quick timing. What’s your actual name?”
“Naomi,” I say, cheeks warm. “So still biblical.”
“Nice to meet you, Naomi,” Adam says. Then he picks up a fork to dig into his plate, all greens and potatoes. Maybe he’s vegetarian. Or maybe he just doesn’t like roast chicken. I have the sudden urge to know everything about him, discover his specific likes and dislikes so I can nod and smile and say Same here, me too.
“Adam, help me out?” a guy next to him asks. Adam spins away from me to untangle a necklace stuck in the guy’s long hair.
Rachel nudges me. “Holy crap. Have you tried this chicken? It’s delicious.”
I take a bite, and she’s right, but the food sits funny in my stomach. I’m still thinking about that protest tomorrow, about my little cousin and how she’s scared to go to school now, about how she’s not wrong to be scared.
“Um, Rachel,” I say. Zeke is busy in conversation with someone else, and I have her attention. “So I know it’s probably a no, and that’s okay, but there’s this protest tomorrow morning at the National Mall, for safe gun laws, and I was wondering if you would go with me.”
A sad look passes over her face. “I would love to, really, but we can’t leave tomorrow. It’s Shabbat.”
I bite back a comment about her paying more attention to Zeke than the service tonight. “It’s okay,” I say. At least I won’t have to deal with another giant crowd.
“You could go alone?” Rachel asks. “I could help you make a sign tonight.”
We both know I won’t go alone.
“Sign for what?” Adam asks, spinning toward us.
Rachel’s eyes brighten. “For a protest, for gun control,” she says. “You should go with Naomi, you know, if you’re a rule breaker.”
“I’m here because I’m a rule breaker,” Adam says.
“What kind of rule breaker?” Rachel asks.
Uh-oh. This is what I get for crushing on a guy without any prior knowledge. Is he a drug dealer? Does he run a teenage fight club?
“I got in trouble for drinking,” Adam says. I steel myself. Here it c
omes. “I drank one of my mom’s Skinnygirl margaritas. Okay, I drank three of them. Okay, I drank three of them and then streaked down the street and ran into our eighty-year-old neighbor walking her dog.”
I snort, loudly, then blush hard and cover my face.
Adam shakes his head, smiling with embarrassment himself. “I know, I know. It was bad.”
“Your poor neighbor.” Rachel laughs.
“It was traumatizing for all parties involved,” Adams says. “So anyways, my parents decided I had too much free time on my hands and could use more ‘structure’ and ‘community,’ so they said I needed to become an active member of JZY.”
“Well, I’m glad it landed you here,” Rachel says, but then Zeke whispers something in her ear, and she goes back to her conversation with him.
Adam and I stare at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment in which my brain forgets how to produce words. Finally, he raises an eyebrow. “So, the protest. Um, want some company?”
My palms grow clammy. If Adam and I go to the protest tomorrow, it will be just the two of us, alone among a massive crowd. I’ll have to make conversation with him. All morning. What if he thinks I’m boring? What if he thinks—
Rachel and Zeke break into a fit of giggles. Adam rolls his eyes at them and smiles at me, a smile that warms me up from my toes to my cheeks.
“Okay,” I say, smiling back at him. “Let’s go to a protest.”
* * *
***
My sign reads GUN REFORM NOW!
Last night Rachel helped me make it. We found an empty cardboard box and tore off one side, then begged a Sharpie off the hotel concierge, who looked like he was ready to quit his job at any moment.
But now the sign sits in the corner of the room while Rachel, wearing only a skirt and bra, curls her hair in the bathroom. I stand, staring at my closet. Shabbos dress or jeans and a red T-shirt?
Adam gave me his phone number last night. I could text him and cancel, tell him I don’t want to get kicked out of JZY, tell him we should just go to services and oneg with everyone else. But last night, I crawled into bed and read over the flyer Brit had given me to double-check all the details, and there was this script on the back with statistics about school shootings and domestic abuse, and I thought about how if that awful man hadn’t had access to an AR-15, maybe more people would have survived the synagogue attack, and I realized this is important, and I do care, and maybe I can’t vote yet, but I can still make my voice heard.
I take a deep breath, then uncap the Sharpie and add a new line to the poster: 2020 VOTER.
“So you’re really going?” Rachel asks. She peeks out of the bathroom, her hair wound around the curling iron. She looks surprised as I pull on my red T-shirt. It’s from The Good Place and says FORKING BULLSHIRT. Maybe my sign should read These gun laws are forking bullshirt.
“I am,” I say, pulse racing.
“Heck yes!” She pumps the air. “I’m proud of you, darling. Get that cute boy! And give Congress hell!” She pauses. “And text me if you need to, okay? I’ll send puppy GIFs.”
I grin. “Okay.”
There’s a knock on the door, and, stomach tightening, I open up to find Adam standing in the hallway, his back facing me. His ukulele is strung around his chest, and he’s wearing a kippah with music notes on it. He spins around to me and strums the ukulele twice. “Morning.”
His right cheek is flushed and has little imprints on it, like just moments ago it was pressed against his pillow. I smile, half looking down, and quietly say, “Morning.”
Rachel pokes her head out of the bathroom. “Morning! Also, Adam, don’t come in, because I’m not dressed yet. Also, have fun!”
Now both his cheeks flush. His fingers fiddle with the ukulele strings.
“Ready?” I ask, nerves officially kicking into overdrive. Part of me hopes we do get caught sneaking out of the hotel, because then at least I won’t have to deal with massive throngs of people, not to mention figure out how to make one-on-one conversation with a cute boy I barely know. Oh my God! What have I gotten myself into?
He strums his ukulele again. “Ready!”
There are probably trip leaders all over the lobby, just waiting to catch derelict teenagers, so we take the elevator at the end of my hallway instead of the central glass one. We ride down in silence, then step out into the quiet first-floor hallway.
“Now what?” I ask Adam.
He raises an eyebrow. “Uhh, wasn’t this your plan?”
I take a small step forward, looking up to meet his eyes, proud of myself for meeting his eyes. “Aren’t you the rule breaker?”
Adam laughs, and it’s a laugh as pure as a kitten snuggling in fresh laundry. He shakes his head. “We are not good at this, are we?”
I can’t keep a smile off my face. “We are not.” But then I spy something out of the corner of my eye. “Ooh!” I race forward and snag a newspaper sitting in front of room 110.
“Theft?” Adam asks.
“I’m only taking the classifieds. Hopefully he isn’t looking for a missed connection.”
Adam watches, curious as to what I’m up to. I pull out two full sheets of newspaper. Then I try to fold the rest up correctly, but it’s all jumbled and not working, so I just clear my throat and place the mess back in front of the door.
Adam’s eyes glint. “Deviant,” he says.
“It’s for a good cause,” I respond. “Come on.”
I hand him one of the newspaper sheets. “Now what?” he asks.
I open my sheet and hold it up in front of me so it obscures my entire face and then some.
Adam breaks into laughter. “Seriously?”
“It works in the movies!”
“What movies?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
He pauses for a moment. “I do not.” Then he opens his newspaper and holds it in front of his face. I can’t hold my sign and the newspaper, so I leave the sign behind. We hold back more laughter as we not-so-surreptitiously walk into the lobby with the newspapers blocking our faces. We keep to the edges of the wall, inching along closer and closer to the main lobby doors.
Hmm, this is actually kind of nice. I’m forced to look only at my feet instead of avoiding awkward eye contact with strangers. Maybe I should try this at home.
Right as we’re about to hit the lobby doors, someone shouts a bit loudly, “Are those two—”
And then Adam is grabbing my hand and the newspapers are dropping and we’re running out the doors and into the brisk March air and sprinting down the sidewalk. Three blocks later, we stop, panting. Our hands stay clasped a moment longer before Adam pulls away his hand to fiddle with the bobby pin holding his kippah in place. “You good?” he asks.
I look down. I’m wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. I’m in Washington, DC, about to go to a super-busy protest with a cute guy I met yesterday. I am a human manifestation of nerves and excitement.
“Yeah,” I manage to say. Then more loudly: “I’m good.”
“Good.” He smiles and pulls a ziplock bag of cereal from his pocket as we continue down the street toward the Mall. “Apple Jacks?”
* * *
***
A few blocks later, we both stop short. The bustling streets have transformed into jam-packed, clogged city arteries, thousands of people cramming into every available space, swarming their way to the National Mall.
My heart races. Not good racing. Scary racing. And I grip my phone, ready to text Rachel or turn back altogether.
“That’s a lot of people,” Adam says. And when I look at him, I notice his white-knuckled hand is practically strangling the neck of his ukulele.
“A lot of people,” I agree.
“I don’t do great with crowds.” He gives me a shy smile. “I’m kind of a homebody,”
he admits. “My favorite place is my room. I know—that’s pathetic.”
“No!” I shout, then flush and lower my voice. “It’s not pathetic. I like my room too. It has everything I like in it, and it’s quiet. I don’t know if I could ever face the world if I didn’t have my room to come back to.” I pause. “Now I sound pathetic.”
“Not pathetic,” Adam says firmly, eyes locking with mine. “Brave. It’s brave to face the world in the first place.”
He keeps looking at me, and I keep looking at him, and I get this really warm, nervous, amazing feeling in my stomach, and this time my heart does the good kind of racing.
The crowd starts chanting, and our gazes are drawn back to the throngs of people. “Should we…,” Adam starts.
“We could go back to the hotel.” But the idea, first spurring relief, quickly deflates me. Is this the best I can do? Walk to the protest? It’s not like I have any daydreams about becoming the world’s best activist, but I think—I know—I can do better than this.
“Or we could keep going,” I say. “Be brave and all.”
He smiles. “Yeah, let’s be brave and all.”
I take a short breath as we move forward, walking until we’ve merged with the rest of the crowd and there’s not an open piece of landscape in sight. All of my senses are on overload, but I manage to keep calm by recapping the pilot episode of The Good Place in my head. Eventually my nerves ease enough for me to look around.
There are all sorts of people here. Young adults in their twenties, people my parents’ age and older, and a surprising number of little kids with them. I spot one girl who can’t be older than ten holding a sign that says I’M SCARED TO GO TO SCHOOL.
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