The Last Words We Said

by Leah Scheier

  “You don’t really think she wants me there, do you?” he replies.

  I can’t argue with that.

  So I’m alone when Rae’s mom invites me in. She seems happy to see me; Mrs. Klein has always been kind and welcoming, though recently she’s adopted an anxious pucker between her eyes when she speaks to me. “How are you, Ellie?” she inquires. “Rae’s in the shower, but she should be down soon. We just made popovers, and she was covered in flour.”

  There isn’t a speck on Mrs. Klein’s business suit; she looks as immaculate as if she’s just come home from her pharmacy rep job. “I’m doing great,” I tell her. “Those popovers smell amazing.”

  “That’s the Parmesan,” she says, placing a plate in front of me.

  Rae bounces into the kitchen, her hair plastered to her cheeks, a towel around her shoulders. “Hey, Ellie.” She glances around the kitchen warily. “You came alone?”

  I know what she’s asking, but I’m not going to take the bait. “Yeah,” I say, looking down at the steaming platter Mrs. Klein slides onto the counter. “It’s just me today.”

  She nods, and the shadow rises from her face. “Great,” she says brightly. “Have a popover.”

  I’ve been regretting the chicken salad I’d had for lunch ever since I walked in the door. It isn’t kosher to eat meat and milk in the same meal, or even within several hours of each other.

  “Thanks, maybe later. I just had meat.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Sucks to be you. Want to come upstairs?”

  I didn’t expect her to invite me to her room. Over the last few months she’d always found one excuse or another to keep me in the kitchen or in the basement. I didn’t even realize what was going on, until I overheard Deenie and Rae arguing one day. Look, I don’t want that voodoo mojo in my space, Rae snapped. My bedroom is a ghost-free zone. I’d never heard Deenie yell at anyone before, but she really ripped into her then.

  “Sure,” I said, as if it were nothing. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  Mrs. Klein picks up her keys from the counter. “I have to head back to work, honey,” she tells her daughter. “But your brother and his wife are coming by later for dinner. You’ll be home, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Her mom gives her a warm kiss on the cheek, and Rae pretends to be embarrassed, mostly to keep up appearances. But we both know she’s not.

  I’m still confused by my friend’s relationship with her parents. Most of the kids who rebelled in our community (and there had been a few) had focused their fury on the families who raised them. Rae had somehow managed to reject everything her parents believed in, without actually rejecting them. I didn’t understand how that was possible. Maybe the Kleins knew something about unconditional love that the rest of us didn’t.

  “Everything looks pretty much the same,” I remark as we settle onto her bed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.”

  “Yeah,” she replies. “It has.” There’s a tense elephant-in-the-room silence. I can practically hear her thinking, And whose fault is that?

  “So I came because I wanted to talk to you,” I tell her. A look of fear springs into her eyes. “Not about Danny,” I add quickly.

  “Oh.” The tension drains from her face. “What about, then?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you can tell me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I’m struggling to find some way over the walls she’s built. Lately it seems like every time I try to talk to Rae, she manages to erect a new one to shut me out. Maybe it is my fault. Or all of my voodoo mojo.

  “It’s just that you seem kind of worried—or preoccupied recently.”

  “I do.” There’s no question mark; it sounds more like an accusation.

  “Yes, you do,” I persist. “And I understand if it’s about me and you’d rather talk to Deenie—or pretty much anyone except me. But—”

  “It’s not about you.” She’s watching me through narrowed eyes, her arms crossed over her chest. “And it’s nice of you to notice.”

  It was actually Danny who’d noticed, but I decide it’s better not to mention that. I don’t want her to throw me down the stairs.

  “So what’s going on?”

  She sighs and sags deeper into her pillow. “I don’t know why I’m the only one who’s worried,” she muses. “Everyone else is seeing it. But I’m the only one who’s worried about her.”

  “Are you talking about Deenie?”

  “Who else?” Rae throws her hands up in frustration and leans forward. “She’s losing it, Ellie. Haven’t you noticed?”

  Honestly, I thought everything was great between Deenie and Rae. In fact, I was still convinced that Rae was angry at me and was trying to find a roundabout way to tell me. “I had no idea you were worried about her.”

  “Can’t you see that Deenie is going off the deep end?” she demands. “It’s terrifying! But nobody seems to care. They’re all just standing on the edge clapping.”

  “Are you talking about religion?”

  “No, I’m worried about her raging heroin addiction. Of course I’m talking about religion.”

  “Oh, Rae, you’ve been making cracks about that for years. Deenie’s always been more religious than us. So she’s recently decided to take on some extra rules. Lots of people do that.”

  “Yeah, but this isn’t just a phase. She’s taking it to a totally different level.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, take her clothing, for example. Remember that school shopping trip?”

  That had annoyed me, too, actually. It was the longest, most painful two hours I’d ever spent in a mall. I’d picked out a variety of attractive new skirts and tops for myself while Deenie rejected whatever I suggested; everything was too tight, too bright, too short, too sheer. Even when the item fit the most stringent modesty standards, if it complemented her at all, she shook her head and returned it to the rack. She began senior year in a dress that was so loose, it was practically a muumuu, and so heavy, she sweated through it before first period.

  “Deenie’s so pretty,” Rae says mournfully. “But now she seems to be hiding herself from the world. Like she’s embarrassed if anyone notices her.”

  “Okay, but what are we supposed to do about it? If we tell her what we think, she’ll just say that beauty is on the inside.”

  Rae grunts and shakes her head. “I have told her what I think. And that’s exactly what she said. I know I’m not allowed to say anything about it at this point. She automatically shuts down if I try to bring it up.”

  “Of course she does. What do you expect?”

  “Well, I suppose you have a better idea?”

  “No, I don’t. But I know she’s not going to listen to you. Not about this, anyway.”

  She opens her mouth to argue, but I push on before she can protest.

  “Rae, you can’t take potshots at someone’s religion for years and then expect them to respect your opinion on the subject. You’ve always been hostile about her faith, so of course she’s going to protect herself.”

  “This isn’t faith! It’s fanaticism!”

  “And Deenie will say that you don’t know the difference. That everyone is a fanatic to you.”

  “Come on, Ellie, that’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? Then answer this: Would you call me a fanatic?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  “And yet you still took a shot at me earlier. I bet you didn’t even notice.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When you offered me the cheese popovers and I told you I couldn’t because I’d had meat. You said—”

  She raises her hands in surrender. “I said sucks to be you. I know, I know.” She rubs her palms against her forehead. “I didn’t think you cared. You never seemed to be bothered by it.”

  “I’m not, really,” I admit. “I don’t take it personally. But Deenie does. To her, when you say stuff like that, it’s like you’re calli
ng her newborn baby a troll. Over and over and over.”

  Rae sighs, and her shoulders sag in defeat. “We need to do something, though. Before there’s nothing left for her to give up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a new thing almost every week now. This week it was movies. Last week—makeup, even nail polish, I think. What’s next?”

  I shake my head.

  “People,” she says. She taps a hand to her chest. “And who do you think will be first on the chopping block?”

  “Rae—”

  “I’m a bad influence, Ellie. Why do you think your parents are so nervous around me? I don’t do drugs, I barely drink, and I always wear my seat belt. In the real world, I’m a model citizen. But I ooze heresy. So, in the religious world, I’m kind of like a tumor.”

  I laugh. “Yeah. You’re a melodramatic tumor. And we all love you. No one is cutting you out of their life.”

  “I’m serious,” she says, with the doleful tone of a prophet predicting doom. “This is how Deenie is coping with the accident.”

  I flinch and look away. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about that.”

  “I don’t. I’m not trying to trigger you or whatever. I’ve actually enjoyed this time alone without—anyway, all I’m saying is that you have your way of dealing with it, and so does Deenie. My question is—what is she going to do when there’s nothing left to give up? How will she punish herself then?”

  GOD ANSWERS MY HOPE

  I never expected to see Danny again after that wild plane ride, though I spent a lot of time imagining unlikely meetings. On a trip to pick up my grandmother at Hartsfield-Jackson airport, I found myself looking for him in the crowds, as if his spirit somehow inhabited the airport and was waiting for me to find him.

  But I didn’t suspect that our paths would cross again in my own little suburban community, just a few months later. So when Deenie told me one morning that there was a new boy moving in on her street, I wasn’t particularly interested in hearing details.

  “I thought we could bring him some muffins,” she suggested. “As a welcome to the neighborhood.”

  I just wanted to keep watching videos on my new phone. “Isn’t that something our moms should do?” I said, without looking up. “They’re the heads of the shul’s welcoming committee. It’s kind of weird for two ninth graders to just—”

  She shook her head. “No, the boy is the new one. His dad has lived here for a few years—just around the corner from my house. If he’s going to be my neighbor, I want to be friendly.”

  We argued about it for a little while, but the conversation ended with us trekking across our neighborhood hauling a giant basket of chocolate chip muffins.

  I recognized the address as we rounded the corner. “Mr. Edelstein? I didn’t realize he had a son.”

  She nodded. “I’ve seen the boy visit before. But I think he must be here to stay for good. He was hauling in a lot of suitcases. And some furniture.”

  “I wonder if he’ll go to our school.”

  “Maybe. He wasn’t wearing a kippah, though. So probably not.”

  He was wearing one when he answered the door. It was perched awkwardly over the part in his mop of sandy brown hair. He stared at Deenie, then at the basket, and then at me.

  His eyes widened as they met mine. Before I could wonder if he recognized me, a smile lit up his face and he stepped forward.

  “Hey, look at that,” he said. “God has answered my hope.”

  “Mine too,” I blurted out, before realizing that he was referencing my name, not professing a hidden crush. And yet, strangely, I didn’t feel embarrassed or exposed. Something about his smile hinted at a double meaning.

  Deenie frowned at us. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, I was pretty hungry,” he explained. “And then you two show up with a buttload of muffins. I don’t know what you’d call that, but to me this feels like a miracle.” He was still staring at me.

  Deenie looked like someone trying to work out the punch line of a joke. “It’s really no big deal,” she told him. “Our friend Rae over-baked before she left for boarding school, so Ellie’s freezer was overloaded with muffins.”

  He took the basket from her hands. “You want to help me eat them?”

  “Sure!” I said. “Can we come in?”

  He hesitated. “Got somewhere else that we can go? It’s a mess in there.” His eyes shifted to the window. “There are—just—boxes everywhere.”

  As he shut the door behind him, I caught a glimpse of the living room before he blocked our view. It was stark and sparsely furnished and—totally clean. There wasn’t a box in sight.

  Deenie didn’t notice anything odd, though, and I didn’t want to mar their first meeting by pointing out the lie. I was actually a bit surprised by how quickly Deenie warmed up to Danny. She had always been shy around boys, even before she started “frumming out” (becoming increasingly observant—or as Rae would put it, trying to be more religious than God). I think I even felt a pang of jealousy as I watched them joke and laugh, because Deenie was the natural beauty in our little group, while I was still working through my messy red hair, zits, and braces stage.

  I told myself that I was being silly. At the time, Danny was still reaching for puberty, while Deenie had already developed her curves and stood over a head taller than both of us. Danny looked like her little brother rather than a boy her age, so I knew she must have friend-zoned him at first sight. I had nothing to worry about.

  “So what is Deenie short for?” he asked her as we headed over to my house.

  “Adina Shira.”

  “It means ‘gentle song,’ ” I put in. “And it’s so perfect for her that it’s embarrassing.”

  “It’s not that perfect,” she protested. “Lots of people sing.”

  “Lots of people don’t land the lead every time they audition for a play.”

  Deenie blushed but didn’t contradict me. Her talent was a fact, and despite her modesty, there was no way she could argue with that.

  “Gentle song, huh?” Danny smiled at her. “So do you sing—very, very gently?”

  She laughed and punched my shoulder. “Hilarious.”

  “Hey!” I rubbed my arm and punched her back. “He was the one who said it!”

  “He’s a boy. I can’t hit him.”

  Danny gave her a confused look. “I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around.”

  “No, she’s shomer,” I explained. “It means she doesn’t touch boys.”

  “Really?” He bounced ahead and threw his arms out. “Not even a friendly hug?”

  She shook her head and stared at the ground.

  “Her father is a rabbi,” I continued. “You should hear his sermons about being shomer. They’ll blow you away.” I could see I was just making things worse. Her cheeks were the color of wild cherries. I should never have mentioned the shomer thing. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable these explanations made her.

  Danny’s expression didn’t change. “Hey, that’s cool.”

  “Yeah, sure it is,” she muttered. Worse than explaining the religion thing was the patronizing looks she got after she did. People saying, “That’s so interesting!” when they were actually thinking “Freak!”

  I cast about for a topic change but came up totally blank.

  Danny was on top of it, though. “No, I’m serious!” he assured her. “That means I can get away with saying anything! And Ellie will take the hit for me. God, this is fantastic!”

  Deenie’s guarded frown melted a little. “You’re not serious.”

  “I totally am! I’ve got a Jewish force field protecting me! So I can say—dildo face!”

  “What are you—like, five?”

  “Boob juice! Poodle sex! Butt plugs!”

  “We could just not be friends with you,” Deenie suggested. But her shoulders shook with suppressed laughter.

  He held out the basket. “Yeah, but I’ve got the m
uffins. So—penis.”

  Chapter 5

  A couple of days after our conversation about Deenie, Rae sends a text to our friend group demanding a trip to the mall. It’s a little unusual for her, as she tends to prefer small shops, but it doesn’t occur to me to question her motives until she plugs Perimeter Mall into her phone’s GPS.

  “But Phipps is closer,” I point out. “Why Perimeter?”

  “We always go to Phipps,” Deenie says from the back seat. “I want to try something new.”

  I have to admit that it’s a nice change from our usual crowded plaza. I’m enjoying our stroll down the large, gleaming corridors when Rae stops in front of a hair salon and stares at the ornate sign. “Hey, look at that!” she says. “I wonder if they take walk-ins.”

  I suppress a sigh. Not the hair thing again. “Why?” I ask, pretending innocence. “Are you thinking of going back to blond?”

  “Never.” She tilts her head to the side and studies my head. “I’d consider red, though.”

  “Ah, thanks for the compliment.”

  “Yeah, but I’d make it look good.”

  “Hey!”

  “Maybe I’ll ask for a cut too,” Deenie muses, swinging her shiny black braid over her shoulder. “It’s gotten so long.”

  Rae seems suddenly alarmed. She shoots Deenie a warning look, but Deenie continues on, unruffled. “Just below my ears would be perfect,” she says. “Then I don’t have to wear it in a braid all the time.”

  “But it’s so pretty,” I protest. “When you leave it down, you look like a Pantene commercial model. Why would you cut it off?”

  She stiffens and wraps her fingers around her ponytail. “I could use a change. I think we all could.”

  Rae is shooting darts out of her eyes, but they keep falling just short of her target.

  And then my mother materializes in front of us. She claps her hands together in a horribly fake show of surprise. “Well, hello, girls! I guess great minds do think alike!”

  “Nice try, everyone,” I say as I survey their bright, hopeful faces. Even my mother is in on the conspiracy. It’s obvious suddenly why we’re here; Perimeter Mall has a hair salon while Phipps does not. This spontaneous “expedition” had been planned, and their motives are clear.