by Una LaMarche
“Chabad?” He looks confused. “I thought you said Hasidic.”
“Chabad-Lubavitch is one Hasidic sect,” I say. “There are many.” And then—because I can’t resist—I add, “What, we all look the same to you?”
His eyes widen, and his mouth drops open. “No, no, I—” Then he sees my smile and breaks into a grin, showcasing two deep dimples. “Okay, fine, I deserved that. Now can I ask a few more stupid questions? For educational purposes?”
“Sure,” I say, frankly surprised that he’s so interested.
“Are you the ones who drive around in that crazy Winnebago with the klezmer music?”
I laugh. “I think you mean the Mitzvah Tank. Those are Lubavitchers, but not me personally.”
“Cool. Do you have to wear a wig?”
“No. Only married women cover their hair.”
“Do you eat meat?”
“Yes, if it’s kosher, but never with dairy.”
“So you can’t have a cheeseburger?”
“No.”
“Not ever?”
“Nope.”
“You’re telling me you’ve never had a cheeseburger?”
“Never in my life.”
“Damn.” He sits back, presumably contemplating this hardship. “This is making me hungry now.” He shoots me an impish grin. “Maybe I can kick through the floor and make it down to the cafeteria.”
“Please don’t,” I say with a laugh.
“You’re not packing any snacks, are you?”
“Unfortunately—” I start to say, and then remember the illicit M&M’s, buried in my pocket, that I forgot to give to Rose. “Wait, I am, actually!” This excites me much more than I know it should. I dig them out and hold them up with a flourish. “They might be soft, though.”
“I don’t care. Oh my God, I love you,” Jaxon says with a sigh, holding out his hands. I toss them across the car and then pretend to fix my skirt so that I have an excuse to duck my head and ride out the blush that I can feel rising in my cheeks. Both of the clauses in that sentence make me extremely uncomfortable, even if the second one does manage to make my stomach flip a little. I know Jaxon wasn’t being serious, but no man (outside of immediate family) has ever said those words to me. “Want some?” he asks, his voice garbled a bit by chewing. I look up quickly and shake my head.
“Can’t,” I say.
“Not even candy?” He seems genuinely sorry for me for a second but then gives me a suspicious look. “Then . . . why did you have them?”
“Inside joke.”
“Okaaaaaaay.” He smiles as he tosses back another handful. “Shit, these are good. You’re not allowed to curse, either, I guess.”
“It’s . . . frowned upon,” I say, fighting a smile. I can’t pretend I don’t kind of like hearing him do it, though.
“My mom frowns on it, too,” Jaxon says. “She has this mason jar on the mantel that she makes us throw a quarter into each time we swear. But it backfired, because now we all call quarters ‘shits.’” He shrugs. “It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s funny,” I say. I’ve never had a boy try this hard to make me laugh. Most of the boys in my neighborhood just assume I should be impressed with them because they study the Tanya—the Chabad “bible”—and I can’t. Something about Jaxon is so different and so . . . open. So uncondescending. Maybe it’s his easy smile or his warm, searching eyes. Maybe it’s the way he wears his nerves like a sandwich board, and how vulnerable it makes him seem despite his long, lanky frame that I really shouldn’t be noticing as much as I am. A body is just a body, I tell myself. But it doesn’t stop the strange feeling spreading through my chest and down my legs, like pins and needles from some unseen limb that’s waking up for the first time. I want to confide in him, against my better judgment. “Rose and I used to play this game where we’d write down all our mean thoughts and then ball them up and throw them out our bedroom window into the neighbors’ yard,” I say. I have never mentioned this to anyone, save for Rose. She’d kill me if she knew.
“What?!” Jaxon laughs. “Did they ever find out it was you?”
“They’re pretty old, so I don’t think they ever gardened,” I say. “But if they did find them, they were probably confused.” I can’t imagine the look on Mr. Eliav’s face reading the crumpled loose-leaf paper that proclaimed, in big block letters, “TALIA GOLDSTEIN IS A B-WORD AND HER SWEATERS ARE UGLY,” or “ZEIDY SMELLS LIKE FARTS!” I stifle a giggle.
“You’re close with your siblings?” he asks.
“Sort of,” I say. “More with my sisters. My brothers are in school all day.”
“You don’t go to school?”
“Yeah, but girls get out earlier, to help at home. Boys have to study.”
“Huh,” he says. “I help at home.”
For some reason I immediately picture him in an apron, braiding challah. “You do?” I say with a smile.
“Hell yeah,” he says proudly. “I run a mean vacuum. With four little sisters you can’t wait too long to clean or you’ll be knee-deep in glitter pens and Barbie heads.”
“Don’t tell me you cook, too,” I tease.
“Not really,” he says. “But I work part time at Wonder Wings, so I can get you a discount.”
I smile as I try to imagine sitting at a table with Jaxon, dipping chicken into blue cheese sauce. A portrait of treif if ever there was one.
“How old are your sisters?” I probe. I don’t even care, really; I just like hearing him talk.
“Edna and Ameerah, the twins, are fourteen,” he says. “Then there’s Joy, who’s ten, and Tricia, who’s eight.” It’s sweet to think of Jaxon surrounded by a bunch of girls. I bet he’s a great big brother.
“I have three sisters,” I say. “The littlest one, Miri—Miriam—she’s eleven. Hanna’s fifteen, and Rose is eighteen.”
“Rose is the one with the baby?” he asks, his eyes widening. I nod, and he whistles. “That’s young,” he marvels.
“Not where I come from,” I say.
“My mom was twenty when she had me,” he says. Then he looks up at me and grins. “But I was an accident.”
I’m blown away by his honesty. Hasidic girls don’t have accidents. Or if they do, they’re sent away so that no one will ever know.
“I don’t know why I just told you that,” he says, looking down at his sneakers. “I don’t even know you.”
“No, I’m glad,” I say. “I mean, I’m glad . . . you’re here.” He looks back up at me, and I look at him, and this silence is much different than the others. It’s like the oxygen changes. I think back to what Rose said earlier—two air masses converging over water—and wonder if I’m tempting fate.
“So,” I finally say, searching for a segue and finding there is none, forcing me back into my census-taker role. “You don’t have any brothers?”
“Nah,” Jaxon says. “My dad and I are in the minority, but we deal. You?”
“Three,” I say.
Jaxon smirks. “Three brothers, three sisters. Your last name isn’t Brady, is it?”
“No, it’s Blum.”
“That was a joke,” he deadpans. “You know, The Brady Bunch?”
“Am I supposed to?”
“It’s a TV show,” he says, waving a hand dismissively. “But it’s old, like from the fifties or something.”
“Oh,” I say. “I actually don’t watch TV.”
Jaxon feigns shock. “By choice?”
I’m not sure how to answer that. It’s not allowed in my house, which is my parents’ rule, not mine. But I choose not to watch it even when I have the opportunity, like at friends’ houses, or in the back of taxicabs, or tonight in the hospital waiting room. Then again, am I choosing not to watch it because I truly don’t want to, or because I want to please my parents?
“I w
as raised to believe that TV distracts us from more important things,” I say carefully.
“Isn’t that the point?” he asks, laughing.
“I never thought about it that way. Maybe.” School and homework, setting the dinner table and helping my mother cook, tutoring Miri and Hanna, even doing mind-numbing inventory at the store—in a flash I imagine how light and easy these tasks would feel if I knew that at the end of them I got a distraction. A distraction like this.
“No TV, huh?” he says, shaking his head. “No TV, no McDonald’s. No candy. No cursing. No tank tops. What else?”
“You make me sound like an alien,” I say, crossing my arms defiantly. “Aren’t there things you’re not allowed to do?”
“Good point.” He thinks for a minute. “I’m not allowed to drive my dad’s truck,” he says. “I’m not allowed to make rice, ever since I accidentally set a dish towel on fire . . .”
I hang my head and bite my lip to contain my smile.
“I’m not allowed to get home after dark,” he continues, counting off the rules on his long fingers. “I’m not allowed to illegally stream HBO on the computer, and I’m not allowed to stay home from school unless I’m dead . . .”
“Don’t joke about that!” I chide, sounding like my mother.
“But I’m serious!” he says. “My parents are crazy. If I don’t go to college, I’m pretty sure they’ll disown me.”
I feel a flash of jealousy. Jaxon will graduate high school, just like me, but he’ll get to decide where he wants to go and what he wants to do with his life, while my parents will go to a shadchan to find me a husband, whether I’m ready or not. Forget that my grades are better than either of my older brothers’ ever were. Forget that I study English and math and science, much more well-rounded than their almost entirely religious education. It is simply expected that my education will end when I am married. My father likes to brag that I will be easy to match into a good family. Some girls, the ones with plain faces or poor manners or bad reputations, will have to be paired with husbands outside the community, who don’t know about the shame they’ve brought to their households. But not me. I will be someone’s prize. I level my eyes at Jaxon, wondering what he would think of me if he knew. I decide that if he smiles at me right this second, I’ll tell him.
It’s an easy bet to lose.
“My parents,” I say, leaning forward a bit to give my heart more room to bang around wildly in my ribs, “would disown me if they knew we were talking.”
He raises his eyebrows. “This right here?” he asks, gesturing back and forth between us. “This is a cheeseburger?”
“I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,” I say. “Or to be alone with any man besides my father or brothers.”
Jaxon processes this for a minute and then starts nodding slowly. “When I first laid eyes on you, I knew you were a rebel,” he says. “I said to myself, I gotta be careful with this girl. She’s dangerous. Look at that cardigan! I bet she throws paper onto other people’s property, and probably runs around getting stuck in elevators all over Brooklyn just for the rush.” He’s making fun of me, but this time I don’t mind so much. The flirtation in his voice is intoxicating.
“Stop it,” I say with a laugh, and then steady my voice. “I’m serious. For me, this is dangerous.”
“No, I get it,” he says, the sly smile disappearing. “I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. We can stop talking if you want.”
I shrug. I don’t want to, but I don’t want to tell him I don’t want to. Then maybe it really will get dangerous.
He holds up a finger in a “give me a minute” gesture and fishes his cell phone out of his pocket. He types something and then slides it across the floor. I pick it up and look at the screen.
Let’s not talk, he has written, the words floating inside a bright green bubble. Don’t want 2 get u in trouble.
When we first got stuck I balked at having a conversation with Jaxon, but now I feel like I never want to stop. I press the return key and painstakingly form a reply using the finicky touch screen: It’s OK. I gather my courage and add, I like talking to you.
He grins when he reads it and points to his chest. “Me, too,” he mouths. He types something else and passes the phone back.
Compromise: listen 2 some music w/ me?
I look up at the light filtering down from the darkness above, feeling like G-d is testing me. It’s not that I’ve never heard secular music before—even though I live by Chabad rules, I still live in the world, a world with car radios and custom ringtones and mariachi bands in the subway—although, like television, it’s not welcome in my house. But I’ve already given up so much ground in this little box, stuck in limbo between two floors, what’s one more transgression? My English teacher, Mrs. Goldman, has a saying about girls who read or watch or listen to things they aren’t supposed to: “frum to frei in sixty seconds.” Frei literally means “free,” but it’s meant like a slur.
I nod at Jaxon, and he pulls a knotted, grimy pair of headphones out of his pocket, making a face as if to apologize for their condition. Then he scoots toward me, and I instinctively freeze. I have to sit right next to him. Somehow I had not considered the possibility.
He’s respectful and sits a foot away, but as he’s handing me my earbud, our fingers brush, and a current shoots through me as though I’ve stuck my finger in a light socket. The warmth from Jaxon’s body radiates across the space between us. He smells like rainwater, heady and sweet. That’s stupid, Devorah, I think. It’s raining. Everyone probably smells like rain.
You pick, he types, handing me the phone. Uh-oh. I scroll through the mostly meaningless names, searching for something familiar to grab onto. Finally I spot something: Doesn’t Zeidy always say that Grandma Deborah had a soft spot for the Shirelles? I tap the screen, and out of the corner of my eye I can see Jaxon smile to himself, like I’ve picked something that has a special meaning to him, too. We sit back and listen as the softly metallic clang of a song recorded decades before we were born fills our ears:
Tonight you’re mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
But will you love me tomorrow?
• • •
One verse in and I’m so scared I’m sure I must be visibly vibrating. It’s a beautiful song, but it feels so intimate. Worse than talking, almost. I think back to Rose and Jacob’s wedding. Even they weren’t sitting this close to each other, and they were married. I clasp my hands in my lap, staring at the floor, keeping my head down. No good can come of this. Only—
It feels good.
I glance over at Jaxon. He’s got his legs pulled up, arms crossed over his knees, with his chin resting on top, his eyes closed, head bobbing with the rhythm of the melody. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know I’m looking, but for the first time since I met him he’s not awkward at all. And his face isn’t plain; how could I have thought that? It’s lovely. Beautiful, even. He opens his eyes and looks at me, like he can read my mind. And once again the air stands still.
Tonight with words unspoken
You say that I’m the only one
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sun?
• • •
I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to lean over and kiss him; part of me wants to vault through the hatch and climb until my arms give out. Neither are good options. I am never, I decide, even thinking about drinking ginger ale again. It’s not worth the ethical or hormonal agony.
But then Jaxon smiles, and my anxiety melts away. In fact, I relax so much that I lean into him more than I mean to, and my hand grazes his thigh. I pull it back like I’ve been bitten by a snake, accidentally knocking the headphones out of our ears. And almost at the exact same second, the lights come on and the elev
ator jolts to life.
The only thought I have time to process before the doors clang open is It’s over. It’s over before it had a chance to begin.
Chapter 6
Jaxon
AUGUST 28, 8:40 PM
It figures that it takes being trapped in a confined space for me to finally get up the nerve to flirt with a girl, just like it figures that the first time I’m actually getting somewhere—sharing headphones and meaningful glances, that’s big for me!—the moment is ruined by something out of my control.
I know Devorah didn’t mean to touch me. I know we weren’t about to make out or anything. I mean, I’m pretty sure just sitting next to me was like second base for her. But I felt something, and I think she did, too. Listening to that song, the one I downloaded during a pathetic, late-night pining session for Polly, after I actually Googled “unrequited love songs”—seriously, I was in pain—I finally realized you can’t force moments like that to happen. I’ve been trying to create chance encounters with Polly for more than a year, doing dumb shit like standing outside her physics class so that I could “pretend” to bump into her, or strategically positioning myself close to her at school dances so that I might be the one she turned to when a slow song started. But just now, with Devorah—that was the opposite of planned. That felt real. And suddenly I’m filled with dread that I’ll never feel it again.
The elevator starts moving up, creaking at first but gaining speed, and I know I have only a few seconds. I look at the phone in my lap and sputter, “Can I get your number?”
She shakes her head helplessly. “I don’t—”
Of course. She doesn’t have a phone, idiot. This girl lives in a bubble, a bubble I’ll never be able to get inside.
“Can you remember mine?” I ask as we slow to a stop, springing to our feet, the chaos of the ER already seeping in, voices shouting over one another. Devorah looks so overwhelmed I’m not sure she’s even listening, but I start to tell her anyway.
“Jaxon,” she says quickly, cutting me off after the area code. “I’m sorry. But I can’t. Please, just act like you don’t know me.” Her eyes are wide with fear.