by Una LaMarche
“Blum Quality Goods,” I whisper. “As in Aaron Blum. That’s her family’s store, man.”
“You don’t know that,” he says.
“Well, I’m not going to risk it,” I shoot back.
Just then, a redheaded girl appears in the doorway with a broom. She looks up and immediately catches my eye, cocking her head and frowning like she recognizes me. And in the half a second that our eyes lock, I vaguely remember seeing her at the hospital on Sunday, laughing with Devorah in the hallway.
“Shit,” I say, spinning around. “Don’t look, don’t look.”
“Was that her?” Ryan asks.
“No, but I think it’s one of her sisters. We have to get out of here. Abort mission.” I start walking down Crown in the opposite direction, at a fast clip, and Ryan jogs to keep up with me.
“Jax,” he pants, “we came all this way. We’ve at least got to walk by her house.”
“I don’t know,” I say, tossing my coffee into a trash can on the curb. “I’m not feeling very lucky today.”
“Well, I know you, and I know you’ll torment yourself if we don’t at least look,” he says. It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally Ryan can actually say something insightful.
“All right,” I agree. “But just a walk-by.” I stop and put a hand on his shoulder, looking him dead in the eye and breaking into a smile. “And if things get dicey,” I say, “I’m taking the skateboard.”
• • •
We make a big loop around the block before we venture closer to Devorah’s house. 482 Crown Street is a three-story redbrick building with a turreted roof and a sloping stone stoop lined with curving hedges. It’s not that much different from my house, actually, except that instead of being flush up against the neighboring houses it has narrow strips of balding grass on each side leading around to a backyard. The street is quiet and empty, which makes it that much weirder for me and Ryan to be there. Still, my heart feels like a balloon in my chest. Just knowing I’m close to where she is gives me some kind of contact high.
“What do you want to do?” Ryan asks, taking a slug from his water bottle. Both of us are damp with sweat, and Ryan’s freckled nose is starting to glow as red as Rudolph’s.
I guess, best-case fantasy scenario, I had hoped that Devorah would be outside, alone, communing with the neighborhood birds or something, like Cinderella, giving me easy access. But no one’s outside, and I can’t even see anything through the dark front-window drapes. I know I have no shot at getting time to talk to her, but I don’t want to leave, either, not when I’m this close. My feet feel glued to the pavement.
“Should I ring the doorbell?” he asks.
“Nah, man, what would you say?”
“Uh . . . ‘Do you have a minute for Greenpeace?’”
I can’t help but laugh. With his Toms shoes and Nalgene bottle, Ryan definitely looks the part. “That’s okay,” I say.
“Well, should we leave the thing you brought?” he asks. I start studying the nearby trees and fences to scout the right spot, and just then the redheaded girl from the store rounds the corner about two hundred feet from where we’re standing, followed by a big older man with linebacker shoulders spreading his jacket out so it flaps behind him like a cape.
“Hide,” I croak, and duck down behind the black Ford SUV that is thankfully parked right in front of us. I think I saw them before they saw us, but I hold my breath anyway, shooting daggers at Ryan’s stupid skateboard, which even though he’s crouched down almost to curb level is sticking out ever so slightly beyond the car’s rear bumper. I hear their footsteps getting louder and then the scuff of shoes climbing concrete stairs, the jingle of keys.
“What are you looking at, Hanna?” the man’s deep voice asks, and I freeze even more than I’m already frozen. If they’ve seen us, I decide, I have two choices: Ask to see Devorah or run as fast as I can. It’s one of those man-or-mouse moments, and I don’t know which I am . . . although the fact that I’m currently cowering behind a parked car certainly points in one direction.
“Nothing, Daddy, just open the door,” an annoyed teenager’s voice replies. I allow myself to take a breath, letting it out slowly and shakily as I hear the door open, and then close. I can see Ryan start to open his mouth, so I clamp a hand over it and shake my head fiercely. I count out twenty seconds as slowly as my racing pulse will let me, and then, pointing at Ryan to stay where he is, I rise a few inches, peering through the Ford’s tinted windows just in time to see the door fly open and the redhead—Hanna—step back out.
“I dropped my notebook!” she calls through the door before shutting it behind her. I duck back down and roll my eyes at Ryan. As soon as she’s back inside, we have to get the hell out of here. I listen for her footsteps, but instead of getting softer as she goes back down the street they get louder and louder until—
“Hi,” she says, poking her head around the hood of the car and staring down at us quizzically. I can see Devorah a little bit in Hanna’s face: in the eyes, around the chin, and in the way she’s kind of smirking at me right now.
“Hey,” Ryan says with a wave. I start to stand up—no point in hiding now—but Hanna holds a hand out to stop me and whips her head around to look at the house. After a second, she looks back down at me.
“You’re the boy from the elevator, right?” she whispers. I nod, and she smiles. “Does Devorah know you’re here? Is she meeting you?” The fact that Devorah told her sister about me is as good a sign as I’ve gotten all week. I have to fight the urge to leap up and hug this girl.
“No,” I say as low as I can. “She doesn’t know I’m here. But we’ve met. I mean, since the elevator.”
“I knew it!” Hanna says, looking pleased with herself for a second before she glances back nervously at the house. “No one can know you’re here. Even staying on the street is pretty risky. But if you can get around to the backyard, I’ll make sure Devorah sees you. Her window is on the second floor.”
“Is the backyard really safe?” I ask. “You guys don’t have, like, a pair of Dobermans back there?”
“No,” she says, laughing. “And my mom hasn’t cleared the weeds in about three years, so no one will be back there, I promise. There’s an old playhouse near the fence that you can hide behind, but everyone is getting ready for Shabbos so I don’t think anyone’s going to be looking as long as you don’t make noise.”
“Thank you,” I say gratefully. She shrugs self-consciously and then runs back across the street, where I hear the door open and shut with a thud.
“You’re in, man!” Ryan whispers, punching my shoulder.
“Don’t congratulate me yet,” I say.
We make plans to meet back in front of the bakery, and Ryan jogs off, leaving me to decide how best to get across the street and into the Blums’ backyard without looking like a shady intruder. Which I am, I guess. Something my mom likes to say when she’s up on her equal-opportunity soapbox floats through my head: People have enough reasons not to like you just based on how you look; don’t give them any more based on how you act. Creeping around a lily-white neighborhood with a big backpack and climbing into people’s yards is probably exactly what she’s talking about, but Hanna is giving me a shot that I can’t turn down. I have to see Devorah. It’s like breathing at this point, or eating. It feels like I need her to live.
There’s still no sign of anyone outside on the street—I must have lucked out and arrived just late enough so that everyone is already home from work—so I figure my best bet is to simply make a dash for it, around the car, across the street, through the thin passageway between Devorah’s house and her neighbors’, and into the yard. I’m about to spring into action when my phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s a text from my mom:
Where are u? Never can find u these days. Need milk. XO Mom
As I’m reading that one, trying to ignore the
guilt it stirs up, a text from Ryan appears on the screen:
Dude you described just came out of store. Be careful.
Jacob’s on his way. There’s no time to wait now. Still clutching my phone, I jump up and sprint as fast as I can across the street and into the alley between the houses, where I have to turn sideways to fit through. I shuffle along, wincing at every twig that crunches under my sneakers, until the red brick spills out into an overgrown square of grass littered with rusted toys and shaded by a big magnolia tree. The entrance to the backyard from the house seems to be a basement door that’s padlocked from the outside, so at least I know there’ll be no element of surprise. I see the playhouse Hanna described, which is bowed and rotted through in some places, but it gives some cover so I crouch behind it and stare up at the three windows on the second floor. I don’t know which one she’ll appear at, but I want to be ready when she does. I realize too late that I probably should have spent my energy making a sign, instead of dreaming up the metaphorical statement I’ve got in my backpack, tied to a very risky gift. But it’s too late now.
I see movement in the center window and duck my head. There’s the sound of the storm window being shoved open, and then Devorah’s voice drifts down through the warm evening air: “I can’t believe you’re hot, Hanna, it’s freezing in here!” I smile to myself and silently thank my girl Hanna for being so sly. Devorah definitely doesn’t know I’m here. But now it’s up to me to make my presence known.
I stand up and hear her gasp before I’ve even had time to lift my eyes up to her face. She’s framed perfectly in the window, her arms above her head pushing the storm window up, her face a pale circle glowing in the center of a dark square. Her eyes widen, and her mouth drops open.
“No, it’s nothing, I just saw a squirrel and it scared me,” she says, turning back into the room for a moment. “Go downstairs, I’ll just be a second.”
She looks back down at me, and I open my mouth to say what I came to say, but she raises a finger to her lips and shakes her head urgently. So I do the only thing I can, the only thing I feel, which is to raise one hand to my heart like I’m about to say the Pledge of Allegiance, only not to any flag but to Devorah. And I just stare up at her and think, I love you I love you I love you.
The light is getting hazy, that soft orangey glow that will soon give way to purple dusk, but it’s bright enough still that I can see her features perfectly as they crumple, her chin quivering, her eyes folding into little winks. I was a little afraid she’d be angry that I showed up at her house, but I never thought she’d cry. I start to feel awful, until she breaks into the most heartbreaking smile, laughing and crying at the same time, and puts her hand up to her chest, too, so that we’re just standing staring at each other, knowing we’re both thinking the same thing.
I don’t know how much time passes—probably only seconds, though it feels like hours—but somebody must be calling her down to dinner, because she turns again and yells, “I’m coming!” and then looks back at me again, wiping her tears away. She holds up a hand, and then she disappears from the window. Is she asking me to wait?
I crouch back down and tuck my chin, pressing my forehead against the warm, spongy wood of the playhouse. Hanna was right: It seems like no one has spent time back here in decades. The sun’s almost down, but in the light streaming in through the half-sunken roof I can see toy cars and plastic dolls buried in the weeds, crusted over with rust and dirt. It’s a sad tableau, but it’s also the perfect place to hide the cell phone.
It’s one of those old-school Nokias that no one uses anymore; I got it from the T-Mobile store near work for $19.99 plus $20 to buy us three hundred minutes’ worth of phone calls, which, based on the amount of time Devorah has free to talk, I figure should last us about eight years. I set everything up last night and already committed the number to memory, although of course it’s in my phone under both “D” and “Pandora,” just in case one of them accidentally gets erased. In Devorah’s new phone, I’ve programmed my number in under “J.” That seems like the safest choice in the hypothetical, worst-case scenario event that one of her parents or someone else finds it before she does. Oh, and I’ve set my outgoing voice mail to the default female robot voice that just says my number, not my name. Covering all my bases. The ringtone, though, that’s pure Jax; I couldn’t help myself. I know it’s risky not to just leave it on silent, but she can always turn the volume off. I just need her to know that I put thought into every detail. I’ll give you one guess what the song is. When I call, I want it to sound like what falling in love feels like.
After a few minutes, when Devorah still hasn’t resurfaced, I decide to get to work, putting plan B into fast and decisive action. (Action Jaxon—maybe J-Riv was on to something after all.) I unzip my bag as quietly as possible and pull out the string, which is already tied on one end to the Nokia. That should be enough to anchor it to the ground, but just in case I loop the string around a nail on the back of the playhouse, too, letting the phone drop into the yellow grass inside. As for the other end, I had hoped to let it loose—which would probably be more romantic—but the breeze isn’t strong enough, and besides, then it might fall, forgotten, into the weeds after I’ve left. And if she doesn’t see it, she won’t find the phone. Or get the sappy metaphor. Because it’s more than a decoy hiding the real present; the next time Devorah looks out her bedroom window, I want her to know that it’s a message from me, to let her know that I love her, and that I won’t stop until she feels that freedom that she’s always dreamed of. Until she feels like she’s flying.
Chapter 17
Devorah
SEPTEMBER 12, 7:18 PM
“Baruch a-ta A-do-nay Elo-hei-nu me-lech ha-o-lam a-sher ki-dee-sha-nu bi-mitz-vo-tav vi-tzi-va-noo li-had-leek ner shel Sha-bbat ko-desh.”
My mother’s sweet alto rings out over our Shabbos table, and I know I’m supposed to be praying and giving thanks and channeling joy and positivity. After all, Liya is finally home, blissfully unconscious in a sling on Rose’s chest. The storm has passed, the neighborhood is clean again (and so is Rose, having emerged from her ritual bath just as the baby started sleeping for five-hour stretches at night, which has helped her to dezombify somewhat). We’re all healthy, and Rosh Hashanah, the new year and first of the High Holy Days, is practically around the corner. But all I can think as I light my Shabbos candle is: Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit SHIT. I would owe Jaxon’s mother two dollars for cursing that much. And all because her son is stupid and romantic enough to show up unannounced in my backyard.
My inner monologue goes something like this:
I mean, what is he THINKING?
(He loves me.)
Someone could see him! Everyone could see him.
(I might love him, too.)
Not that any of that will matter once he gets caught.
(This is the bravest thing he could do.)
This is the most selfish thing he could do.
(Hanna knows now. At least she can help, and that’s a relief.)
Jacob knows now, and if he catches Jaxon here, we’re dead. Maybe literally.
(How can I sneak off to see him again?)
How can I get rid of him without arousing suspicion?
(When he raised his hand to his heart, I cried.)
Every time anyone turns toward the window, I feel like puking.
(He loves me.)
I hate him!
(I love him.)
SHIT.
I manage to make it through the kiddush and the washing of the hands without anyone noticing my silent panic attack. But after the HaMotzi blessing, as we’re passing around the challah, I shove the basket to my right without paying attention and accidentally drop it right into Rivka’s lap. My brothers snicker.
“Keep your eyes open, please,” my mother says with a laugh. And I know she’s just joking about my butterfinger
s, but she’s right on a deeper level, too.
“Maybe she’s got something on her mind,” Jacob says, taking a sip of his wine.
“More like nothing in my stomach,” I shoot back. Our eyes meet, and I try not to think about Jaxon. At this point, I half believe Jacob could read my mind if he tried.
“Well, there’s no shortage of food,” my father says, passing me a platter of brisket swimming in gravy. He smiles at Mom, laying his big, chubby catcher’s-mitt hand on her shoulder. “You’ve outdone yourself yet again.”
Mom beams, her face as bright as the flames licking up at the ceiling from the tapered white candles between us. “Well, I’ll never forget the very first thing your mother said to me during our bashow,” she says with a laugh. (A bashow is the first meeting of a newly matched couple, usually with the groom and his parents visiting the potential bride in her family’s home.) She sets her features into an accusatory scowl and shakes her finger, impersonating my late Bubbe Sara. “Can you cook?”
My father chuckles and shrugs. “What can I say—she was looking out for me!”
Hanna leans forward in her chair. “What did you think about Mama the first time you saw her?” My father rolls his eyes good-naturedly. This is not the first time Hanna has asked this particular question. In fact, it may be the seventeenth.
“I thought she was very nice,” he says carefully.
“That’s it?” Hanna asks, unimpressed.
“What more do you want?” Isaac asks, spearing a potato with his fork. He’s one to talk, the eldest son who’s already seen his younger brother and sister both married off and who has already had not one but two failed attempts at shidduchim because he didn’t like the girls the shadchan picked. I start to open my mouth to say as much when I think better of it. I don’t know if Jaxon is still waiting for me, and I need to make sure he’s not doing anything crazy—or crazier than what he’s already done. If I can eat quickly and get to my room without anyone suspecting anything, I can check to make sure he’s well-hidden, and then write out a sign on a piece of paper, something to hold up in the window to tell Jax where to hide until I can sneak away later, when everyone leaves for tish.