by Una LaMarche
“Hanna wants love at first sight,” Niv says, laughing derisively. “Fairy-tale stuff.”
“That is why,” my father says, clearing his throat and reaching for the water pitcher, “you should not be reading fairy tales.”
“I don’t read them,” Miri says proudly.
“Neither do I,” Hanna cries. “I just thought when you met your soul mate you’d come up with something better than ‘very nice.’” She kicks me under the table—now that Aunt Varda’s back in Monsey, Hanna has resumed her usual seat—and I grit my teeth. Hanna might be more of a liability than a confidante.
“Ahh, I see,” my father says, drumming his fingers together in front of his wiry black beard. “Well, that’s because we don’t know our bashert by sight. Only Hashem knows.”
“And He brings you together through the shadchan,” my mother adds.
Or He cuts out power to your elevator, I think. Across the table, Jacob is staring off disinterestedly while chewing, his eyes drifting up toward the window behind me. I have to get his attention so that he doesn’t accidentally spot Jaxon, but it feels like poking a sleeping dragon.
“What was your first meeting with Rose like?” I ask, smiling what I hope looks like a real smile. He looks at me quizzically and then dabs at his mouth with his napkin.
“It was very . . . traditional,” he says, drawing out the last word for my benefit.
“Bo-ring,” Amos mutters under his breath.
“Weren’t you there?” Rose asks, furrowing her brow, and I shake my head.
“I was in the house when the Kleinmans came over, but I wasn’t in the room.” This is not exactly a lie; I was crouched at the top of the stairs, trying hard to eavesdrop but failing miserably. I turn back to Jacob and force myself to grin again, ever the obsequious sister-in-law. “Rose was giddy afterward,” I tell him.
“That’s silly,” he snaps, throwing down his napkin. “It’s not just unrealistic to fall in love before marriage, it’s destructive to our faith. Because to have romantic thoughts about someone before being joined before G-d constitutes a sin, and a union based on sin is by definition unholy.” It sounds like he’s yelling at Rose, but I know that Jacob is talking very specifically—and very threateningly—to me.
“All right, all right,” Zeidy says with an annoyed wave, trying to reroute the dinner conversation, but Jacob is just warming up. His thin lips are wet with spit as he leans in to deliver his sermon.
“In Genesis 24:67, what does it say about Isaac?” he asks pedantically, tapping his finger on the table like a frustrated grade-school teacher. “He married Rebecca, she became his wife, and he loved her. Not he loved her and she became his wife, but she became his wife and then he loved her. Love takes a long time—years, even.”
“Excuse me,” Rose whispers, as she pushes her chair away from the table and walks into the kitchen, cradling the still-sleeping Liya.
“Thank you, Jacob,” my mother says loudly. Her tone is polite, but her eyes are flashing. “I’m sure Devorah only meant that Rose was excited to be matched with such a fine young man. As we all were.”
“Okay,” he says, sighing, clearly upset at being cut off mid-rant. “But it’s important for the children to understand these things. Love is not romantic. Love is earned, through virtue.”
“Well said,” my father booms. “Now, would someone please pass me the peas?”
Silverware starts clinking, and Niv and Isaac start debating what kind of car Niv and Rivka should buy when the lease on their Corolla runs out, and just as I’m letting out a shaky breath into my untouched brisket, thinking that the worst is over, Rose lets out a gasp right behind me. And I don’t even have to turn around to know that she’s standing directly in the center of the big, five-foot window that looks from the dining room out into the yard, directly in line with the little abandoned playhouse that, when last I checked, my six-foot-tall secret boyfriend was using for camouflage.
“What’s wrong?” my mother asks, leaping up. “Is it the baby?”
“No,” Rose says. “But there’s something outside.”
• • •
I push back my chair like the house is on fire, but Amos is smaller and faster and is already at the front door before I can even stand up.
“Amos, wait, let me go first!” I cry, nearly barreling into Zeidy as I struggle to get out from behind the dining table. I push through the heavy front door and race down the steps after my brother, knowing full well that it actually makes me look more suspicious to spring into action like this, when the “something” my sister saw could be a psychopath holding a chainsaw, for all my family thinks I know. But the force that drives me out into the moonlit knee-high grass isn’t rational; it’s animal. Jaxon could still be out there, and I have to protect him. I cannot let Amos get to him first. Ignoring the cramps in my calves and the bile climbing my throat, I sprint through the narrow passage between the Eliavs’ house and ours, scraping my elbow on the rough stucco siding. “Amos!” I yell again.
“Cool!” I hear my little brother pant. That slows my heart somewhat; despite his affinity for zombie movie posters, I doubt Amos’s first reaction to finding a stranger hiding in the bushes would be that it was cool.
Sure enough, when I reach the backyard, I can see immediately that Jax is gone. But he’s left something for me: a kite, candy-apple red with a long string that twists down through the branches of the magnolia tree. It’s beautiful—or would be, if I were the only one who could see it. I look back over my shoulder and see Jacob, peering through the glass alongside my parents and brothers. Without thinking, Jaxon has raised a red flag in front of a bull.
“It’s a kite!” Amos yells to Hanna, who is rounding the corner with Miri on her heels. He gazes up at the fluttering streamers. “Where’d it come from?”
“It must have gotten blown over from someone else’s yard,” I say quickly.
“But there’s no wind,” Miri points out.
“Maybe it’s a present,” Hanna says.
“From who?” Amos asks, leaping for the string.
Shut up, I scream at Hanna through telepathy.
“Devorah,” she calls, ignoring my glare, “why don’t you check and see if there’s a note?”
I freeze. Would Jaxon have been bold enough to leave an actual love letter? That doesn’t seem like his style—more likely, the kite is the love letter, a way to say it without saying it, risky but at the same time completely hidden in plain sight. Still, I’d be stupid not to check. If there is anything more damning, I have to see it before anyone else does.
“Stop it, Amos, you’ll break it,” I say, darting over to where my brother is fruitlessly tugging on a length of string snagged around a knot in the dusky brown trunk. I stand on tiptoe and run my fingers under the string slowly, feeling in the dark for a hidden scrap of paper but finding only scratchy branches. Behind me, I hear someone rapping their knuckles on the glass, but I don’t turn around. I’m almost to the kite. Just a few more inches . . .
“Can I be the first to try it?” Miri asks.
“I saw it first!” Amos cries.
“Rose saw it first,” Hanna scoffs. My fingers close around the diamond of nylon, and I pull back, dislodging the kite from the tree and nearly falling on my butt in the process. Amos grabs for it, but I elbow him away, turning it over in my hands, my eyes frantically searching the fabric for handwriting. I’m both incredibly relieved and unexpectedly disappointed to find none.
The window groans open, and my father’s voice fills the still night air. “Leave it alone!” he yells. “We’re in the middle of dinner. Come back inside right now.”
“Sorry, Abba,” I call, mentally preparing how I’ll talk my way out of this. Blowing in from someone else’s yard isn’t that far-fetched, is it? And even if it is, there’s no way to trace it to me. Not unless Jacob speaks up. And he couldn
’t, not without proof. He’s too careful and calculating for that.
“Amos, let it go,” Miri says. While the three of us girls are obediently walking back toward the front of the house, smoothing out our skirts, Amos has picked up the kite where I dropped it and is yanking at it, getting snapped back again and again like a dog leashed to a post.
“It’s still stuck,” Amos says petulantly.
“Leave it,” my father commands from the window.
“But there’s something at the end!” Amos cries.
Hanna and I exchange a panicked look, and she doubles back, crouching to fit her head and shoulders through the door of the playhouse. A second later, the kite springs free, and Amos happily loops the string around his arm, running back toward the house, where I’m sure he will ferret it away among his toys and claim ownership. But I guess I have to let him.
“It was just a rock,” Hanna yells up at our audience in the window, running to join me by the basement door. But as we file along the dark brick side of the building, bathed in shadow, she taps my shoulder and opens her hand to reveal a small silver cell phone. She raises a hand to her lips, slips it into her sleeve, and hurries ahead.
• • •
I couldn’t say what the rest of dinner was like, because I was too busy spiraling into a panic attack, convinced that at any moment the phone hidden in my sister’s blouse would go off like some sort of explosive. That, combined with Jacob’s third degree, was nearly enough to stop my heart completely.
“Maybe it was for you, Devorah,” he kept suggesting, repeating it a couple of times throughout the meal until I finally had to dignify it with a response.
“That’s impossible,” I said coldly. “I’ve never flown a kite.”
“Some things you can’t explain,” my mother said, sighing, with a shrug. By the time dessert was finished, everyone seemed to have forgotten about it. Except, of course, for me.
Now I’m in my room, in pajamas, under the covers, with the sheet rolled up tight under my neck, the way I used to insist my mother tuck me in when I was young because I believed that bogeymen couldn’t get me as long as I was hidden. The phone is under my pillow, a hard little knot under the back of my skull. I know it’s just a dinky piece of plastic, but it feels much more thrilling, and dangerous.
I wish I could talk to Rose or my mother about what’s going on. Growing up, I was taught that it was a blessing not to have to worry about dating and romantic love. I felt grateful to be able to focus on my studies, and to give all my love to my family, thanking G-d that He in all His infinite wisdom took away the choices that kept so many other women across the world preoccupied and distracted from the divine: how to dress to attract a man, how to keep his interest, how to make him commit. I always assumed, just like Jacob said, that I wouldn’t experience love or romance until I was introduced to my husband, and this gave me a great sense of peace. I truly believed that freedom of choice was a burden, and that girls who wasted their thoughts on dating were pathetic.
But the deeper I get into whatever this is with Jaxon, the more I question all of that. I can still understand why Hasidic kids are never taught about love, or sex—according to the Torah, those things just aren’t allowed to happen—but we’re human beings with human hearts; surely someone must have realized that it wouldn’t always be possible to control romantic love. Or maybe Jacob’s right and there is something really wrong with me to even be having thoughts like these. Maybe my entire frum self-image has been a lie, and I’ve actually always been frei without even knowing it. Either way, having no one to turn to for advice is terrifying.
Ever since our heart-to-heart on the night Liya was born, Rose has closed up again, a wifely watercolor of her former self. And my mom—well, I’m not sure how she would react. I know she wouldn’t approve, but she might listen, at least. After all, she knows better than anyone what it’s like to have an “other” in her life. Her own mother came late to the faith, a blonde, blue-eyed ba’al t’shuvah, and had to be accepted by a family who didn’t fully trust her at first. Or so I assume; Mom and Zeidy never talk about Grandma that way. I once heard Rabbi Perl, from our synagogue, say that it’s a serious offense to remind a repentant sinner of his or her “evil deeds,” and I guess the “evil” of not being observant until she was eighteen years old extends to her family, too. It’s just not spoken about. All my mom has ever said on the subject is “What’s past is past.”
I roll onto my side, keeping the covers pulled tight around my shoulders. I often wish Grandma Deborah were still here, but never more than I do right now. She could tell me exactly what she went through. She could tell me what it was like on the other side. She could tell me if it was worth it.
All of a sudden, the phone buzzes alive under my pillowcase, sending vibrations through my jaw and into my teeth as a little chime rings out like a doorbell. I sit up straight and clamp my hands over my pillow, trying to smother technology into submission. Since it’s after sundown, I’m not supposed to use any electricity, and even though the phone isn’t plugged in (I’ll have to remember to poke around in the grass tomorrow for a charger), it definitely 100 percent counts.
Turn off the phone and call him tomorrow night, my somewhat still-intact conscience echoes. It can wait.
But can it? If I don’t respond to Jax tonight, will he come back tomorrow with an even bigger, bolder declaration of his feelings for me? I can’t risk that, even if it means breaking Shabbos rules.
And it’s just a drop in the bucket now, isn’t it? (My conscience is starting to get bitchy.)
I cautiously slide the phone out from its hiding place and kick off my covers, lowering myself down to the carpet on the side of my bed farthest from the door. It figures that I have to make myself vulnerable to my imagined bogeyman if I want to communicate with Jaxon. No risk, no reward. I hold my breath and look down at the screen.
Did u find it?
I squint through the darkness and struggle to type a reply. I’ve used a cell phone before, but I’m not adept at texting, and I keep forgetting that I have to hit keys multiple times to find the right letter. After a few minutes of gibberish attempts, I manage to put together a semicoherent, vaguely punctuated thought:
Yes but amos almost found it first. could have been bad, You are crazy!!
Less than ten seconds go by, and the chime rings again, amplified now that there’s no pillow to muffle the sound, and thanks to Shabbos all the appliances in the house are silent.
Crazy about u :)
How do I turn off sound? I type frantically, panic tamping down the bloom of euphoria.
Another chime. SHIT. I grab the pillow from the bed and stuff it into my lap, perking my ears up and listening for motion outside my room. After a minute or so, when it feels safe again, I look at the screen.
Should b a volume button on the left side
I find it and click it down to the lowest setting. It’s not muted, but it’s quieter. It’s something.
Thanks for the kite, I type. Now stay away from my house :)
Sorry, he replies immediately. Won’t need to again now that we can talk.
I smile giddily into the faint green glow, but I know I need to wrap it up. Can’t talk now, I write. Shabbos. No phones :( Text tomorrow after sundown?
Wait, he shoots back. And he means it. I sit still with the bed frame poking into my spine for what feels like ages before the phone buzzes again in my fist.
Can u get away tmrw? Jaxon has written. And then: I can take you on special shabbos date, no electricity.
I drop the phone into my lap and lean back, letting my head fall against the mattress with a satisfying thunk. Poor Jax. He doesn’t realize that even if we spent the whole day praying in a pitch-black synagogue together, we would still be desecrating Shabbos just by virtue of the fact that we’re together. Of course, the bitter irony is that Saturday is by far the easiest day of
the week for me to sneak out for a real date with him; the men are at synagogue, and the women are resting and relaxing, visiting friends . . . not really doing much or going anywhere more than a few blocks from home, since driving a car is forbidden. I could say I was hanging out with Shosh or anyone else from school. And almost everyone takes a long nap after the midday Shabbos meal. No one would be looking for me or expecting me to show up anyplace before dinner, and the chances of running into anyone from my family would be virtually nonexistent.
The cell buzzes against my inner thigh, and I blush even though I know no one else—not even Jax—knows about this accidental thrill. I bite my lip, feeling guilty, yes, but also magnificently unbidden. I’ve lived my whole life according to a strict set of rules, yet here I am breaking one after another. And lo and behold, the sky is not falling; no one is coming to drag me away to some sinners’ prison, even after I’ve had kisses that turned my entire body into a wildfire. I sit up straight, feeling a little woozy.
Pls say yes, the screen pleads.
Yes, I type, before I can talk myself out of it. I know I’ve crossed a line, for better or worse, that there’s no turning back from. And despite the pull of my conscience, I’m not all that sorry. Because following rules never felt this intoxicating.
Chapter 18
Jaxon
SEPTEMBER 13, 10:30 AM
So thanks to Wikipedia I’m basically a Shabbat Jedi now. And thank God for the Internet, because when I told Devorah last night I would take her on a Shabbat (or “Shabbos,” but that’s the Yiddish, so as a “goy” I think I should stick with the normal spelling) date, I had no idea how crazy the rules were. There are thirty-nine major no-gos, and while some of them, like slaughtering or plowing (get your mind out of the gutter, they’re talking soil), seem easily avoidable, others (like, um, “carrying”) are trickier. I don’t have to abide by the rules of Shabbat, but she does, and planning a date that is both awesomely romantic and doesn’t require Devorah to carry anything, take any form of public transportation, or use any kind of electricity is a little more challenging than I was anticipating. I had wanted to pick her up on my bike and take her someplace special, but the message boards I found are pretty divided when it comes to whether bike riding violates the “no plowing” rule, since theoretically you could turn over dirt if you rode through a patch of grass.