Like No Other

by Una LaMarche

  I slip my backpack on one shoulder and venture out into the mostly empty hallway, ducking my head and steeling myself for those whispers of recognition that tend to follow gossip subjects around school like a falling stack of dominoes. But no one seems to notice me at all—until what looks like the entire basketball team, plus Megan, Polly, and a senior girl named Candee Cuisimano (who looks exactly how it sounds like she should) round the corner.

  “Action Jaxon!” J-Riv says it like he’s the announcer at a game show, drawing out the vowels. “I underestimated you, son.” He holds his hand up for a high five, but I know he’s just patronizing me so I keep my arms at my sides.

  “What’d he do?” one of his thick-necked friends, whose name I think is Jordan, asks.

  “You ain’t heard?” J-Riv crows, busting out in a girlish cackle that’s mostly for his cronies. “I saw Romeo here macking on some ultra-Orthodox girl in the library. This boy’s got jungle fever!”

  “Not exactly,” I say, crossing my arms. “A black person can’t have jungle fever, because Jews don’t live in the jungle. Jungle fever is when a white person falls for an African, and it’s racist as hell.”

  “Oh,” J-Riv says, not seeming to absorb the dig at his complete ignorance. “Well, you got dreidel fever then!” His basketball friends crack up—everyone but Polly, who looks like she’d like to sink into the floor.

  I know I should brush it off and go to class. I know this. But exhaustion, adrenaline, and shame are mixing a powerful Molotov cocktail in my blood, and as I look at this big, bland bully, whose lips are pulled back in a sneer at my expense—lips that have probably been all over Polly, in some horrible movie-of-the-week, under-the-bleachers cliché, I realize I’ve currently got nothing to lose.

  “You don’t know anything,” I practically yell, my voice echoing through the hallway, stunning J-Riv and his friends into silence. “You think you know me because you think you saw me for a split second on your way to the I Can Read shelf in the kids’ section? You think you know her? Man, shut up. If you don’t have better things to do than talk about my girlfriend, then your life must be pretty lame.”

  J-Riv’s face clouds over. “Guess I hit a nerve,” he says, talking even louder as some sort of show of confidence. “I’d have some pent-up anger, too, if my girl had to wait for marriage.”

  I run at him, hearing the guys snicker and the girls shriek. I wish I could say I execute some perfect roundhouse kick to the temple, or pummel him with an uppercut-cross combo, but all of my training flies out the window and I just collide with him like I’m trying to break down a door. Luckily, (A) Jordan and some other guy catch me by the arms before I can land a real punch, and (B) J-Riv has too much weight on me for me to be able to knock him down. I say “luckily” because only as my forearms are connecting with his chest does it occur to me that getting expelled from school for assault could permanently derail my plans with Devorah.

  Apparently J-Riv is having similar thoughts about his basketball career, because he just shakes his head menacingly and spits, “This isn’t over, freak,” before shoving me aside and stalking off with his friends. Polly and Megan hold a brief powwow in the corner near the water fountain before Megan hurries down the hallway after them, and I just lean against the wall between two classrooms and rub my hands on my face, taking stock of the streak of luck that has decidedly left the building. Somehow, between 8:10 and 8:15 AM, I have become the laughingstock of Brooklyn Tech and the mouthy archnemesis of someone who could probably bench-press three of me. Plus, I’m officially late to Mr. Miserandino’s first-period torture chamber for the second time, which according to his five-page “conduct memo” will cost me a full letter grade for the semester. Not, I realize, that it matters much anymore. When we get back from our trip, by the time my parents are done with me, I’ll probably be begging for a tongue-lashing from Mr. Misery. Begging.

  “Are you okay?” Polly asks, appearing next to me, wearing pigtails and a look of concern.

  “I don’t know,” I say with a sigh.

  “You need to talk?” she asks.

  “Not to you.” Behind her black frame glasses, her big brown eyes crinkle with hurt. “I mean, not right now.”

  “I’m still your friend, Jax,” she says.

  “Yeah, well, it hasn’t felt that way for a while, and I’m having a bad morning, so now’s probably not the best time to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  I ball up my fists and press them against my thighs. “Why are you with that asshole?” I groan. “Come on. You’re better than that.”

  She takes a step back and looks at me quizzically. “I’m not ‘with’ Jason. We’re just friends.”

  “Okay, then why are you friends with that asshole?”

  Polly laughs. “He’s not so bad one-on-one. But you’re right. He can be a jerk. I can’t defend what I just saw.”

  I rub my eyes again and try to pull myself together. Since I’ve blown off first period anyway and staying on school grounds will only invite more opportunities for me to get my ass kicked, I figure my best bet is to cut the rest of my classes and just go home. I still need to pack and go beg for my paycheck from Cora so that I have enough cash to take Devorah out to a nice dinner. That’s the part I’m most dreading, since I called in “sick” to work all last week and have been half-assing it since then. But what’s that saying, all’s fair in love and . . .

  “You seem distracted,” Polly says, putting a hand on my arm and smiling awkwardly. “I should let you go.” Just a few weeks ago this whole interaction would have had me doing cartwheels, but now it takes all the energy I have just to nod disinterestedly. Polly starts walking down the hall but stops and turns back after ten feet or so.

  “Hey, Jax,” she says, “she’s a lucky girl.”

  I nod silently again, but as soon as she turns away again I look up at the ceiling and give the universe my best are you kidding me eyes. I asked for a sign, not a goddamn labyrinth.

  • • •

  I decide not to go home right away. Instead, I walk through Fort Greene Park, past babies lurching around after pint-sized soccer balls, watching the sun glint off the clock face of the Williamsburg Savings Bank in the distance. It’s only nine, but I know Cora’s probably already unlocking the metal grate that keeps Wonder Wings safe from robberies at night (but not from graffiti—there are a couple of tags bleeding across the front in big balloon letters), so I walk up DeKalb, hang a right on Washington, and take it all the way through Prospect Heights, past DIY churches, Caribbean bakeries, and barbershops, all still blinking awake in the stark morning light, until it opens up into Eastern Parkway across from the leaping fountains of the Brooklyn Museum. My calves are starting to cramp—I’ve walked two miles already, and Converse isn’t exactly the industry leader in arch support—but instead of slowing down I break into a run once I hit Union, flying through intersections with my backpack barely hanging on, my headphones streaming out of my pocket. If I can get my heart pumping fast enough, maybe I can get back that feeling from yesterday in the library and this morning when I woke up, that dizzy conviction that anything is possible.

  I’m panting by the time I roll up to Wonder Wings, where Cora is sitting at the corner table, drinking her café con leche from the Dominican place up the block.

  “Why aren’t you in school?” she asks by way of a greeting. This does not bode well.

  “Oh, um, I’m still not feeling great,” I say, wiping my forehead with the back of my hand.

  “Get your butt home, then, I don’t want your germs,” she says with a semiannoyed smile. “I can call Jamal to cover for you again.” Jamal is Cora’s fourteen-year-old son. I feel bad for the kid, doing my thankless job for free.

  “Actually I needed to ask you a favor, too.”

  “Oh?” She puts down her coffee and looks at me with a mixture of concern and suspicion.


  “Yeah . . .” Deep breath. “I was hoping I could get an advance on next week’s paycheck.” Cora purses her lips. “I hate to ask you,” I say quickly, and I avert my eyes, hoping I don’t look as guilty as I feel.

  “Are you in trouble?” she asks.

  “Nah,” I say, forcing a laugh. “I just . . . gotta make ends meet, you know?”

  “I do know,” she says carefully. “But you’re still a minor, Jaxon. So it seems to me the people who have to make ends meet are your parents, not you.” She frowns and places her hands together under her chin, like she’s praying. “Besides,” she says, “you’ve been all over the place for the past week. And frankly I don’t want to reward that kind of behavior with trust. It would set a bad precedent.”

  “I know, but it’s just this one time,” I plead. “I’ve never asked before, and I swear I’ll never ask again.”

  “What is it for?” she asks. I wrack my brain to come up with some plausible excuse, something that my parents wouldn’t be responsible for paying for. I could say I was being bullied (which isn’t totally untrue), but then knowing Cora she would step in and call the school, start a big campaign. I’m getting flustered when all of a sudden she sighs and says, “It’s the girl, isn’t it?”

  I stare at the floor.

  “I thought so,” she says softly. Then, wordlessly, she takes her purse off the table and opens her wallet, slipping out two twenties. “It’s not much,” she says, holding the money out to me, “but this should get you through a cheap date. Let’s call it a personal loan and not a paycheck advance, okay?” I step forward to take the money, and she pulls it back with a wry smile. “And if you tell any of the kitchen guys, you’re scrubbing toilets for a month.”

  “Wow, thank you,” I say, folding the bills over in my hands. My luck seems to be turning around, just in time.

  Chapter 21

  Devorah

  SEPTEMBER 15, 6:35 PM

  How do you write a letter that will break your family’s heart? Maybe there’s no good way to do it.

  I’ve been sitting on my bed trying to write one for the past half hour, after suffering through a last supper that no one else knew was happening. I’d wanted it to be perfect, one last memory of togetherness before I confessed my sins, but instead my parents were late coming home from the store and we had to fend for ourselves, ordering in kosher pizza (which arrived with half the cheese pooled on one side and the other half a stretch of sad, bald dough), and Miri and Amos fought the whole time while Liya screamed in my lap and Rose cried quietly into a dish towel, not to mention that the tomato sauce gave Zeidy acid reflux, which we all thought was a heart attack for about three minutes. At least Jacob was on Shomrim patrol tonight, so he couldn’t be there—the sole bright spot of an otherwise disastrous meal.

  I’m still wearing my school uniform, the clothes I’ll be wearing on the train, which I plan to take off as soon as we get to the beach. The first thing I’m going to do is put on a bathing suit (Jax said he’d borrow one from his sisters) and dip my toes in the ocean; I don’t care if it’s dark and the water’s freezing cold. In my overnight bag I have my toothbrush, face wash, hair elastics, a nightgown, a few pairs of underpants, the red Converse, and the first edition of Little Women that my mom gave me for Hannukah when I was thirteen. I stashed everything down behind the washing machine in the basement early this morning. I took the padlock off, too, so all I have to do to leave the house is get down the stairs from the kitchen without anyone seeing. And everyone has already retreated to their bedrooms, except for Rose, who’s rocking Liya to sleep in the living room. And she’s so tired, she should be easy to slip by.

  You don’t have to do this, I think as I stare at the blank notebook paper in my hand. He loves you, and he’ll forgive you. Downstairs, as if feeling my pain, Liya lets out a primal wail. I glance at my bedside clock. Only ten minutes left.

  I abandon the letter for the moment and walk out into the hall in stocking feet, where I can hear Hanna and Miri talking in their shared room. I want to go in and say good night to them, but I’m afraid I’ll cry or act funny, and then Hanna will figure it out and try to stop me, and I can’t risk that, not when I’m so close I can almost taste the salt in the air. So instead I climb the stairs to the third floor, where my parents are huddled shoulder to shoulder in the cramped study, going over receipts. As usual, my mother is talking out loud to herself, while my father remains so stoic he could pass for a statue. I’ve gotten used to skipping the creaky top step during my late-night Facebook binges, but tonight I put all my weight on it, and my mother turns around with a tired smile.

  “Hi, honey,” she says. “We’re a little bit busy right now. Can it wait?”

  No! I want to scream. But instead I say, “I just wanted to say good night.”

  “Did you finish your homework?” she asks.

  “Not yet,” I say. “I’m working on it in my room.”

  “Good girl,” she says, adjusting her glasses and peering down at her calculator.

  “Well, good night, then,” I squeak, trying not to let the lump in my throat give me away.

  “Good night, love,” she says.

  I realize that this isn’t the last time I’ll ever see my parents or anything, but I don’t know for sure that it’s not the last time they’ll truly love me. So I can’t help myself. I rush in and wrap them both in a tight hug, breathing in his stale cigarette smoke, her fading jasmine perfume.

  “Please, Devorah, we’re trying to work,” my father says, patting my cheek without turning from his desk. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

  I nod silently as the tears start to come, and run back downstairs before they have a chance to notice. Back in my room I grab my pen and paper and without even thinking, scribble out a farewell:

  Dear Mama, Abba, Zeidy, Rose, Hanna, Isaac, Niv, Miri, and Amos (& Liya & Rivka & all the extended family)—

  First of all, I love you all so much. Please know that. I’ve gone away, just overnight. There are a lot of things I’ve been questioning lately and I need to find the answers for myself, outside of the community. I know this comes as a shock and that you might be worried, sad, or angry that I’ve left without permission, and without telling you first. But I promise that I’m safe and that I’ll be back tomorrow night and will explain everything then. Again, I love you! Please forgive me.

  Devorah

  And then it’s time. I leave the note folded on my pillow and slip down the stairs with my shoes in my hand, my toes sinking into the thick living room carpet, to find Rose and Liya both finally sleeping, their faces flushed but peaceful in the glow of a Tiffany table lamp inset with red and purple dragonflies. I kiss them each softly and turn out the light. No one is there to watch me as I make my exit. And since I’m abandoning everything I love, I figure I might as well abandon something I hate, too. I peel off my tights and toss them in the kitchen garbage. And then I’m gone.

  • • •

  When I reach the bus stop, which is just a chipped plastic bench bolted into the concrete without any sort of cover, the street is all but deserted. The sun has just set, and Kingston Avenue is a long strip of indigo punctuated by streetlamps reflecting off dark storefronts. There’s a van idling on the corner, with a sleeping man in the driver’s seat, but that can’t be Jax’s car. I check and recheck the cars parked for fifty feet in either direction, but they’re all empty. A shiver runs through me; gooseflesh breaks out on my legs. What if he’s not coming? What if he had second thoughts, too, but unlike me actually listened?

  An older man and woman pass by, pushing a stroller with a sleeping toddler slumped inside. They look so familiar that I instinctively turn to hide my face, just in case they recognize me. I can’t place them, though—are they friends of my parents? Do they go to our synagogue? It’s only when the baby stirs and the woman whispers, “Gay shlafen, Sal,” that I realize it’s the
Silvermans. Ruchy’s parents—with her son. I watch as they turn the corner, and Ruchy’s father puts his arm around his wife. They look happier than my parents have looked in a long time, even with their “ruined” family, their errant daughter, and their illegitimate grandchild. I close my eyes and smile, thanking G-d for sending them across my path tonight. Seeing the Silvermans is exactly what I needed to give me hope that everything might work out for us. Not a fairy-tale ending, maybe, but not a cautionary tale, either. Just a regular tale of two young people in love.

  I open my eyes again to see headlights round the corner on Montgomery; seconds later, a black Town Car pulls up to the curb. The door opens with a mechanical yawn, and Jaxon leans out, the sight of him filling me with a warm calm, like the pins and needles you get after coming in from the bitter cold without gloves.

  “Your chariot, my lady,” he says with a big grin, and I climb in next to him on the ripped leather seats patched with duct tape, pulling the door shut behind me.

  “You’re here,” I say, my eyes filling with tears of relief.

  “Of course I’m here.” He takes my face in his hands. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  “Me either,” I say, leaning into a kiss that erases every doubt from every bone in my body.

  “Penn Station or Grand Central?” the driver asks from the front seat. Jaxon reluctantly breaks off and leans forward to answer, when suddenly I feel a rush of cool air. My first thought is that I must be extra sensitive without my tights. My second thought, more of an observation, really, like I’m watching this happen from a seat in an audience (“Where’s Annie, Mama? Where’s Annie??”), is that the door behind me is opening, which is odd since I’m sure I closed it.