by Una LaMarche
“Actually, they can,” Ryan says. “That’s kind of what they’re doing right now, if you haven’t noticed.”
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, seeing red-black blossoms bloom under the lids. “We’ll find a way,” I mutter.
“If you say so.”
“Why are you grilling me, man?” I ask, starting to get annoyed. The bus lurches forward but then stops abruptly.
“Because . . . I don’t want you to get hurt,” Ryan says. “I just want you to think this through.”
“It feels like all I’ve been doing for the past three weeks is thinking,” I grumble.
“Yeah, but where has it gotten you? I mean, other than this lovely urinal on wheels?”
I don’t answer. Maybe he’s right. Maybe everything I’ve tried has failed. But I can’t accept that the answer is just to stop trying. Not when being without her makes me feel this miserable. Not when I know I’ve met my soul mate.
“I just want you to think about why you picked a girl who’s so ungettable,” Ryan says gently. “Like maybe it’s the chase that’s keeping you going, and not her.”
“That’s bullshit,” I snap, drawing another disapproving glare from Goldilocks in front of me. “And I didn’t pick her, I found her. We found each other. Plus, what do you know about love? Your longest relationship was two days.” I know I’m being mean now, but the closer we get to Monsey, the more nervous I feel.
“Okay,” Ryan says, backing down and returning to his candy. “I just feel like it’s my duty as your wingman to make sure you know what you’re doing.”
I sit back and chew on my lower lip, jiggling my leg and trying to calm the cold panic spreading through my chest. If I knew what I was doing, I wouldn’t be making a Hail Mary pass like this. If I knew what I was doing, Devorah would be sitting next to me, not Ryan. I feel the contents of my stomach climb up my throat and realize there’s a very real possibility I might puke for the second time in a week.
But right then, just as I’m contemplating climbing over Ryan and sprinting down the length of the bus to reach the probably vile closet at the back to empty my breakfast into a trapdoor toilet, traffic starts to move, clearing instantly and miraculously, like Moses parting the Red Sea.
I know I haven’t been great at reading the universe’s signs in the past week, but I have to hope that I’ve got this one right. Because every second is hurtling me closer to what feels like my destiny. And there’s no turning back now.
Chapter 29
Devorah
SEPTEMBER 21, 2 PM
“Are you ready to meet your in-laws?” Rabbi Perolman smiles excitedly at me from his cross-legged perch beneath an absurdly picturesque willow tree. We’re in a public park in Monsey, as it was decided by my parents that a rehab center was an unorthodox—no pun intended—site for a first date, regardless of how many times I remind them that it’s also going to be a last date. It’s been five days now since I left Brooklyn; five days that have been, surprisingly, more relaxing than they’ve been harrowing. But as comfortable as I now am with my new surroundings, and as much as I’ve grown fond of the rabbi—who, while didactic, has also proven himself to be charming and considerate in our twice-daily sessions—I haven’t changed my mind about the prospect of my own imminent marriage.
“I think you know the answer to that,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and squinting into the bright afternoon sun. My parents are on their way up from the city, too, and will be waiting when I get back to CRTCM to try to talk me into signing my life away on a ketubah.
“Well, keep an open mind,” the rabbi says. “All anyone’s asking you to do is meet them.”
This is a lie. As good as they sound, most of the emphatic platitudes that pour forth from Rabbi Perolman’s mouth are misleading. His big thing, that he repeats over and over, is that I should feel “in control of choosing my destiny.” But what he really wants me to do—what they all want me to do; the rabbi, his staff, my parents, Rose—is “choose” to recommit myself to a frum life and agree to marry David, an eighteen-year-old from New Square, eleven miles northeast of Monsey. Apparently David’s father, Mendel, served time in state prison for money laundering when David was a boy, and this black mark on the family’s permanent record has made David difficult for the shadchan to match. But David himself, everyone assures me, is perfect. “It’s a blessing,” my mother informed me by phone when I was finally allowed to call home Wednesday night, with Chana over my shoulder listening to every word. “You should be on your knees thanking Hashem for such a good match. Some other girls who have never stepped an inch out of line don’t get this lucky!”
Right, that’s another thing I’m supposed to feel, according to everyone else: lucky. So incredibly lucky. Lucky that Jacob caught me with Jax before I did any real damage to the family name. Lucky that my parents love me enough to send me to CRTCM so that I can be set back on the right path. Lucky that an eligible Chabad boy has been found who will take me—me, the defiled daughter, who once held such promise. Lucky that I get a second chance for the life I didn’t want the first time.
But even with everything that’s happened, I’m still me, the girl who aims to please, who loves to be liked by authority figures, who would sooner leap out the window than flip on a light switch on the Sabbath (let’s just not talk about cell phones). And so, except for a bout of crying and shaking after I first learned about my match with David, I’ve been tolerating the circus around me, trying to be respectful and abide by the rules of the community here. And some aspects have actually been welcome and healing. Back home, even though Shabbos meals are fun, the Sabbath itself has become a boring day of homework and cold lunch bookended by two interminable temple services. At CRTCM, Sabbath is a quiet day of reflection. Instead of sitting through a traditional service, I took a walk around the property with the rabbi, who reminded me that the Sabbath is supposed to represent a single day of perfectness in an otherwise broken world. Similarly, he said, the human soul is fragmented and splintered, which causes internal strife on all days except the Sabbath, when the fragments gather together within the body in peace.
I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon praying quietly in my room, begging for help to find that peace. I certainly feel the splinters the rabbi spoke about—my devotion to my family versus my magnetic attraction to Jaxon; my lust for freedom and new experiences versus my need for safety and stability—but bringing them all into harmony seems impossible. Rabbi Perolman is right: I have to take control and make a choice. But there is no choice that will bring all of my fragmented soul together. No matter what I decide beneath the flimsy shelter of the willow’s branches, part of me will be forever lost.
• • •
Mr. Kaplan is tall and rail-thin, with large, angular features, hollow cheeks, and a beard that makes him look like an Abraham Lincoln impersonator as he stalks stiffly across the lawn from the parking lot. Mrs. Kaplan is his visual opposite: barely five feet and as round as a snowman, with bright eyes, a shoulder-length feathered wig, and an infectious laugh. David, their son and my shidduch match, is tall like his father, but still apple-cheeked, with a graceful gait and the dancing blue eyes of his mother. He smiles sheepishly as he sits down between his parents on one side of a sun-dappled picnic table. Rabbi Perolman and I sit on the other side, grinning and fidgeting, respectively.
“We’ve heard such good things about you, Devorah,” Mrs. Kaplan says. During the matchmaking process, the parents of the girl and boy are expected to call around the community asking all sorts of personal questions. I’m assuming at this point the Kaplans know that, in addition to my penchant for kissing strange boys in the stacks of the library reference section and planning ill-advised elopements to affluent beach communities, I’m allergic to cashews, can’t snap my fingers, and wear a size seven shoe. I nod politely as they ogle me, glad I took the time to shower this morning and pin my hair back at the temples. In sp
ite of my resolve to sabotage this meeting, old habits die hard, and I first want to make a good impression.
“So what do you want to know?” Rabbi Perolman prods. “Hobbies? Values? Grades? Shabbos linens?” The Kaplans chuckle good-naturedly; it’s a cliché that parents ask what color and style of tablecloth the girl’s family sets out for Shabbos dinner, as a means of detecting social class.
“No,” Mr. Kaplan says, smiling at his wife. “We’ll leave the questions to David.”
David smiles nervously as I study his face and try to imagine seeing it every day. It’s an odd feeling, like trying on a dress with the understanding that once you buy it, you can never take it off.
“Go ahead,” Mrs. Kaplan prompts, physically nudging her son.
“Uh, how are you doing today?” David asks shyly.
“To be honest, I’ve been better,” I say. The rabbi shoots me a look of warning, but to my pleasant surprise, David immediately laughs.
“I appreciate that,” he says. “Me, too. I’ve felt sick all day from nerves.”
“You were nervous to meet me?” I ask.
“Of course,” he says. “The shadchan said you were at the top of everyone’s list, and that you were very beautiful and intelligent. Which obviously are true.”
Did she also tell you I’m on final sale? I think, but I force the sass back down and thank him for the compliment.
“So, Devorah, what are you looking for in a husband?” Mrs. Kaplan interjects eagerly.
“Mom,” David says with a laugh, “that’s kind of abrupt.” He has a sweet smile, one that transforms his features from plain but pleasant to almost handsome. Shit, I think, channeling Jaxon. I wasn’t expecting him to be cute.
“This is how these things work,” Mr. Kaplan says, and his wife nods enthusiastically.
“It’s like a job interview,” she explains. “You just have to ask as many questions as you need to before you know.” She pauses and looks back and forth between us conspiratorially. “Unless you two already know. It’s love at first sight, isn’t it?”
“Mother,” David groans, and I bite my lip to keep from smiling. I’m starting to feel sorry for him.
“It’s okay,” I say, turning to Mr. Kaplan. “I’ll answer. I’m looking for someone who is . . .” not looking for a wife. But of course I can’t say that. I have to find a way to be honest without being rude. “Someone who’s patient,” I begin. “Someone who is warm and kind and tolerant.” I’m picturing Jax’s grin now; I can’t help it.
“Very good, Devorah,” the rabbi cuts me off, as if sensing that at any moment I might say what I’m really feeling and ruin everything. “And now, David, what are you looking for in a wife?”
David takes a deep breath and adjusts the collar of his white dress shirt. He’s sitting in direct sunlight, and sweat is beading around his nose. “I, um . . .” He smiles helplessly at me. “This feels so formal and weird, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” I say, almost laughing from relief. I had been fearing Jacob Part II, someone who would be immediately dismissive and domineering, treating me like property at an auction house. But David seems nice and decent, someone I might really like under different circumstances—an instinct that is instantly proven right when he looks at the rabbi and asks, tentatively, “Would it be possible for us to have some time one-on-one first?”
“Yes, yes,” Rabbi Perolman says, springing to his feet and gesturing to a dirt path that snakes alongside the picnic area and over to a small stone gazebo with a sagging green roof overlooking a shallow pond, its perimeter thick with trees. “You can go take a walk if you like, and whenever you’re ready we’ll resume the questions.” The Kaplans look momentarily disappointed, but then the rabbi asks them about a recent trip to Montreal and they light up, even brandishing a small digital camera.
“He’ll regret that,” David says, leading the way along the path.
“Thank you,” I say as soon as we’re out of earshot. “That was getting painful.”
David sticks his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. “I saw an opportunity for freedom, and I took it,” he says simply. Birdcalls shoot back and forth over our heads in the trees above, and I take a breath as I prepare to rip off the Band-Aid.
“I should tell you up front, I don’t want to get married,” I say, staring at the ground where patches of light, filtered through the leaves, dance at my feet. “My parents are trying to keep me from seeing another boy.”
“I know,” David says after an uncomfortable pause. “About the other boy, anyway. I mean, you’re here, after all.”
“So are you just here as a favor to your parents?” I ask.
“A little. But I was genuinely curious about you. All of those things I said the shadchan said are still true.”
We arrive at the gazebo and lean on the railing facing the pond. I gaze out at the still green water, which reflects the wispy cirrus clouds above. “Am I your first match?”
He nods. “My birthday was two weeks ago, so I just turned eighteen. That’s when they flip over the hourglass, I guess.”
“So you still have a year of school left, then?”
“Yup.” He shakes his head self-consciously, course-correcting. “I mean, yes.”
“And then what?” I ask. “Yeshiva?”
“No,” David says. “I have a job. My dad works at B&H, and I’ve been working part time on the sales floor.” B&H Photo Video is a huge, Hasidic-owned electronics emporium in Manhattan that has a Monsey outpost. “Next summer I’ll go full time,” he says.
“That sounds . . .” I search for the right adjective. “Fun?”
“It’s a living,” he says with a sigh, sounding exactly like my father.
“That’s exactly how I feel about getting married,” I say. “It’s just the way things are supposed to be. Not good, not terrible, just meh.”
“It doesn’t sound that bad to me,” David says. “But if it makes you feel better, I don’t feel ready, either. Although I would never tell that to my family.”
I furrow my brow. “Then why are you here?”
“Because it’s important to them,” he says, shrugging. “And because I’m eighteen, and it might take me a while to find a match, with my father’s conviction.”
“That’s why the whole system of shidduchim seems antiquated to me,” I say. “Why should it matter what your father did, if a girl likes you?”
“I’m hoping it won’t,” he says, laughing. “Does it matter to you?”
“No!” I cry. “Of course not. But then, I’m not a prize myself.”
David looks at me. “I wouldn’t say that. You’re spirited and direct, and obviously very smart. Maybe we shouldn’t dismiss this match out of hand.”
“That’s kind of you,” I say carefully, not wanting to lead him on or insult him. “But . . . I think we want different things. You want a wife. Even if you’re not quite ready for one, you’re of age and you’re a good catch and you have a good job lined up. You want what your parents have. Right?”
“I guess so. They have a happy marriage, a nice house. But isn’t that what everyone wants?”
“Not me,” I whisper, clutching the wooden railing of the gazebo.
“Don’t you want a family?” he asks.
“I do,” I say. “I want to get married someday and have children, but—my sister just had a baby. She’s eighteen, like you. And seeing her go through that, I realized it’s just not . . . all I want. I want to be more than that.”
“More than what?” David asks, and I realize I must be testing his patience. I should just thank him for coming and leave now, spare us both the tedium of continuing this pointless display. I decide that there’s no point in being polite anymore, no matter how nice he is.
“More than a mother,” I say. “Frankly, thinking about being home with five kids just
makes me want to run screaming into the nearest body of water.” I gesture to the pond and rest my head on my arms, hunching down on my haunches in a very unladylike way. I half expect him to turn and walk off in anger, but instead David just smiles.
“It’s a good thing my mother can’t hear you,” he says, looking back toward the picnic table. Mrs. Kaplan, who has been watching our every move as Mr. Kaplan and the rabbi talk, waves when she sees us looking. “What you just said would have killed her.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, straightening up. “I’m wasting all of your time.”
“Not necessarily,” he says. “I’m interested to know why you feel the way you do. I’ve never met any Chabad girl who’s against shidduchim.”
“I guess I just think people should choose their lives for themselves,” I say.
“We do choose,” David argues.
“You choose, maybe,” I say pointedly. “Girls don’t have that freedom.”
“That’s life,” he says, sighing.
“It doesn’t bother you at all?” I ask, taking a step back.
“Not much, no.”
“I can’t stand it,” I say.
David clears his throat; I can tell he’s looking for an out. “Well, not everyone believes in the importance of tradition,” he mutters.
“But I do,” I say, suddenly defensive. Until I met Jax, I had never been happier than when I was sitting around a table with my family, all of us joined not just by blood but by something so much deeper and more meaningful—by faith. Having grown up surrounded by people just like me, who know exactly where I come from—down to the village my great-great-grandfather was born in—is a blessing and a comfort, and I wouldn’t trade my childhood for anything.
“Then what?” David asks.
“It’s . . . the limitations,” I say. “What binds us together may be beautiful, but I just can’t accept that my happiness is against Hashem’s wishes. I can’t let tradition dictate my place in the world.”
“You don’t think wives have places of honor?” he asks, and I give him a dubious look. “I’m being serious,” he continues. “A woman is the foundation of a household. Without her it all falls apart.”