by Una LaMarche
The test goes okay. No bells and whistles like you see on TV when someone’s the thousandth customer at the Food Emporium, but okay. I’m pretty sure I pulled at least a B–, which should be enough to keep my average from plummeting before I have a chance to get my head back in the game.
I’m on my way to Spanish when Mr. Zenarian, the guidance counselor who heads up the tutoring program at Brooklyn Tech, pops his head out of his office. “Hey, Jax!” he calls. His receding brown hair is streaked with gray, and his gray button-down is streaked with brown coffee stains; a perfect inverse. I grin and jog over.
“Hey, Mr. Z!”
“You’ve been a hard man to track down,” he says. “I’ve been looking for you since last week.”
“Yeah,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I’ve been a little distracted lately.”
“Listen, do you have a minute?” he asks. “I have a proposal for you.”
I make a face. “Sorry, I can’t—I’ve got class,” I say. “How’s tomorrow morning?”
“Might be too late,” he says, frowning. I look down the hall to the door of my Spanish class, where Señor Diaz is already doing his bienvenido. “Okay, here’s the thing,” Mr. Zenarian continues. “There’s this citywide Big Brothers mentoring program that the borough president is starting up.”
“Marty Markowitz?” I grin, remembering our laughter on the bridge.
“Right, right,” Mr. Z says, getting distracted. “Anyway, I’ve been asked to nominate a student for the program, and I think you’d be perfect.”
“Why me?”
“You’re great with your tutoring kids,” he says. “I get glowing reports from parents. You have a natural charisma, you’re motivated, you’re top of your class. I don’t know, I just thought it was a no-brainer. You’re a natural-born social worker.”
“Right,” I hear myself saying. And he is right. I’ve never thought about it that way, but the one thing I know I want to spend the rest of my life doing is helping people find their way in life, whether it’s my sisters, my tutees, or other people I love who shall go unnamed.
“Anyway, the deadline for applications is Friday,” Mr. Z is saying. “And I’m happy to work with you on it if it’s something you think you might want to do.”
“I don’t know,” I hedge. “I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on.”
“Well, just think about it,” he says, stepping back into his office. “I think it could be great for you. And those kids.”
“Okay,” I say. “All right. I will.” And it occurs to me, as I break into a sprint down the hall to get to class before la puerta closes, that maybe, just maybe, I’m not lying. I mean, who knows, right? I could do it. I could find the time.
Crazier things have happened.
Chapter 33
Devorah
SEPTEMBER 22 (ONE YEAR LATER), 3:15 PM
It’s funny; once you open your eyes to certain things you start to see them everywhere. For instance, right now, the man walking in front of me on Nostrand Avenue is wearing a black jacket and black pants—the standard-issue Chabadnik uniform—but beneath his coat I can see the hem of an untucked shirt in a bright pattern peeking out, and a cord snakes its way from his pocket up to a set of large white headphones covering his ears. At least once a day now I spot the markings of a Hasidic rebel. And I guess I should know. I’m one of them now.
Okay, fine—it’s not like I’ve joined a band and shaved my head. That will never be me. But since I got back from Monsey last year I’ve adjusted to living a bit on the fringe, still a part of my community but able to observe it from the outside, too, like a curious Alice crawling through the looking glass. It hasn’t been a smooth transition—it took a while to get used to the whispers at school, the sudden silent treatment from teachers who had loved me before, and the disapproving stares from people on the street when I passed by in my bright red sneakers, the picture of modesty from neckline to ankle walking in shoes that were clearly meant for less sacred ground. But knowing that my time here is limited—if I can get financial aid, I’ll be living in a college dorm come September!—has taken so much pressure off, and I’ve been surprised to find that I can actually appreciate the blessings in my life even more now. Like my noisy, meddling, tolerant, wonderful family. Or my incredibly forgiving best friend, who now prides herself as the frum voice of reason to my frei adventurer.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, laughing.
Although they resisted at first, telling me I would feel differently by the time I started my senior year, my parents have ultimately made good on their promise to support my decision to leave for college—to a point, anyway. I think my dad still hopes I’ll change my mind, but even he’s become invested in my research lately and is pushing hard for the Stern College for Women, a Jewish school on Lexington Avenue within spitting distance of the Adereth El synagogue. I’m going to look at it, along with Brooklyn College, Baruch, and Hunter. No matter where I end up, we agree, I’ll come home every week for Shabbos. I’ve heard the freshman-year workload is brutal, so I’m looking forward to having a quiet place to do homework, anyway.
From inside my shoulder bag, I hear the muffled sound of my cell phone ringing and immediately panic. Rose is eight and a half months pregnant with baby number two, and we’ve all been on eggshells lately hoping she doesn’t go into another preterm labor. I dig through my bag and get to my phone just before it goes to voice mail. I can see from the screen that it’s my mother.
“Hello?” I say, punching at the call button and bracing myself.
“Devorah!” my mother cries, pots banging in the background. “I’m so glad I caught you before you left.”
“Is it Rose?” I ask. Shoshana grabs my arm, raising her eyebrows and making a gesture that crudely approximates a baby shooting out from between her legs.
“Rose?” My mother sounds confused. “No, she’s fine. Better than fine, actually. As of today she’s thirty-seven weeks—full term!” Relief floods through me.
“Is she staying off her feet?” I ask.
“Yes,” she assures me. “Jacob is waiting on her hand and foot.” Ever since Jacob got dishonorably booted from the Shomrim for targeting Jaxon, he’s been spending more time with the family, which has turned out to be a good thing. I suspect that my big sister has been doing some coaching on my behalf, because for the past six months or so, Jacob has actually been surprisingly tolerant of me. He’s even stopped referring to my college plans as “the first exit on the road to hell.” It’s sweet, really.
“Good!” I say to my mother. “So then, what did you need to tell me?”
“There’s a storm that’s supposed to hit this afternoon while you’re in the city,” she says. “Make sure to stop by the store and get an umbrella from your father before you go.”
I look up at the still, blue-gray sky and roll my eyes playfully at Shoshana. “It looks pretty clear right now, Mom. I think I’ll survive.”
“I just want you to be prepared,” she trills in the singsong voice she uses when she wants to make a stern warning sound cute.
“I’ll be fine,” I promise.
“Hey, don’t make fun of her,” Shosh says once I hang up. “I’d worry, too. You don’t have a great track record with weather disturbances. Watch, this time you’ll probably get stuck underground in the subway with a handsome Latino.” We fall back into step, and I throw my arm around her shoulders.
“From your lips to God’s ears,” I joke.
• • •
The 3 train is pretty empty for the time of day, and I take a seat in the corner where I can settle in and read. I’m in the middle of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, which is not my normal taste at all but which I found on a list of Ten Books Every High School Student Should Read Before College on Forbes.com (slowly but surely, I’ve been wearing my parents down on the house policy on Internet usag
e, and they’re usually permissive as long as it’s for school).
The train stops at Nevins Street, and I’m parsing out another of Kerouac’s interminable sentences when I see a flash of red out of the corner of my eye and look up to see a tall boy with dark skin and broad shoulders in a crimson T-shirt lean against the center pole with his back to me. I get a heady flash of déjà vu and feel my stomach drop, but just as I’m allowing myself to believe that it’s finally happening (don’t kid yourself, Devorah, you’ve been waiting to run into him; you know it will happen someday, it’s just a question of when) he turns in profile and I see that it’s not Jaxon. Still, my heart is racing, so I close my book and hold it against my chest, grinning stupidly at nothing at all.
I still think about him sometimes. Last fall, when my parents and I were still working out the terms of our new rule system, and things got bad—a few screaming fights with my father come to mind—I thought about calling him. Once I even went so far as to take the CD out of its hiding place, tucked inside the cover of Little Women, and punch his number into my phone, but I could never go through with it. I miss Jax, and meeting him changed my life in a lot of ways, but I know it’s not his job to rescue me every time I falter. And besides, one night this spring I let curiosity get the best of me and I looked up his Facebook page again, and he had posted a photo of himself with his arms wrapped around an Indian girl with a beautiful smile and black-framed glasses. He looked really happy, and although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a momentary pang of jealousy, I’m sincerely glad for him. He deserves to be happy. We both do. We just couldn’t do it together.
I go back to my book but get only a few pages before the train stops at Clark Street and the conductor comes on the intercom to announce that there’s a sick passenger and that the train is going out of service. I check my phone—it’s nearly four; I still have plenty of time—and decide to go above ground and switch over to the C at High Street instead of waiting on the steaming platform with the rest of the disgruntled crowd. But then I step out into the fresh air, start walking toward the trees of Cadman Plaza, and remember that I’m right at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. And even though (or maybe because) the old Devorah would never go out of her way just for the hell of it on a warm afternoon when she was expected someplace in forty-five minutes, I decide to walk across into Manhattan.
The winds are picking up as I step onto the weathered gray planks of the wide walkway, which is bisected by a yellow line that demarcates the footpath from the bike lane. It’s an odd hour on a Tuesday, but the bridge is bustling with commuters and tourists, so much so that I’m forced to walk slowly, swerving around people posing for photos against the backdrop of the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building, and jumping out of the way when a bike bell rings behind me. As I weave through the crowd, looking out at the river through the thick braids of cable, I realize that my mother was right: The sky is getting ominously dark, and I start to wonder if trapping myself on an elevated, unsheltered outdoor surface for a mile—the better to get struck by lightning!—is really the best idea. I consider running back to the subway, but the billowing charcoal clouds are too beautiful to turn away from, and seeing them from this vantage point feels rare and wonderful—the kind of chance that might only happen once.
I’m almost at the first tower when thunder booms overhead, sending umbrellas popping up all around me, a field of polyester blossoms. I pick up my pace, but sure enough, within minutes a light rain starts to fall, and the wind whips my hair onto my face faster than I can brush it off. Great, I think. My first time on a college campus, and I’m going to look like I ran through a car wash. But I can’t deny that it feels thrilling, too, taking this entirely self-designed, totally spontaneous detour. And I might get to NYU soaking wet, but the important thing is that I get there. The important thing is that I’m on my way. I pause and grab on to the railing at the precise moment that the sky opens up.
Everyone else is running for cover, ducking under jackets and being brought to heel by runaway umbrellas blowing violently inside out, but for some reason I don’t want to move from my spot, even though I’m more than a little scared. Maybe it’s my view, the elegant chaos of the New York skyline stretched out before me, buildings stacked on top of one another, holding millions of stories, any one of which could soon be mine. Maybe it’s the way the driving rain feels on my skin, cool and strong, commanding the attention of all my senses and making me feel hyper-alive. Or maybe it’s the winds that lift my hair off my shoulders and stream it behind me like a flock of blackbirds, rushing in my ears and filling my lungs with an energy that seems unstoppable. All I know is that I’m standing in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, a lone girl in a long skirt watching a storm roll in with her eyes fully open for the very first time. And I’m not sure if it’s G-d, or fate, or just air masses colliding over water, but I will say this: It feels, finally, like flying.
Acknowledgments
This book could not have existed without the inspiration, encouragement, and support of my amazing editor, Caroline Donofrio; Razorbill president and publisher Ben Schrank; and the entire Razorbill team. (I hope you guys aren’t weirded out by how much I hug you when we have meetings—please understand that I spend most of my time alone on my couch and/or chasing a toddler around in literal circles until we get dizzy and fall down, so professional grown-up time makes me kind of emotional.)
I dove into Like No Other knowing that the book would be doomed if I couldn’t give Devorah a real, vibrant inner voice, family life, and community, and I am forever indebted to the women who told me their stories so that I could tell hers. Thank you to Sara, Chaya, Esther, Yiscah, Miriam, and everyone else who helped me with my research. (Special thanks to Professor Kerry for correcting my usage of Yiddish and Hebrew.)
Anyone who knows me in real life knows that I’m a mess when working on a book, so thank you to my family and friends for putting up with me from February 2013 to present.
Finally, forever, unconditional love and thanks are due to Jeff and Sam Zorabedian for keeping me humble, happy, and sane, and to Hostess frosted donettes for sustaining my body—just barely—throughout the writing process.