Zack points to himself. “Not charmed. You, on the other hand . . .” His mouth tilts into a grin.
I want to smile back, but: “All those things she told you—she was right. I’m innocent and inexperienced.” Truths are spilling out of me tonight, fears and insecurities and secrets. It feels good to finally be honest with someone.
“I am too. I haven’t done anything, really. I’ve done . . . more with you than with anyone else.”
“Oh,” I say, grinning into the dark as the crickets fill the silence between us. Urging us on.
“We could corrupt each other,” Zack suggests. He reaches out and draws a line down the curve of my leg through the sleeping bag. Hip to knee. I shiver. “Cold?”
“I’ve never been camping. I didn’t expect it to be so freezing.”
“Nighttime can be a little rough.” He pauses. “You can, uh, come in here with me if you want to.” The tremor in his voice is so endearing that it practically pulls me from my sleeping bag.
“I really want to.”
With a little maneuvering, he adjusts the bag so we can both fit inside. I’m about to say that I don’t think there’s enough room for both of us, but I want us to be that close, sleeping pressed up against each other. I slide my feet down the length of the bag and align my body with his. He zips us up, and though I was right, there isn’t enough space, I don’t want any space between us.
We start kissing, and the night and general aloneness help our hands find each other’s skin quickly. I’m not worried about whether my chest is too big or whether he’s comparing me to my sister. He wants me. It’s difficult to separate what our bodies do from how our bodies feel, the clinical from the intimate. What’s happening between us is so much more than a chemical reaction, so for a while, I turn off my brain. We push against each other with our pajamas on, fingers and lips and discovery, and it’s all new and wonderful, like we’re the only two people who’ve figured out how to feel this way together, how to push our bodies off a cliff.
Once our breathing slows down again, I burrow even closer into him, face pressed into the hollow of his neck, which is always warm and always smells like a mix of soap and paint and, tonight, campfire ashes.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about us and what’s gonna happen next year,” he says. “I know we just started going out a couple months ago, but there’s a good chance I’ll end up on the East Coast in the fall too. That’s where most of my art schools are. And I know you’ll get into Johns Hopkins, and you’ll be in Baltimore, so . . .”
Swallowing around the knot in my throat, I echo him: “I’ll be in Baltimore. Maybe.”
“Long-distance would be tough, but we won’t be that far away. We could see each other every weekend.”
He’s combing my hair, his fingers so light, and I can tell in those touches that he’s imagining us there together, bundled up in our winter coats, sipping cocoa, strolling mitten-in-mitten through campuses with bright red trees.
For a while I don’t say anything.
“Tov?” he says. “What do you think?”
“I think . . .” I have to force the words out. “I think seeing each other every weekend sounds amazing.”
He kisses my forehead. Whispers, “And we can fall asleep like this more often.”
This feels too good, imagining our imaginary future. The logical side of my brain tells me this could all fall apart based on one admissions decision. But logic isn’t warm and solid, and it doesn’t have its arms wrapped around me. It scares me how deeply, how much I feel when I’m with Zack. There’s too much of it, and I can’t contain it, and one day it’ll burst out of me like a solid ray of light.
Adina is packing as I’m unpacking. She leaves for her audition trip tonight: New York, Boston, and Baltimore. Peabody, one of the schools Adina is auditioning at, is part of Johns Hopkins, though on a separate campus. My parents encouraged me to tag along, but I couldn’t bear it. Not with my future still so uncertain.
Adina’s door is half-open, which I interpret as an invitation. Quickly, before I can change my mind, I drop my duffel on my bed, snatch a box from my closet, and knock on her door.
“Come in.”
“Excited for your trip?” I ask, on such a high from camping that I bounce inside her room like I’m human sunshine.
She folds a sweater into a suitcase, then turns to me. Her grin is sunshine too. Real. Thank God. “I can’t wait.”
“I, um, got you something.” I hold out the box. “For your auditions.”
She arches a brow but accepts the gift. Unwraps it. “Tovah . . .” She picks up the container of Larica rosin. It’s top-of-the-line; I looked it up.
I bought it a few weeks ago, but after she humiliated me in front of Zack, I wasn’t sure I was going to give it to her. But I’m able to forgive, and after the camping trip I know my sister isn’t a threat. Zack wants only me, all of me. The expression on her face makes me feel like I’ve finally done something right when it comes to the two of us.
“I want your auditions to go well.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s funny,” I say, dipping a toe into the seemingly calm waters between us, “we’re both dating people for the first time.”
“What?” Adina sounds startled.
“What you said at the Mizrahis’. You’re dating someone, but it’s not official or anything? I won’t tell Ima and Aba, if you’re worried about them making a big deal about it or something.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Was it . . . Connor?”
“Who?”
“He’s in your orchestra class.”
“Oh. The bassist. We’ve exchanged maybe five sentences ever.”
“He asked me about you.”
“He did? When?”
“A while ago. I guess I forgot.”
“He’s pretty forgettable. Why would he ask you about me?”
“I don’t know, Adina. I told him I didn’t think you were seeing anyone.”
“Well. I am. And it’s definitely not him.” She opens her underwear drawer and carefully zips a few lacy underwire bras into a lingerie bag. My bras look like I’m going to the gym. I need new bras.
“Kind of fancy for an audition trip.”
“I like to look good.”
“Who’s going to be seeing your bra?”
Her eyes knife into slits. “Maybe I’m wearing them for myself, not for anyone else. Kind of antifeminist for you to think I could only wear a sexy bra for a guy.”
I clench my teeth. “You’re right. Pack all the sexy underwear you want.” I go back to my original line of questioning. “Can you at least tell me what your boyfriend is like?” Has he seen you in those bras? “Is he Jewish?” If I sound desperate, it’s because I am. I ache to talk to someone about the things I can’t—and don’t want to—share with Lindsay.
“No. He’s not Jewish.” She sighs contentedly, and for a second I think she’ll actually spill some details. “He’s . . . different.”
Different. Okay. I push out a breath. Maybe I was wrong to think she’d confide in me. Maybe nothing should surprise me about Adina at this point. Someone could tell me she spends her spare time reading to the elderly and my response, probably, would be, “Sure, that sounds like something she’d do, I guess,” if only because nothing sounds like something she’d do anymore.
“Different how?” I chance.
She slams a dresser drawer shut. Edges me toward the door. “I don’t ask you about your boyfriend, okay?”
“No, you just embarrass me in front of him.” The words slip out, and I grit my teeth hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just, whoever he is, he’s your first boyfriend. I guess I thought we’d talk about those things.”
Adina laughs hard. Cruel. Before she shuts the door in my face, she says, “He’s not my first.”
Twenty-five
Adina
MY LAST STOP IS BALTIMORE. The ride from Manhattan is six hours long, a
nd the steady, rhythmic click of the train on the track nearly lulls me to sleep.
I have not spent much alone time with my father . . . well, ever. Most of our conversations this trip have been stilted, staccato. It irks me to see him praying over his food in public. How can you still do that? I want to ask.
I shift in the train seat and scroll through my phone. Arjun hasn’t answered my last few messages. Lately his replies have been a mere couple words, and I’ve initiated almost every conversation. I send another casual text. How was your day?
Aba orders us coffee from the train café. When he takes a sip, he sucks in his cheeks and says, “Not as good as the coffee at home. How can you bear to leave that behind?”
He’s trying to make a joke, but we don’t share a sense of humor. If Tovah were here, she’d find a way to make him laugh, but I just give a weak smile before adding sugar to my own cup.
“Aba . . . do you still think going to conservatory is a bad idea?”
He takes another sip of his subpar coffee before responding. “I don’t know what to say. You know I wanted you to apply elsewhere so you could get a more well-rounded education.”
“You didn’t think I’d be successful.”
“That’s not it. No parent wants their child to fail. Of course I think you’re talented, Adi, but things happen. I wanted you to have options, that’s all. But now, if this is what you want . . .”
Because I am dying, I can do whatever I want.
Even Aba knows it.
“It is.”
“I understand this is difficult for you. The most difficult thing you’ve ever had to deal with. If there were a way to make it so you never had to go through what your mother’s going through, a way for me to switch places with you . . . well, I’d do it in a heartbeat.” He sighs. “I won’t pretend I understand how you’re feeling. I can only know what it’s been like for your mother. And on the outside, she handles it well. As well as anyone can. Better, even.”
His candor renders me speechless. He’s never spoken like this to me, not about Ima.
“Aba,” I start when I find my words, but I can tell he’s not done.
“I don’t want you to think you don’t have time, Adina.”
I shiver. Of course he doesn’t know my plan, but his words hit dangerously close to it.
“Ima is forty-six. She was diagnosed when she was forty-two. You’re eighteen.” He slides into the seat next to me, grabbing my hand, holding it tightly. His hand, which sprouts black hairs and weird speckled spots, is starting to wrinkle, his skin forming dozens of miniature accordions. “You can do everything you want to do.”
And in a way, this feels like Aba is giving me permission.
“I love you, Aba,” I say in a voice barely above a whisper, unable to remember the last time I said this to him.
He smiles. “Ani ohev otach.”
When I am gone, perhaps Aba will be sad for a while. He will mourn the loss of a daughter he never really knew, but that is far better than the alternative: forcing him to watch me wither after watching his wife. That is too much for one person to endure. I want to believe he knows that deep down.
Margarine sunlight slants through the windows of the small studio. Two women and one man, all smartly dressed, sit in chairs in front of a music stand. I prepared four pieces, including “Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” and rosined my viola with the Larica Tovah gave me. My auditions in Manhattan and Boston went flawlessly, and I don’t expect this one to be any different.
“Welcome, Adina,” says a woman with sleek blond hair and a slight Eastern European accent. “I am Vera Mitrovic, head of viola here at Peabody.” She stands to greet me, and we shake hands.
“A pleasure to meet you,” I say. “You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to this.”
Her mouth curves into a smile. “Have you ever been to Baltimore?”
“First time.”
“And?” She says it expectantly, as though there is a right answer.
“I love it.” I am not sucking up. Not entirely, at least. I love the architecture, the cobblestone streets, the row houses. Mount Vernon, the neighborhood home to Peabody, is more historic and artsy than anything I’ve seen in Seattle. Before my audition, I took touristy photos of the Washington Monument and sent them to Arjun. (He did not reply.)
“That is what I like to hear.” The other two professors introduce themselves as Angela Romar and Donovan Green, and then I set up my viola and launch into my prelude.
This is when it all becomes real. I could live here. This could be my studio. I know from my research that Professor Mitrovic played in the New York Philharmonic for twenty years. I can only imagine what I’d be able to learn from her.
When I’m done, I exhale a long breath that trembles on its way out. I never get a substantial amount of air until I finish playing. This was my final audition, and I’m convinced it was the best of the three.
“Thank you, Adina,” Professor Mitrovic says.
“Thank you for the opportunity.” I turn to place my viola in its case, but my sore fingers lose their grip. The instrument slips from my hand, plunging straight to the wood floor. It lands with a painful smack, and the professors gasp.
I am frozen for a split second, but I recover it quickly, running my hands over it and making sure it’s okay. My index finger finds a crack near its base, and my heart cracks right along with it. I imagine mahogany blood pooling on the floor beneath me. I got this Primavera viola as a bat mitzvah gift, and I’ve always been so careful with it.
“Everything all right?” Professor Romar asks, but she looks severe, like I have somehow offended her.
“Fine,” I squeak, hugging my case to my chest as I race out of the audition room, my boots skidding on the floor. My feet have a traitorous route all their own.
Aba is meeting up with an old friend who lives in Baltimore, so I have the entire afternoon to myself before we fly back early tomorrow morning. I get on a bus called the Circulator, curiosity pulling me several miles north to Johns Hopkins. My sister has devoted her entire high school life to this place; it must be pretty spectacular.
The route is a study in contradictions. One block is urban, with big buildings and trendy cafés, and the next is full of row houses and yards littered with junk. In Seattle, each neighborhood feels like its own bubble, but here everything runs together.
The campus is not quite as striking as Peabody, a place so beautiful it hosts weddings. Johns Hopkins looks like a textbook college campus: brick buildings and sprawling quad and students slouching beneath the weight of heavy backpacks.
If the past several years had unfolded in a parallel universe, Tovah might be here with me. We would try the hole-in-the-wall restaurants, be tourists at the historical sites, go to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerhoff or the Maryland Science Center.
So far I have exacted only small revenges: embarrassing her in front of her boyfriend, taking the car when she needs it, sneaking into her room and resorting the assignments in her intricate color-coded filing system. I am saving up for a grand finale, though, something that will certainly destroy her. I am a crescendo; I will get louder and louder until I am nothing but noise and destruction.
When I’m done, she will have no choice but to despise me. And when I’m gone, she won’t miss me.
No sadness. No tears. She can have the spotlight to herself, the way she always wanted.
For a second, I waver. Deep in my soul, I wish I could have her back, that we had never been broken apart. One thing she wouldn’t understand, though, is my plan for when my symptoms show up. In Judaism, some people regard suicide as akin to murder. Tovah and I have never talked about it, but then, we’ve never had a reason to. She has never had a reason to feel sad, to fear for her life. If she had tested positive, she’d go to med school and find a fucking cure.
Even if I wanted to, there is no point in making amends. Why should she reconcile with a girl who is as good as dead? We c
annot erase what we’ve done. I cannot go backward, only forward.
“Excuse me. Are you part of the tour?” asks a girl in a blue Johns Hopkins sweatshirt.
I stare at the group of eager kids and their parents that I’ve accidentally fallen into step with. “Yes,” I say. “I am part of the tour,” and I spend the next hour listening to the guide talk about the history and the architecture and the professors and the research opportunities and Johns Hopkins’s world-class reputation. I can understand why Tovah has devoted the past four years of her life to this place.
When the tour ends, I navigate back to the nearest bus stop. If anyone wondered why a prospective Johns Hopkins student was carrying around a viola, they said nothing.
This bus ride, though, I cannot focus on the scenery outside. I keep hearing this sound, like a D-minor chord, and I can’t figure out where it’s coming from. I’m not listening to music—perhaps someone disconnected their headphones?
As we’re stuck in traffic, the sound intensifies. I jump from my seat, knocking my viola case to the floor.
“Are you all right?” asks a woman next to me.
“Don’t you hear that?” I ask, twisting my face and clutching my ears tighter. While I love minor chords, this sound, it’s agony.
“Hear what?”
“That noise? It sounds . . . like a minor chord?”
“I don’t hear anything,” she says, eyeing me like I have lost my mind. Everyone else on the bus is unfazed, swiping at their phones or reading books or chatting animatedly with their friends.
It’s suddenly clear only I can hear the minor chord.
The same way my mother hears imaginary dogs barking.
I sit back on the hard seat and cross my legs. The sound follows me back onto the street, making me even more confused. If no one else can hear it, and it’s only happening inside my head . . .
Though I’ve been pondering death for months, the idea of my plan becoming reality sooner than I previously anticipated is enough to make me cold all over. I still haven’t determined how I will end my life. I thought I had more time. I need more time—not just to plan, but to fit everything in. Achieve what I have always dreamed of: me on a stage and a captive audience.
You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone Page 18