Gravity

by Leanne Lieberman

  On the way to the till I spot a stack of cheap plastic witch and goblin masks. I stroke the rough edge of the plastic. Lindsay is probably dressing up for a party right now. Maybe if I walk by her house, I’ll ring the doorbell and say trick-or-treat.

  I buy a witch mask, the magazine and a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips and head to the subway. At Rosedale, where Lindsay lives, I get off and walk west through quiet streets of stately houses with stretches of manicured lawns. Elaborately carved jack-o’-lanterns burn on front porches. Pictures of witches hang in bay windows or sway from brass doorknockers. I pull the mask out of my bag, but it makes me feel self-conscious, so I pull my toque low over my forehead and snuggle my chin into my navy scarf. I’ve worn my long shul coat to cover my uniform.

  Children scuttle down the sidewalks with their parents: preschoolers dressed like giant insects, boys as action figures, girls in princess glitter, older kids as ghoulish Halloween monsters. The streetlights flick on, casting circles on the neat shrubbery, pruned bushes and smooth driveways full of mini-vans and BMWs.

  I shuffle through the dry leaves on the tree-lined boulevard. The houses, Tudor trim or old brick with leaded glass windows, loom large.

  I’ll knock on Lindsay’s door and say, “Trick-or-treat, I just happened to be in the neighborhood.” I’ll lift my mask and give her a dazzling smile. She’ll be just putting on her bunny costume for a school dance. Or maybe a Hawaiian outfit with a grass skirt and a bikini top. She’ll say, “Ellie, I’m so glad you’re here.” Then she’ll ask me to the dance. We’ll make me a ghost costume so no one will know who I am, and we’ll dance to “Stairway to Heaven.” That’s what Neshama says they play at the end of every school dance.

  I turn the corner onto Lindsay’s street, Briar Hill.

  Maybe I’ll just keep my mask on and ring the bell for candy, see if Lindsay recognizes me. I’d go in, but I’m wearing my school uniform with the dorky blouse.

  I start counting the numbers toward her house.

  Maybe I’ll just wait ‘til she comes outside, then I’ll go talk to her. I can hide in the bushes.

  Lindsay’s house is brick with wooden trim. A hall light illuminates the living room and farther back, the kitchen. A Jeep is in the driveway.

  I walk by without stopping.

  I circle the block three times, munching on the chips. On my fourth round, the door opens and Lindsay’s mom gets in her Jeep, her coat open over a tight flapper dress and fishnet stockings. Her breasts peek over the top of a heart-shaped bodice, a giant green feather sways from her head. She drives off, leaving the house totally dark.

  I sigh and start walking back.

  I’ll go by Lindsay’s school and see her there. She’s probably decorating the cafeteria right now, with orange and black crepe paper, and blacking out the windows with garbage bags. I could still wear a ghost costume, or even just the mask. We could dance a fast song with lots of other girls.

  I shiver on the cold deserted street and cram a handful of chips in my mouth. Ima will be wondering where I am.

  On the subway back home, I flip through the teen magazine. Ten tips to thicker eyelashes. Are your breasts too big? The secret inner passions of New Kids On The Block’s Joey McIntyre. I flip to the centerfold. Joey McIntyre stands shirtless, oiled, his chest hairless, nipples like raisins. His dark hair is combed back except for one greased piece falling over his lowered, sultry eyes. He looks mean and unhappy. The photo cuts off his legs just below the bulge of his jeans. Lindsay’s nipples are more like Rosettes, bigger and pink. I twist a lock of hair behind my ear, slowly pull at it. Blood star, Henriscula levisca.

  You might think a delicious hunk of malehood like Joey McIntyre would be all ego, but Joey is just like any other guy. He likes football, pizza, watching movies and hanging out with his friends.

  But Joey has one difference. Millions of young woman swoon whenever he appears on stage.

  AT HOME I flop down beside Neshama on her bed and pass her the photo of Joey McIntyre.

  “Would you swoon?”

  Neshama uses her nail file as a bookmark in her textbook. She studies the picture. “Cute,” she says. “Very cute, but way too girly.”

  “Girly? I’m practically...swooning.”

  “You don’t look like you’re swooning.” She flips the magazine to the cover. “And since when do you read Teen?”

  I shrug. “Some girls in my class were talking about him.” I take the magazine from her and flip back to Joey. “You’re not into cute?”

  Neshama stands up and nudges aside a stack of notebooks. “I want a man, a real man, not some cute little boy. Like Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing.” She swivels her hips. “He was hot. Hey, wanna see something cool?”

  “Sure.”

  She hands me a sheaf of forms.

  “What’s this?”

  “University applications,” she says.

  “Wow. They’re all done?”

  She does a pirouette. “Yep.”

  “Business?”

  “Uh-huh. University of Toronto and York—the first part of my magic disappearing trick.

  “Now you see me”— she steps behind the closet door— “now you don’t. And”—she pops back out—”soon you won’t see me at all.”

  “You won’t live at home next year?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “You’ll really need Houdini to get that kind of money.”

  “We’ll see.” She flits back down the hall.

  I go into the bathroom and turn on the water. I want to bathe in a pink-and-white chrome bathroom with shining faucets, not in our scratched tub with the spider cracks running through the tiles. The windowsill peels from where the shower scalds the paint. I slide into the delicious heat, the window steaming over, my hair floating on the surface as if anchored by small minnows. My body is sleek, like a seal, a slippery fish. I brush my hands over my breasts, down my belly. If I drew close to Lindsay, our bodies would click together like two magnets. Two skins like one. The water washes over my head, swallowing me up. Holding my breath, my hands slide down my flat stomach to the crease between my legs. I press, one toe jammed in the faucet catching the drips. I catch my breath, release my hands. Rose star, Crossaster papposus.

  Purple stars, and mottled stars, leather stars and bat stars —I’m sick of sea stars. I sit up, water running in rivulets down my body, my skin puckered into pruned welts, and I pull the plug.

  FRIDAY AFTER SCHOOL, Neshama and I help Ima in the kitchen for our first Shabbos dinner with guests.

  “What’re we supposed to do when they come?” I ask.

  Ima looks up from the tray of chicken. “They’re just here to celebrate Shabbos, to see a traditional dinner.”

  “How did you find these people?” Neshama spears a tomato with a paring knife.

  “They’re students from Shalom House on campus. Mr. Mordecai, who coordinates it, says they don’t really know anything about being Jewish. He finds people who want to come and learn. He calls to ask how many I can seat.”

  “We’re seats?” Neshama asks.

  Ima ignores her. “Oh, Ellie, I almost forgot, there’s a phone message for you on the counter there.” She points a greasy finger at the pad of paper by the telephone. “Somebody named Mrs. McCullen called. Do you know who that is?”

  I freeze, my eyes opening wide. Ima stirs the meatballs, her back toward me. “Did she say what she wanted?”

  “No, you better go call her before Shabbos.”

  I try to casually walk over to the pad of paper by the phone. I lean forward and let my hair hang in front of my face. Lindsay never returned my calls, and I stopped dropping by her school.

  I dial the number in Ima and Abba’s office. The phone rings once before Lindsay’s mom picks up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, this is Ellie Gold. I’m a friend of Lindsay’s from the cottage.”

  “Oh, right. Hi, Ellie. I called to see if you’ve seen Lindsay.”

&nb
sp; “Uh, no.” I slither my fingers through the coiled phone cord.

  “She was supposed to go to her dad’s, but she never showed up.”

  “I haven’t seen her.”

  “She didn’t call and say where she was or anything?”

  “No, I haven’t spoken with her in months.”

  “Oh, well if you hear from her...”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “Wait. Mrs. McMullen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you have her call me?”

  “Oh, sure. I’ll tell her.”

  I hang up the phone and sit at Ima’s desk, swiveling back and forth in the chair.

  “Who was that?” Ima leans in the doorway.

  “Just a friend from the summer. Her mom was wondering if I’d seen her.”

  “You should go and shower now.”

  THE GUESTS STAND awkwardly in our tiny dining room, the buffet cleared of clutter, the tablecloth crisp. They watch silently as Ima leads us in Shalom Aleichem and blesses the candles. Abba raises his cup of wine, blesses it, then holds up the two braided loaves, shiny with egg yolk and poppy seeds. “We have two challot to represent the double portion of manna that fell from the sky on Shabbos when the Jews wandered in the desert.” He blesses the loaves and rips the warm, fleshy bread into chunks, sprinkles on salt and passes them around.

  Neshama’s part is crooked and she’s not wearing any makeup. My own hair is damp and stringy, but Ima sparkles. Her white blouse with the lace collar is crisp, her hair perfectly combed, her hands steady. Ima’s limbs contract with new energy and then straighten out taut. I feel her enter a room like a slingshot, pulling herself tight, then exploding.

  “Chana,” Abba says, “is writing a book that may interest you young people.”

  Ima puts down her soup spoon, colors a bit. “It’s about why Orthodox marriages are so successful.”

  “Did you know,” Abba adds, “the Orthodox rate of divorce is practically zero?”

  Ima leans forward, her hands clasped in front of her. “In the secular world people often fall in love with a person’s appearance rather than their soul. You start dating someone and then realize you have different life goals. In the Orthodox world, when you are ready to get married, you are set up with someone, and you only get romantically involved after you know the person.”

  How well do I know Lindsay? I know she goes to Havergal, has no siblings. I know she likes soccer and canoeing. She wants to be a stripper. She wants to disappear.

  What I really know of Lindsay is the taste of her mouth and the feel of her skin. I tug at the back of my hair.

  Ima continues, “In the Orthodox world, when a young woman or man is ready to get married, and when their teacher or parent feels they are mature enough for the responsibility, they approach a go-between who sets up a date with another eligible young Jewish person. This young couple goes on a date, but they have to meet in a public place, like a hotel lobby, where other people are present. The couple is not allowed to meet in private until after the marriage.” Murmuring breaks out around the table.

  “Yes, I know, shocking. There’s a very good reason for this. The young couple must not ever touch, not even hold hands before their marriage.”

  Ima smiles as the murmuring breaks into outright disbelief. “We all know,” she continues, “that holding hands leads to further physical intimacy. Once you’ve started a physical relationship, it’s difficult to objectively decide if someone is the best person for you.”

  And Lindsay—is she the best person for me? I think of her teasing me, the way she dared me to disappear. I shake away the thought.

  Neshama and I get up to clear the table. “The reason the divorce rate is so low,” Neshama hisses at me in the kitchen, “is that divorce isn’t allowed.”

  Mrs. Bachner’s daughter crawled home from New York with her five children and her black eye.

  Back at the table Ima pours the tea and continues, “When I first became religiously observant I was invited to a wedding. I remember watching the bride walk down the aisle and thinking, she has never even touched the hand of the man she is going to marry! I thought it was awful, but when it was my turn, I was so in love with my b’shert, my one beloved, I just thought how wonderful it would be to hold his hand once we were kallah v’chatan, bride and groom.”

  I watch Ima smile at Abba, her shoulders relaxed, her hands loose on the table. That’s it. I’m going to change. I want to meet a perfect stranger, talk to them about the ocean, about Hashem and lighting candles. My name is Ellie Gold, I’d say, and I love the sea.

  Ima leads us in zemirot about the beauty of Shabbat and God and His commandments, and even though I am tired, my exhaustion melts away as I join in the singing, softly harmonizing with Ima.

  After the guests leave, Neshama and I clean up the kitchen. “One man?” Neshama hisses. “Could you imagine only ever sleeping with one man?”

  I nod and scrape plates into the garbage can.

  “Wouldn’t you want to test drive your spouse before you marry him? I mean, what if he’s a horrible slob? What if the sex is terrible?”

  “One spouse would be enough, I think. If it’s your b’shert.”

  Neshama snorts. “You don’t really believe that, do you? Ima wants people to get married, reproduce, follow laws God doesn’t care about and that’s it. That’s not a way to live, that’s...that’s imprisonment. Not even Ima and Abba lived that way. They had a life, then they got married.”

  “Um, I guess so.” I return to the table for more plates.

  I’m Ellie Gold and I love the sea, but I’ve already pressed my hands against Lindsay’s jean-clad hip, let our lips brush. My fingers climb through my hair, twist strands around my pinky and pull. Hair coils around my fingers. I nudge the clump into the garbage with the chicken bones and greasy napkins. Slender-rayed star, Evasterias troschelii.

  Seven

  “So I hear your mother’s out to convert the masses.” Bubbie leans on the counter and pours Neshama and me tall glasses of orange juice.

  “Only the chosen Jewish masses,” Neshama points out.

  I sit on a stool and stare out at the bleak November sky. A light rain drizzles over the barren trees.

  “What’s her plan of attack?”

  “Arranged marriages.”

  “Aye-yah-yie,” Bubbie sighs. “Unbelievable. And you, what do you think?” She taps my arm.

  “Huh?”

  “Your mom’s dinners, how are you holding up?”

  “Well, it’s a little like being an unpaid caterer.”

  Bubbie pats my shoulder. “You just stay here and relax.”

  “Do you mind if we watch TV?” Neshama asks.

  “Go right ahead. I taped Days of Our Lives for you. Do you want me to turn it on?”

  Neshama slides off her stool. “No, that’s okay. I don’t keep Shabbos anymore.”

  “Oh, how interesting. And you?” Bubbie looks at me.

  “She follows the party line,” Neshama says.

  “How come you’re so quiet?” Bubbie asks me.

  “I dunno. Just tired.”

  She strokes my hair. “Go, watch TV. I have to run to the store.”

  Bubbie’s TV room is down a short flight of stairs off her kitchen. Huge windows overlook a sea of leaves, scarlet and yellow, crisp and curly on the lawn. I sink into one of the deep, white leather couches and curl up under an afghan.

  In two months of trying to change myself, I now know the Latin names for thirty different kinds of sea stars and their attributes. I can do twenty push-ups without stopping and three sets of forty sit-ups. I started memorizing countries of the world and their capitals, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, but I’m not changing. In the middle of a psalm I’m thinking about Lindsay’s sassy way of talking. Halfway through the periodic table I’m wondering if she’ll call. When I recite countries, I’m imagining her calves by the time I get to Armenia. By Belize my hands are sliding u
p her knees, Bhutan her thighs, and by Brazil it’s all over. I’ve even started to enjoy pulling out my hair. I imagine Lindsay’s hands tugging, pulling me closer to her, her lips coming to kiss me again, her hands urgent and twisting in my hair. A tingle runs from the base of my skull all the way down my back to my bum.

  I’ve done some research on gay people at the library, and being gay doesn’t sound too good. Besides being an abomination according to Jewish law, all the famous gay people I’ve read about had tragic ends, or at least disappointing sex lives. Virginia Woolf committed suicide, Frederich the Great’s young male lovers were beheaded, Oscar Wilde died in jail and Tchaikovsky got married but had a nervous collapse and left his bride after a month.

  Meanwhile, Lindsay hasn’t returned my calls, not even the polite one I left with her mother. She can’t be out of town, and it’s unlikely she’s too busy. Although I’ve stopped by her school a zillion times, I’ve never run into her again. I was just her summer fling. An experiment in girl kissing, to be discarded by the fall, forgotten in the approaching doom of winter. Someone to make fun of—poor, religious Ellie. Taunt, tease and shed.

  Neshama flips between channels: news, sports, a sitcom with a laugh track. “Hey, a nature show. Just your thing.”

  I look up, then let my cheek rest in my hands.

  Neshama gasps. “Look what you’ve done to your hair!”

  “What?” I flip up my head.

  “You have a huge bald spot.”

  My hand reaches up to the back of my neck.

  “Let me see.” Neshama pushes my hand away. She traces her fingers over the bare waxy patch on my nape.