“I’m just not ready to be part of—this,” she said, gesturing clumsily around her. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve felt better with you than I have all year. But it’s like I forgot how to enjoy myself.”
“You will again.” Talia wished she could say it with certainty.
“I used to be the kind of person who could eat a really good sandwich and that would be enough,” Tomer said. “And now I walk around and see people laughing, at the movies or wherever, and it’s like I’m a separate species.”
“But with me you feel better?”
“Definitely better than before.”
“Did your therapist teach you to talk that way?”
“Gali and I go to him together. He’s good. But you want to know the truth? All the stuff I’m supposed to do with you in the beginning, all the not saying what’s on my mind . . . it just feels exhausting. It’s like I’m learning how to put sentences together again.”
Talia’s heart jogged, thinking about him struggling through every minute.
“But you’re leaving,” Tomer said. “Let’s say that if in five years you’re back in the country and I’m less of a mess, we’ll try again.”
“Deal,” she said, wondering how such a self-proclaimed disaster could be this deft at breakups. She kissed him goodbye, and when he kissed her back, she decided not to overthink it as she followed him into the bedroom. They fell back on his mattress, pulling up shirts, kicking off pants, spending so many hours back in bed that when Talia finally looked up, the sun was going down. Tomer propped himself on an elbow and smiled at her. “I forgot how good breakup sex is,” he said, and Talia pushed away her niggling disappointment at the finality of his comment, when it had been just as much her idea. She slipped on her clothes and headed down the block, and when the bus pulled up and Talia took a seat in the back, exhaustion swooped right in. Ending things was so obviously the right idea, she told herself, gazing out the window at the rows of baby palms lining Har Zion Street. A prostitute leaned against one of them, pulling at her nylons, probably beginning her day just as Talia was ending hers.
Then Tomer called. “I found your hair band under my pillow. I miss you.”
“I miss you too. But Tomer—”
“I know, we’re broken up,” he said in singsong. “What are you doing?”
“I’m watching an Orthodox guy pick up a prostitute. He’s acting like he’s asking for directions.”
“Ah,” Tomer said dreamily, and Talia said she had to go. The only way to get over this, she knew, was to put him out of her head. And though she thought she was doing a decent job of it, Talia wasn’t home fifteen minutes before her mother looked up from the table, which they were setting for dinner, and said, “What’s his name?”
“He’s just a guy, okay?” Talia said, knowing she sounded more like Gali than she wanted to admit. “I’m sorry,” she tried. “It’s just weird talking about something that turned out to be nothing.” She glanced around the kitchen, at the scratched wood table, stained with decades of art projects and baking disasters; at the stack of bills on the chair; at the new counters Talia’s father had promised to install for her mother’s fiftieth birthday, still half-finished as he waited for a time they could afford to complete the project. Her parents weren’t planning to interrogate her tonight about her love life, Talia thought. It was seven-thirty and her father wasn’t even home from work. This was the year he was supposed to retire and instead he’d signed on for two more.
“It’s good being back,” Talia blurted, but it came out as more of a question. She pulled her mother into a hug. Talia was shocked by how tiny she felt, her shoulders delicate and narrow as a girl’s.
TALIA WOKE the following morning feeling gratefully, dizzily free of Tomer, as if the whole relationship were a brief and delirious flu she had kicked with aspirin and hot tea and a night back in her own bed. Even coming home from work that evening felt comforting, and she surprised herself by offering to cook dinner while her mother worked in the garden and her father puttered around the garage. She was chopping eggplant when her mother walked in and said a girl outside was looking for her.
Gali was standing in the driveway, the whole dusky sky behind her, wide sweeps of orange and gray. She was panting and her eye makeup was smeared, as if she’d just stopped crying, or was about to start all over again. “You live in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “I got lost even from the bus stop.”
“How do you know where I live?”
“I looked you up.”
“Gali.” Talia wished she could be done with the conversation before it even began. “You know your dad and I broke up.”
“Yeah, it’s obvious. He’s pretty much been on his period since I came home last night.”
“Then why—” Talia struggled with a tactful way to phrase it, then gave up and said, “are you here?”
Gali was kicking gravel around with her sandal, and for a second she didn’t answer. Then she mumbled, “You said we could listen to records?”
Talia stared out at the silhouettes of olive trees on the distant brown hilltops, the city hidden beyond. Winding up the road, so quickly dirt flew out behind, was a silver truck, and as it came closer Talia could see Tomer behind the wheel. He threw the truck in park and hopped out. He looked like he was coming straight from work, in jeans and boots and a button-down, his cell phone clipped to his belt loop. Even before he opened his mouth, Gali stiffened and said, “Where was I supposed to go?”
“Nowhere,” Tomer said. “Because you’re grounded.”
“I can’t believe you followed me,” Gali said.
“I can’t believe you stormed out of the house like a three-year-old.” Then he turned to Talia. “I’m sorry my daughter’s so rude, showing up unannounced.”
“And I’m sorry my father’s such a two-face,” Gali said, “sneaking into my room and going through my stuff.”
“And I’m sorry my daughter gives me so many reasons to think I need to search her things.”
“Talia?” her mother called through the kitchen window, and Talia, never so grateful for an interruption, said, “It’s dinner, so—”
“We’d love to,” Gali said, and before she knew it they were all walking up the path and squeezing around the table, passing lentils and eggplant and salad as if this were perfectly natural, as if middle-aged men and their sullen teenage daughters frequently showed up looking for Talia.
And yet she seemed to be the only uncomfortable one. Tomer and Gali had calmed down and everyone was acting like such adults, so adept at skirting awkwardness with talk of the latest bribery charges against the prime minister and his upcoming talks with Syria. Even Gali seemed nervous and polite and almost docile at that table with people she didn’t know, as if, when no longer controlling the joystick to her life, she was actually a good kid. Her voice was so soft she had to repeat herself when asking for seconds. She finished her food and excused herself to make a phone call, slipping down the hall so quietly it was as if she’d been replaced with a better version of herself.
Tomer was an enthusiastic eater, piling thirds onto his plate, praising everything from the lentils to the lemon slices in the water, while Talia’s mother beamed, warming under the light of a handsome, younger man. Talia looked around, trying to see what Tomer did. Her father was still in his work shirt, chest hair trellising up the collar, and her mother’s face was shiny from weeding the garden. She’d been prettier than Talia, with high cheekbones and a full, easy smile, but Talia had known her parents for too long to have any idea what they actually looked like now.
“This is great,” Tomer said, and her mother, in the same prodding voice that had always sent Talia reeling to her room, said, “I just heard a little outside, but it sounds like things have been rough.”
“Sixteen months,” Tomer said, though her mother had obviously been referring to Gali. “It feels so unreal.” He set down his fork. “I’m sorry.”
&n
bsp; “No,” her mother said. “Please. We want to hear,” and then Tomer scraped his chair back and put his head in his hands and told the entire story. About the ski trip, about the injury, about everyone assuming she was drunk. “I was on a mountain when I heard the news,” Tomer said, and all at once Talia’s mother started crying. Her father grunted, his equivalent to tears. Tomer had the same far-off look from that night at the Indian place, and Talia felt weirdly robbed hearing him repeat the story, but also ashamed for turning this back to herself when he was suffering so vividly, and most of all frustrated that she was even a part of this dinner, that this was her life, when she’d worked so hard to be somewhere else entirely.
“I’m sorry,” Tomer said again. “I don’t know how to talk about it. Is that caesarstone?” he asked, eyeing the counters, and when her father said it was, Tomer nodded approvingly.
“But it’s so expensive,” her mother said.
“Yeah, but they’ll last forever,” Tomer said. “You can put pots right on the surface and they won’t leave a mark.”
“You really think they’re better than granite?” her father said, back in his emotional element.
“Five times as strong,” Tomer said. “I put them in every house I do. I’ve got some slabs at work, and some scraps of Moroccan tile that would look good along the backsplash. I can finish it for you in an afternoon, a day tops.”
“No kidding,” her father said.
“Not a problem,” Tomer said.
“Maybe Talia can help out,” her mother said. “Get some work experience.”
“I have a job,” Talia said, and when both her parents said “Journalism?” they laughed, as if she was five years old and had just announced that when she grew up she wanted to be a robot, or a dragon. Then they smiled at each other, as if pleased and surprised that thirty-plus years together could inspire them to blurt the same question in unison. Talia stood up, needing to be anywhere but in that kitchen. “It’s a joke,” her mother called after her, but Talia was already walking into her bedroom. She leaned against the wall and exhaled.
“Hey,” Gali said, from the floor. She was sprawled on the rug, texting on her phone.
“Your boyfriend?” Talia asked.
“Yeah.” Gali reddened. “I think so.”
“What’s his name?”
“Nir.” Her voice had a candied edge.
“He’s in your class?”
“In the army. On leave this week.” Then Gali flipped her phone shut. “My dad doesn’t know. Promise you won’t tell?” and when Talia nodded, Gali said, “I know it was weird showing up like this.”
“Why did you?”
Gali was quiet, as if searching for an honest answer. “I get so pissed at my dad,” she said, “and I just needed to be out of the apartment. To be somewhere else. And the idea of sitting around listening to records with you sounded—nice.”
Talia eyed the girl, making a sincerity check, then felt terrible for doing so when Gali seemed so vulnerable. She looked around her room, the place where she’d once made blanket forts and dressed up her stuffed animals. Draped over her closet door was a satiny wrap top, and she impulsively pulled it off. “This would look good on you,” she said. “Wear it out with Nir.”
“Seriously?”
“Try it on.”
“Then close your eyes,” Gali said, and Talia was touched that such a sassy girl could still be self-conscious. Talia hopped on the bed and put her face in a pillow, as if they were two girls goofing off at a slumber party, and when she opened her eyes, Gali had the shirt on and Tomer was in the doorway.
“Your wish came true,” he said, and Gali grinned a little at her dad’s dorky joke. “Sorry to break up the party, ladies,” he said, “but it’s a school night.”
Outside, Talia waved to Gali as she climbed into the truck, and Tomer gathered her into a hug. “You saved me tonight. I don’t remember the last time I saw Gali smile—I forgot she had teeth,” he said. “Your family’s great, Talia. I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”
“Where’s your family?”
“Haifa,” he said. “And my brother’s in London. My parents were there for us after Efrat, of course, but after a couple months they went back to their lives. That’s how they are. They love me and Gali, but they’re not involved like—this.”
Tomer tightened his arms around her. “You make everything so easy,” he whispered. The automatic porch lights blinked on, catching the gloss in his hair, the stubble on his face. Talia felt a stab of longing and reflexively leaned into him, her cheek remembering just where to rest against his collarbone. She circled her arms around his waist, linking her fingers in his belt loops, before realizing what she was doing.
“Sorry,” she said, finding her voice lodged in her throat. “I just forgot for a minute.”
“You really think it’s for the best?”
She stared at him, suddenly knowing how dangerous it was, even standing this close. That was how people grew to be unhappy, she thought—by not making choices, by just letting what was warm and wonderful in one moment dictate the next, until one day they were living a life completely unsuited to their dreams. She took a big, stumbling step back.
“Okay,” Tomer said. “She thinks it’s for the best.” Then he said it again, as if forcing his own words on himself, and walked to the truck. The porch lights went off and Talia looked out in the distance. The wind picked up and she felt a creeping chill. She waited for a plane to interrupt the silence, or for her parents to come out, but she could see them moving inside the orange glow of the house. Everything around her was still. Then Tomer started the engine and steered down the driveway, and there was Gali at the window, face pressed to the glass, waving goodbye.
AFTER TOMER left, after she watched his truck grow smaller in the darkness until it was just two yellow taillights like the creepy eyes of a cat, Talia heard her parents on the phone with one of her sisters, on separate extensions, talking enthusiastically about Tomer. “We’re not together!” Talia said when they hung up, turning to her mother in the kitchen, then to her father down the hall, on the phone by the steps. “Anyway, can’t you see how unready he is?”
“He’s going through a rough time,” her father said stiffly, as if she’d insulted his friend, and her mother said that of course the age difference and the daughter situation and the timing in general weren’t ideal, but that he was obviously a good person. “I’m not saying it’s perfect, but if anything the whole thing shows he knows how to be in a relationship,” she said, and Talia stood baffled in the doorway: all this time, had her family seen her as more broken than she saw herself?
She marched into her room and flung herself on the bed. But wallowing was useless, she knew, so she opened her laptop and emailed all her former office mates from Kiev who had kept their jobs to remind them she was alive and still looking for work, and when she saw that one had immediately responded, she applauded herself for being so proactive. And when it turned out to be a vacation autoreply, she spent the next fifteen minutes obsessively refreshing her email. From there she Googled herself, her bureau chief, Ethan the blogger, who was still in Moscow, tweeting live from Putin’s address to the Duma. She sat there, feeling like the world’s youngest relic, and then pulled the blanket over her head, this ladybug comforter she’d had since elementary school.
She awoke, just before eleven, to her cell phone ringing.
“Talia? It’s Gali.”
Talia sat up. “Everything okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m with Dana at the movies. Would you let my dad know I’ll be staying at her house tonight?”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”
“He’s asleep.”
“Gali. We’re broken up.”
“Listen,” Gali said, “I texted him. But if he wakes up and wonders where I am, I don’t want him freaking out.”
“Fine,” Talia said, “I’ll let him know.” But after she hung up, she felt ashamed for surren
dering so easily: if Tomer was this deep in the dark, didn’t someone need to make sure Gali was okay? She was certain she’d heard a boy’s voice in the background, and even if Gali was telling the truth, Talia doubted Tomer would want her staying at a friend’s house in the middle of the week. Plus it must have been an effort to find her number in the first place, as if Gali knew going through Talia was the easy route, that she was too big a pushover to say anything but yes. Most of all she felt manipulated, as if any bonding earlier that night had simply been a calculated act on Gali’s part to get what she wanted.
She called the number back. It rang and rang until voicemail picked up: This is Nir, you know what to do. She pressed redial and got the recording again, and finally, the third time, Nir answered.
“Let me talk to Gali,” she said.
“Who is this?”
“You know she’s fourteen.”
“And?”
“And give her the fucking phone!” Who was this guy, Talia thought, out with a little girl on a school night? She heard the muffled sound of a hand over the receiver, then Gali said, “Talia?”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I told you. At Dana’s.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“But I told you,” Gali said.
“Gali, I won’t call your dad, but I just need to know where you went. Tell me right now or I’ll—”
“What?”
“I’ll tell him you’re a liar who’s sleeping with a much older boy, and that you’ve got pot stashed in your room.” Talia had no idea about the truth behind any of this, but Gali whispered, “Fine. We’re at Alma Beach,” and Talia pulled her parents’ spare keys off the peg near the door. “I’m taking the car,” she called out, and her mother yelled, “Tell him hi!”
She backed out of the driveway and sped through Rehovot’s silent roads. Even the highway was nearly empty, and within twenty-five minutes she was cruising down Hayarkon Street, searching for parking. It was a pleasant, balmy evening, and as she strode down the beach, she saw people huddled around fires or playing matkot. She walked closer and found Gali and her friends by a bonfire closer to the shore. Most of them were coupled off, nuzzled on each other’s laps or making out, and a girl in Bedouin pants and a tank top was playing guitar. Gali’s arms were around this Nir’s neck, and he looked like a nice-enough kid, skinny and small and in civilian clothes, his dark hair buzzed so close Talia had a feeling he’d only recently been drafted. He didn’t even have facial hair, just some optimistic fuzz above his lip, and it occurred to Talia that he probably wasn’t all that older than Gali.
The UnAmericans: Stories Page 15