Life, After

by Sarah Darer Littman

  They say that the spirit of G-d, the Shechinah, rests in your home on Shabbat. That night, for the first time in as long as I could remember, it really felt that way.

  A few weeks later, I went to the library to work on my Hamlet paper. Before I got started, I decided to send an e-mail to Gaby.

  Hola Gaby!

  I miss you, chica! So much has happened lately, I don’t even know where to start. Well, I guess the headline news is that Roberto is no longer my novio. He now calls himself “Robbie” and has a girlfriend named Amber. But I’m okay with it. Honestly. No lies. Maybe that’s because—newsflash number 2—I guess you could say I have a new novio myself. His name is Brian, and he’s muy guapo. But more than that, he’s smart and funny and I really enjoy being around him.

  I’ve made more friends here, too. Even that one girl, Jess, who I started off hating, has ended up being a friend. It’s strange, isn’t it, how sometimes you end up having more in common with the person who you thought you couldn’t stand than with anyone else around…

  Every day I start to feel a little less like an extranjera and a little more like an americana. Is it the same for you in Israel?

  Things are finally better at home, too. Papá is doing much better. He is working with relatives of 9/11 victims and he said that helping others is making him feel better about himself. All I know is that even though things aren’t perfect, at least there are times where I see flashes of my old papá, and that makes me happy. Maybe as time goes on, those flashes will happen more and more often, until the depressed and angry papá is just a bad memory. I hope so, because I’ve missed my old papá. And you know who else I miss—YOU!!

  Sometimes, when I think of Buenos Aires, it feels like a dream. I was born there and lived there most of my life, but now everything is so different, it’s hard to imagine I was ever there.

  But we were there, weren’t we? And we were best friends. And even if I make new friends, you and I will have that special bond forever. You know things about me that no one here knows, and we share so much history. Like to you, 7/18 means something—it’s not just another day.

  “Hey, Dani!”

  I looked up and Jon was standing there.

  “Hi, Jon. I’m supposed to be working on my Hamlet paper, but I’m e-mailing my friend Gaby in Israel instead.”

  “Did you know that Israel is only eighty-five miles wide at its widest point?”

  I had to deflect Jon before he regaled me with his encyclopedic knowledge of Israel statistics.

  “That’s amazing, Jon. Are you working on your Hamlet paper, too?”

  “Yes. Can I sit at this carrel?”

  “Sure.”

  He sat down, and the first thing he pulled out of his backpack was the notebook, the one filled with letters to his father.

  “I showed it to my mom and Jess,” he said.

  “Your notebook? Seriously?”

  He nodded, meeting my eyes for a brief instant before looking back down at the pages.

  “What did they say?”

  “They cried, just like you,” Jon said. “But then Mom hugged me and told me how much she loves me and we all sat around, Mom, Jess, and me, and talked about Dad and how much we miss him. Mom got out the photo albums and then we watched the video of Dad doing the hula at the luau when we were at Disney World and we laughed so hard it made my stomach hurt. It was the most we’ve laughed since…well, since it happened. Jess said we need to do it more often.”

  I smiled at him, thinking about how good it felt when Papá and I shared laughter again over that silly math joke.

  “I think Jess is right about that,” I told him. “I’m really glad you decided to show them.”

  “Yeah. I am, too, I guess.”

  He glanced down at his watch.

  “Well, I better work on my paper. Mom and Jess are shopping and they’re going to pick me up in an hour.”

  He pulled Hamlet out of his backpack and settled down to work.

  I looked back at the computer screen, at the e-mail to Gaby.

  Like to you, 7/18 means something—it’s not just another day.

  And I realized that while that specific date, July 18, might not have the same significance to Brian, or Rosalia, or Jon, or Jess; after September 11 they certainly knew that it meant. Whether it was 7/18 or 9/11, we all knew what it felt like to have our innocence shattered by a terrorist act. We all knew that there was a Before, which we could never return to, and an After, where we had to learn to find joy again.

  Because with joy, we overcome the terror. With love, strength, and hope, we prevail.

  Acknowledgments

  All the wonderful folks at Scholastic Press deserve a horn of plenty filled with pasteles and many bottles of Malbec for all the hard work they put into my books: wonder editors Jen Rees and David Levithan, Samantha Wolfert, Tracy van Straaten, Becky Terhune, Adrienne Vrettos, Stephanie Anderson, Jenna Zark, and everyone in sales and marketing and out in the field.

  A big plate of homemade alfajores to superagent Jodi Reamer for her advice and counsel and for taking care of the tough stuff so I don’t have to.

  A huge plate of medialunas to my critique group, led by the priceless Diana Klemin and including my writing comrades Bill Buschel, Steve Fondillier, Susan Warner, Gay Morris, Tom Mellana, and Alan Schulman, for their invaluable feedback, always given with love and humor.

  A big bowl of arroz con leche to Ximena Diego, Malaine Miller, and Laura Sanchez for helping someone who’d taken one year of college Spanish back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth sound like she actually knew the language.

  A kosher Argentinean steak barbecue with Sarah’s special secret marinade to my loving and supportive family: Susan and Stanley Darer, John Darer, Anne Darer and Mark Davis, and the Super D’s, Dylan and Daniel. Thanks particularly to Dad, for getting me interested in foreign affairs at an early age and broadening my view of the world.

  All the delicacies above plus a case of the finest Malbec, not to mention my endless love and gratitude, to Hank Eskin for all the times he’s talked me down from the ceiling when I’ve been freaking out about one thing or another, and for his unfailing—and probably misplaced—confidence that I will be featured on Oprah someday.

  Last, but certainly not least, all of the delicious yummies above, minus the wine, but plus a homemade chocolate cake, endless hugs and kisses, and a big apology to my beloved children, Joshua and Amie, for all the times I’ve been grumpy and stressed out because of a revision deadline, or started staring off into space while they’ve been talking to me because I’ve suddenly figured out a plot issue. I love you both more than dark chocolate (!!!!) and promise not to sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” in front of your friends.

  About the Author

  Sarah Darer Littman’s widely praised first novel, Confessions of a Closet Catholic, won the 2006 Sydney Taylor Book Award. She is also the author of Purge. The author lives in Connecticut with her family, in a house that never seems to have enough bookshelves, and loves dulce de leche.

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Darer Littman

  Cover Illustration © Istock

  Cover Design By Becky Terhune

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Littman, Sarah.

  Life, after / by Sarah Darer Littman.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When poverty forces her family to leave their home in Buenos
Aires, Argentina, Dani has a hard time adjusting to life in New York, where everything is different except her father’s anger, but she forms an unlikely bond with a wealthy girl at school that helps heal both of their families.

  [1. Immigrants—Fiction. 2. Moving, Household—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Jews—United States—Fiction. 6. Hispanic Americans—Fiction. 7. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 8. Argentina—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.L7369Lif 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009020523

  First edition, July 2010

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

  eISBN 978-0-545-28315-1