As she walked with Ilana to the dorm room they were sharing, Leah knew she had made the right decision.
In Brooklyn, Leah noted, men would dance in the synagogue all night, weaving circles around the Torah while carrying young children on their shoulders. The children would wave flags and sing while the women sat and watched the festivities from the other side of the curtain. Here at Barnard women danced with the Torah as well, but Leah knew that wouldn’t go over well in Brooklyn, where people tried to keep the traditions as they had always been. Yet Leah wondered why Brooklyn was so afraid of any change. If there was a way for the Law — the Halachah — to accommodate the modern world, why make an issue of it? Just because it wasn’t done? Because women hadn’t danced with the Torah in the past, did that mean in the future women still wouldn’t dance with the Torah, even if rabbinic authorities said it was okay? Leah felt the Brooklyn approach was stifling. She imagined how liberating it would be to study medicine at Columbia University, but she tried to stifle the emerging dream and awe for fear of getting shot down.
Earlier, during a break from the dancing, she’d gone outside with Ilana. After her big blowout with Rachel, she was glad to be with a friend, even though the boy they’d fought about was related to Ilana. She wouldn’t let that awkwardness get in the way of her friendship with Ilana, especially since they might become family soon: Ilana was seeing Leah’s cousin Macy. As they stood in the lobby of the social hall amid a sweaty throng of people resting and socializing, they spotted Macy, who left his group of friends to chat.
“Hey Macy, how’d your mother let you come here for the holiday?” she asked.
“I told her I was going to study at a friend’s house.”
Leah smiled and glanced at Ilana. “Clearly you aren’t here for any intellectual pursuits,” she teased.
Macy laughed and winked at Ilana. “Didn’t say
what
I’d be studying.” Macy flipped his hand through his wavy blond hair and turned to his cousin. “Ms. Leah — may I call you Ms.? I’ll have you know that I’m here simply to advocate for my friend, Eli Feldman. Eli goes to Touro but his friend is a student at Columbia. He likes smart Ms. types — are you interested?” Macy turned. “Hey, Eli, come meet my cousin,” he called out.
Eli came over, smiling. He was tall, with light hair, a ruddy complexion, and a nice smile. “Macy dragged me here against my will. I figured it would be an interesting experience. ”
Leah smiled at Eli. “Aren’t you afraid of all the flak you’ll get going to a social scene instead of waiting for a matchmaker?”
Eli laughed. “The matchmakers try reaching me every night with another name. I can’t study with all their intrusive calls, so I told my parents I wasn’t dating until after I graduated.”
Leah was amazed. “And they listened to you?”
“My parents are cool.” He straightened his gold cufflinks and grinned. “Look, I don’t know what Macy said about me. But whatever it was, it isn’t true.”
Leah laughed. She’d heard of Eli, but had never actually met him before. Wait — was he the guy Hindy had met briefly at his parents’ dry cleaners? Hindy had thought Leah should go out with him and now so did Macy … Did Macy befriend Eli and bring him to this scene just to meet Leah? Her cousin’s antics (and ability to get away with them) usually drove her crazy, but seeing his caring side made her feel closer to him.
Eli was definitely cute, but Leah couldn’t date him — at least until she knew where she’d be for medical school. She’d come so far and had to fight her mother for so long … she didn’t want anything to jeopardize her future. Not even a handsome face. But could it hurt to be friendly? “Hi, I’m Leah Bloom.” She smiled at Eli and then turned to Ilana to introduce her.
When the dancing and socializing wound down, Eli and Macy walked Leah and Ilana back to the Barnard dormitory. In the lobby of Centennial Hall, they sat on the comfortable chairs, surrounded by an aura of power and learning: stately mahogany furniture, the smell of new books on their shelves. Ilana and Macy continued to say good night well into the morning, while Leah and Eli discussed their lives and dreams.
Eli paused, observing the dawning sunlight. “Macy, it’s time for
Shacharis
. We have to go pray the morning prayers.”
Macy stared deeply into Ilana’s deep almond-colored eyes. “I’ll take the Hassidic approach to that.” He shrugged, clearly hoping to push off his prayers altogether.
Ilana shook her head. “We could talk again later today.”
Macy got down on one knee. “I shall go now, sweet princess. But know ye that the sight of your beauty shall motivate my prayers in ways they have never been before!”
Ilana laughed. “For sure, Sir Macy. But dawn approacheth, and the fair maiden must rest her weary eyes.”
Macy bowed. “Sir Eli, we must bid these fair maidens adieu.”
“Adieu, fair maidens.” Eli bowed gallantly.
Leah giggled and wished them good night again, and then good morning.
• • •
“Macy really likes you,” Leah said to Ilana as they walked up the sixth flight to her dorm room.
“I hope so,” Ilana said. “Everyone says he’s wild. But I think he’s a good person!”
Leah smiled, realizing that the infatuation bug had bitten Ilana. Macy was known for a lot of things, but she’d never heard him described as good! “Have you met his mother yet?”
Ilana shook her head. “He keeps pushing it off.”
Leah turned to Ilana. “It’s clear you and Macy care for each other, but I need to tell you something about my aunt.”
Ilana walked up the steps beside Leah. “Suri?”
Leah nodded. “Most of her family was murdered in the Holocaust.”
“Right.” Ilana shrugged. “What Jewish family hasn’t been touched by that?”
“Her grandmother was a kid in Hungary. She was supposed to give her sibling, who was hiding, a forged passport. You know, her grandmother was a cute little girl with blond curls — she could pass for one of them, undetected.”
Ilana steadied herself on the banister in the stairwell as Leah continued.
“Nazis surrounded her grandmother’s hideout and she panicked.”
Ilana looked at Leah.
“They killed him and that kind of guilt doesn’t go away.”
Ilana shook her head. “Her
grandmother’s
guilt? What does that have to do with Suri?”
“You have to understand the mentality. The anxiety, the values — it’s passed down through the generations like mother’s milk,” Leah said.
Ilana stared at her friend. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Leah nodded. “Crazy or not, that’s what this community is built on. Suri’s from survivors — and she’ll take that to the grave.”
“She sounds scary,” Ilana said.
Leah shrugged. “She’s also very kind. She’s taken the lead in our family, especially when my father died … She was always there for us … ”
“What does that have to do with me?” Ilana asked.
“Your skin is dark,” Leah pointed out.
“Right?” Ilana seemed confused. “Most Jews are dark.”
“Not Suri,” Leah stared at her friend. “She’s never forgiven my mother for not marrying up — and there’s no way she’s going to let her favorite son marry a Sephardic girl from Israel with dark skin who can’t pass for a Nazi.”
“Oh.” Ilana slumped against the wall like she’d been sucker-punched.
“It’s nothing personal,” Leah said. “It’s just business. That’s what marriages are, here.”
“Not personal? It’s completely personal!”
“I’m sorry for being so blunt, but I don’t want to see you getting hurt,” Leah said.
Ilana waved her hand, as if she could push away the ugly truth. “So you think anything will happen with you and Eli?” she tried to switch the subject.
“Yes! I mean, no!” Leah said. “He seems like a good guy … But I don’t know how I’d manage it right now.”
Leah thought of Eli, of the way his mouth formed into a crooked smile when he agreed with her. How his eyes changed colors from blue to green when he was passionately disagreeing. She thought of his tall, slim build and how dizzying it felt to sit near him with that cologne he wore. What was the name of that cologne? Some kind of musky smell?
“No!” Leah said defiantly, though Ilana must be wondering whom she was defying. “I don’t have time! My life is chemistry!” She gulped, realizing how that must have sounded. “I mean organic chemistry!” she recanted. “I can’t stop my goals for a guy, I have to think about getting ahead!”
“But don’t you want to get married, too?”
“I would do practically anything to get out of my mother’s place.” Leah sighed. “But my father died a while back, and I see how hard it is for mother trying to raise me alone … It’s good not to have to depend on anybody.”
Ilana nodded.
“Maybe we’ll just be friends,” Leah continued. “Yes, friends are good. Why not? If he wants to be my friend, I will be his friend.”
Leah opened the door to her room, only to find her hostess, Linda’s friend Allison, huddled on the floor, rocking herself as she cried.
Leah sat down beside Allison on the floor. “What happened?” Leah asked.
“I’m okay … ” Allison said, then dabbed her eyes with a crumpled tissue.
“You don’t look okay,” Ilana said, placing her hands on Allison’s shoulders. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Allison shrugged. “My friend Jon was sharing my sleeping bag.”
Leah gulped. “Here? In
this
room?”
Allison started to cry again. “We were just friends, you know? Platonic. He just needed a place to sleep … ”
“Platonic in a sleeping bag?” Leah felt like she couldn’t breathe. “In
this
room?”
“Well, yeah. It was platonic — we were friends for years. But then, we were cuddling in the sleeping bag and one thing led to another … ”
Leah felt livid. How could anyone be so naïve to think men and women could be platonic friends if they shared a sleeping bag?
Ilana squeezed Allison’s shoulders as the girl continued to weep.
“Look,” Allison continued, “it was consensual. I just hadn’t planned on losing my virginity like this.”
Ilana stroked Allison’s hair as the girl fumbled for another tissue. “Everyone talks about the fun, the sensation, the passion … But nobody ever told me about how I’d feel after I did it.”
Ilana sat down beside Allison. “How do you feel?”
“I feel like I just shared something very private, a part of me — my soul, I guess — with a guy I don’t love and don’t want to be with.”
Leah went to her bed. “So you feel used?”
“Well, it was consensual,” Allison said. “But, yeah. I feel used.”
Leah was at a loss for words. Allison’s experience was beyond her Brooklyn world-view. Maybe the Brooklyn approach to marriage was too pressured — but Allison didn’t seem happy at all.
Ilana sat and talked quietly with Allison while Leah put on her pajamas. She found the condom packet from Health Services in her sheets; she thought she’d thrown it out long ago. Only the packet was now ripped open — and empty.
As Ilana and Allison talked, Leah punched a curve into her pillow and pulled the covers over her head.
“Shayna, does this sweater go with these shoes?” Hindy quivered as she examined herself in the mirror.
Shayna skeptically studied her own reflection, not helped by the long crack straight down the middle of the glass. Shayna had cracked the mirror herself two years before, and her parents had never gotten around to buying a new one. Hindy knew what Shayna must have been thinking:
Why bother?
No matter what Hindy wore, she would still look like a mole.
“Don’t worry, Hindy,” Shayna answered, fluffing her blond hair in the mirror. “Do you actually think the big rosh yeshiva’s grandson is going to care about how your shoes match?”
Freidy brought over another pair of shoes. “Here, Hindy,” she said quietly. “Maybe these will look a little fancier. I mean, I’m sure Shimshon Kaplinsky will be taken by your character, but it’s important he see you at your best.”
Shayna looked quizzically at Freidy. “Where did you get those shoes?”
“I bought them today. I knew Hindy was having her date.”
Shayna picked up the shoes and looked for the price tag under the sole.
Hindy stifled a tear. “You did that for me?” She hugged her sister.
Shayna threw the shoe back in the box. “I think I’m going to puke. You spent over a hundred dollars on Hindy’s shoes? You’re an assistant preschool teacher. How can you afford that?”
Freidy stiffened. “They’re for Hindy. That’s what money is for.”
Shayna rolled her eyes. “For a date that probably won’t go anywhere. You should have saved the money for yourself.”
Freidy glared at Shayna and then turned to her older sister. “I think you look beautiful, Hindy. I really do.”
“You just want Hindy married already so you can get married without feeling guilty,” Shayna hissed.
Hindy tried on the shoes and ignored Shayna. Although Shayna was already dating, it was no revelation that everyone in her family would rather see the oldest daughter get married so they could all get on with their lives without people talking. Her siblings could feel good about their own weddings, and her parents could feel their job well done. Usually Hindy felt awful that she was a failure at getting herself married, but tonight nothing could get her down. She was going to meet Shimshon Kaplinsky, the future heir to the Kaplinsky dynasty, probably the next great rabbi of the generation.
The doorbell rang.
“Oh!” whispered Hindy in shock.
Freidy held her hand. “Hindy, don’t be scared. Don’t clam up. Just go!”
Shayna eyed her sisters impatiently. “Don’t you think someone should get the door?”
“Shayna, please, you get the door and stall him while I change. I’ll be down as soon as I can!”
“Hindy, you’re just retreating the way you always do when you’re nervous,” said Freidy in her most soothing voice. “It’ll be okay, really. Just be calm; you’ll be done in two seconds. I’m sure Shimshon can wait for you!”
• • •
Shayna opened the door and did a double take. For a highly esteemed angelic rabbi-type, Shimshon Kaplinsky was cute: He was tall and husky with black hair and a beard, and he was actually well built. Not like the guys Shayna got to date, who were all hunched over from sitting over their Talmuds all day.