Intentions (6 page)

She texts me right back.

Yes
.

Yes!

I get on Sir Walter and pedal with more energy and optimism than I’ve had since “Oh, Rabbi.” I love fall, the colored leaves, the crisp, cool air. I tilt my face to the sun.

And yet … I probably shouldn’t have my hopes up. But I do. I did say I’d treat her to a coffee, but still …

When I get to the Starbucks by the Acme, I worry by the way she’s standing there that she’s got her wall up. I smile anyway. She says she’ll find a table while I get the drinks. I consider bolting, but I don’t.

“Took you long enough,” she says when I sit down with my peppermint tea and her latte. I bristle. It was
her
drink that took so long—and, by the way, was more expensive. But I decide to woo her instead of getting mad.

“What, the people-watching wasn’t any good?” I say. “Girl in the corner, purple shirt.”

She looks at me, smiles. Our old game.

“Thirty seconds, go!” I say.

She studies the girl, turns back to me, grins. “Eighth grade. Cheerleading reject, joined Pep Squad instead. Will be a pom-pom girl in high school.”

“Excellent,” I say.

“OK. Yours,” Alexis says. “Boy in checked shirt two tables over. Thirty seconds, go!”

He looks a lot like Kenny, the genius in my math class, but a few years older. I got this. “OK, this guy is … a freshman at the college. Lives at home, saving money to get out as soon as possible. Chemistry major. Parents want him to be a research scientist. He wants to be a—hmmm—psychologist. Never been laid.” I look at him more closely; he is
built
. “Plays tennis.”

Alexis looks him over. “Good one! I wouldn’t have guessed psychologist, but I think you’re right! Name?”

Hmmm. He’s Asian, but born here, I’m sure. “Daniel—no, Brandon. No. Branden with an
e
.”

“Yes!”

“And what’s your girl’s name?”

Alexis looks long and hard. “Could be Jenna, or Madison. No. I’ve got it!” she says, the old Alexis smile lighting up her face. “Tiffany. Definitely Tiffany.”

“Definitely!”

And then we both say, at exactly the same time, “Tiffany Dawn!”

We smile at each other. Maybe even beam.

Alexis.

She takes a gulp of her latte; I sip my tea.

“Thanks so much for coming,” I say.

“So what’s up?” she says with a small yawn.

“Rough night?” I say, smiling. “I had a rough morning. Too much cake!”

She shrugs. Uh-oh. I’m losing her. Is she pissed off I got stoned with her and Adam? Does she want him all to herself?

“I don’t
like
Adam, you know,” I tell her.

“What?” she says. “Oh, neither do I. I’m still hung up on my boyfriend in California.” She runs her fingers through her short hair. I’m getting used to it. I think. But how weird is it that I don’t even know her boyfriend’s name?

“Alexis, tell me his name, for God’s sake! What
is
it?”

“Mitch.”

I nod.

“I nicknamed him Mustache, because he grew one for a couple of days, but it looked dorky so he shaved it. I still call him that just to annoy him.”

“Funny,” I say, not with a lot of conviction.

“Look,” she says, “I think Branden with an
e
is checking out Tiffany Dawn!”

We both look at him.

“Go for it, Branden,” I say loudly. He turns and looks at me. Do I know you? his look says.

“Oh my God!” Alexis says. “Brilliant! You are so brilliant!” and we break into peals of laughter.

Branden looks at us, wondering, then goes back to his work. It’s a first. Neither of us has ever guessed a name right—that we know, of course.

Alexis is smiling at me as she sips her coffee.

“So listen,” I say, grabbing the moment. “I, uh, have to tell you something.”

She straightens her back, narrows her eyes, looks away from me. Her guard is up. Why?

I whisper across the table, “It’s about … the rabbi, the other night. In the sanctuary. I heard noises.”

“When, last night?”

I shake my head. “Last week, before confirmation class.”

She looks at me blankly. I don’t want to say the words I have to say to get it across to her. But what’s the big deal? Why do I care so much? So I just say it. “I heard the rabbi, with a woman, you know, in the sanctuary. Doing it. I think.”

Alexis smirks.

“I’m not kidding,” I say. “I’m not making a joke.”

“So you heard the rabbi fucking someone?”

I nod my head vigorously. “On the
BIMA
!” I say. “Can you believe it?”

“Big whoop,” she says, fiddles with a sugar packet. Yawns again. But I know I see a look in her eyes: shock, disappointment.

“It wasn’t his wife,” I say. “It was the
rabbi
. Rabbi Cohn. With some—some girl. A bride, I think.”

“So?” She sips her coffee.

I stare at her. “What do you mean, so? Isn’t that awful? The rabbi was doing it, the RABBI!”

“Big fucking deal, Rachel. Why do you care so much? He’s just a guy, a man, Rachel. Hairy legs and a penis. Blood, guts, shit. He’s not God, you know.”

“But—”

She shakes her head, and I hear her mutter something, something that sounds like “Stupid, perfect Rachel.” But that can’t be what she said.

“What was that?” I ask her.

She shrugs.

“Alexis! What. Did. You. Say?”

“Rachel, just because you have this perfect little life, with these perfect parents, it doesn’t mean that everyone else does, you know. Grow the hell up.”

“But, Alexis—”

“You are such a
baby
,” she says.

I am not. That’s what I want to say. To scream. But I don’t. I’m too busy trying not to cry. Like a baby.

Now I play with the sugar and sweetener packets too. Try to make a house, but it keeps falling down.

“Alexis,” I finally manage, “my life is
not
perfect, my parents are not perfect. They’re fighting all the time lately. It’s horrible, and now the rabbi and—” I look at her, my eyes filling up, spilling over.

Her eyes meet mine for a nanosecond and then shift past me, toward the windows. She takes a long gulp of her latte, looks down at her phone. Shakes her head slightly.

“Alexis?” I say softly. “I’m really upset. I really need to talk.”

She looks at me, her eyes hard.

“You weren’t there for me when my parents were splitting up.”

“What? You never told me. I would have been there for you, Lex, I would have!” Of course I would have. “And I’m here for you now. I know it’s still hard for you. Please. Let’s talk now. About everything.”

She looks past me again.

“Alexis, I’m here,” I say. “I care. I want us to be good again.”

I feel an ocean rise between us. The roar of the ocean almost drowns out her voice. But not quite. I hear her very clearly when she finally speaks. And what she says is:

“Oh.”

And then she starts texting someone.

CHAPTER 9

KISSING ELEPHANTS

I am bereft. I am furious. Furious, bereft. Back and forth. All Saturday night I think about calling her, but I don’t. I am too raw; I’ve got nothing left. So I do homework. There
is
nothing left to do with the weekend but that.

I get my work done—math, history, English, all of it.

Monday morning she’s not in school. Good. Fine.

By history class I’m feeling good enough—about school, anyway—to ask McKelvy if he’s thought about whether I could take the quiz about Katrina again. He tells me to come to his classroom after school, and when I do, he makes me a proposition.

“Fine,” I say to him after hearing him out. “I’m happy to do that.”

He has agreed to let me take the quiz over if I go to an elementary school in the poor part of town and tutor a kid once a week. It seems like a big price to pay, but helping to save the world will do me good, I’m sure.
Tikkun olam
. One of the rabbi’s things. Damn him.

“Good. I was going to ask you anyway, before the whole flunking thing,” he tells me. “You’ll be great at it.”

“Got me,” I say, but really I’m pleased. It’s nice to know that someone has faith in me. And it’s not just anyone, it’s McKelvy.

I practically skip down the empty hall. The bell rang a long time ago, and all the buses are gone. I am looking forward to the walk home. And then—there’s Jake!

He hasn’t texted or called me since Friday night, and we didn’t talk in school at all today.

I have decided that he thinks I’m a stoner, a loser.

But he gives me a big smile, and so I say “hi” with a big smile back.

“Why are you here so late?” he asks.

“I had to talk to McKelvy.”

“Why?”

“He wants me to volunteer at Union Elementary. In their reading program.”

“Cool,” he says.

I should thank him for Friday night, but I’m too embarrassed. “Why are you still here?” I ask instead.

“I had to get permission from all my teachers to be out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the state swim meet. They all gave me permission—
and
homework.”

“So you really
are
good at swimming!”

He smiles. “You remember.”

“What?”

“You remember what I told you, even though you were so stoned.”

I stop, look at him seriously. “Of course I remember. I remember everything you said.” And I wonder about what you didn’t say, I want to add. But I don’t.

Jake smiles. “I
am
good—at swimming, I mean. I should be—I’ve been swimming since I was about six. But I don’t think I’m Olympics good. It’s just that I’ve spent so much time in the water, I’m practically a fish.”

“What kind?” I say.

“What kind of fish?”

I nod. “Yeah, if you were a fish, what kind of fish would you be?”

“Can I be a mammal who swims?” As if I had asked him the most normal question in the world.

“Sure,” I say.

“A dolphin.”

“Is that because you like dolphins or because you feel you
are
a dolphin? It has to be because you feel you
are
a dolphin.”

He looks at me with those eyes of his. Sometimes they look hazel, sometimes brown. Right now hazel.

“I feel like a dolphin,” he says. “I
am
a dolphin.”

We are stopped, I realize, in the middle of the street in front of school. I realize this only because a horn honks. At us.

“Let’s not have you be a dead dolphin,” I say, and I grab his hand and lead him to the other side of the street. I start to pull my hand away, but he won’t let me.

So we walk for a while holding hands. It’s awkward because my messenger bag has slid off and down to that elbow and keeps bumping into my leg with a
thwack
. I try not to care. Step,
thwack
, step,
thwack
, step …

“What about you? If you were an animal, what would you be?” he asks me.

I should know the answer to this question right away. Alexis’s
older brothers used to ask us this stuff all the time—“If you were a store, what kind of store would you be?” and “If you could fly or make yourself invisible, which would you choose?” and, even weirder, “Gerbils for hands or pretzels for hands?”

But I can’t answer Jake’s question right away. I used to always say golden retriever. A happy, tail-wagging, life-is-great creature. Not so much anymore.…

Maybe a cat? Like Panda? She can be cuddly and friendly, or she can be aloof and strange … but it’s always on her terms. She has a real mind of her own and—

No, that’s not me, either. Panda has
kavanah
. Cat
kavanah
. She’s all about
intention
. I can’t find my
kavanah
anywhere lately. (Even though I cleaned up my room. Ha.)

I’m more like a bird or an insect that’s caught on a breeze.

I say this aloud to Jake, and he looks confused.

“Or like a firefly that has been put in a jar without enough airholes.”

Out of nowhere a biblical image comes to me: Abraham and Isaac on the mountain; I am Isaac, tied up like a ram. “Or a ram, a sacrificial ram!” I shout gleefully.

OK, now Jake’s looking at me with fear and pity. And worry. This is not how I want this to be going.

Pity ≠ attraction.

“I’m just
kidding
,” I say. I think for a minute and say the first thing that comes into my mind next. “Elephant.” I’m immediately sorry. Elephants are big, and fat. With wrinkly skin. Definitely not sexy.

But Jake nods. “An elephant is smart, strong, empathic, nurturing.…” He takes his hand away from mine, fixes my messenger bag so it is on my shoulder. As he’s doing it, he pushes my hair away from my face and gives me one of his long, intense looks. I think he is going to kiss me, but then he turns away and takes my hand again. We start walking together, hand in hand, not talking.

I love his hand. Strong. Dry. Not sweaty.

“Um. Rachel?”

“Yeah?”

“The thing is, you don’t look like an elephant. You look more like a tiger, sleek and stunning—”

Me? Sleek and stunning?

“—or a beautiful bird, a bluebird or …” Jake laughs. “OK, that was really lame.”

Not lame, not lame. Nice, niiiiice.

“OK. Um. What I want to say is …”

He stops, turns me toward him. He looks me straight in the eyes for a minute or more, without saying anything.

My heart is pounding so hard, I think I can hear it.

“You are so beautiful,” Jake says.

His voice is husky, and I know where this is going, so I say stupidly, “No, no, I’m not, my hair is a mess and—”

He puts his hand to my lips, then moves it away, swings his messenger bag back so it’s not between us, comes closer to me, pushes my hair away from my face again, and then puts his lips on mine.

It’s a short kiss, just a peck really, and I’m disappointed when he pulls back.

But his eyes are asking, Is it OK?

I lean into him and kiss him, a little harder and a little longer than he kissed me. His lips are soft, full, wonderful.