Drift (Lengths)

by Steph Campbell

  Whit, Caro, and Cece get equally busy with their costumes and makeup, though they all wait silently for my reply.

  “I think…” I look at them, these women I trust and adore, and I just say it. “I think I love him.”

  Cece, who’s attempting to tug a faux-leather boot on with both hands, falls over with a heavy thud. She looks up, her eyes wide, her curls swaying everywhere. “What?” she squeaks.

  The other girls are statue still in all states of undress, looking at me like I just announced that I’m going to try fire dancing as my next profession.

  “Isaac,” I repeat calmly. “I think I love him.”

  “It’s only been a few weeks,” Cece objects.

  “Ten weeks,” I clarify.

  Well, kind of clarify. Ten weeks since the day I walked into his class and failed to be able to even see another man after laying eyes on him. I’m counting that as day one.

  Love at first sight.

  I don’t recognize myself anymore…and it’s fine with me. This new version of myself fits perfectly.

  “Have you told Isaac?” Whit asks with a raised eyebrow.

  Trust Whit to strike right at the heart of it all.

  This time I’m the one insanely focused on my stupid costume. “Well…no. Actually, I haven’t.”

  Whit crosses her arms over her chest and raises both eyebrows. “You haven’t? Really? Are you waiting for something? Has he mentioned how he feels to you?”

  “Yes. He told me he loves me. But in Spanish.” I shake my head. “We all say crazy things we don’t mean in Spanish.”

  Cece slaps the flat of her palm to her forehead. “We do, you idiota! Spanish is our second language. It’s his first! Damn, for someone so smart, you are so exceptionally stupid sometimes.”

  I fasten the tiny buttons on the bodice of my dress with furious concentration. “You don’t understand,” I sigh.

  “What don’t I understand?” Cece demands. “A brilliant, employed, passionate, sexy as hell artist tells you he loves you. He’s even willing to do interpretive dance at your synagogue for your sister, even though he’s neither Jewish nor obligated by blood or marriage. You admit openly that you love him. But this whole gorgeous relationship isn’t going to work out because of a language technicality? Is this real life?”

  “Of course this is real life,” I hiss, whirling around to face her, my breath flying out of my lungs. “I do love him. You have no idea! I love him more than I’ve ever loved anyone!” I cry, and it hits me, right here in the synagogue women’s meeting room, just how much I love him. And just how tricky this is. “But he’s only here for the semester. He’s an incredible artist. An amazing professor. If the university doesn’t renew his contract, he’ll be traveling in no time, finding something new.”

  “So?” Cece asks, holding her arms out and shaking her head.

  “So, my life is here. My work is here. My family is here.” I tug my white heels on and glower at her. “Stop pretending it’s so damn easy.”

  “Stop pretending it’s so damn hard!” Cece swats back. The other girls stand silent, watching us volley back and forth like they’re observing a tennis game.

  “What do I do then, oh wise Cece? How exactly do I make this work?” I throw my hands up and yank the card out of my purse, the one I’ve been carrying since the day that art guy came by and said…said that Isaac had one single chance to make it.

  But Isaac told him no.

  I know he doesn’t think I could hear through the door, but I could. Every word. And I expected him to pressure me, no matter what he said the night he showed me his paintings. But he didn’t. He said those works were off limits to Cumberland, and he pretended they had never been a point of negotiation when I pressed him for details. I haven’t been able to get another word out of him about it.

  Cece snaps the card out of my hand and looks up from it slowly, her eyes wide with shock. “How…how did you get this?”

  “What is it?” Caro asks, craning her neck to look. “Holy shit!” She claps her hand over her mouth and looks at the closed door in panic. “So, so sorry. Just…wow! How did you get George Cumberland’s card?” She brushes just the tips of her fingers over the rich, white vellum like she’s touching a holy artifact. I already know it’s soft as down and rich as cream.

  I wanted to reimagine George Cumberland as a classless parasite. But everything from his thoughtful, respectful voice to his squeaky clean Google search results, to his damn understated but gorgeous business cards let me know he’s the one. The one who could help bring Isaac’s work to an international platform.

  “I didn’t. Isaac did.” I take a deep breath and sit back on one of the wooden chairs set up around the wide, round table where Gen, Mami, Cece, and I have sat and discussed Ruth and Judith and all the other great women of the Torah with the great women in our congregation. “Mr. Cumberland came to visit him.”

  Cece and Caro gasp. Whit and Maren exchange a confused look.

  “Wait. Who is this guy?” Whit asks, glancing at the business card like it might offer up some clues.

  Cece turns to her, practically shaking with excitement, waving her hands all over the place. “George Cumberland is this completely amazing curator and patron. He collects art, all kinds of art, but he’s especially interested in up and coming artists. The basic rule of thumb is, if you manage to get into a show of Cumberland’s, your art career is made.” Whit and Maren nod, and Caro and Cece turn to me with shining eyes. “Sooo?” my sister says, dragging the word out. “What exactly did Cumberland say? Was he impressed?”

  “Very. Very, very,” I say, folding my arms and laying my weary head on top of them.

  This is the day of atonement, and I need to atone for the sin of selfish stupidity and puritan uptightness. I’ll just add them silently into the Al Cheit when we’re all reciting the specific list of prayers. And I’ll petition for forgiveness.

  The only problem is, I shouldn’t be atoning or petitioning…I should be making sure this isn’t an issue at all.

  “Is that a problem?” Cece asks, then slides the card back across the table to me. “How is George Cumberland’s interest a problem, Lydia? I know artists who would murder—I’m talking cold-blooded, no remorse homicidal bludgeon your skull—for an in with Cumberland.”

  And then I remember my sister’s provocative video and how I was an asshole about it, and I’m afraid to tell her. It sounds freaking ridiculous.

  They all wait, Cece tapping her foot, Caro twisting her hands, Whit and Maren still looking slightly lost.

  I clear my throat. “Cumberland didn’t love Isaac’s architectural series.”

  Caro and Cece huff with disgust, and Caro dares to suggest, “But did Cumberland say Isaac had potential? Or ask if Isaac would consider taking a new direction?”

  “No.” I shake my head and feel that stupid internal fight.

  So what? They’re just nudes. Nudes been the focus of art since its inception. Am I really going to let my prudey feelings stand in the way of Isaac’s achievement? Even if I’m truly humiliated to think of anyone—let alone people like Richard, Tanya, my fourth grade teacher, my rabbi, my father—able to gawk at me, totally exposed; physically, sexually, emotionally. I shudder and go ahead and explain, figuring their outrage at me might help get me over my insecurity hump. I take a deep breath and explain to the women I love most, trusting that they’ll understand no matter what.

  “Isaac did a set of paintings that deviate from his usual style and, um, subject. But they were just experimental. And they were of me. And I was not wearing clothes. Like, not wearing any clothes. At first Isaac wasn’t even going to show me. They’re extremely personal, and it was an accident Cumberland even saw them in the first place. And Cumberland absolutely loved them. He offered Isaac a spot in an international traveling show. He told him that they’re the only things he should be showing, and if he doesn’t want to show them, he should reconsider why he’s even making art.”

 
Everyone stares. I know, for sure, everyone is wondering how I look naked. Of course! That’s the whole silly but elementally unavoidable problem.

  “You…posed nude?” Maren asks, pressing her lips together to stifle a laugh.

  “Can we see the paintings?” Whit asks, nudging Maren in the ribs gently. “Are they super hot?”

  “Did Cumberland say he was interested in an alternative? Like maybe if Isaac used another model?” Caro asks.

  Cece nods her head slowly, staring at the ground. I don’t answer any of the girls’ questions—especially Caro’s, since the idea of Isaac so much as looking at another naked woman freaks me out—because I’m waiting for my sister. She gets up suddenly, stalks across the room to me, and throws her arms around my shoulders.

  “It’s hard,” she says softly, her hold crushing but comforting. “To put yourself out there, to be willing to put up with that exposure. Especially when you thought it would be private from the start. You’re between a rock and a very shitty hard place.” Cece smoothes my hair down and smiles. “Screw it. Isaac is just starting. Cumberland will keep tabs on him, and he’ll have other amazing opportunities to prove himself.”

  I pick up the card and run my finger along the edges. “You don’t think I should tell Isaac to let Cumberland use the paintings?” I ask.

  “Did Isaac pressure you?” Cece asks, her usually dancing eyes blazing with fury.

  “No!” I say around a nervous gasp. Cece can be insanely intense. “Not at all. He shut Cumberland down, didn’t even allow him to entertain the idea. I was in the other room, and when I came out I pretended I didn’t know what happened. I asked him about it, and he changed the subject, tried to hide the card, and kind of blew me off.”

  “Good for him,” Cece says, nodding. “He doesn’t need to be a damn open book. Neither do you. There will be so many other chances to make it. Screw Cumberland. Well, for now anyway.”

  “But I’m ruining Isaac’s career,” I say. My voice is barely a whisper. It feels trapped in my throat, like a moth in a jar.

  Maren walks over and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Lydia, you obviously aren’t comfortable. And neither was Isaac or else he would have told you what he felt. Put the card away and forget it. If you both feel like it’s not good fit, you can’t do this. And neither can Isaac.”

  I nod, so happy for their support, but not entirely sure it’s right.

  I feel relieved. But also like a huge coward.

  Whit clears her throat loudly. “I don’t care if the world gets to see them or not…I think we need to see these paintings at some point, Lydia. Hot, hot, hot!”

  The other girls fall over themselves giggling and pointing at me.

  For the second time today, my eye roll is interrupted by a smile. “Perverts,” I say.

  Though, obviously, what I mean is, “I love you crazy girls.”

  22 ISAAC

  I never envisioned meeting Lydia’s family on the most sacred holiday of their year, after everyone is incredibly short-tempered from fasting and praying for hours on end. I’m dressed in head to toe white and wearing a yarmulke that Lydia found in her brother Enzo’s room. He’s in Napa Valley, tending a vineyard, so he has no reason to look like a Jewish version of a boy band backup dancer.

  But I love her.

  I love Lydia so much, I’m willing to pray alongside her congregation through the Ashamnu and do interpretive dance to illustrate the atonement for treason, aggression, slander, and a host of other transgressions after.

  Their rabbi—a very forward-thinking, and artistic man—holds his hand over his heart when we finish waving our arms around sashaying back and forth as Cece half-speaks, half-sings from the Torah in Hebrew.

  I pray it looks good, though I have no clue if prayers to the Virgin register in a Jewish temple.

  It feels a little silly. Or I feel a little silly. Deo seems to be doing his best to upstage me with fierce hip thrusts and step ball chains. The girls look very graceful to me, but I have a built-in soft spot for girls in general and these girls in particular. Cohen growls a few times when I step to the left instead of the right, but he’s otherwise gritting his teeth as much as I am.

  The congregation seems to enjoy it all, and it finishes more quickly than I imagined. I don’t want to think about how the few times Lydia and I were supposed to rehearse the choreography Lydia sent us, we wound up doing our own slow dance in her living room or mine. And then the dancing led to kissing. And that led to other things that defy the atonement theme of this exercise.

  But Lydia takes my hand when we move back to our place by her parents and squeezes softly. I smile at her, but it doesn’t last long.

  Because we come to the Al-Chet, which is a much longer list of confessions. I’m a Roman Catholic: I know all about confession, but, in my religious experience, confession is private, whispered in a small, dark box, taken care of with discreetly uttered prayers. Your parents ask if you go to confession, but they don’t ask what you confess. That is between you and God.

  For Lydia and her people, the confessions are public, heartfelt, and all-encompassing. As one we confess to sins intentional and unintentional, spoken and acted upon, to sins we have committed and those committed by our brothers and sisters on earth.

  At first it strikes me as strange to ask forgiveness for things I haven’t done, things I never intend to do. But, as I recite and listen to Lydia’s clear voice at my side, something in me loosens and frees.

  Because, left up to me, the only things I was ever willing to confess were the things I didn’t fear getting back to my father during my youth. As I got older, I stopped going to confession almost completely, and, when I did make it, my list of sins was so long, I gave an abbreviated version.

  Now I have the chance to atone for it all.

  For everything.

  Everything I’ve done, didn’t do, never planned to do, never will do.

  I can atone for the sins of my mother, and those of my father. I can atone for sins of past loves, the sins of friends, the sins of enemies.

  At first my voice is low and uncertain, but it gains strength, and soon I feel the wash of the sunshine through the windows of the temple and hear the voices intoning together. The woman I love is beside me, and my burdens are being vanquished, one by one, until I have no more.

  I stand next to Lydia during the last Ne’ila, the final prayers. The belief is that this prayer marks the closing of the time of great forgiveness. It’s one last opportunity to cleanse, let go, burn away whatever old weights held you back.

  Lydia leans against my arm, her smile weary but full of pride and happiness. More than ever before I want to do right by her.

  When the shofar is blown, the rabbi wishes us well, and we start out of the temple.

  “It was heavy, right?” Lydia asks. “Sorry. I know Christian holy days tend to be a little happier. Passover will be better, I promise,” she says, leading me to her car. Services were late at the temple, because fasting lasts till the evening. Her mother has a whole spread prepared at her parents’ home.

  “I loved it,” I say, sliding into the passenger seat. She closes her door and looks at me with one eyebrow crooked high.

  “Really? You loved admitting to every sin in the world?” She laughs and shakes her head. “You don’t have to tell me you love every aspect of my religion. I’m not sensitive about it, I swear.”

  “I wouldn’t lie.” I reach over and rub a hand over her knee. She presses her lips tight, and I rub higher, harder. “I think it was incredibly brave. It was very raw. I know most people think Christmas is the high holiday of Catholicism, but it’s really Holy Week, leading up to Easter Sunday. I know in America people tend to think of rabbits, right? And eggs? Chocolate ones?”

  She nods. “Deo used to bring the basket his grandmother made to our house to share with Cohen. We were so jealous. Passover does not include huge baskets of candy and egg hunts.”

  I laugh, imagining Lydia as a young girl,
pouting. “Easter didn’t mean that for me or my family. My mother’s parents were very strict. My grandfather was part of a very pious brotherhood, and they were known to walk the streets of town dressed in capirotes—”

  Lydia frowns and tells me, “I don’t know that word.”

  “Like a cap.” I make a triangle on my head. “With a cone top.”

  Her eyes go wide and she grips the steering wheel. “Like the KKK?” she asks, her voice hushed.

  I snort. “If ours are like theirs, they stole the design. The color is usually deep, like a purple. Don’t KKK members wear white?” I ask.

  She nods. “So, you wore it for religious days?”

  “Yes.” I think back to the first time I was permitted to wear the robes my grandfather passed so proudly to me. “You must show your piety. I fasted through the forty days of Lent. I did good works in the community. I followed my grandfather’s example. And then I got to walk through the town, barefoot and shackled.”

  She wrinkles her forehead. “And you were happy about it?”

  I laugh. “Not exactly. I was happy the way you were happy to participate in something that made your sister feel good. My grandfather was proud of me. It was also…it was spiritual. I’d lived with physical trials and some cruelty from my father, but I’d never endured something without hatred in my heart. I never endured just to know what sacrifice tasted like.” I look over, and I can’t read the look on her face. “What is it?”

  “You.” Her profile softens, and she keeps her eyes glued on the road. “There’s something about you that’s so…sexy. Everything about you, actually, is so damn sexy.”

  I laugh, but her words have a serious tinge. “Is that a bad thing?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “I just…I want to know more about you.” Her voice is soft, low—exactly like a penitent whispering her deepest confession.

  “You can know everything. Ask anything at all, and I’ll tell you. I’m an open book for you, Lydia.” I hold my hands out, trying to make light of it.