Gravity

by Leanne Lieberman

  WHEN I GET back to the cottage Bubbie is drinking a gin and tonic on the porch.

  “Lindsay asked me to her house for dinner.”

  Bubbie eyes my outfit. “So? You didn’t want to go?”

  “I didn’t know what they’d serve.”

  Bubbie laughs and squeezes my arm. “You could just tell them you’re kosher or vegetarian.”

  “I told them you were expecting me.” I grab a chip from the plastic bowl.

  Bubbie nods, and I help her bring out food to the picnic table: smoked meat sandwiches and potato salad made with vinegar dressing, the way I like it.

  After dinner we sit on the dock, slapping at mosquitoes. Bubbie slides into an Adirondack chair and lights a cigarette.

  “I thought you quit.”

  “I occasionally like to shove one more nail in my coffin.”

  “What happened to the Popsicle sticks?”

  “I cheat every once in awhile.” Bubbie looks at my legs. “Did Lindsay give you the shorts?”

  I nod.

  She flicks cigarette ash into the water. “And what would your parents think?”

  I cross my legs, tucking my feet underneath me. “You won’t tell them, will you?”

  “Of course not, not if you don’t want me to. I think they look nice on you. Can you imagine your father’s face if he saw?” Bubbie laughs.

  “Should I...should I not wear them?”

  “Oh, Ellie, wear whatever the hell you want. Your parents feel all funny about legs, and now even I’m acting crazy.”

  Sighing, I lean back in the chair and let my arms dangle over the armrests. “There’s no men here to see me, no people really, so I don’t think it really matters. I won’t wear them when we go into Northbrook or anything.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, I don’t care.”

  “You know, I haven’t seen your mother’s legs since nineteen seventy.”

  I glance at Bubbie. “Seventeen years ago?”

  “Yep,” she says. We both start giggling.

  “I don’t even know what they look like,” I say.

  “Oh, they’re very nice. Your mother was athletic once. She has good calf muscles from skiing.”

  “I can’t imagine Ima on skis.”

  “She just flew along. Didn’t like moguls. She liked the feeling of flying. I guess she flies in a different way now.” Bubbie shrugs.

  “I’d like to fly like that, over snow and down hills.”

  “I’ve never taken you or Neshama away because of Shabbos.”

  I nod.

  The sun slides behind the island and mosquitoes start buzzing around my head.

  “What day is it?” I ask.

  Bubbie closes one eye. “Saturday, I think.”

  “We missed Shabbos!” I sit upright, grip the arms of the chair.

  Bubbie stretches her arms over her head, yawns. “I guess we did. I feel well rested, don’t you?”

  “Bubbie, we didn’t light candles!”

  “We could do them now.”

  “It’s a day late.”

  “Oh, c’mon, just pretend.”

  I shake my head. “It’s not the same.”

  I wander up to the cottage. If I were at home we’d be doing Havdalah, the prayers for the end of Shabbos. Ima and Abba are probably celebrating in Jerusalem. I scuff my sandal on the wood floor and sink into one of the orange recliners and rotate back and forth until I’m sleepy.

  THE NEXT MORNING after prayers, breakfast and swimming, I settle in the hammock. A light breeze blows across the bay. I prop my ocean encyclopedia on my chest and let my eyes close. When Lindsay leaned toward me licking the glass, I saw the deep cleft between her breasts. I imagine my hand reaching out to her shoulder, stroking her collarbone, moving over her skin. A delicious tingle runs through me. My eyes fly open. What the hell am I thinking?

  I flip to a picture of a narwhal.

  Boys, Ellie, you’re supposed to like boys. Right. Like... I don’t know any boys. They go to a different school, sit in a different part of the synagogue, look away when we walk by. There’s that guy at the supermarket Neshama thinks is cute. He has nice eyes, and his hair is the same strawberry blond as Lindsay’s, except hers is long and rippled and soft, and oh, the ripples fall over her breasts.

  Omigod. I lie stunned, my heart thumping. I flap my hands and pull at my hair. I’m thinking about a girl, and she’s not even Jewish.

  I can’t be. I’m class monitor. I go to science fair. I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t even think about boys.

  Who never thinks about boys.

  I won’t be in love with her, I just won’t. I’ll just stop right now. There, done.

  I get out of the hammock and march up the gravel road into the trees. I just want to be like her. That’s right—the breasts, the hair and the way she talks, confident like Neshama, snappy like Bubbie, able to leap from canoes and gyrate in bikinis. I lean against an ash tree, dizzy. Omigod, has va’halila, please, not this. I just want to be normal.

  Please, please, please.

  Everyone I know is a pair—male and female. Adam and Eve, Avram and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah and Rachel. Okay, they’re a threesome, but Isaac is key. Romeo and Juliet, Bo and Hope.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about a girl this way. Last year I was obsessed with Hadassah Sternberger, our school council president. I admired the confident way she organized the mitzvah committee, the way she could stand up and talk in front of the whole school. At night I dreamed about touching her pale white skin and her pretty black hair, or what she looked like underneath her school uniform. I’d wake with a jolt from these dreams, sweaty and disoriented, and then spend the next couple of days blushing like crazy whenever I passed her in the hall. I was relieved when she graduated last spring.

  There’s supposed to be some nice David or Isaac in my future, medium height, maybe even muscled and tall as well as hairy. Yes, I’ll be Ellie Cohen, or Ellie Rabinowitz, wife of some Jacob or Daniel. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself next to him. Holding hands, okay; kissing, not bad. But not like Lindsay. I sit on the ground and lean against the tree.

  I can just see it. I’ll be walking down the aisle in Ima’s wedding dress with the lace sleeves. Abba and Ima look so proud. Neshama is my beautiful bridesmaid, and there’ll be Lindsay smiling at me under the chuppah, the wedding canopy, wearing jean shorts and a white bikini top, her veil flowing. I’m heading toward her, propelled by this crazy swelling in my heart, this feeling I might burst. My legs are like jelly, and I’m almost at the end of the aisle. I’m so close I can almost hold her hand. Just a few more minutes, and I’ll get to kiss her. Suddenly I see Ima, Abba and Neshama staring at me.

  Ima gasps and falls into hysterics.

  Neshama shrieks, “That’s so disgusting, Ellie. You want to do IT with a girl?”

  “A shonda,” Abba booms, “my Ellie with a shiksa!” He spits. “Feh, feh, feh.”

  Only Bubbie is happy. “Serves your crazy parents right.” She laughs, her mouth getting bigger and bigger until it turns into a black hole swallowing up the guests. Even Lindsay disappears into the vortex.

  When I try to go home, Neshama stops me. “Don’t you know? They’re sitting shivah for you. Do you know how much baking I had to do for your mourners?”

  Lightning will leap down from the heavens, rivers will flood, tornadoes will spin. There will be locusts, hail and fire. First born children will suddenly perish, which means Abba, Ima and Neshama will all die slow and agonizing deaths.

  “No!” I leap up. Then I drop down to the ground, nervous energy ratcheting through me, and manage five measly push-ups before I collapse, panting.

  I find Bubbie down on the dock. “Mini-golf, let’s play mini-golf.”

  She looks up from her book. “Now? Isn’t Lindsay coming over soon?”

  “Yes, let’s go now.”

  “Do you want to see if Lindsay wan
ts to come?”

  “No! I mean, let’s just go.”

  “Did you two have a fight or something?”

  “No, I just thought we could do something, the two of us. Mini-golf and ice cream.”

  “Okay, okay, let me just get changed.”

  I get Bubbie’s keys and hat for her while she puts on shorts and a T-shirt and freshens her lipstick.

  “Hurry.”

  “What’s with you? It’s not going to close or disappear.”

  I only relax once we pull onto the highway.

  Mini-golf turns out to be even stupider than I expected, a little ball in a little hole, with silly obstacles. An ornamental plastic farmer and his wife swing over the final hole. One more happy pair.

  Lindsay comes over in the evening. I’m sitting on the dock with my prayer book, trying to do the evening prayers I haven’t done since I got to the cottage.

  “Where were you this afternoon?”

  “Mini-golf.”

  “I thought you hated ball sports.”

  “I do. Mini-golf isn’t a sport.”

  “Well, do you want to go for a paddle now?”

  I glance over at her freckled shoulder, her deep bluish green eyes. Say no. Say you don’t feel well. “Um, sure.”

  I go up to the cottage to get my life jacket. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  When I come back down, Lindsay is standing on the dock, the fading sun lighting up her hair like fire. Run away, just run away and leave. I slowly make my way toward her, but instead of getting in the canoe I dive into the lake, the cool water stopping the sick feeling charging through me.

  Three

  For the next two weeks I spend the mornings alone. I never go over to Lindsay’s. Instead I wait until she comes over, which is usually every afternoon. We paddle around the bay and into the marsh, or swim off one of our docks. If it rains, we play Monopoly or gin rummy with Bubbie. The mornings get cooler, and the adult loons have left their babies behind.

  Today, Lindsay calls to ask me to go canoeing. After our paddle, we lie on her dock in our swimsuits. The sun scorches my skin. “How long are you staying?” I ask.

  “We’re supposed to leave next week. You?”

  “The week after next.”

  Only one more week to try and walk like Lindsay, match her snappy answers. Only one more week to stare at her breasts when I think she isn’t looking. And an eternity to hate myself for doing it.

  Lindsay rolls over and her hair tickles my shoulder. I brush the hair away from my shoulder. I pause, my hand hesitating. Just one curl, and then I’ll stop. Don’t, Ellie, don’t.

  I reach out and finger the wet blond end. She doesn’t notice.

  “Want me to brush your hair?” I ask.

  “It’ll frizz,” she says, her voice sleepy.

  “You can jump in the water again.”

  Lindsay yawns, then nods. “Just don’t pull too hard.” She sits up and slips on sunglasses. I comb the tangles out from the ends of her spun taffy hair. She leans back against my upright knees, her skin warm on mine. When I get the knots out, I draw the brush over her head, rippled hair spilling over my legs. Lindsay drops her head all the way back, mouth relaxed, hands loose by her sides. She breathes long and slow, eyes closed.

  I rub a long curl against my cheek. Heat runs from my toes up my legs. Then slowly, I comb my fingers over her scalp, down over her shoulders.

  Lindsay shivers and lets out a small “Ahhh.”

  I pause a moment, hesitating. I trail my hand lightly down her arm.

  Lindsay jerks away. “What are you doing?”

  I’m still holding her hair. “I just thought...” The heat in my legs lodges in my stomach.

  We stare at each other for a long moment. I clench my hands, my heart thumping.

  “I think I’ll go up for lunch.” She stands up.

  “Oh,” I whisper.

  She grabs her beach towel and T-shirt and backs away from me.

  I exhale a breath I didn’t know I was holding, my arms limp in my lap. Leaning back on the dock, I close my eyes. Her scalp was warm in my hands.

  She liked it, I know she did.

  Lindsay calls from the porch, “Do you want some lunch?”

  I look up and shade my eyes. I can’t imagine what I’ll eat there, but I don’t want to go home either. I slowly make my way up to the cottage, sun-dazed and humming with the feel of Lindsay’s hair.

  The kitchen in Lindsay’s cottage is entirely white— the appliances, the counters and the cabinets.

  We are quiet, not really looking at each other. “Are you sure you don’t want a sandwich?” Lindsay asks. She rummages in the refrigerator.

  “Nah, I don’t think so.” Lindsay has ham and cheese out.

  “Lemonade?”

  “Sure.” I sit on a stool on the opposite side of the counter from Lindsay. I can’t help watching the curve of her bum in her black bathing suit as she pours juice into a plastic glass. Her hair hangs loose down her back.

  The phone rings, making both of us jump. Lindsay picks up.

  “Hello? Oh, hi.” She slumps over her plate. “Okay, I guess. Fine...yeah...nothing...” She studies her hair for split ends, leaning against the counter. “No, Craig’s not here... No, no one. It’s totally boring...Yeah, yeah...talk to you later...No, she doesn’t want to...bye.”

  “Was that a friend?”

  “Richard.” Lindsay peels an onion.

  “Who?”

  “My father.” She doesn’t look up.

  “Oh, does he ever come up here?”

  “No, he’s a dick.” Lindsay slices the onion, her lips pressed together.

  “Why’s he a dick?”

  “He just is.” Lindsay pulls a jar of mustard out of the refrigerator.

  “Do you ever see him?”

  “Do you ever stop asking questions?” Lindsay puts down the mustard.

  “Just curious.” My hands twist behind my back. “So, do you?”

  Lindsay glares at me, then she sighs. “You really want to know? He shows up for my birthday, takes Maureen— that’s my mom—and me somewhere expensive for dinner and we all pretend to like each other. He gives me cool presents”—she holds out her leg to show off a gold ankle bracelet below her muscled calf—”and Maureen and Richard try not to bag on each other’s current lovers. Any more questions?”

  “Lovers?” The word pops out of my mouth.

  “Yeah.” Lindsay leers. “Looo-vers.” She leans toward me over the counter, her breasts pressing against her bathing suit. She snickers and taps her fingers on the counter. “Why is that so embarrassing to you?” She slowly licks the mustard off the tip of the knife. I blush even more.

  Lindsay’s mom pops out of a bedroom and joins us in the kitchen. “Hi, it’s Ellie, right?” She daubs sunscreen on her tanned shoulders.

  Lindsay steps away from me and spreads mustard on slices of white bread.

  “Yes, hi.” I slip off the stool and take a few steps toward the long oak kitchen table, out of the way.

  “Maureen, we’re out of milk again.” Lindsay dumps the empty carton in the trash.

  “Put it on the list.” Lindsay’s mom wears hot pink shorts, her large breasts hoisted, flattened and pushed together under a black running bra. Her streaked blond ponytail pokes over her sun visor. “I can’t wait for you to start driving.”

  “I’m not gonna be your servant,” Lindsay mumbles, scribbling a list on a pad of paper. “We’re also out of ginger ale, marshmallows and Swiss.”

  “Gin too.” Lindsay’s mom bends to tie her shoe.

  Lindsay peers over the counter. “More gin?”

  “Lindsay.” Her mother’s tone hardens into a warning.

  “What?” Lindsay’s slanted eyes open wide.

  Maureen straightens up and frowns at her. “What are you girls going to do this afternoon?”

  “Well.” Lindsay leans on the counter. “I thought we’d start with vodka shots, move on to mixed drinks, down on
the dock of course.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Why not, Mother?”

  I step farther back into the living room, pretending to read the newspaper on the green couch.

  Lindsay’s mom stands staring at her, legs spread, hands on hips. Lindsay takes a bite of her sandwich, staring back. A moment passes, and I sink lower on the couch.

  Dave, Maureen’s boyfriend, pulls open the sliding door. “Are you ready?” He wears a baseball cap and tank top, chest hair curling over the neckline.

  He puts his arm around her shoulder, his lips close to her ear. “Are you ready?” he repeats.

  Lindsay rolls her eyes and turns away.

  Maureen nods and lets Dave guide her out.

  “You shouldn’t let her get to you,” he says from the porch.

  “You shouldn’t let her get to you,” Lindsay mimics. She drinks directly from a two-liter bottle of cola, shoving the refrigerator closed with her hip.

  Lindsay stomps around the kitchen, opening and closing drawers, picking at her sandwich and a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips. She disappears into a bedroom and comes out wearing sunglasses, a pair of jean shorts over her bathing suit, her feet slipped into green flip-flops. “I’m going to get some ice cream at the campground. Are you coming?”

  We head up the shaded gravel road through the trees to the highway. Dry heat breaks over us, the asphalt magnifying the sun’s glare. The buzz of blackflies and the hum of hydro wires fills the air with a constant electric drone, like heat making noise. Only the roar of passing cars breaks the monotony. Beyond the ribbon of gravel at the shoulder, black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne’s Lace bloom. The road stretches ahead of us, a shimmering black curve. Lindsay walks ahead, her hands clenched at her sides, her flip-flops sucking at her heels. A snake flits out of the ditch, surprising me. I crouch at the side of the road to watch it blend in green and brown among the scrub.

  “Did you see the snake?” I call to her.

  Lindsay whirls around. “Why would I care?”

  Lindsay doesn’t say anything until she has an ice-cream cone and a small, brown paper bag full of jelly worms, gummy bears and jujubes. We sit at a picnic table under the shade of some elm trees by the water. Off to the side is a grassy area leading to the beach and a boat launch smelling of gasoline. I pull down my baseball cap to shade my eyes from the noon sun and suck on a Popsicle.