Literally.
“Oh my God!” I scream. “What is happening?”
How does a door even fall off? I’m not sure. It comes loose from a hinge, and I have no idea how to put it back on. So I just leave it there, half hanging off.
“Gemma, there’s no popcorn!” I scream.
“Yes, there is! Mom left a bag on the kitchen table.”
When I spin around, I see it. Right there. On the kitchen table.
Rolling my eyes at the world, I put the bag of popcorn in the microwave, and right next to it is a letter addressed to my parents in the most beautiful handwriting I’ve ever seen.
I know I shouldn’t open it, but when you see something like this, you almost have to. It’s staring at you. You don’t have a choice.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Nodberg:
My name is Eve Bowlin, and my husband and I have been searching for a house in Brookside for quite some time. As you know, the market is competitive. We are expecting twins early next year, and we have our hearts set on your home. You probably have no intention of selling. But when we first drove by and saw the big bay window and the hammock and the porch swing—we just fell in love. We would love to raise our family there, and we are prepared to make you an outstanding offer.
Please give it some consideration.
All our very best,
Eve and Anthony Bowlin
I stop reading because I’m so furious—they include their email and their phone number and a zillion ways to contact them, like my parents are even going to give this a second thought.
Is this a thing—people just writing letters to other people they don’t even know, saying they fell in love with their house? This cannot be normal. Eve and Anthony Bowlin—whoever they are—are clearly crazy. I don’t care about them or their twins. This is my home. That is my bay window and my porch swing and my hammock.
I crumple the paper in my hands, as forcefully as possible, until it’s a tiny ball. Forget you, Eve and Anthony. Find another house.
I shove the ball in my sweatshirt pocket, pour the popcorn into a bowl, and walk out of the kitchen.
I try to ignore the pantry door hanging off and the light bulb in the hallway that needs replacing.
I keep walking.
And then I step on a shard of broken tomato sauce jar.
“Everything is broken!” I scream. “Everything! Every little thing is broken!”
“Ari?” Gemma runs in, staring at me like I’m standing there wearing a bikini and a fur coat doing a tap dance.
“Everything is broken,” I repeat. “I swear, everything is broken!”
“What’s going on in here?” My mom storms in, carrying a stack of file folders. “What is happening? Why is there tomato sauce on the wall?”
“Everything is broken!” I scream again.
“What’s gotten into her?” my dad asks. “I’ve never seen her like this.”
“Me neither,” my mom says softly.
Gemma takes the bowl of popcorn out of my hands and walks into the den. I hesitate a second, and then I follow along behind her.
Kaylan was right—it’s not possible to stay chill when everything is falling apart around you. I’ve tried. I’ve tried for so long.
I just can’t anymore.
THIRTY-FOUR
KAYLAN DOESN’T CALL OR TEXT me all weekend. And I don’t call or text her, either.
At the bus on Monday, I wait for her to say something. I know she knows I saw her Instagram story.
She doesn’t say anything. Well, she does, but not about that.
“Jason and I are on again, by the way.”
“Oh, cool.”
“I told him how I feel. Again.” She laughs. “So I JHHed that one. Again.”
I force a smile. “Nice, Kay.”
We’re quiet after that, and for the rest of the ride, until we get to school, and then I can’t take it anymore.
“You lied to me, Kaylan, and you’re just, like, pretending everything is fine,” I say to her, stopping to talk outside the main doors before we go into the building.
She stares at me.
“About Lizzie’s bat mitzvah. You said you couldn’t sleep over because it was family time with your mom. You lied to me. And then you posted about it!” I hiss, feeling all the blood start circling around my brain. I take my jacket off because it feels like the earth is three thousand degrees right now.
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings that you weren’t invited,” she explains. “Remember that talk we had on visiting day? TH or PF? You said you’re PF sometimes!”
I nod. When Kaylan first mentioned the whole thing, it seemed sort of silly. But it popped into my mind more often than I expected it to.
She goes on, “Anyway, I was lab partners with Lizzie last year, and then we all hung with her at the pool while you were at camp, and so, like, it just sort of happened that we all became friends. She actually invited everyone else kinda last minute.”
I glare at her. “Well, why did you need to post about it? When you knew I would see?” I’m talking so fast that I accidentally spit on my shirt and have to wipe it away.
“Everyone was posting, and we were having so much fun,” Kaylan says, looking at the grass. “I didn’t think it was such a big deal.”
“So? You knew I would see it! That’s not PF at all! It’s, like, the opposite of PF! Do you know how bad that makes someone feel? To see everyone they know out doing something fun, and to know they’re not a part of it?” I choke back tears.
“Ari, you really never cared about this stuff before.” Kaylan looks into my eyes. “I can’t believe how seriously you’ve thought about this!”
“Well, I care now! And I am serious about it. It hurt me so bad, like someone put out a candle on my arm. That’s how much it hurt. Worse, even!”
The rest of the lunch table girls walk by and almost stop to talk to us, but then Kaylan waves them away.
“I honestly didn’t think you would even notice.” Kaylan takes her backpack off her shoulders and puts it on the grass. “Camp is all that matters to you! Camp this and camp that. And Alice and Golfy and whatever. You don’t care about these girls, Ari! Just admit it.” She pauses. “Camp is all that matters to you.”
“Not true,” I say softly. “You know I check Instagram all the time, so you knew I would notice. And besides, obviously you matter—I’ve been working so hard at keeping our friendship strong!”
“So have I!” Kaylan yells. “That doesn’t mean we’re only going to hang with each other. You can’t have your camp friends on the side but then expect me to only be friends with you. Weren’t you the one who invited Marie to do the list with us last year?”
“That has nothing to do with it!” I yell.
“Yes, it does. Now, come on. We’re going to be late.” She picks her backpack up off the grass and walks into school.
“You’re not coming in with me?” She turns around when she’s almost at the door.
I shake my head.
“Let’s just take a break from each other, okay?” she yells back. “It doesn’t matter if we’re trying. Our friendship isn’t staying strong, and I think we need a break before it totally falls apart.”
“Fine! Whatever you say!”
I lean against the brick building and cry, wiping my tears on the sleeve of my fleece-lined jean jacket.
I take the list out of my bag and rip it to pieces, shoving them all in the front pocket of my backpack.
Barely any of it even makes sense to me anymore.
I don’t need to tell a boy how I really feel. I need to tell Kaylan how I really feel. And I did. And my bad habit isn’t daydreaming. It’s the fact that I keep everything bottled up, that I never tell anyone what I’m feeling.
Well, I think I just broke it. I spoke my mind.
And keeping our friendship strong—forget about it.
It’s impossible.
We’re too different, and too muc
h has happened.
I ask my guidance counselor if I can switch into Marie’s Japanese class so I don’t have to eat lunch at my usual table, but I’m told I have to wait until January to do that.
So I sit at our table in the cafeteria, and everyone talks around me, and I pretend I’m not there.
“Guys, we didn’t officially decide on Halloween costumes,” Cami says. “And are we doing the town parade and then trick-or-treating? Or just going to Jay Yeung’s party?”
I look up from my chicken salad sandwich, and Cami says, “Literally the whole grade is invited. Check his Insta. It says it right there.”
I’m not sure if she’s saying that to alert the whole table or just me, but even though it really means nothing, it feels nice to be included along with everyone else.
“Let’s go to Jay’s and then leave early for some end-of-the-night trick-or-treating,” Kira declares. “We’re not too old.”
“I agree,” Amirah replies. “I like this plan.”
Everyone else says, “Me too,” so I offer a smile like I’m in, even though it feels weird to be in on something with Kaylan when we’re in a not-speaking-to-each-other, in-a-break kind of fight.
“And costumes?” Cami asks. “We need something for—” She looks around the table and counts everyone. “Nine, or uh, eight, I guess—depends on if Ari’s coming. Marie already said she is, so I counted her. And Lizzie said she’s not dressing up this year.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “Are you doing Halloween with us?”
“Sure, um, I hadn’t thought about it, really.” I look over at Kaylan, but she’s not paying attention, on purpose, I think.
Cami shrugs. “It’ll be weird if you and Kaylan aren’t speaking, but . . .” Her voice trails off.
“Let’s all be different candies,” Sydney suggests. “I saw these costumes online. They’re like candy dresses. Super cute and easy. And there are definitely at least nine.”
“Or Starbucks cups!” Amirah squeals. “How awesome!”
Cami considers that. “But then we’d all be the same.”
“Crayons!” Kaylan yells. “Kind of like a throwback to our younger days. It would be so cute.”
They keep talking about this, and I just sit there and listen and eat my lunch.
I really hope Kaylan and I are speaking by Halloween. Not only for the costume situation, but for the list situation and the general day-to-day life situation.
It’s never fun to be in a not-speaking, on-a-break kind of fight.
THIRTY-FIVE
AFTER SCHOOL, MY MOM PICKS me up because I have a bat mitzvah lesson.
I don’t bother to text Kaylan that I won’t be on the bus ride home. I don’t think she’ll care either way.
“Eleanor Feldman says this same thing happened to Ashley when she was your age,” my mom says, turning down the music in the car.
“Huh?”
“I stopped in to talk to her today.” She looks over at me, but I don’t make eye contact. “I was concerned about what I saw when we got home yesterday.”
“So you talked to the executive director of our temple about it?” I shriek. “Mom! That is so humiliating.”
“Why? She’s lovely, she’s a mother, and she’s very wise, Ari.”
I don’t respond.
My mom continues. “And it’s a lot happening at once—big changes. Not only at school, but hormonally, and your body has to keep up, and it’s a lot. I mean, Ari, look at how much you’ve devel—”
“Mom!” I scream. “Stop! Ew! This is so inappropriate! Stop. You can’t just go talking about me to a woman I barely know. I am humiliated. Now how am I going to even look at her? Uch. How can I even walk into the temple and see her? This is madness.”
“Ari.”
“Stop saying my name!”
“This is so unlike you,” she says. “I’ve never seen you so worked up so often.”
I roll my eyes at the windshield. “Well, probably because I always try to keep calm because you and Kaylan are always freaking out! So I am forced to be the calm one.”
It only starts to make sense as I say it. It’s not only about staying chill when things are chill. It’s about needing to stay chill because no one else is.
“That’s not true,” my mom mumbles.
“It is true. You know it. I’m the one who always has to calm everyone down!” I yell. “And I’m over it!”
We get to the temple, and I pray a thousand times that I don’t run into Eleanor Feldman on the way to the cantor’s office.
I’m so glad the temple administrator knows all the details about my body.
Gross.
I walk into the cantor’s office, and who do I find sitting there on one of the chairs facing her desk?
Eleanor Feldman.
Thanks, God. Clearly you didn’t answer my prayers. Maybe you didn’t hear them.
“Hello, Arianna,” she says, all cheery. “I just saw your mom earlier.” She gets up from the chair. “Have a good lesson.”
“Thanks.”
I sit down and take out my bat mitzvah folder.
“How are things?” Cantor Simon asks.
I think back to the list, and what I just told my mom in the car, and the whole fight with Kaylan. “Eh, could be better,” I say.
It feels like I just took off a tight wool scarf that was itching me and choking me, and now my neck can finally breathe again.
“Yeah? How come?”
“Well, I guess it all started when I went away to camp this summer,” I begin, and then I pretty much tell her everything—about the list, and Kaylan and the lunch table girls and the Instagram stories from Lizzie’s bat mitzvah, and how Kaylan thinks I’m obsessed with camp, and my parents, and my dad’s job, and the bagel bat mitzvah plan. It feels like I talk for a really long time.
“Wow. That is a lot for one person to handle,” she says.
“And I’m still a kid!” I remind her. “For a few more weeks, at least.”
“That’s true.” Cantor Simon smiles, pausing to think. “You know, the bar and bat mitzvah party as we know it today is kind of a new phenomenon. It wasn’t always like this. Yes, we are celebrating an amazing life cycle event. However, bagels and music and good company is certainly a lovely celebration.”
“I know, but everyone goes crazy here. It feels depressing to just have bagels at the temple—no offense—when everyone else has these amazing parties.” I look at her, almost regretting my words. “Is it wrong to admit that?”
“Not at all. And I understand how you feel,” she says. “The feeling of wanting to keep up and needing to keep up is very real and very difficult. At all ages.”
I nod.
“And it’s hard to go away for the summer and come back and find things to be a little wobbly,” she tells me. “I remember there was always a transition period when I got home. And my friends would seem really different. And I would feel different. It was tough.”
“Exactly.” I close my eyes and tilt my head back against the chair. “So what should I do?”
“Well,” she starts, and clears her throat. “Like everything in life, as we’ve been discussing, it takes time. I think you can tell Kaylan how you feel, though. That you love camp and your new friends, but you love her, too. And that you do care about being friends with the lunch table girls.” She laughs. “That’s what you call them, right?”
I laugh too. “Yeah.”
“I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to share all of that with me.” She sits back in her chair. “Do you feel better that you told me? Or worse? Or somewhere in the middle?”
I think for a second. “Somewhere in the middle. I liked being the kind of person who listened to everyone else’s problems, and helped, and cheered them up. I liked being the chill one who never really needed to talk things out or vent or whatever. But I guess it’s not always possible. I guess we’re not all the same thing all the time.”
“That is a perfect segue into you
r Torah portion . . . and I know you’re still figuring out your speech.” She smiles. “Are you struggling with it still?”
I nod. “Yes. Definitely. I’ve scrapped three drafts already.”
“So I think this may help. As you know, your portion is called: Chayei Sarah. The Life of Sarah. It’s called the Life of Sarah, even though it’s also very much about her death. Let’s discuss.”
“Okay.” I smile, letting my shoulders relax. “I think that’s why I like learning about Judaism so much. There seem to be so many similarities between our biblical ancestors and us today. It’s like we kind of have a guidebook to follow. And, like, it’s something to lean on during hard times.”
“Ding-ding-ding! Are you planning on highlighting that in your speech?” she asks.
I laugh a little. “The thing is, it just feels so important. And every time I start to write, I get a different idea of what I want to say. Like, my feelings about everything Judaism related are still kind of evolving.”
Cantor Simon nods. “I see. That’s understandable.”
I scrunch up my face. “And I know I’m running out of time.”
“Right. Eventually we’ll have to get some words down,” she says. “But I think discussing the Torah portion more in depth will help you.”
It’s kind of amazing to me how Cantor Simon has so many bar and bat mitzvah students this year—like fifty at least—and yet she makes me feel like I’m the only one, devoting so much time and energy to my spiritual journey.
I think that’s another example of a good leader. Making the person you’re talking to feel like the only person in the world.
Later that night, after my homework is done, I’m still thinking about my bat mitzvah lesson. I text Alice to check in.
Ari: how r u feeling bat mitzvah wise?
Alice: um like I still have tons to do
Ari: no I mean like r u loving the prep stuff?
Alice: loving it nahhh but it’s ok
Ari: how is ur gma?
Alice: she’s better. not much going on here. so much hw
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