by Pnina Baim
“Woo-hoo,” whooped Gaby. “That’s what I’m talking about!”
She leaned her head back and let Saar twirl her in a circle. When she paused for breath, she said into his ear, “I can’t believe you got the DJ to play this song! I really do love it.”
He laughed, and keeping his hands on her waist, he pulled her close to him and moved his hips against hers. “I love it too,” he said.
Gaby grinned and followed his lead. It’s okay, she thought. We’re just dancing like everyone else here. It’s no big deal.
The DJ segued to the raspy sounds of Nickelback, and Gaby squealed her approval.
“More? You did all this for me?” she yelled.
“This is how I do things,” Saar answered.
They danced like that through a whole line-up of popular American songs, until Gaby got hot and unzipped her jacket. She threw it on a nearby bench and came back to Saar. He gave her an appreciative smile as he glanced down at her tank top. Her turned her around and put his hand against her stomach, swaying with her. His hand on her felt good, warm and strong, but she immediately felt guilty that another man was touching her so intimately.
For a few minutes, she struggled with the decision to break away from him and return to more platonic dancing, but Saar made the decision for her when he motioned to go outside. She nodded yes, and he led them outside to a little enclosed garden. It was quiet in the garden, the thumping beats coming from inside muffled.
“Thanks, that was so much fun,” Gaby said to Saar, sitting down on a little stone bench.
Saar just smiled, and pulled out a cigarette from his back pocket. He sat down on the bench next to her, lit his cigarette with a match, and then took a deep puff, blowing out the smoke in perfect circles.
“You want?” he offered Gaby.
“No, I’m good,” she said.
“You are such a good girl,” he said.
Gaby laughed. “I think that’s the first time I heard that.”
Saar smiled. He leaned back against the bench, and putting an arm on the back of the bench, checked his text messages. “Listen, I think your girlfriend ditched you.”
“Huh?”
“Shira is going back to Chen’s apartment for the night.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yeah, some people will never learn.” Saar looked at Gaby out of the corner of his eye. “Want to do the same?”
“What, go to Chen’s place?” Gaby asked, intentionally misunderstanding.
“No, you can come back to my house. My mom makes a good breakfast.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” said Gaby.
Saar grinned. “Yeah, just kidding. Want to go back inside?”
Gaby looked back at the door. Now that they had left the club, her adrenaline was gone, and she was tired, her head pounding from the loud music. “I think I’m done.”
“Okay,” Saar said, giving in easily. “Should I drive you home?”
“Yeah, that would be great,” Gaby said, marveling over how differently he was acting from the last time they had hung out. Then, he seemed to have no problem with letting her, a new immigrant in Israel for all of one week, find her own way home.
She put her jacket back on and when Saar held out his hand, she grasped it. He led her out of the club and through the streets to his small white car.
“What is with all the little white cars in Israel?” Gaby asked, thinking of the white car Hillel drove around in.
Saar looked at his car. “I don’t know, maybe it’s cheaper? My brother got this car for me. It was definitely the cheapest car in the lot. ”
Soft Israeli music played on his radio as he drove them back to the kibbutz, tapping the wheel gently with one hand and smoking a cigarette out the window with the other hand. As they drove through the gates of the kibbutz, they passed the banana fields on the side of the road.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Saar said.
“Hmm?” Gaby asked, perking up. The night had been so much fun; she didn’t want it to end.
“Want to sleep in the fields with me?”
“What? Why would I want to do that?”
“It’s fun to sleep outside. Be one with nature, count the stars, all that good stuff.” Seeing her dubious face, he added, “I just washed my sleeping bag, so it’s fresh and clean.”
“Isn’t it really uncomfortable to sleep on the ground?”
“Nah, you get used to it. I’ve slept outside a lot of times when I’m on duty.”
“I’ll never know. My mother won’t let me enlist.”
“I don’t think you need your mother’s permission to enlist.”
“I know, but…” she gestured helplessly, trying to encapsulate with her hands the enormity of the dysfunction of her and her mother’s relationship.
“You know what,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. Here’s your chance to get part of the army experience.”
It could be fun, Gaby thought. It could be her chance to feel like she was a soldier. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Saar grinned happily and drove into a narrow, bumpy road that entered the fields. He pulled into a small clearing and got out of the car. Gaby followed and watched him take out an army-green sleeping bag from the trunk. He slipped a black sweatshirt over his head and took off his belt, putting it back into the trunk. Saar walked around the hard ground a few times until he found a spot without any stones and unrolled the bag.
The bag looked a little small. It would be a tight fit with both of them in it. Saar sat down and pulled off his boots. He unzipped the sleeping bag and motioned to Gaby. “You’re coming in?”
“Yeah,” Gaby said.
She kicked off her shoes and lined them up next to his. Then she climbed into the sleeping bag, trying to look as least awkward as possible while she lay down. The lining was surprisingly warm and padded, and she took a deep breath, trying to relax. Saar climbed in right after her and stretched out, his feet ending past hers.
Gaby giggled, trying to break the tension.
“What’s so funny?” Saar asked.
“You have long legs,” she said.
“It’s not the first time you felt them,” he said.
Gaby didn’t say anything.
“I have to give you back that necklace.”
“I’ll have to get it from you, then,” she said, trying to sound suave.
“Yes, you will.”
Gaby looked at the stars above them. The banana trees gathered around them, the thick glossy leaves providing a barrier against any intruders. It was a clear night, and the sky looked like a black velvet sheet, studded with stars. “It is really beautiful out here,” she said.
“Mmm,” Saar said. He started singing softly from Icona Pop’s lyrics, “I don’t care...”
Gaby looked at him, and started to laugh, but he had such an intense look on his face, she stopped.
“I love it...” he continued and touched her face gently, with just one finger.
And that’s all it took. Gaby opened her mouth, to say something or to do something but Saar covered her mouth with his and she was lost.
Chapter Eighteen
After Saar dropped her off, Gaby crept into the house quietly, hoping everyone would still be sleeping. Mercifully, Devorah Leah’s bed was empty and so was Shira’s. The girls were already at the refet. She slid into her bed and closed her eyes.
Her head was pounding. She would have to break up with Hillel. It was obvious she didn’t really like him. If she had, she wouldn’t have hooked up with someone else so easily. This was absolute proof that she could never be with someone normal and nice, but for some reason, despite her coldhearted logic, her heart felt like breaking. For now, though, she would sleep. The gan could manage without her for one day.
She woke up with Shira standing above her.
“What did you do?” Shira asked, forcefully drawing out each word.
Immediately, Gaby started crying, not b
othering to ask how Shira knew what happened. “I don’t know! I don’t know why I did it.”
“You ruined the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“I know, I know! I’m the worst person in the entire world.” Hot tears streamed down Gaby’s face. She covered her face with her hands, trying to stop the flow of emotions. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I have no one to blame.”
Shira sat down on her bed, facing Gaby. “Hillel was too nice for you,” she said simply.
“I know. It’s like he wasn’t mean enough to keep me.”
“We only like the bad boys, and then they break our hearts.”
Gaby looked at Shira, remembering that Shira had left with Chen last night. She wiped her eyes futilely, and said in a voice still shuddering from her sobs, “What about Chen? Did you work everything out?”
Shira gave her a look. “Right. You wish. Or I should say, I wish. No, that’s not true. I don’t wish. Either way, it’s all the same. We want different things in life, I guess.” She shrugged, trying to act nonchalant, but her red-rimmed eyes gave her away.
“Oh, Shira,” Gaby said, and an overwhelming feeling of self-pity flooded through her, leading to a fresh bout of crying.
Shira leaned back against her pillow, watching Gaby impassively.
After a while, Gaby started laughing through her crying and threw a pillow at Shira. “Could you stop that?”
“I was actually wondering if you could stop that.”
Gaby took a deep breath, trying to calm down. She got up and went to get a drink of water. Standing in the kitchenette, she told Shira, “I don’t know why I fell for Saar’s act. I knew exactly what he wanted. I mean, he told me from the beginning he wasn’t promising me anything and still I fell for it.” She shook her head. “Look at the two of us. Why do we do this to ourselves?”
Shira waved a tired hand. “It’s like we’re trying to validate ourselves, like if these guys like us, then we must be worth something.” Gaby raised an eyebrow, and Shira made a face. “That’s what my mom keeps telling me. And then she always adds, but honey, you’re worth so much more!” Shira said in a perfect South African accent. “So anyway, what was his super smooth move this time?”
“We went to a club, and I wasn’t feeling it, with all these Israelis and this weird music, and he asked me if I liked it, and I told him that I wasn’t into that type of music, so he got the DJ to play a whole line-up of cool songs…” she trailed off when Shira started laughing. “I just felt like he cared about me, that he cared about what I thought,” she said defensively.
“And now in the sober light of day?”
“He just wanted to hook up,” Gaby said in a wooden voice.
“Sweetie, he would say anything if he thought you would fall for it. He would have gotten the DJ to play opera if it would get him into your pants.”
“Thanks for saying that. It really helps me feel better.”
“No, don’t feel so bad. Girls fall for that kind of thing all the time.”
“The smartest girls are so stupid when it comes to guys,” Gaby said.
“Not that we’re so smart,” Shira said.
“No, we aren’t so smart,” Gaby agreed.
Gaby went over to Shira’s bed and sat down next to her. Shira put her head on Gaby’s shoulder and they stayed like that until the room darkened and it was time to go for dinner.
***
Later that night, she went for a walk, avoiding the banana fields, looking for somewhere private to call Hillel.
She knew Hillel would be available at this time of night, and she wanted to call him and get the whole break-up over with. This wasn’t gonna be pretty, but it was something that needed to be done and fast. She might be the worst person in the entire world, but at least she wasn’t going to lie to Hillel. It would be like pulling off a band-aid; just get the pain over with as quickly as possible.
She saw the pond where they had sat together this past Friday night, and she had been so happy to be with him. Why did she always have to be so self-destructive? Couldn’t she do anything right?
She sat down on the tree stump and dialed Hillel’s number.
He picked up on the first ring with a sunny hello.
“Hello,” Gaby said, the tears already welling up in her eyes.
“Gaby, what’s wrong?” he asked in a concerned voice.
“I did something really bad,” she said.
“Oh no,” Hillel said in a wary voice. “What happened?”
“So, um, remember when we spoke last night, when I said we were going to Beit She’an?” she began.
“Uh huh.”
There was no easy way to say this. “So, I met someone, and we, um, we kissed,” Gaby said, conveniently leaving out the sleeping-together-in-a-sleeping-bag part.
“You kissed someone?”
“Yeah, I did. I’m really sorry. I don’t know why I did it.”
“What do you mean you don’t know why you did it?” Hillel asked, his voice getting progressively angrier.
“I mean, it kinda just happened.”
“I don’t understand. Just the other day you were saying how much you missed me and wanted me with you all the time, and then you hooked up with someone else?”
“I know, I just…” Gaby didn’t have an explanation for what she did. She was just looking for something fun to do, and instead she destroyed the only thing that ever made her happy.
“How could you do this to me?”
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I guess… I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You don’t know why you did this to me?”
“Hillel…” Gaby pleaded. She wished she had something to add, something to defend herself with, but she had nothing.
“Forget it,” Hillel said and hung up the phone.
Gaby put her head in her hands and cried. Then she looked at the pond, remembering Hillel comforting her that night he was there, and cried some more.
She had ruined everything, and she had no one to blame but herself. She stayed there, thinking of all the stupid things she had done in her life, crying intermittently until the sun pinked, when she slowly got up from the stump before anyone saw what a complete and total fool she was.
Chapter Nineteen
Gaby was woken up by the house phone ringing. She looked at it for a moment, and when it kept ringing, she got up to answer it.
“Hello,” she said in a croaky voice.
“Gaby?”
“Oh, hi, Noa.”
“Are you sick?”
“Um, yeah, I am.” Gaby attempted a feeble cough.
“Why didn’t you call to let me know you weren’t feeling well and couldn’t come in to work today?”
“I guess I forgot.”
“Uh huh. Yesterday also?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Uh huh. Do you think you’ll feel well enough to come in tomorrow?”
“Um…” Gaby leaned her head against the plastered wall and thought about returning to the non-stop noise and busy work of the gan. “I don’t know.”
“Uh huh. I think we need to talk.”
“Okay,” said Gaby, already knowing what Noa had in mind. “I’ll come soon.”
She made herself a cup of coffee and looked around the room. She used to think it was cute but now it just seemed stuffy and dirty. She couldn’t wait to get out.
After the appropriate amount of time passed, she pulled her long black skirt on over the pajamas she had worn for two days straight and walked over to the gan. Noa was bustling around the room, cleaning up the wreckage caused by thirty babies and their caregivers.
“Hello, Gaby,” she said when Gaby walked in.
“Hi.”
“Come, let’s sit.”
Gaby sat on a tiny toddler chair and Noa loomed over her in a normal-person-sized desk chair.
“Let me ask you straight. Are you happy here?”
Gaby thought for a half-second and then sh
ook her head.
“Do you think you’re fitting in well here?”
Another shake of Gaby’s head.
“So what are we doing?”
“I, um, I want to…” Gaby trailed off. She had no idea what she wanted to do. None of her attempts ever came to anything. First seminary, and now this. What was the point of trying anymore?
Noa raised her hands palm upwards and then placed her hands on her lap. “Listen. This is what we’re going to do. Call your family and tell them you are coming home. We owe you some money from your allowance, and I added money for a bus ride home. Here is the schedule.” She handed Gaby a computer print-out of an Egged bus schedule and a white envelope with a few bills. This was something she must have prepared before Gaby arrived for their meeting.
Gaby took the envelope and the bus schedule from Noa wordlessly, managing a small smile. She didn’t even know people could get fired from sherut leumi, yet here she was, being politely asked to leave.
“It was nice meeting you.”
“Yeah, same here.” Gaby walked out, not sure how she felt about anything. It was embarrassing that she got fired, but at least she didn’t have to suffer through work at the gan anymore.
She stopped by her adopted family to say goodbye, blaming her abrupt departure on a family emergency. Everyone hugged her goodbye, and Chana gave her a silver fish chain, each fish printed with a different good luck symbol. Gaby thanked her tearfully and promised to keep in touch. Then she went to tell Shira and Devorah Leah the news.
The girls consoled her, but they both knew how much Gaby hated her job. They promised to come back to Shiloh for shabbatot more often and quickly helped Gaby pack her things so that she could make the bus that night. She had no desire to stay in the kibbutz, this place that held all these conflicting memories, any longer than necessary.
Chana arranged for Oren to give Gaby a ride to the bus stop. She climbed into the cab of his pickup, cursing the fact that the man liked driving around every night. If only he had had the flu the other night.
But there was no point in blaming Oren. The break-up was going to happen sooner or later. The painful truth was that she just wasn’t that into Hillel, even though he was the nicest boy she had ever met. But how could she have hurt him so badly? What type of cheap, easy, evil person was she? Fresh remorse coursed through her, and she opened her eyes wide to keep the tears at bay.
