by Melissa Bank
“I didn’t think you were here,” I said.
She said, “I’m not here.”
I was impressed that Margie was unwilling to go to class even for the one second it took to say, Here. It made her cutting seem more fearless and forthright than mine.
“Do you have anything to eat?” she asked.
I didn’t.
When she lit a cigarette for me, I noticed that she still wore her baby bracelets. She was the only one who did. The bracelet of choice now, worn by both girls and boys, was a stainless-steel cuff engraved with the name and serial number of a soldier missing in Vietnam. It was called an MIA bracelet, and my impression was that you had to order it, but from whom? I asked Margie if she knew.
She said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and got up and tried the door to the supply closet. It was locked, but a few minutes later, she got up and checked it again, as though with time and patience the door might open. I didn’t understand her fascination with the closet, which I said was probably just where extra paper towels and toilet paper were stored.
“Really?” she said. “Then why do they lock it?”
I said that I was going back to class, and she said, “What for?”
I said, “I am learning the Hebrew language.”
On the spot, she invented an excellent nonsense language that sounded as much like Hebrew as Hebrew did.
I answered in kind, mixing in the few real Hebrew words I knew with sound-alikes. At first we were animated and theatrical, but then I got serious. I found myself telling her about seeing Eric Green with his new girlfriend. In made-up Hebrew, I found the words to describe exactly how I felt. It was a relief just to say them.
Margie responded with a jokey, hand-waving argument, and I thought, Did you not understand the importance of what I just told you? I reminded myself that I hadn’t spoken in English. Still, I had trouble forgiving her.
I stood and said, “Mishpoka,” meaning, See ya, and she said, “Mishpoka,” back.
Then I was out in the hall. I couldn’t bring myself to go back to class yet, so I stopped at the gift shop to browse again through all the items I wouldn’t want even if they were free.
I started at the sound of Miss Bell’s voice: “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
I turned around and waited for her to recognize me, a student who made her miss teaching.
She just blinked.
All I could do was nod, I’m going, and go.
I walked up the long hallway back to class. Right before I opened the door, I turned around and saw that Miss Bell was still standing there in the lobby, watching me, her arms folded below her chest.
. . . . .
When I got home from Hebrew school, Jack was sitting on the kitchen floor reading his favorite novel, The Stranger, Albert at his side.
I got down on the floor, too. I said, “I hate Hebrew school.”
Jack said, “Everybody does.”
I realized that he was home early. “Don’t you have practice?”
He acted like he hadn’t heard my question, but I’d learned from my father that if you waited long enough, Jack would answer.
Finally, he said, “We had an away game.”
I said, “Why aren’t you away?”
When he answered, his voice was so quiet I didn’t think he wanted me to hear him: “I wasn’t going to get to play.”
“Why not?”
He raised his voice to normal volume, but it sounded louder because of how quiet it had been. “ ‘Why?’ ” he said. “Because I’m not good enough.”
I was about to say, That’s not true, but I realized that it was true; he wouldn’t have said it otherwise. I waited a minute, and then I said, “That sucks.”
He laughed, which was a relief. Then he said, “Want to watch cartoons?”
“Cartoons?”
He said, “I was just thinking how we never watch cartoons anymore.”
I thought, Did we ever watch cartoons?
We took glasses of milk and a plate of oatmeal cookies upstairs to the guest room where the television was.
Jack turned the channel to the cartoon Spider-Man and said, “It’s Spidey.”
I said, “We should get a big color television.”
He said, “Mom and Dad don’t want one,” as if I didn’t know.
We’d been watching Spider-Man for about three minutes when he said, “The problem is that I don’t really like cartoons anymore.”
“I never liked them.” I got up and changed the channel to a Brady Bunch rerun. “Why is that a problem?”
His voice got serious. “I guess I’m afraid I’m running out of things I like.”
“You like new things,” I said. “Like football.”
As soon as the words were out I was sorry. I was trying to take them back when I said, “I don’t get why you went out for it in the first place.”
I waited a long, long time for him to answer. Finally, I put my hand on his bicep, and without a word he flexed it for me.
I asked if he had any ideas about how I could get out of Hebrew school.
He said, “Talk to Dad.”
“What should I say?”
“Say it’s interfering with regular school.”
I’d hardly done any homework since school had begun. “I don’t think I can say that.”
He studied me for a second. “You should do your homework, Sophie.” He turned off the television and went to his room.
I snapped the TV back on, but I was too angry to watch.
At the stairs to his bedroom, formerly our attic, I knocked on the wall.
“Don’t come up,” he called down.
I said, “I want to talk to you.”
He didn’t answer.
“Don’t tell me to do my homework,” I called up. “You’re not my father.”
He came down the stairs in his sweatpants.
I said, “Did you hear me?”
“I’m not your father,” he said.
“Right,” I said, following him down to the kitchen.
He said, “Okay,” in the tone my father used when he said, Point taken.
I stood by while he put on his socks and tied his sneakers.
He was almost out the door when I said the line from The Sound of Music I’d repeated each time he’d left to go running that summer: “You can’t run away from your problems, Liesl; you’ve got to face them.”
He’d smiled whenever I’d said this before—he appreciated repeating jokes as much as I did, but I could see he didn’t appreciate this one anymore; he opened the door and ran down the driveway.
I was helping my mom with dinner when he came back, sweaty and red-faced. He was stretching against the station wagon. I opened the door and, without thinking, made the joke I’d always made upon his return: “I knew you’d come back!”
This time he smiled, so I kept going. I pretended that he’d been gone for years, and he let me hug him. “I told you he’d come home,” I said to my mother. “This calls for a celebration!”
. . . . .
I decided I would talk to my father after dinner; I planned to tell him that I had no Hebrew aptitude and also to convey the message of Bob Dylan’s song “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” Though obviously written about a girlfriend, this song contained the overall message I needed to deliver to my parents: Unfortunately, we all had to face that I was not the person they wanted me to be.
The door to my father’s study was open but, as usual, Jack was in there. I decided to wait in the hall. I’d just sat down when I heard Jack say, “It’s interfering with my applications.”
My dad said, “I don’t see any evidence of that.”
There was a silence, and I knew he was waiting for Jack to tell the truth.
“I want to spend time with Robert and Sophie,” he said, “before I go away.”
“That’s a nice thought.”
“I’m worried about Sophie,” Jack said.
“That’s no
t your department, Buddy.”
Jack said, “She seems sort of lost.”
I thought, Lost how? How am I lost? Suddenly I felt lost.
My father said, “You want to quit football to take care of Sophie?” He had a gift for rewording a point so you could hear how idiotic it was. “I thought you liked football.”
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I don’t know what I like.” Then he was talking about The Stranger and meaninglessness, which was meaningless to me; I considered going upstairs to worry about myself.
My father’s voice was gentle, but I could tell he was getting impatient when he said, “Let’s save existentialism for another night.” Then he asked exactly what I had—why Jack had wanted to go out for the team in the first place—and I thought, Score one for Sophie, and maybe I wasn’t so lost after all.
Jack waited a long time to answer. “I guess I wanted to be the kind of guy who plays football.”
“What kind is that?” my dad said, which was exactly what I wanted to know.
Jack said, “Or I didn’t want to be the kind who can’t play football.”
My father said, “What’s wrong with being a nerdy Jewish intellectual?” meaning himself.
It was funny just hearing my father use a word like nerdy, and I expected Jack to laugh, but he said, “I tried so hard,” and the pain I heard in his voice made my stomach hurt.
My father said things like, “You never played before,” and, “You made the goddamned varsity,” and then they were talking about backup schools, Penn versus Cornell.
I lay down on the rug and studied its repeating rams. It was fraying, and one long string looked very much like it wanted to be pulled. I told myself that if I didn’t pull it, my father would let me quit Hebrew school.
I woke to my father saying, “Sweetheart?” and the rough rug on my cheek.
I sat up.
He said, “Did you want to talk to me?”
I nodded, and yawned.
He yawned, too, and asked if it could wait until tomorrow, and I said it could.
But tomorrow was Thursday, his night to play indoor tennis, and Friday he decided to go to services. Robert went with him, acting like it was a big treat. From my window, I watched the two of them walk down our street, my father’s hand on Robert’s shoulder.
. . . . .
In math, I could feel how cold and dreary the afternoon was, the drizzle and the gray sky, though I couldn’t see it; since our week of Indian summer, Mr. Faye had kept the shades down.
It was the sound of a ball booming against the side of the building that made him go over to the window and lift the shade.
We all turned to look: Margie was out in the courtyard by herself. She was holding a brown-red ball and was about to drop it for another kick when Mr. Faye got the window open.
Before he could speak, she called out, “Sorry.”
After Mr. Faye closed the window and pulled the shade down, I remembered Margie playing kickball at Surrey. When she was up, everyone in the outfield would automatically move way out. I’d seen her kick it over the fence for a home run. I remembered her running the bases. Afterward, she’d looked miserable—flushed, sweaty, squinting, winded—but now it occurred to me that she’d been happy.
Hardly anyone played kickball at Flynn, and no girls. I felt sorry for her then, but I doubt she felt sorry for herself. Mr. Faye had just returned to the board when another kick boomed against the wall.
. . . . .
That Wednesday, I brought a Baggie of gingersnaps to Hebrew school. I knew Margie wouldn’t be in class, but I thought she might be in the powder room, and she was.
She was sitting upside down on the velveteen chair, her head on the rug, high-tops in the air. She held our sixth-grade graduation booklet from Surrey, entitled “Memories: The Way We Were.”
She asked me to fish her cigarette out of the waste can, and I did, making sure it hadn’t started a fire that would burn the synagogue down.
When she thanked me for the cookies, her voice had no expression in it at all, but I assumed this was from the strain of being upside down.
I wished I could’ve brought milk, which made gingersnaps taste better, especially if these were as stale as I suspected. She sat up and ate them slowly, thoughtfully, softening each bite in her mouth before chewing.
I sat in the chair next to hers, and she shared the graduation booklet with me. She had it opened to a page on which one of the Foxes had written, “Don’t ever change!” and another, “Foxes forever.”
On the opposite page, I caught a glimpse of my own picture and signature. What I’d written sounded sarcastic now: “Good luck in Jr. High!”
She said, “I’m glad I kept this,” as though the booklet were a crucial piece of evidence that would prove her innocence and the Foxes’ guilt in an upcoming friendship tribunal.
Then she said, “I’m not the one who changed.”
I was suddenly enraged. I remembered the Foxes ganging up on anyone who was alone during recess. I thought of their regular victims: Richie, who was pale and thin, they called “Queer”; Sheralynn, who was shy, “Weird”; and Charles, who was retarded, “Retarded.”
“Sofa” was mild by comparison, and at first I hadn’t really minded their singing, “Sofa and Eric sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G . . .” I’d even hoped that it would remind Eric of his feelings for me and bring them back. But when it didn’t, the song was torture, as were their smooching sounds.
I’d known my mother couldn’t help; she pronounced clique the French way, CLEEK, and would just tell me that the Foxes were jealous and to ignore them.
I’d gone to my dad. As usual, he’d wanted to know the full story; he’d wanted to know my part in it. “What do they tease you about?”
I told him they called me weird.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he’d said. “The meek shall inherit the Earth.”
At the time, I’d heard only the implication that I was meek, which felt even worse than being called lovesick and Sofa. But now I remembered how gentle his tone had been, and I wondered if he’d just meant meek as the opposite of bossy, and if his unspoken message was that one day the bossy shall fall.
This day seemed to have come for Margie. It had become important to be pretty, and she wasn’t; important to have boys like you, and none liked her. Everyone I knew had dropped out of Girl Scouts. I was sure all the Foxes had; I doubted the Foxes even thought of themselves as Foxes anymore, except as it meant “sexy ladies.”
Margie’s thumbs were pushed up against her eyelids—she was crying—and I was surprised to find myself feeling sorry for her. I tried to think of something to say. I remembered how happy she’d seemed in Girl Scouts, wearing her pale green uniform and her dark green sash with all the badges sewn on it. To earn them, you had to perform impossible tasks, such as visiting an elderly person for a year; at the end of my stint in Girl Scouts, I’d safety-pinned exactly three badges to my sash. Now I marveled aloud at how many she’d earned.
She said, “My sister Joy helped me.” Both of her sisters were away at Penn State now, she said, and hardly ever came home “except for vacations.”
I told her that my brother was going away next year and had already changed.
She said, “Joy got engaged,” as though this was the culminating betrayal. A moment later, she added, “His name’s Ted.”
She seemed more forlorn than ever, so I tried to bring the topic back to Girl Scouts. “You know what I liked about the camping trips?”
She handed me another cigarette. “What?”
I didn’t have an answer ready; I tried to think of what I had liked. “The outdoors.”
She told me that there was a camping trip in a couple of weeks. “You want to come?”
“Can I go if I’m not a Girl Scout anymore?”
“Lee goes.” When she saw that I didn’t know who Lee was, she said, “Miss King.”
Miss King—or Miss K, as some of the girls called her—had played
guitar and sung folk songs on our camping trips. She’d always worn the same outfit, jeans and a jean shirt, a suede coat, and old leather boots you’d expect a folksinger to own. She was husky, and her face resembled Arlo Guthrie’s and her hair fluffed up like Bob Dylan’s. I’d wanted to like her but hadn’t; once, after we’d all sung “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Miss K had told me that I’d been flat.
I said, “But she gets to go because she plays the guitar, right?”
“She goes because she’s best friends with my mother,” Margie said. “She practically lives at our house.”
Later, I would hear that Miss King was in love with Mrs. Muchnick.
Now Margie said, “My dad doesn’t like her.”
I couldn’t picture any friend of my mother’s, even Aunt Nora, living with us, and especially one my father didn’t like.
“Anyway,” she said, “you can come if you want.”
“I’ll ask,” I said, though I knew I wouldn’t.
The bell rang then, so I couldn’t even go back to class to get my Hebrew I, which made me feel like a criminal.
. . . . .
At dinner, my father said that he had been meaning to ask how Hebrew school was going.
I swallowed. “The same.”
He said, “Are you giving it a fair chance?”
I’d forgotten that I was supposed to do more than show up, and, picturing my Hebrew I on my desk in the dark classroom, I could hardly get my head to nod.
After dinner, when I was sent to get the cigarettes in the basement, I was glad to be by myself for a minute. I stood in my cardboard kitchen. It had belonged to Rebecca first, and by the time Aunt Nora had given it to me, as a birthday present, it appeared to have undergone years of industrial food preparation. I’d been bitterly disappointed, especially by the stove; it was white with three red concentric circles for burners, and what should have been the fourth was ripped down to its brown corrugated cardboard. I’d stared at the stove incredulously and thought, I can’t cook with this!
My mother had said, “Did you want to thank Aunt Nora?”
“Thanks.”
Right in front of me, Aunt Nora had said, “You’re not strict enough with her.”
Later my mother had scolded me about my manners. I’d said, “Isn’t it bad manners to give a used present?”
