“That’s right. You’re a West Coast girl. What’s the scene like out there?”
I feel like Michal is being nice by asking a lot of questions about me and my life, but I would honestly rather hear more about hers. My time in LA is split into two halves: the four years I spent in a haze of drugs and liquor, and the four years since I got clean. I’d just as soon pretend the first four never existed.
“Very different from here, so far. Not that I’ve been here long enough to judge, really. But it’s much more…Hmm. I guess you’d say product-focused? Like, sure, you have a gallery opening to show off your work, but you’re also hoping to land a deal shooting forNational Geographicor whatever at the same time. I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just…different.”
And to a certain extent, the way it was in LA was necessary. You had to make a living somehow. I got a job as a barista after I got clean—lots of long days and nights headed home smelling of burnt milk—but I supplemented my income with freelance gigs on the side. Truly, if I never shoot a wedding or maternity session again, it’ll be too soon.
The self-consciousness that comes with talking about myself nonstop is too much. I wave a hand and say, “Anyway, I’m boring. What about you? You’ve always lived in the city?”
“Since I was born. Grew up in Inwood and pretty much stayed there until I got married. My wife’s Polish, and she wanted to live in Greenpoint. I suppose the commute could be worse.”
“How long have you been married?”
“Six years,” she says, holding up her left hand and wiggling her fingers to show off her plain gold wedding band. “We actually met on Yom Kippur. Her kid stole a bagel off my literal plate at break fast, and she had the nerve to defend him.”
“What a little delinquent.”
“Right? And he still is. Especially when it comes to food. I have to hide the salt-and-vinegar chips if I want any left for myself.”
Michal’s life seems so far away from mine. She has a wife and a stepkid and clearly has some kind of Orthodox Jewish community that loves and accepts her for who she is. I hate myself a little for envying her. It just seems like it was so easy: She must have had the support of her parents from the start. She never went off the rails. Never blew up her entire life.
I would give anything for just a fraction of what she has.
I would give anything to go back.
TEN YEARS AGO
The party was somewhere in Williamsburg.
I used to know Williamsburg as home of the Satmar Chassidim, a path of Judaism that felt as far from mine as Chabad probably felt to secular people. But in this Williamsburg, people wore wigs that were hot pink and made of polyester; the men’s hats looked more like hipster rip-offs of a Satmar flat biber than anything else. I felt like Alice falling into Wonderland there—or maybe that was just the drugs.
I didn’t know how long it’d been since I took the pills. I could tell they were Oxy, though, because as soon as I’d snorted themI’d felt my ears pop and heat flood my chest, my cheeks. And then I was drifting in a seamless dreamland, slipping between the bodies, navigating the furniture like I weighed nothing—like I had no mass but was just a shadow passing through time and space.
A hand closed around my wrist and tugged me down. I went easy, and the sofa opened up to catch me, a patient mother with warm arms. Chaya’s nose nuzzled my cheek and her breath was hot, her kneecaps butting up against my thigh.
“There you go,” she murmured, and I slid down farther, letting the sofa and Chaya swallow me. Her lap was my favorite place to be. Her fingers slipped into my hair, catching on tangles. “You’re okay. Everything’s good.”
“Everythingisgood,” I agreed, and smiled up at her, my Chaya with her starburst halo of curls and her green-ocean eyes. Her lips curved into a smile too; the red lipstick she’d put on was stark against her pale skin, like someone had split her face open with a knife. “You’re so pretty.”
She wasn’t, according to most people. Her face was too pinched. Her mouth was too thin. She was so skinny you could see her spine jutting through her shirt. But other people are stupid and bad at art.
Chaya Mushka Levy was art.
“Shh,” Chaya said, and stroked my brow.
I closed my eyes, obedient. I tried to feel Chaya’s heartbeat through her thighs, tried to merge us into one beast. Her hand had its own rhythm, sliding against my skin.
Someone came up. I could hear them talking to Chaya, a low rumble of a voice. She answered and there was the click of a lighter, the buzz of something boiling in a pipe bowl. I felt Chaya’s stomach shifting when she inhaled, then blew out. The smell of fresh-cut grass was thick like smoke.
“Go away,” I mumbled, but I didn’t think they heard me.
Chaya shifted, extracting herself from under my weight. I protested, briefly, but then she was back, her head tilted against mine on the sofa cushion, our bodies reaching away from each other like the two hands of a clock. Her skin was slightly damp where it touched mine. I twisted enough to catch a glimpse of her, the edge of the silhouette of her face, her cinnamon-brown curls stuck to her temples.
“You okay?” She asked it softly, like she was asking me to confess.
I hummed. My head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton balls. I had a song stuck in my brain on a loop: “Lecha Dodi,” the song we would sing on Erev Shabbos—the night the Sabbath begins—to welcome the Shabbos Queen.
Let us go, my beloved, to greet the bride.
