Freefall Read online

  Somewhere between when Shira started hollering and now, Noah has retreated to his spot on the bed. His head bends forward over his guitar so that just the spiky buzz of his hair is visible and tiny specks of red on the tips of his ears.

  “Come on, Aggie. Let’s go. I just got off the phone with Ron. They’re going to meet us downtown.”

  She drags me out of the room as the phone starts ringing.

  “What are you wearing?” she says, tugging at the sleeve of Noah’s sweatshirt. “Tell me you aren’t going out in public in that thing!”

  I look back, wanting to see Noah’s face when he answers Lital’s, or Donna’s, or Ella’s call. The phone keeps ringing, but he doesn’t pick it up, doesn’t toss it aside, just goes back to his guitar as if he doesn’t even hear it.

  I grab the door jamb as Shira tugs me again. “Bye, Noah,” I say.

  He looks up. His lips part as if I’ve just said something to amuse him, and his eyes catching mine are steady. “Bye, Aggie. Have fun tonight.”

  Shira gives me a strange look. “What’s that all about?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Nothing,” she repeats. “Noah,” she mutters as she slams the front door behind her. “He thinks the world revolves around him.”

  And I’m thinking, Yes, I could see why that would happen.

  Though it’s getting kind of old, we still meet at the same spot. Cat’s Corner. Shira has insisted I lose the sweatshirt, so we’re both shivering in our skinny tops while we wait for Ron and Ben to show up.

  “It feels like a million years since we’ve had a chance to talk,” says Shira. “I haven’t even shown you my pictures from the States.”

  “I know. So much has been going on.”

  Shira giggles. “And you’ve been holding out on me!” She puckers her purple lips and mimes a kiss. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “What?” My heart skyrockets. He told her? Confided in her? I want to grab her and shake out every detail. How did he look when he said it? Was he laughing? Serious? The fact that he even mentioned it! My mind races forward with a zillion questions.

  “What did he say?” I ask, cringing in case it’s not what I want to hear.

  She laughs and mimicks the expression on my face. “Well, Ron didn’t go into all the details.”

  “Ron?”

  “Yeah. He told me that Ben was all excited about it, as if it was meant to be. The four of us being friends—”

  “What?” I realize that Shira has it all wrong. “No, no. It was one kiss! Come on, Shira. It’s Ben we’re talking about.”

  She looks at me suspiciously. “Yes, Ben.” She pauses. “I thought you’d be thrilled.” She shakes her head and shrugs. “I’ve only been away for a few weeks, but between my trip, singing lessons, you and your boot camp, and Ben and Ron going into the army, it’s like we’ve all morphed into different people.”

  I have to tell her now, or she’ll never forgive me. Ben and Ron will be here any minute. I can’t have her thinking that I’m crazy about Ben when it’s Noah I miss and I’ve only left him a few moments ago.

  “Shira?” I shiver as a breeze of Jerusalem air slips under my shirt.

  “Where are they already?” She stomps her feet to keep warm. “I’m freezing. Summer. Ha! You’d think the nights could warm up a bit.”

  “Listen—”

  “Hey!” shouts Ben, walking toward us. He stops a few meters away and takes an army stance. “Well, what do you think? See any difference?”

  Shira giggles. “Show-off. Yes, we see that you are on the way to becoming a Navy SEAL—with the ego of a whale,” she teases.

  Ron laughs. “You’ve got that right.”

  I give Ron a quick hug. “Congratulations,” I say.

  “Aggie?” says Ben. “I’m waiting.”

  “You look great, too, Ben.” I give him a quick hug.

  “Is that all?” he asks.

  “Your dad must be thrilled.”

  Ben smiles. “He sure is.” He moves toward me, but I’ve already linked arms with Shira. He gives me a puzzled look. I smile and shrug.

  “Where should we go?” I ask, my voice too cheerful.

  “I saw a bunch of guys from my unit hanging out at the square and said I’d take you girls over to meet them.”

  “Great,” says Shira.

  We cut through the narrow passages, passing bars, restaurants, bookstores, and tourist shops. “I could use a pizza,” I say, getting a whiff of melted cheese.

  “Still serious about getting into that combat unit?” Ben tweaks my hips. “I’d say there’s at least another inch here since the last time I checked.” I slip out of reach.

  “You better watch it, Ben,” says Ron.

  “Aggie,” says Shira, “you are the only person I know in the whole world who wants to put on weight.” She looks at me with exasperation. “I wish I had such problems.

  Being on the stage, I have to be careful about every crumb I put in my mouth.”

  Ben steps in front of us. Pulling me away from Shira, tugging me closer to him he says, “I’ve missed you.”

  I press my palms against his chest to push him back. “Ben, wait.”

  “Hey, don’t be so mean. This is the last time I may be able to find your waist. Next time I might need a team of excavators to dig through the levels.”

  “Ben!” says Shira.

  He chuckles. “Just teasing. Even with a little extra meat, you’ll always be my Aggie.”

  He gets the laughs he’s looking for, and sliding his hands from my waist around my back, holds me even closer. “School’s out,” he whispers. “Exams are over. Military life is here. We’ve got a lot to catch up on and no time to waste. Let’s relax and have some fun.” He nuzzles my neck and groans. “You smell great.”

  “It’s just Shira’s jasmine perfume,” I mumble, thinking of how Noah had looked at me in the desert though I smelled of sweat and desert dust. And how, just moments earlier, Noah made my pulse race as the scruff of his unshaven face prickled my scalp.

  “Hey, you two,” says Shira, smiling knowingly. “We’re in the middle of the pedestrian mall—where people walk. You might want to move aside and let them pass.”

  Ben releases me from his grip. The four of us get swept up in the crowd until we reach the square, where a motley group of musicians is jamming. Bongos, guitars, and wooden flutes draw us in. Three girls in long skirts and hair to their waists are dancing.

  “I’ll go find the guys,” says Ben.

  The music pulses inside me. My hips sway. My feet pick up the rhythm. “Shira,” I say, wanting to confess and tell her everything. Tell her that though Ben isn’t right for me, I still want us all to stay friends.

  “Don’t you love it?” she shouts over the music. “I could stay here forever. Freeze time so that nothing would ever change.”

  But things have changed, I want to tell her. We’ve changed. I slide over to her. “I’ve got to tell you something. It’s important.” But just then, over the beating of the drums, I hear someone calling my name.

  “Aggie!”

  It takes me a moment to recognize her, but when I do, I break into a run, and we meet in the center of the square and throw our arms around each other like long-lost sisters.

  “Hadas, you look so different. I almost wouldn’t have recognized you. What happened?”

  North Carolina has exchanged her boots and army uniform for open-toed sandals, low-riding jeans, and a ribbed shirt that reveals a shoulder full of freckles. Her hair hangs loose, and like a sunburn turned to tan, some of her bewildered innocence seems to have faded.

  “You look—you look so Israeli!”

  We laugh and hug again. I catch Shira watching us, and I pull away from the music to where we can all talk.

  “Hadas and I were in boot camp together.” I introduce her to Shira. “Have you heard anything yet?”

  Hadas shakes her head. “I think it’s still too early.”

  Ben and R
on see us and come over. “Hadas has just immigrated here from the States,” I explain. “We met in boot camp.”

  Ron’s mouth drops open. “Really?” he says.

  Hadas looks at him, raises an eyebrow, and glances back at me.

  I swallow back a giggle. “What are you doing here?” I ask her.

  “Good question,” says Shira. “What are you doing here?”

  “Taking Hebrew classes. I also have all these bureaucratic things to do for my immigration status.” She groans. “It’s such a hassle.”

  “Then why bother?” asks Shira.

  “Do I have a choice?” asks Hadas, her tone and pitch mimicking the well-worn phrase.

  Ron laughs. “She says it without even an accent.”

  “No choice?” Shira interrupts. “Manhattan or Jerusalem.” She pretends to weigh the options in the palms of her hands. Her right hand, the one with the silver rings, sinks with the imaginary weight.

  “She’s teasing,” I say. I want to take Hadas’s hand and squeeze it, tell her she doesn’t have to defend herself in front of my friends. “Shira wants to be the next music diva of the Middle East. After she’s conquered Jerusalem she’s headed west.”

  Shira makes a face at me. I’m talking too fast, trying too hard. This meeting of my two worlds is unhinging me. “We were just going for coffee,” I say, sure that if Shira gets to know Hadas, they will find so much in common. “Want to join us?”

  “Only if you’re going to add a big slice of chocolate cake to your order.” She lets her eye slide over me and frowns. “You haven’t been doing your homework.” She shakes her head.

  Shira groans.

  Ben snakes his arm around me. “Aggie realizes that

  “Do I have a choice?” asks Hadas, her tone and pitch you have to have a bit more than a chunky waist and a passing whim to be a soldier in our military. What we do is serious stuff .” His chest puff s out. “You got to have the right genes.”

  “That’s exactly what the girls said about her,” says Hadas. “Aggie’s just like her father.”

  I bristle. I didn’t know they had been talking behind my back. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Shira closes ranks with me. She knows that Hadas has hit a sensitive spot. My dad’s shadow could wilt a valley of sunflowers.

  “I never met him,” says Hadas. “But the girls say your dad can move mountains, and that it was obvious from the way you handled yourself in the field that you are going to do it, too—sandbag by sandbag.” Hadas rises onto her toes and laughs. “You should have seen her out there in the field.”

  I catch the look on Ben’s face as Hadas goes on about me.

  “Really?” says Shira.

  “Honest. She was amazing. Not to mention that the two of us had the best V formation.”

  She turns her heels into a perfect ballet first position and snaps to attention.

  “At ease,” I say. “Some of those sandbags were the easier ones to move,” I add, thinking of how everything is becoming so complicated.

  “Don’t I know it,” says Hadas. “My mom’s mailed me a return ticket.” She pats her pocket.

  “So what about that coffee?” says Ron.

  “Thanks, but not tonight. I’m here with my Hebrew class, if you can call it that. I think I’ll end up learning more Russian and Spanish. I never even knew there were Jews in some of those places.” She smiles, her freckles scrunching. “And now we’re all here trying to cram our heads with a language that looks like an upside-down jigsaw puzzle, all so that we’ll understand what our commanders are shouting at us.” She shrugs. “My best friend is from Milano and I don’t even speak a word of Italian.”

  Pulling out a book from her backpack, she hands me her copy of The Alchemist. “I finished reading it on the bus back from boot camp and have been wondering who to pass it on to. Call me, okay? I’ll be here for another few weeks.”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you sure you have her number?” asks Ron.

  Hadas turns to him. “Why, do you want it, too?”

  Ron’s face turns red. “Only if you want me to have it.” Fumbling for his cell, he rests it in the palm of his hand.

  Hadas whispers it to herself in English and then says each number slowly in Hebrew. “Numbers are the hardest,” she confesses. “I can’t figure out this language gender thing, male and female endings? Instead of Hebrew lessons, they should have sent me for sex education classes.”

  “I can help you with that,” says Ron.

  Shira swings around and gives him a look. “Ron—”

  His face turns redder than Hadas’s hair. “What?” he says. “The Hebrew. I can help her with the Hebrew.”

  “Right,” says Ben, slapping him on the back.

  Hadas shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Well, you’ve got my number.”

  She hugs me once more and walks away to join a group of kids hanging out near the bagel bar.

  “Now she looks like a combat soldier,” says Ben.

  This time it’s my turn to groan. Shira eyes me strangely, and Ron stares off after Hadas as if his Cinderella has run off and he’s left holding her army boot.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Hey, sleepyhead, you have a call.”

  I roll over, yawn, and stretch. Hadas’s copy of The Alchemist falls to the floor. I’ve lost my place. “Who is it?” I mumble, my face squished deep in the pillow.

  “Do I look like your secretary?”

  I open one eye. Hila is standing at the door of my room wearing a long jeans skirt, a white T-shirt with sleeves to her elbows, and scruffy running shoes. Anywhere else in the world she’d be a fashion disaster.

  “No, not a secretary. You look more like the girls who live on the next block across from the synagogue. All you’re missing is a book of psalms in your hand and you’d fit right in.”

  “Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  I don’t argue with her.

  She sighs. “Isn’t it about time you’ve started doing something with these few months left before your draft?”

  I pull the blankets over my head.

  She grunts disapprovingly. “Well, what should I tell him?” she asks impatiently.

  “Who?” I peek out.

  She shrugs. “The reception is terrible. It’s a guy. Probably Ben, again.”

  I consider ignoring her and Ben, but instead I pull my quilt over my shoulders and shuffle to the phone in the living room. Curling up on the wicker love seat that once belonged to Grandma, I pull the phone over, wondering why Ben couldn’t have called my cell phone and saved me the trip out of bed. He didn’t like hearing that what he thought was going to happen wasn’t on my “to-do” list before being drafted, and how I thought the timing for us was all wrong.

  “Hey,” I say, clearing my voice. “What’s up?”

  Hila walks by and makes kissing noises. I give her a nasty look.

  There’s static on the line. A couple of crackles. Silence.

  “Ben?”

  “No, not Ben,” says the raspy voice. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Noah!” My voice, still raw with sleep, croaks. “How are you?”

  “Okay …and you?”

  My face flushes. “Fine. But I’m surprised to hear from you.”

  “Good surprised?”

  “Of course!”

  Crackle. Static. I’m not sure if it’s the phone line or Noah thinking of what to say.

  “Really?” he says. “And I thought . . .”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” Static.

  I wonder why he’s calling me. Shira groans whenever I ask about him. “He’s so busy. Doesn’t have a second to breathe. He comes home long enough to kick off his boots, throw his uniform in the washing machine, sleep for twelve hours, eat anything worth eating in the house, ask what’s up with me, throw one question in about you, and go back to his base.”

  “About me?”

  “Yeah. Alw
ays asks if you’ve heard from the army about where they’re placing you—as if you’re the first woman ever to get into a combat unit. Do you believe him butting into my life? I’ve told him more than once to mind his own business.”

  Laughter. His raspy-voiced chuckle snaps me back. I giggle. Stop. Realize I must sound so childish.

  Hila pops her head back into the room, her eyebrows raised.

  “What?” I mouth to her.

  “Noah?” she says. She smiles and gives me a thumbs-up.

  “I’ll speak to you later,” I tell her, cupping my hand slightly over the phone.

  “Call you later?” says Noah.

  “No, not you.”

  “…time so short whenever I see you and we haven’t had any time off . . .”

  More static. I wait, wondering what to say next and what he’ll say.

  “…never got to tell me about boot camp …relieved it’s over?”

  “And how!” This is safe territory, something I can prattle on about and avoid awkward silences. “You saw me after that first night and then they made us stay another one. But at least I had my stuff back.”

  “…stuff ?”

  “My bag with all my clothes and toiletries and my sleeping bag got lost the first night and I had to sleep without any of my gear. It was awful! If I hadn’t been so exhausted, I probably wouldn’t have closed my eyes for a second.”

  At first I think I hear more crackling on the line and then I realize he’s laughing.

  “It wasn’t funny. I was miserable.”

  “…believe they did it to you.”

  I kick off the blanket and pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my nightshirt over them. I feel snug as Noah’s voice sends electric pulses of heat though the phone line. “What do you mean? Did what to me?”

  “The missing gear gag. Every group gets one: some poor kid whose gear mysteriously doesn’t show up at night.”

  I press the phone to my ear, struggling to catch every word. “You mean they did it on purpose?”

  More laughter.

  I imagine Noah’s dimples growing deeper at my expense. “That’s so cruel! I can’t believe they’d do that to someone. I can’t believe they did it to me. I was miserable. Why me?” Immediately I think it’s Dad’s fault. They were testing me—but that’s absurd. How could they have known which stuff was mine?