Bell Bridge Books

By the time I arrive at the party, it’s well under way. I’m still enjoying the effects of Julian’s words. Graduation was a bore. He misses me. He loves me.

“Hello.”

It’s him, the boy from the ladder. I look around for Nancy and Heddy.

“Frankie,” he says.

He waits for me to introduce myself, but I don’t answer. He’s even handsomer up close.

“And you?” Frankie says. “Do you have a name?”

“Sonya,” I say.

“Nice to meet you, Sonya.”

He puts out his hand for me to shake it, but I don’t. Instead, I smile and excuse myself, telling him I have to find my girlfriends. I see a flicker of something cross his eyes, but I can’t tell if he’s amused or angry. When I turn back to look at him, he’s already talking to another girl, a staff babysitter. She’s practically shoving her chest in his face. Her brassy blonde hair is teased into a bouffant that my friends and I will giggle over later. Frankie has his hand on her waist, but he looks over at me and inclines his head just enough to suggest that he’s killing time until I come to my senses.  I make that-will-never-happen-eyes at him and walk away. They belong together, I tell myself. Those two. They’re the same kind.  A shaygetz and a shiksa.

Frankie is persistent. Every day, he waits for me to enter the kitchen. He’s always in a good mood, always has something unexpected to say.

“Hey,” he says. “You eat peanut butter?” He holds up a tin bucket of peanut butter. “We got a lot of it.”

“Only in camp,” I say. It’s so hot that the backs of my knees are damp with sweat. “My mother never buys it.”

“My mother doesn’t know what it is,” Frankie says.

“Neither does mine,” I say.

“You Italian?”

“Maybe.”

Frankie laughs as if he’s surprised that I’m funny. He looks at me in a way that makes me feel shy.

“I have to set up my station,” I say.

We sit at the same table for meals. He calls white bread “American bread,” but he is always quietly respectful during prayers. I try not to stare at the gold crucifix he wears on a short chain around his neck. I notice that he makes the waiters uncomfortable and the waitresses slightly giggly. Before long, Frankie and I are always looking for each other, exchanging smiles, sharing a few quiet moments on the back porch of the dining room, laughing, and finding an excuse to let out hands graze or our arms brush, skin-to-skin in our sleeveless tees. It’s a slow, excruciatingly delicious dance that keeps me wanting more.

Julian calls. He’ll be stopping by on Saturday, just for a few hours on his way up to Kingston. I tell him I’m excited, but I’m not. At night, in the dorm, I tell Nancy and Heddy that Julian is coming. They ply me with millions of questions; first about Julian, and then about Frankie. After awhile, I pretend to be asleep.

I don’t tell Frankie about Julian. I’m hopeful that the visit will come and go without notice. Julian arrives with a bunch of wildflowers. His father tells us to go take some time together while he waits in the dining room. I suggest a bench down by the lake. I don’t want to have to go into the dining room with Julian. I’m relieved when Mr. Klein takes my suggestion.

“Let’s go,” Julian says.

His palm feels sweaty when he grabs my hand. As soon we are out of Mr. Klein’s range of vision, Julian pulls me close and kisses me.

“Not here,” I say.  I look around. “Let’s go back to my room.”

I know all the girls will be out in the middle of the day. Julian and I run down the path towards my dorm. Moist curls cling to his forehead, and his glasses have slipped down the bridge of his nose. He looks flustered. Frankie always looks so sure of himself.  It’s cool inside my room. I point to my bed. Julian immediately pulls me down and gets on top of me, grinding himself into me.

“I missed you,” he says into my neck. His hands cup my breasts. “I don’t think I can make it through the summer without you.”

For a moment, I think he’s going to cry. He’s kneading my flesh, worrying my mouth with his, and gently parting my lips with his tongue.

“I can’t breathe,” I say, flattening my palms against his chest and pushing him. “Can you get off me for a minute?” My face is flushed. “The girls will be back soon. We’re not supposed to have boys in the dorm.”

He looks so hurt that I’m immediately sorry. Julian who knows the best cheap ethnic restaurants in the city, who shares my love of books, who plays the saxophone for me in the park, and who takes me to every play and movie with social significance. Julian, who is also Jewish, even though the son of American Jews, but still Jewish. I kiss him, and he’s happy again. But his lips feel too soft and the hands that have touched me so many times in every place suddenly feel intrusive. I watch as he draws a small heart on the wall closest to my bed and puts our initials inside: SA and JK 4 Ever. I walk him back to his father’s car. I wave until I can’t see the car anymore. Then, I run back to my room and tack a postcard from my parents that says Greetings from Amish Country right over the heart.

After work that night Frankie asks me if I’ll wait for him while he finishes up. As the kitchen steward, he has a lot of responsibilities. I wait in the empty dining room, but from where I sit, I can still see him. I like the way he has his pack of Kool rolled up in is shirtsleeve. I like his muscled arms even better. Soon, he comes out, puts out his hand and asks me if I’d like to go for a walk. In answer, I take his hand. It’s almost dark, but I’m not afraid. I’m never afraid when I’m with him. Not of anything.

Hand-in-hand we walk the periphery of the campgrounds. His palm is slightly callused, but his skin is cool. We talk easily and about everything. I relax against his arm as we walk. It’s Friday night, and I’m missing the Sabbath service. I hear the familiar strains of song and prayer from the makeshift synagogue down near the lake. Lechah dodi, likrat kalah penei shabat nekabelah… Frankie squeezes my hand.

“You understand that stuff?” he says.

“It’s a song to welcome the Sabbath,” I say. “The Sabbath is like a bride, and she’s greeted like a lover.”

His ears immediately perk up at the word “lover,” and I blush.

“My mother lights the Sabbath candles every Friday night,” I say. “We have chicken soup, and roast chicken and challah—“

 “Challah?” he says.

“That soft bread you seem to like.”

“Easter bread.” He stops and turns me toward him, pulling me against his lean body. “Tell me about the lover part again.”

I’m prepared for his kiss, but first he places his hand around my throat, lightly, but with conviction. He brushes his lips against mine even as I open my mouth, ready to welcome him. His tongue is not questioning the way Julian’s always seems to be. Frankie’s tongue is insistent, purposeful. My arms hang loosely at me sides until he takes them and wraps them around his waist.

“Better,” he says and then kisses me again.

Hitna’ari me’afar kumi lib’shi big’dei tif’artech ami al yad ben Yishai beit halach’mi kar’vah el nafshi ge’a lah… Lechah dodi…. Get up from the ash and shake it off yourself…wear your glorious cloths, my nation next to King David…my soul will be saved… Come my lover.

I haven’t told Frankie about the ashes that identify my family history. The Holocaust is another history lesson for him, something remote and impersonal. I’m certain he barely knows any Jews in his hometown of Bayonne, New Jersey.  If he does, they never inhabit the same space.

I do not object when his hands outline my body with an urgency that leaves me breathless. And when he asks me if I’d like to go back to his room under the dining room, I say yes. I close my eyes against the image of the piles of ashes that seem to call out to me. My soul is already in trouble.