A Life Worth Living

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Copyright © 2013 Pnina Baim

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When I go up to heaven, if they will ask me why I was not like Abraham, I will have what to answer them. But when they will ask me why I was not Zushe, what will I answer them?-Rav Zushe of Annipole

“Hey, Gaby, it’s time to go.” A second later, the voice came again. “You have to go.”

Gaby nestled closer to Benny, ignoring the insistent voice whispering in her ear. “Come on, get up. You’re going to be late.”

Gaby reluctantly opened her eyes to see Tovah, cleaned up and ready for work, dressed in a pink button-down shirt and fitted gray knee-length skirt. She crouched next to the black leather couch that Gaby was lying on, holding a mug that smelled strongly of coffee.

“What time is it?”

“It’s after seven.” Tovah took a sip from the mug. “Do you want me to make you some coffee before you go?”

“No, I have to run. My mom is gonna freak.” Gaby slid off the couch, careful not to wake Benny, sleeping like the dead, using his arm to block the morning sunlight dripping through the basement windows. She stood up shakily, trying to steady her pounding head with her hand. “Did you see my sweatshirt?”

“Um…” They looked around until Tovah spotted the yellow sweatshirt hanging on a closet doorknob. She grabbed it and held it out to Gaby. “So, you’ll email me when you get your new number?”

“Yeah, I will.” The girls hugged. “Thanks for the party last night. And for letting us crash here.”

“No problem. One last bash, right?”

Tovah had moved from
Colorado to attend Brooklyn College. The girls had met at their summer job, a call center for a charity organization that took soul-crushing to a new level. It wasn’t that Gaby disliked charity per se; she was all for it when it came to other people. It was just that attempting to call those endless lists of people – names after more names, who, if they picked up the phone, nine times out of ten hung up just as quick – was possibly the worst job in the world.

The one good thing about the low-paying misery was that it brought the two of them together in solidarity. They became fast friends, hanging out every night and going from house party to house party thrown by home-alone teenagers when their parents went upstate for the summer.

Benny was one of the boys in the neighborhood, someone Gaby had seen around, but she never managed to muster up the courage to approach. For years now, whenever she went to one of these hang-outs, she would watch him out of the corner of her eye as he talked up all the cute, skinny girls in their adorable outfits and joked around with his friends. But one night this summer, completely out of the blue, Benny walked over to Gaby as she stood idly against a wall, nursing a beer. He took the bottle right out of her hand, and, after taking a long gulp, said, “I’m so glad you came tonight.”

Gaby had just smiled instead of saying something witty, because she couldn’t manage thinking, forget about spouting a quick come-back. This somehow had the effect of making her seem cool and mysterious. Benny had stayed by her side the whole night, and pretty much the rest of the summer. It was hard for her to believe that after all this time, Benny was finally giving her attention, and although she wouldn’t call him her boyfriend, he was the closest she’d ever come to having one.

Tovah, on the other hand, wasn’t exactly as obsessed with Benny, and she didn’t mince words when it came to her dislike of him. She felt that Benny was a poseur and would never go anywhere in life, but being the loyal friend that she was, she let them hang out in her studio basement apartment whenever they had nowhere else to go.

To celebrate Gaby’s last night in the
U.S., Tovah decided to throw her a party, and she did it in style, taking full advantage of the fact of her landlords’ absence. They were hours away, spending the last weekend of the summer in the mountains, and would never notice her wanton use of their spacious and well-maintained backyard. She had hung up tiny white lights all over the trees, and everyone brought either a drink or a dip while Tovah provided the chips.

The party was a blast, with their whole crowd showing up and drinking to Gaby’s departure. The last guest left just as the black night sky was turning gray, and, knowing Tovah’s neat-freak tendencies, Gaby had stayed to help clean up the backyard until not a single stray bottle or the slightest hint of the revelry remained. Afterward, with just a couple of hours left before her flight, Gaby had joined Benny, who had crashed on Tovah’s couch.

“No, not our last. I’ll be back,” Gaby promised. She bent down and touched Benny’s arm. “Hey, I’m going now.”

Benny opened his eyes. “Now?”

“Yeah, I have to go.” Gaby bit her lip, waiting for Benny to make a move, any move. She was never sure how to act around him, and usually took the more passive approach to avoid being overly clingy.

“And you have to be out of here in thirty minutes,” Tovah interjected.

“I will be out of here in thirty minutes.” Benny repeated, mocking her. “Have a good flight, babe. Don’t be a stranger.” Benny flicked Gaby’s pony, then turned his back to her and closed his eyes.

“That was classy,” Tovah said, leaning against the counter in her tiny kitchenette, not bothering to whisper anymore.

“Whatever.” Gaby shrugged off Benny’s indifference. It wasn’t like she could stamp her feet and yell that she was leaving and that he might never see her again and didn’t he care about her at all? She went to the sink, filled a cup with tap water and drank it quickly. “I better get out of here. I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you! Don’t forget to call me when you can,” Tovah said sadly.

Gaby looked at her mournfully and hugged her again. She cast one last look at Benny, who was already fast asleep, and left the apartment, closing the door softly behind her.

Once outside, Gaby pulled her sweatshirt over her ribbed tank top despite the warmth of the September morning. No need to annoy her mom any more than necessary.

Tovah lived in the basement of one of these huge houses located in the wealthier part of the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, forcing Gaby to walk past the haves with mansion after half-brick, half-stucco mansion, until she crossed over Ocean Avenue, where the have-nots lived, and buildings, instead of houses, crowded the streets.

Just past
Ocean Avenue was her school, a great big building spanning the entire block between East 19
th
and East 18
th
Streets. A banner, in bright primary colors, proclaimed that the school served the educational needs of children from nursery through grade 12. Or so they said. Gaby, for one, did not feel that her educational needs were served. Sitting through nine daily periods of subjects she did not choose or understand was not her idea of time well spent. She felt like a wave goodbye, or perhaps a throw of a brick, might be in order to commemorate the last time she would pass by the school.

But school hadn’t started yet; nobody would be there to see her final act of defiance. One more plus about moving to
Israel: There would be no need to kowtow to those dictators anymore.

She turned onto
East 16
th
Street, where rows of fully attached houses stood. Gaby’s mother had moved them into smaller and dingier apartments ever since the divorce. Here, their final apartment before they caved into the mounting economic pressure and moved to Israel, was a partitioned unit of what was once a single-family home. Their apartment was not much bigger than the basement Tovah lived in. It boasted a steep staircase, tiled in stained linoleum, leading up to two small bedrooms, a windowless kitchen, and one bathroom-too small to hold a bathtub- for all three of them to share. A single air conditioner worked valiantly in an attempt to cool the humid New York air. Gaby slipped off her flip-flops before entering the apartment as quietly as possible. A floorboard squeaked, and immediately, her mother called out, “Gaby, is that you?”

Gaby rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Yup, it’s me.” She walked up the stairs into the narrow kitchen, where her mother had emptied the contents of the refrigerator and cabinets on the single counter.

“Where were you last night?” Mrs. Kupfer turned, her worn face filled with a familiar mixture of concern and frustration. She was dressed in an old faded black nightgown, and the jars and bottles of every shape and size surrounding her made her look slightly deranged.

“I was at my friend Tovah’s house,” Gaby said, hoping that the simplest explanation would get her mother off her back.

“You didn’t think to call? I was worried about you.” Her mother reflexively fixed her scarf tied around her head, and turned back to packing the containers in plastic bags.

“I’m sure you were.” Of all the nights that Gaby had been out all night, this was the first time her mother noticed her absence. How convenient of her to suddenly be concerned for Gaby’s safety just when she needed help packing for their trip.

Gaby went over to the stove, grabbed the teakettle and began to fill it with water. She set it back on the stove and lit the stove with a match.

“Yes, I was.” Her mother looked at her. “You went outside wearing pants?”

Gaby looked down at her black jeans. “Why not? I’m not in school anymore. You should be happy I’m wearing a sweatshirt. It’s really hot outside. Why don’t I get credit for that?” she asked, her voice steadily rising. “And why are you wearing a
tichel
? It’s stupid to cover your hair if you aren’t married. It’s not like you need to show allegiance to your husband anymore. ”

“I don’t know. Once we are in
Israel, I guess.” Mrs. Kupfer closed her eyes for a minute. “Let’s not fight today, okay? Just one day. Please.”

Her mother, standing in her old nightgown, looked so pitiful that Gaby felt herself giving in. Gaby blew air forcefully out through her lips. “Fine, I’m not fighting. Do you need any help?”

“If you finished packing, then you can help me put together some things to take on the plane. I would hate to see all this food go to waste. But wake up Rafi first. He needs to get ready.”

Gaby walked the two feet to the bedroom she shared with her brother. In the dim light coming through the disposable blinds, she saw twelve-year-old Rafi tangled up in his sheets, one foot hanging off the bed. “Hey, monkey face, wake up.”

Rafi’s eyes popped open and he jumped out of bed.

Gaby laughed. “I don’t know how you do that.”

“Do what?” Rafi asked, grabbing a pair of blue pants and an orange-and-blue-striped shirt. He rummaged around the floor and found his
tzitzis
near his bed.

“Be sleeping so deeply, and then just wake up like that.”

“I’m excited! Aren’t you excited?”

“Super-duper excited. Don’t take too long in the bathroom; I still need to wash up.” Gaby found a navy blue yarmulke on an empty shelf near his bed and positioned it on Rafi’s head. He shrugged her off and disappeared into the bathroom.

Gaby turned the bedroom light on and looked around the mostly bare room. Her three suitcases were opened next to her bed, and a worn black backpack leaned against the wall. Stripping off her unused linen, she bundled them up and shoved them into her suitcase.

There wasn’t much else to take. The little furniture they owned would be left behind. Her mother didn’t have the money or the desire to ship their old, dilapidated beds and table to
Israel.

She pulled out a pair of gray yoga pants and a short-sleeved red shirt from her suitcase, locked the door so Rafi couldn’t barge in on her, and quickly changed, sticking her dirty clothes in a side pocket of the suitcase. When Rafi knocked on the door, she opened it.

“Finish packing. We’re leaving in forty-five minutes.”

Rafi nodded and began methodically folding his linen, corner to corner, and then into perfect squares. Gaby watched him for a moment, shaking her head in amazement, then went into the bathroom to wash up.

Staring at herself in the mirror, she asked her reflection out loud, “Makeup or no makeup? There might be a cute boy on the flight, ya never know.” Immediately, she felt guilty. Technically, she was still with Benny, although who knew the chances that he would actually visit her in Israel as he had promised?

To atone for her disloyal thought, she aggressively rubbed last night’s makeup off with a bar of soap, leaving her face shiny and pink. Brushing her long black hair away from her face, she piled it on top of her head in a loose bun. She rifled through the medicine cabinet, pulling out the toothpaste, toothbrushes, and deodorants that were still in there. Checking the shower, she found a half-used shampoo bottle, soap and a razor. She gathered everything up, and carried the pile into the kitchen. “Where should I put all this?”

Mrs. Kupfer shrugged. “Wherever it could fit. Bag the bottles first, so they don’t spill all over the place.”

“I know! I’m not an idiot.” Gaby rolled her eyes at her mother’s back, but did as she was told. She pulled two shopping bags from under the kitchen sink and went back to her room. Rafi was sitting on the floor, trying to shove books into his bulging suitcases.

“You know there’s a weight limit on those, right?”

“I know, but I can’t leave these books behind. I really like them. Can you take them for me?”

“If I have room. I have to put all this crap in first.”

“Why couldn’t we ship everything to
Israel like all the other families did?”