The UnAmericans: Stories (22 page)

“I know, we’re broken up,” he said in singsong. “What are you doing?”

“I’m watching an Orthodox guy pick up a prostitute. He’s acting like he’s asking for directions.”

“Ah,” Tomer said dreamily, and Talia said she had to go. The only way to get over this, she knew, was to put him out of her head. And though she thought she was doing a decent job of it, Talia wasn’t home fifteen minutes before her mother looked up from the table, which they were setting for dinner, and said, “What’s his name?”

“He’s just a guy, okay?” Talia said, knowing she sounded more like Gali than she wanted to admit. “I’m sorry,” she tried. “It’s just weird talking about something that turned out to be nothing.” She glanced around the kitchen, at the scratched wood table, stained with decades of art projects and baking disasters; at the stack of bills on the chair; at the new counters Talia’s father had promised to install for her mother’s fiftieth birthday, still half-finished as he waited for a time they could afford to complete the project. Her parents weren’t planning to interrogate her tonight about her love life, Talia thought. It was seven-thirty and her father wasn’t even home from work. This was the year he was supposed to retire and instead he’d signed on for two more.

“It’s good being back,” Talia blurted, but it came out as more of a question. She pulled her mother into a hug. Talia was shocked by how tiny she felt, her shoulders delicate and narrow as a girl’s.

T
ALIA WOKE
the following morning feeling gratefully, dizzily free of Tomer, as if the whole relationship were a brief and delirious flu she had kicked with aspirin and hot tea and a night back in her own bed. Even coming home from work that evening felt comforting, and she surprised herself by offering to cook dinner while her mother worked in the garden and her father puttered around the garage. She was chopping eggplant when her mother walked in and said a girl outside was looking for her.

Gali was standing in the driveway, the whole dusky sky behind her, wide sweeps of orange and gray. She was panting and her eye makeup was smeared, as if she’d just stopped crying, or was about to start all over again. “You live in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “I got lost even from the bus stop.”

“How do you know where I live?”

“I looked you up.”

“Gali.” Talia wished she could be done with the conversation before it even began. “You know your dad and I broke up.”

“Yeah, it’s obvious. He’s pretty much been on his period since I came home last night.”

“Then why—” Talia struggled with a tactful way to phrase it, then gave up and said, “are you here?”

Gali was kicking gravel around with her sandal, and for a second she didn’t answer. Then she mumbled, “You said we could listen to records?”

Talia stared out at the silhouettes of olive trees on the distant brown hilltops, the city hidden beyond. Winding up the road, so quickly dirt flew out behind, was a silver truck, and as it came closer Talia could see Tomer behind the wheel. He threw the truck in park and hopped out. He looked like he was coming straight from work, in jeans and boots and a button-down, his cell phone clipped to his belt loop. Even before he opened his mouth, Gali stiffened and said, “Where was I
supposed
to go?”

“Nowhere,” Tomer said. “Because you’re grounded.”

“I can’t believe you followed me,” Gali said.

“I can’t believe you stormed out of the house like a three-year-old.” Then he turned to Talia. “I’m sorry my daughter’s so rude, showing up unannounced.”

“And I’m sorry my father’s such a two-face,” Gali said, “sneaking into my room and going through my stuff.”

“And I’m sorry my daughter gives me so many reasons to think I
need
to search her things.”

“Talia?” her mother called through the kitchen window, and Talia, never so grateful for an interruption, said, “It’s dinner, so—”

“We’d love to,” Gali said, and before she knew it they were all walking up the path and squeezing around the table, passing lentils and eggplant and salad as if this were perfectly natural, as if middle-aged men and their sullen teenage daughters frequently showed up looking for Talia.

And yet she seemed to be the only uncomfortable one. Tomer and Gali had calmed down and everyone was acting like such
adults
, so adept at skirting awkwardness with talk of the latest bribery charges against the prime minister and his upcoming talks with Syria. Even Gali seemed nervous and polite and almost docile at that table with people she didn’t know, as if, when no longer controlling the joystick to her life, she was actually a good kid. Her voice was so soft she had to repeat herself when asking for seconds. She finished her food and excused herself to make a phone call, slipping down the hall so quietly it was as if she’d been replaced with a better version of herself.

Tomer was an enthusiastic eater, piling thirds onto his plate, praising everything from the lentils to the lemon slices in the water, while Talia’s mother beamed, warming under the light of a handsome, younger man. Talia looked around, trying to see what Tomer did. Her father was still in his work shirt, chest hair trellising up the collar, and her mother’s face was shiny from weeding the garden. She’d been prettier than Talia, with high cheekbones and a full, easy smile, but Talia had known her parents for too long to have any idea what they actually looked like now.

“This is great,” Tomer said, and her mother, in the same prodding voice that had always sent Talia reeling to her room, said, “I just heard a little outside, but it sounds like things have been rough.”

“Sixteen months,” Tomer said, though her mother had obviously been referring to Gali. “It feels so unreal.” He set down his fork. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” her mother said. “Please. We
want
to hear,” and then Tomer scraped his chair back and put his head in his hands and told the entire story. About the ski trip, about the injury, about everyone assuming she was drunk. “I was on a mountain when I heard the news,” Tomer said, and all at once Talia’s mother started crying. Her father grunted, his equivalent to tears. Tomer had the same far-off look from that night at the Indian place, and Talia felt weirdly robbed hearing him repeat the story, but also ashamed for turning this back to herself when he was suffering so vividly, and most of all frustrated that she was even a part of this dinner, that this was her life, when she’d worked so hard to be somewhere else entirely.

“I’m sorry,” Tomer said again. “I don’t know how to talk about it. Is that caesarstone?” he asked, eyeing the counters, and when her father said it was, Tomer nodded approvingly.

“But it’s so expensive,” her mother said.

“Yeah, but they’ll last forever,” Tomer said. “You can put pots right on the surface and they won’t leave a mark.”

“You really think they’re better than granite?” her father said, back in his emotional element.

“Five times as strong,” Tomer said. “I put them in every house I do. I’ve got some slabs at work, and some scraps of Moroccan tile that would look good along the backsplash. I can finish it for you in an afternoon, a day tops.”

“No kidding,” her father said.

“Not a problem,” Tomer said.

“Maybe Talia can help out,” her mother said. “Get some work experience.”

“I
have
a job,” Talia said, and when both her parents said “Journalism?” they laughed, as if she was five years old and had just announced that when she grew up she wanted to be a robot, or a dragon. Then they smiled at each other, as if pleased and surprised that thirty-plus years together could inspire them to blurt the same question in unison. Talia stood up, needing to be anywhere but in that kitchen. “It’s a joke,” her mother called after her, but Talia was already walking into her bedroom. She leaned against the wall and exhaled.

“Hey,” Gali said, from the floor. She was sprawled on the rug, texting on her phone.

“Your boyfriend?” Talia asked.

“Yeah.” Gali reddened. “I think so.”

“What’s his name?”

“Nir.” Her voice had a candied edge.

“He’s in your class?”

“In the army. On leave this week.” Then Gali flipped her phone shut. “My dad doesn’t know. Promise you won’t tell?” and when Talia nodded, Gali said, “I know it was weird showing up like this.”

“Why
did
you?”

Gali was quiet, as if searching for an honest answer. “I get so pissed at my dad,” she said, “and I just needed to be out of the apartment. To be somewhere else. And the idea of sitting around listening to records with you sounded—nice.”

Talia eyed the girl, making a sincerity check, then felt terrible for doing so when Gali seemed so vulnerable. She looked around her room, the place where she’d once made blanket forts and dressed up her stuffed animals. Draped over her closet door was a satiny wrap top, and she impulsively pulled it off. “This would look good on you,” she said. “Wear it out with Nir.”

“Seriously?”

“Try it on.”

“Then close your eyes,” Gali said, and Talia was touched that such a sassy girl could still be self-conscious. Talia hopped on the bed and put her face in a pillow, as if they were two girls goofing off at a slumber party, and when she opened her eyes, Gali had the shirt on and Tomer was in the doorway.

“Your wish came true,” he said, and Gali grinned a little at her dad’s dorky joke. “Sorry to break up the party, ladies,” he said, “but it’s a school night.”

Outside, Talia waved to Gali as she climbed into the truck, and Tomer gathered her into a hug. “You saved me tonight. I don’t remember the last time I saw Gali smile—I forgot she had teeth,” he said. “Your family’s great, Talia. I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

“Where’s
your
family?”

“Haifa,” he said. “And my brother’s in London. My parents were there for us after Efrat, of course, but after a couple months they went back to their lives. That’s how they are. They love me and Gali, but they’re not involved like—this.”

Tomer tightened his arms around her. “You make everything so easy,” he whispered. The automatic porch lights blinked on, catching the gloss in his hair, the stubble on his face. Talia felt a stab of longing and reflexively leaned into him, her cheek remembering just where to rest against his collarbone. She circled her arms around his waist, linking her fingers in his belt loops, before realizing what she was doing.

“Sorry,” she said, finding her voice lodged in her throat. “I just forgot for a minute.”

“You really think it’s for the best?”

She stared at him, suddenly knowing how dangerous it was, even standing this close. That was how people grew to be unhappy, she thought—by not making choices, by just letting what was warm and wonderful in one moment dictate the next, until one day they were living a life completely unsuited to their dreams. She took a big, stumbling step back.

“Okay,” Tomer said. “She thinks it’s for the best.” Then he said it again, as if forcing his own words on himself, and walked to the truck. The porch lights went off and Talia looked out in the distance. The wind picked up and she felt a creeping chill. She waited for a plane to interrupt the silence, or for her parents to come out, but she could see them moving inside the orange glow of the house. Everything around her was still. Then Tomer started the engine and steered down the driveway, and there was Gali at the window, face pressed to the glass, waving goodbye.

A
FTER
T
OMER
left, after she watched his truck grow smaller in the darkness until it was just two yellow taillights like the creepy eyes of a cat, Talia heard her parents on the phone with one of her sisters, on separate extensions, talking enthusiastically about Tomer. “We’re not together!” Talia said when they hung up, turning to her mother in the kitchen, then to her father down the hall, on the phone by the steps. “Anyway, can’t you see how unready he is?”

“He’s going through a rough time,” her father said stiffly, as if she’d insulted his friend, and her mother said that of course the age difference and the daughter situation and the timing in general weren’t ideal, but that he was obviously a good person. “I’m not saying it’s perfect, but if anything the whole thing shows he knows how to be in a relationship,” she said, and Talia stood baffled in the doorway: all this time, had her family seen her as more broken than she saw herself?