The Matchmaker's Gift(45)
When Nathan asked if she was enjoying her first year at Barnard, she said “enjoy” wasn’t necessarily the word she would choose.
“How would you describe it then?” Nathan asked.
Sara felt her eyes well up, but she composed herself quickly, dabbing her eyes with the soft white napkin from her lap. A single tear fell on the chocolate cake and one or two more on the cherry pie. “Mostly,” she confessed, “it’s been lonely.”
“What about the friends you were with at the show?”
“They invited me because they had an extra ticket, but I wouldn’t say any of them are my friends. It’s my fault, not theirs. Most of the time, I stay in my room.”
“Why is that?” Nathan’s voice was curious and free of judgment.
“It feels wrong to be laughing and having fun when everyone in my family is working so hard. My sister is up all night with her little ones. My brother is who knows where in France. I am the only one who gets to go to college. I have to work as hard as I can.”
Nathan took a bite of pie. “Do you want to know what I think?” he said. “You’re not making the most of the opportunity you’ve been given if you don’t allow yourself to participate. Yes, you should study and work hard, but it isn’t necessary to make yourself miserable. Some of my classmates are in France, too. Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m safe here at school while they risk their lives out on the battlefield. But it doesn’t help their chance of survival if I sit alone in my room pulling my hair out.”
“I’m not pulling my hair out,” Sara insisted.
“Good. Though you’d be just as beautiful if you did.” Nathan set his fork down beside his plate and reached across the table for Sara’s hand. She felt her cheeks flush and her fingertips tingle.
Sara wished she could know what the feeling meant, but her thoughts were muddled, and her vision unclear. In all the years that she had been looking for matches, she had never thought about finding one for herself. She had never considered how she might recognize her own soulmate if he were to appear. She turned her head slightly, this way and that, searching for a flicker or filament of light. But nothing in the tearoom seemed out of sorts.
“There’s only one month left before the school year ends,” Nathan said. “What if you tried a different approach?”
* * *
After that, Sara made more of an effort. She went to Field Day and cheered on her classmates as they ran the relays and jumped the hurdles. She volunteered at Barnard’s Boathouse canteen for soldiers who were traveling through New York City on their way home from the war. She joined Delores’s study group and found she didn’t mind conjugating French verbs as long as Delores played her radio in the background.
In between, Sara spent time with Nathan. He took her for ice cream and brought her flowers. He told her about growing up in the Bronx. He described the antics of his younger twin sisters and promised Sara she’d meet them over the summer. He kissed her, for the first time, on a rainy spring evening, and the heat from his lips traveled through her whole body. The raindrops caught the light of a streetlamp overhead, and, for a moment, Sara thought: There it is. But then Nathan said something about the light, too, and she knew that it was no preternatural force.
Sometimes, she found herself searching the edges of her sight for flashes and signs that he would be hers forever, but whenever Nathan stood beside her, her periphery was blank. She grew increasingly skittish when they were together, but, thankfully, he did not seem to notice. When he offered to borrow his father’s car to drive her home the day after exams, she told him yes.
On her last day of living at Brooks Hall, Sara packed her suitcase and said her goodbyes. It came as a bit of a shock when she realized how much she would miss her hallmates. Nathan loaded her suitcase into the Model T Ford and they headed south, toward Cannon Street. While Nathan concentrated on the driving, Sara thought about how much had changed since she’d contemplated leaving school that winter.
She had learned that although her gift was considerable, she had much more to learn about people and love. A good shadchanteh would have to deal with every kind of personality—romantics, skeptics, snobs, and fools. Some people would naturally dismiss her input. Others would have impossible expectations. By broadening her experience in the world, by studying subjects she once presumed were irrelevant, she might be better able to serve them all. Sara had looked forward to spending the summer with her family, but now she was also enthusiastic about resuming her classes in the fall. All she had to do was maintain a low profile and avoid crossing paths with the shadchanim. If she could get through the summer without drawing their attention, she could get back to her education.
As soon as Nathan crossed the Bowery, Sara realized the mistake she had made in accepting the ride. People from Cannon Street did not own their own cars; they did not go driving with the top rolled down on warm June days with handsome young men. If she had wanted to return home without anyone noticing, she’d chosen the wrong way to go about it.
As Nathan turned left onto East Houston, a group of gray-haired yentas turned their heads. Street vendors stared while they counted out change. Sara tried to ignore the increasing attention, but when they turned on Cannon Street, it became impossible. Children ran after Nathan’s shiny black Ford, struggling to keep up as it rolled down the street. When Nathan came to a stop in front of Sara’s building, a handful of tenants threw open their windows. Familiar faces stared down from above, but there were no friendly waves or welcoming smiles. For reasons she could not quite discern, no one seemed particularly happy to see her.