You Asked for Perfect(34)

We both smile.

Then we’re kissing again. Then we’re on the bed kissing, twisting and pushing closer together. I pull my lips across his skin, against the stubble of his jaw, down his neck, and across his collarbone. Amir shudders beneath me as I accidentally nip the skin.

Too hot. He is actually too hot of a person.

“This okay?” he asks, reaching for the hem of my T-shirt.

“Yeah.” I’m a bit breathless as he pulls my shirt off and then his also. I’m overwhelmed by the press of his bare chest against mine.

We slow down, more like our first kiss. Lingering in the moment, kisses as wandering as our conversations. Time slips by, and we only pull apart when Scheherazade ends and the room drops into silence.

I lean my head against his bare chest and breathe him in. My hand runs down his skin. There’s a spot of my dried blood from earlier. I rub it away, then kiss the spot. He makes a soft hum in response.

I blink, my eyes half-closed, suddenly sated and sleepy. “I don’t want to go to services tomorrow,” I say. “I want to stay right here.”

“I wish I had a Time-Turner like Hermione. Think about it. We could keep turning back the clock and stay here as long as we want.”

“I could be into that.”

“Will your parents be home soon?”

“We have some time.” I look down at our bare chests. “But maybe we should put our shirts back on.” I pause. “Should we tell them?”

Amir shifts so he can glance at me. “Tell them what?”

He’s grinning, teasing me. He wants me to say it. “I don’t know,” I say. “That we’re hanging. Talking.”

He traces a finger across my collarbone. “I think we’re doing a bit more than talking.”

I blush. “Maybe we should wait.”

“Maybe,” he agrees. “I’ll be here tomorrow, by the way. Your mom invited us for Rosh Hashanah dinner.”

“Let’s definitely wait then,” I say. “We’ll be animals in a zoo if we tell them before we all spend the evening together.”

“Good call,” Amir agrees. The air-conditioning clicks on, the cold air blasting the room. Amir pulls the blanket up so it covers us. It’s warm under here, snug. “We’ll keep the invisibility cloak on for now,” Amir says.

I snort. “Nerd.”

Amir grins. “Dork.”





Ten


The benches creak as everyone rises to their feet for the Amidah. “Baruch atah Adonai, eloheinu veilohei avoteinu, elohei Avraham, elohei Yitzchak, veilohei Yaakov…”

The prayer continues. I have it memorized from years of repetition, so I recite it as I look around the room. The synagogue is packed for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Many of our congregants only attend shul for the High Holidays. Our sanctuary even has removable dividers so we can expand the space to twice the size.

Voices boom around me, the entire congregation joining together in something more powerful than song. It’s always comforting, being surrounded by so many people reciting the same prayers as the generations before us.

As the Amidah switches to the silent portion, I think of Amir, up in my bedroom last night. The back of my neck heats.

I slip out my phone, keeping it low and against my thigh. No messages. I refresh my email. Even though it’s usually spam, every time a new email from a college pops up, my heart jolts, and I panic and wonder if I’m forgetting something.

People are beginning to sit, so I do also. My parents are still praying. Mom mouths the Hebrew, and Dad traces the English translation with his finger. I glance at Rachel. She’s playing with a rubber band, twisting and stretching it, hands never stilling.

My phone buzzes. A calendar reminder to prepare for my Harvard interview, which is in less than two weeks. I scan the calendar: calculus quiz, gov test, paper for Spanish lit, college essay, practice violin solo, work on college applications…

Maybe I have more work to do this weekend than I’d thought.

The prayer finishes and another begins.

*

Everyone mills around after services. Rachel runs off to play at Tinder Hill, and Mom and Dad say Happy New Year to a hundred different people. They’re connected to every family through some good deed, from reporting on a health crisis at a school to representing families pro bono. They do so much for the community and ask for nothing in return. My volunteer hours at the shelter are a pittance in comparison.

I find Malka in the tide of congregants, and we wander up and down the mostly deserted preschool branch of the synagogue. We peer into one of the classrooms, with its map of Israel and toys and miniature tables and chairs.

Malka laughs and squats down into one of the tiny seats. “Can you believe we were ever this little?”

“Nope,” I say, sitting also, my butt not even half fitting.

“I remember you both being that little,” a new voice chimes in. Rabbi Solomon stands in the doorway, holding her lavender tallis bag.

“Rabbi!” Malka says. “L’shana Tova!”

“L’shana Tova, Malka. L’shana Tova, Ariel.”

“Shana Tova!” I respond. “I enjoyed your sermon.”

Rabbi Solomon raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t sure if you caught it with your phone out.”