Light Years Page 5

  I didn’t see Payton again until that afternoon, but when she finally showed up, I suggested we go to a local café and have an iced latte.

  We walked through the muggy heat and settled down with a sigh in the air-conditioned café at a table by the window. Payton knew the girl behind the counter and followed her recommendations, ordering what was basically a coffee milkshake with vitamins, a new sort of drink that was very popular. I ordered an old-fashioned iced coffee and enjoyed the artistic swirls the cream made as it worked itself between the ice cubes down to the bottom.

  “We went to school together,” Payton told me, eyeing the counter girl. “We were best friends in fifth grade.” She shrugged. “Now I barely know her.”

  “People change.”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t like that.” She picked up on my condescending tone. “I pulled away from her. It’s like one day I woke up and decided I just didn’t want to be friends anymore.”

  I sat up and started paying attention. “Why?”

  Payton looked embarrassed. “My parents were going through a hard time. Everything’s fine now,” she said quickly. “But when I was young, my mom was sick a lot.”

  “Sick” could mean a lot of things. I wondered what went wrong.

  “I just didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t want friends coming over. I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. It’s pretty easy to drive friends away. Kind of sad, really. A part of me thought she’d stick by me, you know.” She laughed a little, to show how silly she’d been. “You can’t expect too much from people, especially kids.”

  “What was wrong with your mom?”

  Payton looked surprised for a moment, but answered me. “She’s bipolar.”

  “Bipolar?” I didn’t know the word.

  “You know, manic-depressive. I was ten when she was diagnosed. Then it took a while for them to get the meds right. Plus she wouldn’t always take them.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, I know. It freaks a lot of people out. I was ashamed of her all through junior high, most of high school. It took me a long time to realize it wasn’t about me, you know? She wasn’t doing it to hurt me. That’s what I mean with this girl too. I kept wanting to think it was about me. If she were a good enough friend, she’d stick by me. If my mom loved me, she’d stop flipping out.” Payton smiled, and I didn’t think she looked so young anymore. “It doesn’t work that way. Other people’s lives don’t revolve around you, you know?”

  Unless you do something bad enough, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I knew what she meant. It was true for most people.

  “You’re very honest,” I finally said. “I’m surprised you’d tell me something like that.”

  She laughed a silly, infectious giggle and blew the image of world-weary wisdom.

  “I know. You looked a little shocked. I’m kind of surprised to hear myself talk like that. I don’t usually turn every conversation into a therapy meeting.”

  “I believe you. We’re going to get along just fine,” I said. Because I finally saw that under that blond hair and the wide eyes lay a real person.

  She smiled. “I told you the minute I saw you. So what do you think about getting an area rug for our room?”

  We talked about stupid things for a surprisingly long time. Even more surprising was how easily the conversation flowed. I expected her to grill me about my time in Israel, I expected her to complain about how hard it was to get organized, to deal with the cramped, hot dorm room, but it seemed I had not given Payton enough credit. After an hour, we felt revived enough to brave the heat again.

  Damn it, I thought as I picked up my bag and returned my glass to the counter. My dad was right.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to survive this humidity,” I said. We’d been walking for only a few minutes and I was covered in a sheen of sweat.

  “I know,” she said, though she didn’t look at all bothered by it. “It won’t last much longer, you’ll see. By mid-September the worst will be over.”

  “Israel has dry heat,” I said, trying to justify my frizzled, sweaty condition. “It’s much different. Hotter but easier to take.”

  I caught her glancing at me at the mention of Israel. But again, she didn’t say anything.

  “I came here straight from there,” I said. For some reason, the fact that she didn’t ask about Israel made me want to talk about it. “That’s why I came a little early, so I would have time to get over the jet lag and learn my way around.”

  She nodded.

  “I served in the military there.” Why was I so chatty? Maybe I felt I owed her some information after she opened up to me. Maybe I was afraid of questions. “I served for twenty months, which is how long mandatory service is for women.”

  She nodded again, like she knew all about it.

  “I bet your parents were so proud.”

  “Proud? No. Not at all. It’s nothing special to serve in the army. Everybody does it.”

  “Weren’t they scared you’d get hurt?”

  “Women tend to stay in safe assignments. That’s starting to change, but usually you don’t have to worry about it. When my brother goes, that’ll be a different story.”

  “Wow,” she said. “That’s so amazing. You’ve already done so much with your life. I feel like I haven’t done anything compared to you.”

  “Don’t kid yourself.” I shrugged. “It wasn’t glamorous or exciting. It was dull and boring and just like having any other office job. Anyway, when my time was over—” I paused, not sure what to say. “I decided to study abroad. See the world.” Liar. But she wouldn’t understand. I didn’t want her to think badly of Israel, to get the wrong idea.

  “And here you are.”

  “And here I am.”

  Once orientation was over and classes began, I settled into a routine fairly quickly. Coffee in our room at seven, electric kettle, instant coffee powder, instant creamer, as Payton and I both got dressed for our eight o’clock class. I had class from eight to eleven most days. Then I went to an early lunch (to beat the crowds) and then to the library, or my favorite garden if the weather was nice, to read my assignments and do my homework. Reading took me a lot longer than it did most students, and I never went anywhere without my Hebrew/English dictionary. Payton and I usually met for dinner at seven, unless she had other plans.

  A part of me had truly believed that all my friends were in Israel, and that nothing here could ever compare. I didn’t talk much with the other students in my class—I would hurry by them as they mingled and flirted after class. I had nothing to say, nothing to share. We didn’t have anything in common.

  Three of my classes were lecture-style, so students weren’t expected to raise a hand and participate. In my astronomy lectures, all I had to do was sit back and listen. But two of my classes were smaller and I really had to focus, to follow the discussions and think on my feet so I could say what I wanted to say. It was frustrating at first. I knew what I wanted to say, I knew how to say it in Hebrew, but I had to rethink the whole thought in English. It always came out wrong, either childish or incorrect, and I hated it.

  I would practice with Payton, explaining to her what I had tried to say in class, and she helped me figure out how I should have said it. I was still surprised to see Payton and me become friends. Sometimes I’d catch sight of her walking and she didn’t seem real, her perky nose and flowery sundresses belonging to another world. Then she’d see me and wave broadly, calling me over. I didn’t come prepared for friendship.

  “There’s this guy you have to meet.”

  We had found a small table in the back of the cafeteria and were both toying with the remnants of Italian Night.

  “Oh no,” I said. “Do not try to fix me up with anyone.” The very thought made my stomach turn.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. I rolled my eyes. “Really! I think this guy even has a girlfriend.”

  “Oh, that’s much better. What is that word—polygamist? Is t
hat it?”

  “I think that only counts if he’s married to more than one person, not dating more than one, but that’s beside the point. Will you listen?”

  My gaze had drifted away.

  “This guy, Chris, was in the Marine Corps. And I was telling him about you and how you were in the Israeli army and he wants to meet you.” She smiled sweetly. “He’s really nice. Besides, you need to get out more, meet some people. All you do is study all day.”

  I opened my mouth to defend myself, to tell her I was perfectly happy with the way things were. I came here to study, not “meet new people.” But before I could say anything, she waved to someone behind me. I turned to look.

  He had a crew cut and what I’d come to recognize as a football player’s neck—as wide as it was long. He looked like a bodybuilder. I edged away.

  “Chris,” Payton said. “You found us. Grab a chair.”

  Chris, all two hundred and twenty pounds of him, obeyed her like a lamb.

  “Chris, this is my roommate, Maya.”

  He sized me up and seemed slightly surprised by what he saw.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said in an unexpectedly high voice.

  “Hi,” I said. We shook hands. It was awkward.

  I thought that Payton would leave us, inventing some meeting she had to rush to, but I underestimated her. She stayed with us, helping the conversation along when it faltered, charging ahead by herself when neither Chris nor I could think of a single thing to say. He seemed too embarrassed to ask me much of anything, and I was infected by his shyness and couldn’t think of anything I might want to know about him.

  By the end, though, Payton was victorious. She got him to tell us about enlisting in the marines, about his girlfriend and his folks, who lived in Blacksburg, Virginia.

  “The marines are paying for this,” he said. “They might even pay for law school.”

  “I wish my army would pay for this,” I said. “They barely paid enough to buy food.”

  “Really?”

  I shrugged. “It’s different there, not like here. The army’s just something everyone does after high school, it’s no big deal.”

  “I wouldn’t say it’s a big deal here,” he said. “But I did get a pretty sweet deal.”

  “Chris has been stationed in Japan,” Payton said, nudging him. Chris obliged her and told us some stories about his six-month stint on Okinawa.

  In the end, somehow, Payton arranged for Chris and me to start running together on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

  As we walked back to our dorm room, I looked at her bemusedly.

  “Are you always like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like a brigadier general, marshaling everything and everyone to do what you want them to do?”

  “What?” She threw an almost perfectly innocent look my way. “I surely don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Deny it if you want to, but I know what you did back there.”

  “I don’t—” she began, and then sighed. “You should get out more … you’re like a hermit in our room.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, no.” She touched my shoulder. “I don’t mean it in a bad way. I was imagining what it must be like to be in a strange place and I wanted to help out. Maya, you’re not angry, right?”

  Some days I felt like I could be Payton’s mother, she was that young and naive.

  “No, Payton,” I said quietly. “I’m not angry with you at all.”

  Two weeks into classes, my huge history seminar was divided into smaller sections, each with a graduate student as its leader. In the section, we’d discuss points brought up during the lecture and each hand in three essays and one longish paper on a topic to be assigned.

  I walked into the smaller classroom and found a seat in the far corner with my back to the wall. I studied the students filing in. Most were not first-years, as freshmen here were called, which was good, since hanging around eighteen-year-olds made me feel old and used up. On the other hand, it meant that these students had more experience with this sort of discussion, and I wondered if I would get my butt kicked on the grading. Every time I said anything, my accent gave me away: I didn’t belong here.

  They all settled down in their seats, hauling out notebooks and textbooks and looking prepared to defend their theses. Two minutes before class began, in walked our fearless leader, the graduate student who would lead us down the path of right conclusions and critical thinking.

  At first I thought that maybe all graduate students looked alike, bought their clothes at the same shabby-yuppie store, had the same careless haircut that flopped over their eyes. But as he opened up his satchel, brought out the class textbook, and looked at us, I realized that he wasn’t a carbon copy. He was the same guy in the coffee shop from four weeks ago. What was his name?

  “Justin Case,” he said. I nearly jumped. Just in case what? I wanted to ask. “I’ll be your section leader. Let’s have everyone go around and introduce ourselves. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together, we might as well know each other’s names.” He had a very smooth way of talking, comfortable in front of the class. I had a feeling he’d be a good instructor.

  We all said our names, one by one. I hadn’t done this since my parents sent me to sleep-away scout camp the summer after sixth grade. At least I didn’t need to think of an animal that starts with the same first letter of my name. Maya monkey. Maya manatee. Maya mamba snake. Deadly, poisonous, and fast.

  “Maya Laor,” I said. He hadn’t noticed me until then. His eyes widened slightly. He remembered me.

  He handed out a schedule for the semester: due dates for papers, office hours, discussion topics in the upcoming weeks. Then he discussed what he expected from us and what we could expect from the class.

  After class ended, I gathered my notes. On my way out, he called my name.

  “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

  The other students shuffling out the door looked at me curiously. I wondered if they’d noticed anything during class. There was something about Justin. I kept looking at him, analyzing, trying to figure out what it was about him that both irritated and fascinated me. He had one of the most perfect faces I’d ever seen on a man. Straight, narrow nose, perfectly centered between gray eyes and above firm lips. I was more than a little disturbed by the thought that I wondered what it would be like to kiss him. I walked over to his desk feeling slightly ill.

  “This is a surprise.”

  “Right. Small world.”

  “You said you were from Greenland, wasn’t it? Settling in okay?”

  I studied him closely. His face seemed open, his question friendly, but there was that glint of amusement that told me he wasn’t buying any of it.

  “I’m fine.”

  Pause. I knew I was being a bitch. I didn’t know why.

  “What year are you?” he asked. Maybe I wasn’t the only one in the grip of an uneasy fascination.

  “First.” I tried to keep my face blank, but it was hard. He clearly wanted to keep asking questions, but good manners prevented him. “I’m not eighteen, if that’s what you were wondering.”

  He saw I was laughing at him. He smiled. He had a nice smile.

  “Somehow I didn’t think you were fresh out of high school.”

  “Nope, I’m fresh out of the army.”

  “The army?” he said. “In Greenland? I didn’t realize they had an army.”

  “Doesn’t everyone have one?”

  Then he smiled again, and I smiled back before I realized it.

  “Welcome back to the civilian world.” He rose from his seat, and again I was struck by how tall he was. He was one of those people you didn’t realize were big until they stood near you. I took a small step back. “I’m glad to have you in my section. I think you’ll be able to bring in a different perspective that will make the class much more interesting. Obviously the military has played an extremely important role in the history of the
twentieth century.” He zipped up his bag and put on the strap diagonally across his chest. “It’ll be interesting to have a former soldier sharing her opinions.”

  “Yeah,” I said, eloquent as ever.

  We walked out of the room together.

  That night, I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept thinking about Dov. I thought about the first time we kissed, sitting on a blanket near his father’s jeep in that dusty field. My heart hammering under my shirt, wondering if he could see it leap, it felt so wild. I could picture him clearly with that half-grin of his. I could hear his voice. How could he be gone? It seemed impossible, a stupid joke that I shouldn’t fall for.

  I listened to Payton breathe. She was almost invisible under her sky-blue bedspread. Only the top of her head showed, resting on a white pillow that nearly glowed in the dark room.

  Finally I got up, pulled on a pair of jeans, and tucked in the large T-shirt I slept in. I grabbed my sandals and crept out of the room.

  I walked for nearly two hours, aimlessly. It was a warm night, but cool enough to be comfortable. I tried to pick out the Big Dipper or the Summer Swan, but the sky was hazy and the clouds kept shifting. The stars were the same as in Israel, the same constellations I once pointed out to Dov, but I couldn’t see them. There was nothing here from home for me to hold on to. Home felt light years away. Looking at the ground as I walked, I couldn’t make out the sidewalk. There was only darkness under my feet.

  I picked up my pace, nearly running through the dark and quiet streets. I thought these memories would fade once I got here. I thought they would diminish once classes began. But they hadn’t. They were still here with me.

  I was beginning to think they would always be with me, wherever I went, whatever I did.

  Chapter Four

  ISRAEL

  I finished my one-week course in office administration, and I wasn’t terribly surprised when I received my assignment. Whether Aunt Hen had pulled strings or whether it was just good luck, I was assigned to Rishon Lezion, a large base near Tel Aviv.

  Once I moved into Hen’s apartment, I quickly discovered that she was rarely there. I would catch a quick glimpse of her in the morning swallowing the last of her coffee and rushing out the door, and then I wouldn’t see her until late at night. She saw many of her clients at dinner, and afterward she returned to the office to work on what they had discussed, which meant she usually didn’t come home until nine or ten.