"Jennifer Aniston and Shabbat"

Our homosexuality discussion having run its course, we are now flipping through Seventeen magazines in Meeka’s bedroom and this is more than fine with me as I prefer reading about Jennifer Aniston’s new haircut to seeing Meeka’s sour face. Unfortunately, the light in Meeka’s eyes quickly died once our gay-theory discourse ended.


I still haven’t found the nerve to tell Sam that I’m getting a job at the Quick-n-Save. But looking at the sleek cut of Jennifer Aniston’s hair I already know where my first paycheck is going: expensive hair products. I grab a notebook and pen from my backpack and write down the five different tools that were used to make the Friends’ star have silky, smooth hair. Meeka sees what I’m doing and sneers. But she keeps sneaking looks at the magazine. I know that she is trying to remember it so she can study Aniston’s beauty secrets after I leave. Her hair is a dark, coarser version of mine and the only reason it seems to behave is because there’s a ton more of it, flowing down to her butt or wound tight in a skin-stretching ponytail or bun. Her sneer is all about her foul mood and has nothing to do with Aniston’s hair care.


I do not need Meeka’s fuming silence to keep me company. But when I grab my backpack and tell her I’m leaving, she looks at me like my mother looks at a thunderstorm—all clenched and bug-eyed.


“Look, I’m sorry.” She pushes her hands against her face.


I know she is upset about Granny Pearl, about her flat chest, and about her being fourteen with no menstrual period to date. But I’ve got old lady boobs, a dead father and a potentially gay brother to deal with and there isn’t any smoke coming out of my ears.


“You know you might have PMS and not know it,” I say.


She tilts her head to the side and I can see the wheels turning in her head. A smile cracks her hard face, and just as quickly disappears, so I wonder if I’ve imagined it. “No, this is definitely not about any PMS.”


“Then what is it? Your mother’s not giving you—”


“Don’t even mention that Sucuyant!” If Meeka’s eyes were a knife, I’d be a bloody carcass right about now. Her breath is fast and unsteady.


“Okay,” I say, my backpack frozen on my shoulders. I am too afraid to move, too frightened to discover what invisible line I’ve crossed this time.


But there are footsteps heading closer to Meeka’s closed door. They are clicking steps, the kind made by high-heeled shoes. They are nothing like the squeaky sound Julie’s nurse shoes make or the slow swish-tap-swish of Granny Pearl’s slippers and walker against the marble floor.


Meeka sits up straighter when she hears the confident strides. It is an unconscious move, like the way my mother still reaches for gum at the Quick-n-Save before she retracts her hand, remembering. Both are painful to watch.


“Speak of the devil,” Meeka says. She hunches her shoulders over, trying to remember.


Mrs. Jones opens the door to Meeka’s room without knocking first. “Shalom!” she sings and looks down at the two of us like she expects us to clap. Two over-sized Bloomingdale’s bags are held in her bejeweled hands. She drops these on the floor beside me and sits on Meeka’s bed so that if I don’t move, my butt will be in her face.


“Shalom, it’s what you Jewish people say to each other, right?” Mrs. Jones asks in a tone reserved for the hard of hearing.