congratulations on your future engagement

(cautionary note: as they say on noggin, that famed preschooler network, 'this is me, this is me; this is me and my energy.' this post reveals more about me than perhaps is wise, and i debated whether to leave it up. in the end i decided to keep it because i think even an emotion that is unworthy or unbecoming of us is still legitimate. still, reader discretion is advised.)


a girl from high school called me up today, while i was studying for a jewish history midterm on my bed.

i saw the number and did a double take - we hadn't spoken more than a word or two in passing in almost three years. not that we fell out or anything; she was the kind of girl i used to stay up all night talking to on shabbatons, that i would write long, long six-part letters in sticky notes to during class. she was one of the few girls i used to give my poetry to in high school (miraculously, she survived). in many ways, she had been my guide.

"perel!" she clicked when i answered the phone. "tell me everything about life. tell me about school. tell me about work. i'm soooooo bad for not calling you..."

this took me by surprise. it's my experience that a person calling you for the first time in three years generally has a good reason. and truthfully, i didn't begrudge her either the absence or the call. it was as much my fault as hers that i hadn't made an effort to keep up with her, and it hadn't even bothered me as much as i might have thought it would; hers was a friendship which shaped my high school years, but seemed sort of anchorless without the common ground of high school and shared experience to hold us together. and i knew how awkward it can be to need something from someone you haven't spoken to in awhile. still, i warmed to the sound of her voice, falling into our old conversational patterns like i hadn't yet left for stern.

eventually, as i ultimately knew it was bound to, our talk moved toward our engaged classmates. she was buzzy with excitement. "can you believe it?" she breathed over the phone. "one girl's wedding this week, and just last week another girl got engaged! doesn't it blow your mind?"

i had to confess that it did not blow my mind. like most beis yaakov (or wannabe beis yaakov) girls, we had had a running bet in my class who was going to get married first. the two currently engaged had been in my top two; therefore i considered myself to 2 and nothing. i asked her how she felt about it.

"happy and excited," she replied promptly. "excited out of my mind. how about you?"

i hesitated. and then, i think, i proceeded to make a series of mistakes.

we had been talking for a little while by this point, and i was so glad to be speaking to her again. she is a very sweet and forgiving person, and in high school she always managed to draw my confusion and objections out of me through long, delicate probing. i hadn't been a person to speak my mind, but to skulk off quietly on the edge of the field at recess, i think because even i didn't always understand what was bothering me. and she would take me by the hand and patiently lead me back to the circle where the other girls were sitting, cross-legged, picking dandelions and grass and talking.

so, forgetting the three years that separated us, i said, "i feel like it's happening too quickly."

there was a frown in her voice. "happening too quickly? what do you mean, happening too quickly?"

i said in a rush: "well i know that they're very capable girls and their parents checked the guys out and i'm sure they'll be happy and fine and everything, but you know, i just feel like there's so many layers to these girls and they're getting engaged to people after two weeks, how can they know..." i couldn't finish, unsure of where i was going. "don't you feel like it's a little sudden?" i asked lamely.

"no," she said, her voice surprisingly firm. "i don't think it's sudden at all. that's the way they do it. it's very chok-chok."

"yeah..."

"i mean, it makes more sense to do it this way. in the old days that's how they did it. the parents check them out very thoroughly and make sure it's going to line up, but it isn't like it's emotional or anything, that it has to take months. you find out if it's going to work and there isn't all this time wasting. if you're worried that he doesn't know the girl - it will be a pleasant surprise for that lucky chusun, that's all." she sounded stricken. "it's logical, perel. don't you remember how that girl used to turn around to us in class and always say how much easier it was in the old days? it isn't about emotion."

i could have kicked myself. i knew this already. the lectures came back to me over her voice; long afternoons of married teachers intoning: 'what ruins american marriages today? disneyland. everyone thinks they're going to have a marriage like disneyland, like hollywood in the movies. marriage is not about disneyland. that's why when you make shidduchim...'

and suddenly it hit me: the girl on the phone was completely right. my classmates didn't need to date forever, because they were not waiting to 'fall in love' with someone. ('fall in love', i remembered one of my teachers enunciating contemptously. 'does that sound like the way G-d would want you to plan your future? where's the intelligence in that?') these girls getting married didn't need to love their husbands at the onset. so four weeks or six weeks, what did it matter? it wasn't so much about the individual for them as what he represented and what he had the potential to be.

blinking, disconcerted, i resettled the phone on my shoulder and stared at my reflection in the mirror on the back of my bathroom door: sweatshirt, pajama skirt, notes spread out over the floor, desk and bed. "yeah," i said vaguely. "i guess you're right."

there was a hint of dissatisfaction now in the girl's voice as she spoke, a little bit of distance, as though she too was unsettled by my non-ecstastic reaction, but she went on bravely anyway. "on a related note, i was talking to one of the other girls and we think that it would be a great idea for the whole class to do something nice for each bride. you know, like to have a gift from the whole class for everyone. like a little tehillim or something. don't you think that would be sweet?"

i shrugged. "yeah, that sounds like a good idea."

"right. i was checking up the prices on eichlers...it comes to about twenty-four dollars a person. you don't think that's too much, do you?"

feeling cheap, i said, "it depends. if that's the only thing i'm getting them, then no, i don't think so. if i was going to bring them another gift it might be a little high."

"no no no. i don't mean twenty-four dollars every time. i mean twenty-four dollars TOTAL. the way i figure it is like this. there's twelve of us, right? and each tehillim costs thirty-six dollars. but if we buy all twelve of them at the same time, we get a discount, and each tehillim will only be twenty-four dollars. then it would come to two dollars per girl, or twenty-four for everyone."

i have never been good at math, and part of me started thinking at this point, 'ok, so roughly the price it would cost if each girl went and bought her own tehillim.' but slowly i zeroed in on what i really wasn't getting. "so...you want to buy twelve sets of tehillim now?"

"yes. preferably this week."

"so...we'll have them before people get engaged," i said, trying to keep up.

"exactly." she sounded relieved. "because you know how impossible it would be to try and keep track of it for every single girl once you have kids and a house to run. it would just be impossible, perel. and you know what would happen, would be the girls who got married last would have nothing done for them, and we just didn't think that was very nice."

i sat on my bed, staring at my reflection.

why is it that everything keeps feeling like middle school? aren't experiences supposed to widen and deepen as you get older? yet somehow even vast, life-forming things like marriages sound and feel the same as surprise birthday parties or class ditch days to me. sitting on the pine needles while the other girls danced around our measly bonfire on lag b'omer, watching them, transfixed, wanting to be part of their dance, knowing i would only embarrass myself. the girl on the phone came over to me and tugged me up that day.

"come on, perel," she said, a mischevious glint in her eye. "we can't dance unless it's the whole class."

"i don't know how to dance," i said, smiling apologetically.

she waved a hand dimissively. "well then we'll have to teach you, won't we?"

and for the rest of the night she stood with me, gluing my eyes to a line, illustrating with such patience and kindness how to move your feet over and across and from side to side. for hours the two of us away from the dancing, her moving so gracefully, my attempts to imitate her completely fruitless. "i can't do it," i said at the end. "i guess my body just doesn't move that way."

"it does," she insisted. "one day you'll get it. you'll see."

i look the same now as i did then. i don't know if it's because i haven't changed much, or if it's because it simply hasn't been that long. four years, five years. her voice sounds the same; it has that same warm lightness.

and it's like her to think of those outside the circle. why does it have to sound so much like the last girls picked for machanayim? there you could find me, standing awkwardly alone between the two huddles of girls, gawky and tall in my slumpy turtleneck and pleated skirt. did you befriend me out of pity? a part of me wonders, but i feel ashamed. it is kindness to think of others. it doesn't have to be pity.

her conspirational whisper, next to me in the grass: "we're all going to donate two dollars for this girl's surprise birthday party. you know, the summer birthdays. it's not fair, they never get parties, so they're never going to be expecting it. we'll spell it out in her english binder." an elbow in the ribs. "don't you think that's a good idea?"

yes. yeah, that'll be fun. that's a great idea.

twelve sets of tehillim, waiting in the basement! waiting for the day! isn't that a good idea? waiting for--

no.

no, it isn't.

"i don't think so," i said. "i don't think it's a good idea."

distracted. "what do you mean, it isn't a good idea? what's the matter with it?"

"why don't we do it as the occasion arises. i like getting everyone a tehillim, i think that's nice, but you know. there's no need to buy twelve of them now. why don't we buy for the two girls who are already engaged, and as other girls get engaged, we'll buy some for them."

"but do you think that we should all have to pay twelve dollars a person more now, and have to collect the money again every time?" she asked patiently. "that's not an easy thing to do. people are going to have kids..."

"we'll worry about the kids when we get there. but you don't know how long it's going to be. maybe i'm a little superstitious, i don't know what it is. i just don't like the idea of having them pre-bought, sitting there, waiting for something which...which might be a long time in coming for some girls..."

i realized at this point that i should not say the rest of what i was thinking. but i had already said enough. for the first time, the voice on the other end of the phone was completely silent.

when she spoke again, it was subdued, almost chilly. "perel," she said, "you are my friend, and you know i respect your opinion and i'm always interested to know what you think. but i don't understand...i don't understand why you are so negative about this. aren't you happy that they're getting married? it's something to be happy about, not worried. it seems silly to wait to buy every set of tehillim separately when it's going to cost more. i don't understand why you're...saying the things you're saying. what are you so afraid of? we're all going to get married sooner or later, right?"

we said our goodbyes, made arrangements for the money, and hung up our phones. business concluded. my studying lay across my lap, waiting sadly for me to attend to it. but i was still staring at the mirror on the door, the smooth feel of my phone between my fingers.

i could almost see her if i squinted, reaching down to me in the firelight, pulling me up, the smile on her face. explain it to me. teach me the song they're all singing. no, i can't strum to that. i don't know the tune.

we're all going to get married sooner or later, right?

i couldn't bring myself to say it, even though the words were so loud in my head:

but what if we don't?