You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

“Is that the Dead Sea?” Tovah asks, pointing to a photo of the two of them in bathing suits, covered with mud.

“Yep. You have to go to Israel, Tovah. You too, Adina.” He adds this almost as an afterthought. “It’s incredible. All the history. The culture. The food. I feel like I really belong there, you know?”

The phone gets passed to Ima. “He yafa me’od. She’s beautiful. When is the wedding?”

“Next fall. We’re thinking it’ll be back in the States.”

&nbs

p; “Is she Israeli?” Ima asks.

Eitan pauses. “No,” he says slowly. “She’s from Dallas.” What he doesn’t say is: You just asked me that. Don’t you remember?

“I can’t wait,” Ima says, not noticing the awkward silence in the room. She lifts my hand from my tights. “Adina’le, leave them alone.”

I steal a sliver of red pepper so my fingers have something less destructive to do.

We spend dinner learning more about Suh-rah and Eitan’s work in Israel, and Tovah talks about school and everyone expresses sympathy yet hope about her deferral, and when prompted, I tell everyone I have been invited to a total of three auditions, all on the East Coast, and we’ve booked plane tickets for the first week of March. Ima was supposed to go with me, and even though I insisted I could go alone, it is Aba who is taking time off work to accompany me.

After a while, as the two sets of parents fill and refill their glasses of wine—except for Ima, who cannot drink alcohol with her medications—I wander back to the living room, carrying my own glass. Through the bay window, Seattle glows in the distance.

“Can I sit here?” Eitan’s in the doorway. His presence is tremendous. I don’t remember him being quite this tall.

“It’s your house.”

He takes a seat on the couch opposite me, putting plenty of space between us. I’m sweating, and I hope to God I’m not blushing. I haven’t been alone with him in two years, and that time, I wasn’t wearing anything at all. Tonight my dress feels too tight, too hot, not enough of a shield.

“Look,” he says, “I don’t want things to be . . . strange between us.”

“They’re not,” I lie quickly.

“You’ve barely looked at me twice tonight.”

“Same with you.”

He waits a few beats, then says, “Okay. You’re right.” He drags his index finger up the stem of his wineglass. “How . . . are you?”

“I guess you heard from your mom.”

He nods, reaches for my shoulder as though to comfort me, but I stare at his hand as if it is an alien claw, and he draws it away before he can touch me.

I say, “I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Sure. I understand.”

Rest-two-three-four, rest-two-three-four. I check my phone for a message from Arjun, but there’s nothing to rescue me from this conversation.

“Sarah sounds nice.” I pronounce it Sair-uh.

“She is.”

A different cat, an albino with red eyes, stalks into the room and rubs up against Eitan’s socks. He strokes down the cat’s spine, up its tail. Aba is allergic to any animals you’d want to keep as a pet, so we’ve never had them. But I love cats. I love their sleek coats and dainty paws. When I live on my own, I will get a cat.

It might even keep me company in my final days.

“Hello there, Tobias,” Eitan says to the cat. “Are you . . . ? Are you seeing anyone?” he asks me.

“Yes. I am.” What I want is say is that I’m seeing someone older, and he understands me much better than Eitan ever did. I want to win at the ex game.