You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

“I love this.” The awe in Adi’s voice is clear. “I didn’t know this was your scene.”

“It’s not. But this is about you. Not me. They do an open mic night once a month, and tonight is that once a month.”

“I’m . . . playing?” she asks, finally connecting all the pieces. “I can’t do it without my viola.”

“I planned ahead.” I dig a scrap of paper from my purse and hand it to the coat check, who returns with Adi’s viola case. She stares at it, her mouth ajar.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks. “How did you know I’d go along with it?”

“I know how much you like being the center of attention.”

“Ha-ha.” Her lips wobble like she’s struggling not to smile. At last one corner bends upward. Soon I’m copying her.

“I wanted you to have your chance to be a soloist,” I say. “To be the only person onstage. To have everyone watching only you, listening to your music.”

While I’m not sure what my future holds, I know I have so many opportunities for a spotlight of my own.

Adi bites down on her red-lipsticked lip, as though trying to keep whatever emotion she’s feeling from spilling out. “I don’t even know what to say,” she says. “I guess I don’t owe you, but it feels like I do. Todah. Todah rabah.”

A host approaches us. “Your table is ready, Miss Siegel,” he says, and Adina raises her eyebrows at me, trying not to laugh at the forced formality.

He shows us to a table to the left of the stage, and we order virgin mojitos.

“Now your lipstick is smudged,” I tell her as we sip our drinks.

She shrugs. “Eh, whatever.”

When the pianist finishes with a flourish, the emcee calls Adina to the stage for her viola solo.

“Make me proud, Adi,” I say, and she rolls her eyes, but her hand grazes my shoulder as she heads for the stage.

Our relationship probably won’t ever be what it was before we started growing into our own skin. Before we hurt each other. Before the world hurt us. Maybe we’ll never fully understand each other or know all of each other’s secrets, and surely we’ll never recapture our childhood innocence. But we can have something new. Something messy and real and imperfect, because that’s what both of us are.

Adi raises her bow, and I let myself sink into her music. It’s been a while since I really listened to her. When she was little, she hauled out her music stand and performed for our family all the time. But over the past few years, she’s kept the music locked in her room. I think it’s because I used to complain about how annoying it was. Sure, the music’s not my favorite. It’s not catchy, and it’s definitely not Nirvana, but I can’t remember why I claimed to hate it so much.

A single buttery light illuminates her and only her.

She glows.

Summer

Thirty-nine

Tovah

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN my life, I tumble headfirst into uncertainty. The last summer before college stretches before me, and I’m not scrambling to add anything to my résumé. I have zero obligations. Nothing to do.

I kind of love it.

This year I’ll live at home and begin college as an undeclared freshman. I don’t need to be one hundred percent certain what I want to do with the rest of my life now, and it’s okay if it’s biology and it’s okay if it isn’t. There are so many things I want to try that I can’t believe I almost narrowed myself to just biology. I did place into a lab class, one of the prerequisites, but I’m also planning to take Introduction to Jewish Studies, History of the Olympics, and Anthropology of the Middle East.

Unlike Adi, Lindsay doesn’t seem to think whatever happened between us this year is worth talking about. Maybe it’s because I have my sister back, but I’m not as heartbroken about it as I thought I would be. Lindsay and I were not the best friends I assumed we were, and while I may never understand why, I do know I tried too hard to force her into an Adina-shaped space.

I see her one last time after graduation, at a beach party I go to with Zack and Adi. Adi is dipping her toes into the water, and Zack and Troy are playing volleyball with a big group, and somehow I find myself alone next to Lindsay by the likely illegal bonfire.

“Hey,” Lindsay says, lifting her hand to wave. Her sweatshirt sleeves are pulled over her hands.

“You were a shitty friend to me this year,” I say.