"So put it up in a ponytail, like I do. Then it would be out of your face and nobody would notice any imperfections."
"Great idea, but I don't look good with my hair in a ponytail. Right, Miranda?"
Miranda grunts an unintelligible answer. What's up with that? Is happy-go-lucky Miranda actually upset about something? Maybe she's hungry.
"Why do you have to look good all the time?" New York Girl asks.
That's a really tough question. I thought about it once. The thing about my life is that I've never had control over it. I was... how can I put it nicely... I was a mistake. My mom and dad met in college, got together one night, and oops! My mom was pregnant.
As much as I prayed for them to get married, they never did. It probably shouldn't have affected me as much as it has, but you never know what's going to be the "thing" in your life that defines you (or the thing you should talk to a therapist about at length). I didn't even have a relationship with my dad until a year ago, when he took me to Israel for the first time.
My looks... my image... I guess that's the only thing I can control. God knows I haven't been able to control the people in my family. And today just proved that I can't control my boyfriend. Yes, I admit I have control issues.
The New York girl has her hair in such a tight ponytail her eyes look like they're being pinned back. And she actually bought black military steel-toed boots for this trip. The closest thing I have to that are my cherry red high-tops.
She is still waiting patiently for an answer. I should tell her the truth. But I don't, because little white lies are in that gray area of life I live in. Even if the military doesn't have any gray areas, I still do.
I tell a little white lie. "I want to look good to impress Nathan."
"The blond guy who played the guitar on the bus ride to the base?"
I point excitedly at my nose, as if I'm playing charades. "That's the one!"
"But rumors are going around that you're dating that Israeli commando guy who was your team leader today."
I go back to straightening my hair. "We dated a little, but it was casual."
Now that's not a little white lie. That's a big, honkin' lie. My relationship with Avi isn't casual at all!
I used to imagine our wedding. We'd get married on the moshav our families live on in the Golan Heights (I'd make sure it was far from the farm animals, so the poop stench wouldn't drive guests away). I'd wear a white, flowing wedding gown and Avi would be in a casual, light-colored suit. We wouldn't be able to take our eyes off each other as the rabbi performed the ceremony, and I'd circle him seven times in the traditional Jewish way. Our love would last forever and ever; we'd share our deepest darkest thoughts, and nothing could break the bond between us.
Yes, it's totally corny. But that's my fantasy.
I even had our kids' names picked out. We'd have four kids and none would be a mistake like I was. We'd have two boys and two girls, of course--remember, this is still my fantasy--and they would be named Micha (after Avi s brother who died, because Jewish people don't name their kids after living people, only dead people, which is weird to me, but whatever), Golan (where Avi was born), Maya (which means "water" and that's something you can't live without), and Abigail (which means "leader of joy"; I didn't grow up with joy and want our children to grow up with it).
Of course, now, my fantasy is totally ruined.
As I'm doing my hair, a bee starts buzzing in my ear and I seriously almost burn myself with my flat iron.
"Go away!" I tell the bee, as if it speaks English and can understand me. It won't leave me and my hair alone. It's as if the nasty little buzzer wants to build a nest in my hair.
No buzzing insect is getting near my hair if I have anything to say about it. "Go away!" I tell it again, swatting at it with my flat iron, hoping to scare it away. No such luck. I'm not thinking, just relying on a self-protective instinct, and I clamp the hot ceramic plates together when the bee gets too close. Eww! I've trapped the bee inside my flat iron.
The good news: the bee will never bother me again. The little buzzer, shall we say, is toast.
The very bad news: I have hot bee guts stuck on my hot flat-iron plates. Yuck! It even smells like burnt bee. I unplug the flat iron so the plates will cool off.
Tori scrunches her face up after seeing the corpse stuck to my flat-iron plates. "That's not very green of you, Amy."
"Umm...for your information, being green means helping the environment." According to my "green" standards, I just saved the other animals from getting stung, thus helping the environment.
"Bees are part of the environment, Amy," Tori says with a snotty attitude. "These are just worker bees anyway. Worker bees don't sting."
They don't? I thought all bees sting. But Tori sounds really convincing, as if she's a bee expert, like she knows for a fact that these bees are harmless. I feel stupid that I don't know that little fact. I look at my flat iron again, totally grossed out, knowing that I'll have to scrape the bee guts off the thing once it cools off.
And I'm still stuck with my half-curly/half-straight hair.
If anything goes right on this trip, it'll be a miracle. I'm praying for it, because if miracles are going to happen I'd think God would want to start in the Holy Land. Right?
Ronit walks in the room for her inspection and I gather up my stuffand head to my bunk. After shoving everything into my suitcase, and placing the hot flat iron in between the towels in my cubby, I stand in front of my bunk at attention like everyone else.
Ronit, with her hands behind her back, walks up to each bed, nodding or shaking her head. She gives little comments to each of us on how we can improve. She even orders one of the girls to re-make her bed. Afterward, when she has nodded to all the beds (which I guess is the equivalent of giving it her kosher blessing), we head to the courtyard to once again get in formation.
"Amy, step out of formation. It's your turn to guard the bittan." She points to a gray metal folding chair in front of our barracks.
I step out of formation. The hot sun beats down on the chair, the one I'm supposed to sit on to guard our valuables. Seriously, who'd be dumb enough to steal stuff on an army base?
I swear there's no shade in this place so we're at the mercy of the blistering sun. I'm so hot that if I had SPF 50 on I'd be tempted to put on my bikini and lay out. How do the Israeli soldiers deal with living here in this heat, forced to wear long sleeves and long pants?
As my unit marches to lunch, I place the chair in the open doorway, out of the sun, thinking about Israeli teens and their mandatory military service. The Israeli teens don't seem to resent being soldiers. I think for some weird reason they look forward to putting on uniforms every day.
Fifteen minutes later, a soldier I've never seen before walks up to me holding a cafeteria tray with food on it. He's medium height with a round face and a friendly smile. Right about now a friendly smile is definitely welcome.
"Shalom? I say when he comes closer.
"You can speak English with me. I'm American, born and raised in Colorado. My name's Noah. I already know you're Amy --from Chicago."
Wait. Noah is American? But I thought he was a fullfledged soldier. He's dressed in a full IDF uniform with his last name in Hebrew on the front of his shirt. He also has a badge hanging off his shoulder with the logo of a military unit on one side and his rank on the other. None of the Americans on our Sababa trip have their last names sewn on their shirts, let alone a unit badge. Our shirts are totally blank. But he's not on our trip.
The guy is a poser; what's up with that? "I'm sure the soldier whose shirt you're wearing is looking for it."
The guy looks down at the Hebrew on the shirt. "This is my shirt." His smile broadens. "Phew. You had me worried there for a second."
"How'd you get them to put your name on it?" I notice he also has his own army boots, just like Avis. Maybe he won a ditch-digging contest and the prize was his own personalized IDF uniform. "And how'd you get someone to give you their unit badge?"
"They kinda gave me the shirt and badge, along with the boots and inoculations when I enlisted."
"What do you mean by 'enlisted'?"
"I'm an Israeli soldier."
Before he'd opened his mouth and spoken perfect English without an accent, I'd assumed he was an Israeli soldier. He looks like one, and now I notice his rifle, but... "But you're American."
"I'm also Jewish. I came here after high school and volunteered for the IDF. I felt a connection to Israel and wanted to do my part to help my fellow Jews."
Gosh, that's admirable. Before now, I never heard of a Jewish American just coming over here and enlisting in the Israeli military. On purpose.
"Do you know Hebrew?" I ask, getting more curious.
"I know a lot more Hebrew now than when I first came here a year ago. You learn pretty quick when you have to." He hands me the tray of food. "Here, eat. Before it gets cold."
The food on the tray consists of a glass of water (with no ice), chicken (dark-meat legs, once again), mushrooms, and rice. Two bees have decided to hover around my food, which is totally annoying. But now that Tori told me worker bees don't sting, I'm not afraid like I was before.
"Thanks. I'm starving." I'm too hungry to care that I'll be eating greasy dark meat instead of white breast meat. I chew whatever's attached to the chicken bone as if it's my last meal on earth.
Noah sits against the door jamb and watches me eat.
"I thought IDF guys and Sababa teens can't be together alone."
"We're not alone," Noah says, pointing to the guard sitting at the entrance to the barracks across the courtyard.
"I'm the official guard," I tell him as I take a drink of warm water to wash down the food. "If you want to steal stuff, my job is to stop you. Although you have a gun and I don't, so feel free to pilfer whatever you want."
"I'm not here to steal stuff." Noah looks embarrassed as he places his rifle over his knees. "Gefen told me to come talk to you."
As I hear my boyfriend's last name, I almost choke on the slippery piece of dark meat or gristle or fat or skin or whatever greasy thing I'm trying to swallow. "Gefen who?"
"Avi Gefen."
"Oh, him." I say, as if Avi isn't on my mind 24/7. "What did he want you to talk to me about?"
"He kinda wanted me to give you a message."
"And he couldn't do that himself because... ?"
"Um, yeah. I think he said it had something to do with being afraid you'd break up with him before you hear him out. And maybe you'll listen to what he wants to tell you if it comes from someone else." Noah puts his hand up when I try to respond. "But don't quote me verbatim on that. I may have gotten a few words mixed up in the translation."
I point my half-eaten chicken leg at Noah. "You go tell Avi that we've already broken up, that I'm dating Nathan, and that if he's got something to say to me, be man enough to say it to my face. I don't want to hear things secondhand from a middleman."
"He doesn't believe you're dating whoever this guy Nathan is."
"Is he kidding? Nathan and I are..." I pick up the other uneaten chicken leg and hold it next to my half-eaten one. "Nathan and I are like this. Two chicken legs in a pod."
