My Last Innocent Year: A Novel

1

IT’S hard to say how I ended up in Zev Neman’s dorm room the night before winter break. It was a bitter night—December in New Hampshire—and on our way back from the library we’d been arguing, this time about whether windchill was a legitimate meteorological phenomenon, as Zev believed, or a ruse cooked up by weather executives to distract us from the threat of global warming.

Weather executives? Zev said. He had a light Israeli accent. Isabel. That’s not even a thing.

It is so, I said, stepping over a pile of dirty snow.

Zev stopped under a streetlight in front of his dorm and crossed his arms; his face was craggy in the shadows. I never took you for a conspiracy theorist. A left-wing agitator maybe, but conspiracy theorist? He shook his head.

But it’s worth considering, right? I tried to read his expression, but Zev was forever inscrutable. Wind blew my coat open, bit through my jeans to the skin.

Either way, it’s pretty fucking cold. He jerked his head. Want to come in?

I shrugged and followed him into the squat cinderblock building.

So I guess that’s how I ended up in Zev Neman’s room: he invited me and I didn’t say no.

Zev’s room, a single overlooking the river, was neat. Bed made, no clothes on the floor; it even smelled clean. Nothing like the other boy bedrooms I’d visited in my nearly four years at Wilder College. I attributed the cleanliness to Zev’s two years in the Israeli army defending the Jewish homeland—my homeland, as he liked to remind me. He threw off his parka and flopped on the bed. Books were piled on the only chair so I walked over and studied his bookshelf: economics textbooks, books in Hebrew, a couple of paperback thrillers thick as doorstops. I wanted to skip this part, the part where you wondered when the thing you’d come to a boy’s bedroom to do would start happening, when you could stop making small talk that only revealed all the ways this boy, any boy, would never understand you. To pass beyond language straight into touch.

I picked up a dog-eared copy of The Executioner’s Song. Next to it was a framed picture of a girl standing on a beach wearing a black bikini and mirrored sunglasses.

Who’s that?

Zev was tossing a Nerf basketball back and forth between his hands. My girlfriend, Yael, he said as if we’d just been speaking about her when in fact he’d never mentioned her, never mentioned having a girlfriend at all.

I picked up the picture. Yael was pretty. Beautiful actually. Long legs, olive skin, sun-kissed amber hair. I wondered if that’s what I might have looked like if my ancestors had made a left instead of a right on their way out of Russia. I was surprised Zev had a girlfriend, but I was more surprised she was so pretty. I glanced over at him stretched out across the bed and realized Yael gave him a currency he hadn’t had before.

How come you never told me about her?

Why? he asked. Are you jealous?

No, I said, placing the picture back on the shelf. What I felt wasn’t jealousy, more curiosity about how you became the kind of girl who let someone take your picture in a bathing suit. Or how you could have a girlfriend, a girlfriend like that, and never even mention it. If I had a boyfriend, I was certain I’d never stop talking about him.

Zev was still tossing the basketball between his hands, faster and faster without missing. Why would I tell you about her? he said. Besides, she’s there and I’m here, so. He aimed the ball at a hoop hanging over the back of his closet door. Score!

I looked out the window at the river glistening in the moonlight. It was the sort of thing you took for granted in college: a bedroom with a river view. I couldn’t explain to Zev why I thought it was strange he’d never mentioned Yael without making it sound like I cared, which I didn’t. Or maybe I did. Either way, I thought the whole point of having a girlfriend was so you didn’t have to do this anymore.

This. I was acutely aware of Zev’s presence: the rasp of his breath, the creak of the mattress as he shifted his weight. I ran the charm on my necklace back and forth along the chain and listened for a shift in his breathing or some other signal that he was about to touch me. After a minute or two, I heard him stand up and walk toward me, slow steps across the linoleum floor. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and there he was, his mouth hanging open slightly as if he had a stuffy nose. I held my breath as he clumsily leaned in and kissed me. I fell back into the bookshelf and heard Yael’s picture tumble to the floor.

I’m not sure what I thought was going to happen, or what I even wanted to happen. I was mainly relieved to know which way the night was going. I might have been as relieved if Zev had asked me to leave because he had a headache or had to study for a test, even if he had told me to get the fuck out. As I settled into kissing him, feeling his tongue probe the recesses of my mouth in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, I started thinking about what it would be like to fuck Zev Neman and if I even wanted to. I imagined telling versions of our origin story at future dinner parties. We met as freshmen but didn’t start dating until senior year, I would say, turning a glass of merlot thoughtfully around in my hands as Zev stroked my knee under the table. I thought about Yael, facedown on the floor by our feet, and wondered how she might fit into the narrative. Yael, the inconvenient girlfriend whose heart Zev had to break so he could find his way to me. Zev stuck his hand under my shirt. His tongue was still going, the dinner party beginning to fade. If I had any say in the story I would one day tell about myself—and, at twenty-one, I wasn’t sure I did—I didn’t know if this was how I wanted it to begin, or if the ending was something I wanted either.

It occurred to me then, as Zev squeezed my breast a little too hard, that I wasn’t sure what I was doing there. I’d come to Zev’s bedroom more out of curiosity and boredom than desire, because the library, where we’d bumped into each other, was closing early and I didn’t feel like going back to my room yet, and because, despite my strong opinions vis-à-vis windchill, it was pretty fucking cold out. In short, I’d wandered into this encounter the way you wander into a dark room: with one hand outstretched, feeling your way as you go, unable to see what’s on the walls or how exactly you might get out.

IT WAS STRANGE to think I’d known Zev longer than almost anyone at Wilder, longer even than Debra and Kelsey. We met on the first Friday of freshman year at a Shabbat dinner at Hillel House, the small beige building on the edge of campus where Wilder’s skeletal collection of Jews gathered. Like many elite colleges, Wilder had a long history of institutional anti-Semitism, as well as a more recent scandal involving fraternity brothers forcing a group of barefoot pledges in striped pajamas to carry heavy stones across the green. The Holocaust imagery was undeniable, and the incident attracted national attention. But things had settled down and, a few years back, a group of Jewish alumni raised the money to establish a Hillel House on campus, so Jewish parents were finally comfortable sending their children to Wilder. My father had had no such qualms; I’d spent my whole life around Jews and he wanted me to go to Wilder precisely so I could get away from them.

I went to the dinner with Sally Steinberg, of the Bethesda Steinbergs, whom I’d met earlier that week in a step aerobics class. Sally was the coddled only child of older parents who’d met at Brandeis, where they desperately wanted her to go, but Sally had insisted on Wilder. Her parents relented, as they did with everything, and as a prerequisite to enrollment, they’d made her promise to attend weekly Shabbat dinners.

Zev was there when we arrived, sitting at the long dining table. The rabbi, a young man wearing a Boston Red Sox yarmulke, introduced us, and Zev held out his hand. This was something people at Wilder did, I’d discovered, they shook hands, something I’d only ever done with adults, and rarely. Pleased to meet you, he said, taking Sally’s hand and then mine. His grip was strong, his fingers stained yellow at the tips.

Let me guess where you’re from, he said to me as girls in long skirts fluttered around us carrying handfuls of plastic silverware and jugs of grape juice. New York.

How’d you know?

He pointed at my scuffed Doc Martens. But you’re not an uptown girl. Not West Side either. Downtown?

Impressive. Lower East Side. He asked what my father did for a living—something else people at Wilder did—and I told him he owned an appetizing store.

An appetizing store? Really? Wow. I didn’t know Jews like you still existed.

Jews like what?

Jews who sell smoked fish and seeded ryes. I thought all those stores were gone.

A lot of them are gone, but there are still a few. I named them—Guss’ Pickles, Yonah Shimmel knishes, Kossar’s bialys, Russ & Daughters.

Cute, Zev said. Like something out of a Malamud novel. He reached for a piece of challah. So, what? Your father pinned all his hopes on you? Sent you here to fulfill his dream of upward mobility?

I didn’t know what to say. I’d never heard my father’s ambitions summed up so succinctly, or so crassly. Zev was looking at me like I was a unicorn but I couldn’t tell if it was wonder in his eyes or if he wanted to lure me closer to cut off my horn. Before I could answer, the rabbi began reciting the prayers welcoming in Shabbat.

Dinner was chaotic and long. There were many courses, each one interrupted by more prayers and candle lighting. The long-skirted girls, one of whom was the rabbi’s wife, cleared plates and poured seltzer while the rabbi’s two young sons ran around dressed like miniature actuaries. I hadn’t been around so many Jews since I got to Wilder; not that there were a lot of us—the room felt crowded mostly on account of it being small. Sprung loose from Scarsdale and Great Neck, the Jews of Wilder had to stick together. During dinner, I found out Zev was a freshman like me, but older because he’d spent those two years in the army. He was short and stocky with close-cropped black hair, and a nose that looked like it had been punched in. He’d been born in Iran, he told me, but moved to Israel as a child after the revolution. He smelled like cigarettes and body spray. We bonded mainly over our mutual disdain of everyone else, including Sally, who announced, loudly, that she’d come to the dinner because her mother told her it would be a good place to find a husband. (She would go home that night with the boy seated to her left, Gabe Feldman, whom she would indeed eventually marry.) Over the years, I would discover that Zev’s disdain for people extended to most everyone at Wilder, perhaps even to people in general, but that night, making fun of the people at Hillel House was the most fun I’d had since I arrived.

As the meal came to a close, one of the girls who was clearing dropped a stack of dirty plates. Mazel tov! Gabe shouted. Sally laughed. The girl looked like she was about to cry. I felt an instant kinship with her and moved to help, but Zev grabbed my wrist.

Don’t, he said. Let them do it. Stay and talk to me some more. His grip was strong, but I liked it, the press of it, the force. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at me with such intensity, or if anyone ever had. I sat back down and talked to him for the rest of the night.

Zev and I stayed friends after that, although friends might not have been the right word. Whenever we saw each other, in the dining hall or library, he would seek me out and we would talk, not about little things like what his parents did for a living or if he had a pet, but big things like politics, economics, God, the Middle East. Zev challenged me to articulate my beliefs, to explain why I was a feminist or a Democrat. I wasn’t a debater by nature and somewhere along the way had come to believe that what I felt, if it couldn’t be articulated or defended, was invalid. Maybe that’s why I thought I had to listen to Zev, who was clear in his beliefs and never wavered. When we talked, I could feel my mind stretching to take in this new worldview—his worldview—but mostly I was trying to figure out if he liked me, if he thought I was pretty, if he ever thought about kissing me. It only occurred to me later that Zev didn’t have any friends besides me, that whenever I saw him at a party or lecture, he was always alone. He sought me out because he had no one else to talk to, because no one else could stand him.

Debra, for one, hated him. You don’t have to be friends with him just because he’s Jewish, she said, but that wasn’t the reason. There was something dangerous about Zev that felt exciting to me, a cold, bitter exterior I was determined to crack. He was exactly the sort of man I would avoid when I was older and knew better, but we usually learn that the hard way.

He just wants to fuck you, Debra said, but I wasn’t sure. Other than grabbing my wrist that night at Hillel House, Zev never touched me. Sometimes, after we’d been arguing for a while, I found myself waiting for the feel of his hand, unfamiliar, uninvited.

THE HEATER IN the corner rattled loudly, like something or someone was trapped inside. Zev’s hands were rough and chapped and everywhere—under my shirt, pawing at the space between my legs. A line from a poem ran through my head—Then all night you rummaged my flesh for some body else. I felt as though I’d been dropped into the middle of a sexual encounter that had been going on for a while. I placed a hand on the wall behind me, tried to catch my breath. I thought about asking him to slow down when he pulled me toward the bed.

Zev was strong, his body taut like a drum. He lay down on top of me and pulled up my shirt. I heard a couple of buttons pop off, which, for some reason, made me laugh. Zev didn’t laugh though, and for the first time that night, maybe in my whole life, I felt scared.

Whoa there, soldier, I said as he started to unzip his pants. From this close up, his skin looked oily, his eyes too close together. Could you maybe slow down a little? Despite all the kissing and touching, I was barely aroused.

Zev was breathing hard, as if he’d run up a flight of stairs. I don’t think I can, he said, slipping my hand into the opening of his boxer shorts. It was damp and humid in there. Come on, he breathed into my neck. Why’d you come up here anyway?

Why had I come, I thought as Zev threaded a hand up the back of my shirt and unhooked my bra. He pushed me down on the extralong twin mattress, and I thought about telling him I had my period. I heard voices in the hallway, people walking by, enjoying their night. I wondered if I should call out to them, but there was nothing remarkable happening. I’d been here before—not in Zev’s room per se, but under boys who smelled like sweat and dirty hair. Zev reached for a condom, and I thought about my mother on a long-ago first day of school, the slap of her Dr. Scholl’s sandals against the sidewalk. Be a good girl, Isabel, she’d said, bending down to kiss me on the nose. It’ll be over before you know it.

I was still dry, so Zev licked a finger and placed it inside me before easing himself in. Then he moved his dick back and forth slowly, trying to find a comfortable rhythm. I tried to pull my shirt closed because I didn’t like being shirtless in front of a man, but he grabbed my wrists and held them above my head.

My eyes were open but Zev’s were closed, his eyelids fluttering as if he was watching something play out inside them. Maybe a scene from a Western, and I was the stallion he was riding across the dusty plains. Or maybe we were riding across the voluptuous deserts of Israel. Did Israel have deserts? All I could picture from that part of the world were scenes from Operation Desert Storm. With each thrust, my head pressed against the metal headboard. I tried to think about something else, anything else, like the paper I’d just turned in about Russian Jewry in the nineteenth century. I watched the shadows move across the popcorn ceiling, listened to the buzz of the fluorescent lights out in the hallway, as Zev moved faster, ramping up to the big finish. And then, finally, after several shuddering thrusts, he sputtered and came, quietly, like every boy I’d slept with who’d only ever had sex in places where he had to be quiet. Part of me was disappointed he didn’t scream or cry out so I would know if he liked it, if anyone liked it.

What are you doing for break? Zev asked after he peeled off the condom and tossed it into the trash, where it landed among old copies of the Wall Street Journal and strings of dental floss.

Not too much, I said, buttoning my shirt as best as I could. Working in my dad’s store mostly. How about you?

I’m going to Washington with a couple international students. There isn’t enough time to go home.

We talked for a minute or two about Washington and what he should do while he was there. He should definitely visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, I said, since I knew he was interested in monuments to mass tragedies. I told him about the time I went to DC in high school and a group of kids got sent home for doing Whip Its.

Have a good break, I said. Then I grabbed my things and left. It was really cold out now, the wind whipping with such force I began to reconsider my position on windchill, if I’d ever really held a position in the first place. I’ll tell Zev he was right the next time we talk, I thought, before remembering that I was never going to talk to him again.

I OFTEN WONDER what would have happened if Debra hadn’t been in our room when I got back, as she so often wasn’t. But there she was, sitting on the papasan chair eating a bowl of Sugar Corn Pops. Kelsey was already gone, on her way to Sun Valley, where she’d spend a few days skiing with Jason and his family before heading home to New York for Christmas. Debra and I were leaving the next day. She’d drive me as far as Scarsdale, then her parents would put me on the train to Grand Central.

Where were you? Debra asked as I sat down on the sofa. Something hurt, deep in some place I couldn’t see or name. I shifted slightly until the sensation lessened.

With Zev Neman, I said, reaching for a handful of cereal. My voice sounded shaky. I found it hard to say his name.

Well, praise Jesus. Did you finally fuck him?

I thought about telling the story the way Debra would, as another crazy one-night stand, the kind she had with boys and girls she barely knew, people she picked up and discarded with ease. But I couldn’t frame what had happened with Zev in those terms. There was a darkness to it, a heaviness, like the way my body felt right before my period. The cereal had become a sickly sweet paste in my mouth, and I wondered if I might vomit.

Isabel. Debra pushed herself up awkwardly in the strangely deep chair. What the fuck. Did something happen? She set her bowl down on the steamer trunk we used as a coffee table and rested her hands on her knees.

I don’t remember exactly what I said. Only that, as I spoke, Debra stood up and started pacing, her thighs jiggling each time her foot hit the creaky wooden floor. Her dark hair had dried into the kinks she tried to tame into submission. They stuck out of her head now, making her look as if she’d been electrified. Maybe that was how she summoned her indefatigable energy, I thought, as I rested my head on the arm of the sofa. There was a tender spot on the back of my skull. I reached back and pressed on it.

Holy shit, she said. "I always hated that