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____

The hotel break­fast buf­fet has flaky almond crois­sants, lab­neh with za’atar and olive oil — 5 per­cent and 22 per­cent fat — three types of bread (rye, brioche, sour­dough), but you can’t enjoy any of it because wher­ev­er you go, the ghosts won’t leave you alone. Sav­ta Sara stands next to the sal­ad bar, and when you put an omelet onto your plate, your hand brush­es her veiny right arm. You don’t feel her skin against yours but the con­tact makes you smell burn­ing, taste thick smoke. You jerk your hand back, stam­mer­ing an apol­o­gy, and she tuts, but at least moves out of your way. Back at the table, your par­ents sip cap­puc­ci­nos, Mom’s hand rest­ing on Dad’s thigh. They have always been that way; you’ve nev­er seen two peo­ple so depen­dent on one anoth­er, and you feel a flash of irri­ta­tion. Your nephews, Ari and Eitan, are at the table, too, pow­dered sug­ar dust­ing their mouths. You put your plate down and Ari leans back, kick­ing the table leg, his chair near­ly tip­ping onto the tiles before he falls for­ward again. He con­tin­ues rock­ing, knock­ing the table edge, spilling Mom’s cof­fee onto the tablecloth.

“Ari,” Mom says, absently.

The table is full of food that no one is eat­ing. You check your watch. When Ari keeps kick­ing the table, you slap down his leg. He slaps your leg back.

“Go wash your hands,” you tell him, look­ing at your den­im shorts, which have white smears all over them. You only have two pairs of shorts with you and know­ing you now need to take this pair, still stiff from the dry­er, back to the laun­derette makes you so angry you want to tip over his chair your­self. Ari races away through the tables in the oppo­site direc­tion of the bath­rooms, and heads turn. Most watch him with the same vacan­cy as Mom, but oth­ers smile.

Approach­ing you from the buf­fet, Sav­ta Sara tuts again. She takes Ari’s emp­ty seat at the table and you shift your chair away from hers. She stud­ies his half-eat­en crois­sant. Her translu­cent fin­gers twitch, as if she wants to pick it up and fin­ish it.

“What are we doing today, Nao­mi?” Sav­ta Sara asks, cheer­ful­ly. ​“Are we going home?”

She already asked you the ques­tion twice this morn­ing, three times yes­ter­day. You sum­mon patience, a smile. You don’t want to be short with her, and even if you felt like snap­ping, Dad would nev­er allow it. ​“Not yet,” you say.

“That boy will have an acci­dent,” she says, nod­ding after Ari. She often lec­tured your broth­er about keep­ing his sev­en-year-old in check. You were her favorite grand­child; you had the patience to play shesh besh with her and lis­ten to kib­butz gos­sip. When you were a kid, she picked you up from school and made you lunch and let you watch hours of TV. Even after she start­ed for­get­ting things, you still went over twice a week.

Sav­ta Sara is wear­ing her blue night­gown cov­ered with swirling suns. She was mur­dered in it and you won­der why she hasn’t changed into some­thing else. There’s no blood on her now. All her limbs are intact. Her white hair shines under the restau­rant lights.

“Do you want to go to the pool?”

“Maybe lat­er,” you say. You wish your par­ents would inter­vene, but although Dad glances up, smil­ing thin­ly at Sav­ta Sara, he goes back to mur­mur­ing with Mom. You can see the pool through the restau­rant win­dows, water flash­ing. A woman sits ful­ly clothed on a beach chair, star­ing straight ahead, her tow­el fold­ed in front of her. Her kids shriek inside the pool, as if for help.

“What else are you doing? Going to a dis­co?” Sav­ta Sara asks. She looks at you sus­pi­cious­ly and you have a moment of pan­ic, but appar­ent­ly, it’s a rhetor­i­cal ques­tion because she doesn’t wait for an answer. She leaves the table — you think in a huff, but then you see her friends Shmuli and Ben­ny in their paja­mas, wait­ing for her. The three of them were always insep­a­ra­ble, gath­er­ing in one of their front gar­dens, watch­ing the rest of you walk past, pre­tend­ing to drink Turk­ish cof­fee instead.

A baby wails and you stiff­en, as if the noise were a siren. Leah Cohen undoes her blouse to breast­feed and your heart rate slows. When you look at the din­ing hall entrance, the ghosts are gone.

“We have to do some­thing about them,” you say to your parents. 

“They want to be with us, Nao­mi.” Dad drains his cof­fee, push­ing his glass­es up his nose. His cup leaves a brown ring on the table­cloth. He tilts his chin, look­ing for a chal­lenge. You fold your arms, ready to fire back. 

“Where else have they got to go?” he asks.

You low­er your gaze. You pick up your fork and take a bite.

____

In the hotel room, there’s a knock at the door. You feel a shiv­er of excite­ment. When you open it, Tal grins at you. You glance behind his head before let­ting him in.

“To the minute,” you say, tap­ping your watch.

“I’m on army time,” he says, sling­ing off his M‑16 and prop­ping it against the wall.

You aren’t used to see­ing him clean-shaven. He stands awk­ward­ly, one hand in his pock­et. He’s always been a ter­ri­ble dress­er, walk­ing around the kib­butz bare­foot, scis­sor­ing off the necks and arms of his T‑shirts so half his tor­so is vis­i­ble. He’s in one of those T‑shirts now, paired with fad­ed jean shorts, too big for him, that he’s had since high school. He pulls his hand out of his pock­et, fist clenched.

“I brought you something.”

“Real­ly?”

You fight back a smile. It’s too soon for presents, isn’t it? But when he opens his hand, it’s Yoshi the dinosaur, with his green body and orange boots. It takes you a moment to get it. That high school Purim par­ty, when you all dressed up as Mario Kart char­ac­ters. You’d hoped to be Princess Peach so you could wear a dress for once, but of course Ori claimed her. She want­ed to match Tal, who was going to be Mario (even though she’d just bro­ken up with him again), so you wound up as Yoshi, whom nei­ther of them want­ed to be. Still, as a trio, you had an effect. Peo­ple took pic­tures of you togeth­er, walk­ing around like that.

You laugh.

“I saw it and I couldn’t resist.”

“I didn’t know they had these anymore.”

“It was in some ran­dom stand on the beach.”

You take the plas­tic toy out of his palm. You feel the lit­tle shock of elec­tric­i­ty as your fin­gers graze his. He’d seen it and thought of you. That has to be a good sign, doesn’t it? Tal looks around the hotel room, the cream walls and bland art­work, the lit­tle wood­en side tables, your bed next to your par­ents’ with its rum­pled sheets.

“How’s reserve duty?” you ask.

“It’s good to see the guys again,” he says. His eyes are red-rimmed. They fix on you in that way that makes it hard to focus on what he says. He talks a lit­tle about guard­ing the Lebanese bor­der, how they sleep in the woods because the army bases are a tar­get. He’ll sleep well in the hotel bed, even if it’s just for the week­end. You tell him jok­ing­ly that it’s too crowd­ed to sleep well here; your mom stares at the ceil­ing most of the night and Sav­ta Sara tries to share your bed, singe­ing the cov­ers so your hair stinks of smoke the next day. Your nephew in the adja­cent room starts kick­ing his foot­ball against the wall at 7:00 a.m. with the pre­ci­sion of an alarm clock. But say­ing this out loud, a hard knob of guilt forms in your stom­ach. Six weeks before, on that ter­ri­ble day, Ari hid in the shel­ter for sev­en­teen hours, with no air con­di­tion­ing and only a pack­et of cere­al bars, and your broth­er told you that when the shel­ter door was shot at, your nephew stayed rigid and silent. When the army final­ly res­cued them, his moth­er made him close his eyes and hold the strap of her back­pack as they left the destroyed kib­butz, step­ping past bod­ies with limbs hacked off. But he must have smelled the burn­ing. How can you begrudge him kick­ing a foot­ball around, for get­ting your shorts dirty, for play­ing games on his phone with the vol­ume blast­ing so that the sound­track sticks in your head?

You trail off and Tal doesn’t fill the silence. He’s nev­er been much of a talk­er; nei­ther of you is. Ori was the extravert, with her bright clothes and loud laugh­ter, the way her hands moved when she spoke. You and Tal some­times exchanged looks over her head, smil­ing as she went on and on. 

Tal takes your hand. Your heart gives a thump. He’s ner­vous, bit­ing the inside of his cheek. You draw the chain across the door. He’s tall and skin­ny and has lost so much weight in reserve duty you can feel the knobs of his ribs under your fin­gers. His breath is hot against your neck, his tongue slow in your mouth. You peel off each other’s clothes as if you have all the time in the world, although your par­ents could come up from break­fast any moment. You press the small of his back, push­ing him fur­ther into you, and you think of Ori. You imag­ine her bent over, a hand on her neck, blood on her thighs, but you work hard to force the images away and even­tu­al­ly, the world is blank and white. You make sure you’re qui­et when you come, but he gives a mourn­ful grunt, and when he col­laps­es onto you, his ribs press into your stomach.

You hold each oth­er but he turns his head and a mus­cle works in his cheek. Is he think­ing of Ori, too? He kiss­es you and your eyes close and you think it might start all over again, but he gets up to pull on his boxers.

“See you tonight,” he says, ​“after dinner?”

You nod; of course you do. You’ve been wait­ing years for him to want you like this. You stand at the door kiss­ing a while, then you slide back the chain. He walks down the car­pet­ed cor­ri­dor and you check for ghosts com­ing out of the bed­rooms, hop­ing none have seen him leave. More are show­ing up every day as bod­ies from the kib­butz are iden­ti­fied, and word gets around fast here. It wouldn’t mat­ter to every­one that you fell in love with Tal first, before Tal and Ori even kissed, how from when you were fif­teen, you and Tal spent Sat­ur­days togeth­er, hitch-hik­ing to the beach just the two of you because Ori didn’t like the sand. You saw how he noticed you in your biki­ni and if Ori hadn’t stepped in, some­thing would have hap­pened then. Even after they

became a cou­ple, Ori broke things off every five min­utes, and a year ago, after she left for Tel Aviv, it seemed like she for­got Tal in an instant. She was more inter­est­ed in men with three room­mates and tat­tooed calves who sent texts to come over at mid­night than in Tal, who bought her engraved jew­el­ry and leapt up to bring her water every morn­ing, ask­ing how she’d slept.

But being with Tal the last four weeks has stirred up the most ter­ri­ble excite­ment you’ve ever felt. Every­one said Tal and Ori were des­tined to be togeth­er, but you were sure they had it wrong. It was always meant to be you.

____

That evening, you have Fri­day night din­ner ear­ly, the din­ing room crowd­ed with kids. Moth­ers fight back tears, clasp­ing their chil­dren tight as they say Kid­dush. After­wards, you and Tal leave the hotel sep­a­rate­ly to avoid any­one see­ing you togeth­er, an unnec­es­sary pre­cau­tion since it’s well known you’re old friends. On the prom­e­nade along the beach, you relax, point­ing out plants as you go — aca­cia, palm, gua­va, floss silk — laugh­ing at your obses­sion with dif­fer­ent types of trees. You’re study­ing to be a tour guide, which, now that there is no tourism, seems like a waste of time. All those facts you’ve learned about Israel, its his­to­ry, its cli­mate. Every­thing is closed because of Shab­bat so you take off your shoes and trudge close to the sea, and in the dark, Tal slides a hand into your shorts. Some­thing about being out­side the hotel makes you freer, more ener­getic, and more than once Tal urges you to be qui­et, afraid peo­ple might notice, though there’s no one around. After­wards, you lie there a while, talk­ing, and when you get up, you shake the sand out of your hair and taste its grit in your mouth. You only unclasp hands as you approach the hotel, Tal drift­ing off toward the pool deck alone. You wish he was with you as you slip through the knot of men gath­ered out­side the main entrance, thick tefill­in spread across their shoul­ders, bob­bing as they pray, chant­i­ng about the com­ing of the Mes­si­ah. They showed up weeks ago as soon as word spread about the ghosts, com­ing into the hotel lob­by to gawk and pray until you all demand­ed they leave. Now, they stand vig­il out­side, sweat­ing through their suits. One of them tries to talk to you, ask­ing to be let inside — to see the ghosts — and you shake your head, push­ing past. At recep­tion, you com­plain again about the men block­ing the entrance. The hotel man­ag­er nods sym­pa­thet­i­cal­ly but you doubt he’ll do any­thing about it.

Get­ting ready for bed, your par­ents already asleep, you replay the night over and over. How Tal looked at you when you were hav­ing sex. (Men don’t usu­al­ly do that.) Your lips still burn from kissing.

You and Tal have agreed to meet dur­ing break­fast the next morn­ing and you won­der how you’ll sur­vive meal­times after he leaves for reserve duty on Sun­day. You feel sud­den ter­ror. What if some­thing hap­pens to him? What if he doesn’t come back?

You spit tooth­paste into the sink and there’s a knock on the bath­room door. Did you wake up Mom again? You open the door and drop your toothbrush.

“So this is where you’ve been hid­ing,” Ori says.

“Ori,” you say. You open your mouth and close it. There’s a high tin­ny noise in your ears. You pull her towards you rough­ly. It’s worth the ris­ing smoke, the sounds of sti­fled sobs and uneven breath­ing — peo­ple try­ing not to be heard. Her sharp chin press­es into your back. You hold her until your T‑shirt siz­zles. ​“I hoped … we all hoped …” you begin.

“I’ve been look­ing all over for you,” Ori says when you pull away, shut­ting the door. ​“I asked my mom, she said you usu­al­ly have din­ner with your par­ents, but you weren’t in the din­ing hall.” She wrin­kles her nose. ​“Still, I don’t blame you, the food looks awful. And why is every­thing on paper plates? They’re so cheap.”

Your hands shake. Ori push­es a strand of hair away from your face. It usu­al­ly irri­tates you, the way she grooms you. She some­times even undoes a but­ton on your blouse if she thinks it looks bet­ter that way. She touch­es your fore­head and you jerk back at the sen­sa­tion of being thrown against some hard surface.

“Sor­ry,” she says, notic­ing. ​“I keep for­get­ting I’m not sup­posed to touch any­one. My mom keeps kiss­ing me, then almost pass­ing out. But it’s not like I can help it.” She stud­ies you. ​“You hoped what?” Her teeth catch her lip. ​“Oh, Nao­mi. I’m sor­ry. I thought you knew what’d hap­pened to me.”

Sol­id in front of you, feet plant­ed wide apart. She’s wear­ing shorts and the over­sized T‑shirt she sleeps in, and no shoes. Her hair hangs loose and dark down her back. You wipe your tears away with the heel of your hand, then stop both­er­ing. After a while, you man­age to get it togeth­er by focus­ing on the swirling brown pat­terns on the bath­room floor. What right do you have to cry?

“I thought …” You take a shud­dery breath. You press your bare feet against the tiles.

“They said maybe you were tak­en hostage. We all hoped …”

Ori makes a click­ing sound with her tongue. ​“I hid in a bunker with the oth­ers. There was a grenade. It took them a while to iden­ti­fy me, so …” She scrunch­es her eyes shut, then opens them and moves past you, hop­ping onto the sink. ​“Trust me, this is bet­ter than being a hostage. You know what they’re doing to those women? I’m sur­prised no one told you. The whole kib­butz is talk­ing about it.”

Ori blurs dou­ble. She bends close, as if to place her hands over yours, then checks her­self. The fine hairs on her arms glow in the dim bath­room light. A sil­ver pen­dant swings from her neck as she leans for­ward. You rec­og­nize it. Tal gave it to her before he enlist­ed in the army, but she didn’t wear it much. You remem­ber stand­ing with him in the jew­el­ry store as he’d ago­nized over whether to buy the sil­ver heart or a Star of David, dot­ted with zir­co­nia crystals.

“Don’t cry,” she says. ​“You’ll wake up your par­ents. You’ll get blotchy and I can see in your make­up bag that you only have one face mask left. Don’t waste it on me.”

You try to laugh. It comes out more like a cough. You blow your nose, pinch­ing out a tis­sue from the wood­en hold­er on the sink. You want to hug her again but you keep a safe dis­tance. Ori leans back against the mir­ror, reflec­tion­less. She rifles through your make­up bag.

“I like this lip­stick.” Her fin­gers keep flip­ping through. ​“Con­doms? Nice. Who’s the lucky guy?”

She holds them up, but the gold pack­ages spark and siz­zle at the cor­ners and fall onto the counter, and she sighs. You feel a grip of terror.

“Qui­et!” you whis­per. ​“My par­ents will hear.”

“Who are you sleep­ing with?”

“No one,” you hiss.

“I’m gone for six weeks and I miss this gos­sip? Don’t tell me it’s Yuval? He’s always had a thing for you.”

“No, of course not. It’s just … in case, that’s all. I always keep some around. I didn’t even remem­ber they were in there.”

She nar­rows her eyes at you and you force your­self to hold her gaze. Your heart ham­mers. Even­tu­al­ly, she looks away. She swings her legs over the sink.

“So, you’ve been cooped up here,” she says. ​“Have you been in the hotel all this time? I would lose my mind, I swear. What do you do all day?”

“Not much.” You tell her, whis­per­ing, about how your par­ents cling to each oth­er, how they’ve start­ed to share one plate at meal­times, your mom unable even to choose what she wants to eat by her­self. You open the bath­room cab­i­net to show Ori your mom’s anti-anx­i­ety med­ica­tion. Ori replies, not both­er­ing to low­er her voice, that once the pills kick in, your mom will be fine. She reminds you that once, in sixth grade, your mom stopped in the mid­dle of the class­room while hand­ing out pho­to­copies, like she’d for­got­ten what she was doing, and her eyes com­plete­ly glazed over. Like a zom­bie, Ori says. But two weeks lat­er, she was back to her­self, red pen slash­ing lines through your math tests.

You nod uncer­tain­ly. This feels dif­fer­ent. Still, no one in your fam­i­ly talks about these things so what do you know? Ori’s entire fam­i­ly seem to share their most inane or inti­mate details, from what they eat for break­fast to whether Ori should go on the pill.

It’s not so bad, Ori being a ghost. She already knows more than you do — how Kobi had a scream­ing fight with his wife, Yael (which was heard through the walls), because she wants him to res­cue their eight-and twelve-year-old sons held hostage, even if it means march­ing past the bor­der — caus­ing Kobi to leave the hotel and dri­ve off. Of course, Yael, being a ghost, couldn’t fol­low him. She tried, though. She made it out the door to the edge of the park­ing lot before she appeared right back in the din­ing room.

You tell Ori you’re going to sit with Yael at break­fast the next day, but Ori replies that now that Kobi is gone, Yael can’t stand to talk to any­one who isn’t dead.

Ori veers onto oth­er sub­jects and lis­ten­ing to her, it almost feels like old times. She still dom­i­nates the con­ver­sa­tion but some­how man­ages to make you feel like you want to tell her all your secrets. Almost. As if read­ing your mind — can ghosts read minds? you won­der, pan­ick­ing — Ori says, ​“I heard Tal’s back from reserve duty.”

“Is he?”

“Typ­i­cal,” she says, ​“that he would avoid me, as usu­al. He can be so pet­ty. He’s like a woman, sometimes.”

“I know,” you say, hat­ing your­self for it. You even add an anec­dote about how he always keeps lip balm in his pock­et, and some­times you bor­row it from him so you don’t need make­up when you go out. Ori gives a half smile, and sniffs.

“I thought he might want to know I’m dead, that’s all.”

“Of course he would,” you say, mean­ing it. ​“He’ll be devastated.”

“He’s still angry at me for end­ing it. But that was near­ly a year ago, Nao­mi! What does he want from me? You know, if he had died, I would at least offer him my con­do­lences. He said I was the love of his life! He wouldn’t let me for­get it the whole time I was in Tel Aviv. Send­ing me flow­ers all the time — to my office, can you believe? Turn­ing up drunk at three a.m. out­side my flat …”

“He nev­er told me — ”

“So many peo­ple want to speak at my funer­al,” she says. ​“My mom has start­ed to tell them no. Can you imag­ine how bor­ing it would be if she let every­one speak? But Tal hasn’t even asked.” You watch her legs swing. ​“Not that I’d want him to make a speech. He’d tell the most embar­rass­ing stories.”

“You should go find him.”

You’re not sure why you say this. Maybe you don’t want to tell him your­self, see that hope and despair and anger reflect­ed back at you. ​“You could prob­a­bly do with a talk.”

“I’m not sure we have any­thing left to talk about,” Ori says, but you can see she’s think­ing about it. She’s always liked the idea of mak­ing an entrance. ​“He’ll have a heart attack. Start obsess­ing over me all over again, espe­cial­ly now that he real­ly can’t have me.”

You protest, weak­ly, but she’s not real­ly lis­ten­ing. After she leaves, you spend a long time in the bath­room: you can’t face hear­ing your par­ents’ breath­ing in the dark. 

You can’t believe they got Ori, too. How stu­pid you were to think she might still be alive. That maybe she would be res­cued. Sav­ta Sara, Ben­ny and Shmuli; all five mem­bers of the Lotem fam­i­ly; Aviv, who, when you were in class togeth­er, chewed his pen­cil down to the lead. All of them ghosts. When you look in the mir­ror, your cheeks are flushed. You try some tech­niques you learned from the psy­chol­o­gist, some deep breath­ing, but it doesn’t work. You weren’t there. That morn­ing, you woke up to sirens at a friend’s, hun­gover, near­ly an hour away. When you saw the videos of shoot­ing in the streets, you real­ized you hadn’t known what fear was before. You bolt­ed the doors at your friend’s apart­ment, check­ing your phone again and again to see if the dou­ble check marks had turned blue. There was a con­stant move­ment in your chest, like the beat­ing wings of a huge insect. I love you!!! your mom texted you. But for some rea­son, the ter­ror­ists passed their house, went on to the next one.

It was just by chance that Ori was vis­it­ing the kib­butz, that you were away. In your place, Ori would already be vol­un­teer­ing to help, vis­it­ing kib­butz mem­bers in hos­pi­tal, dri­ving all the way back to feed the cows or chick­ens, despite the sirens and rock­et fire. But all you have done in the last six weeks is to give blood and half-heart­ed­ly babysit your nephews.

Lat­er, in bed, you imag­ine Tal choos­ing half-opened sun­flow­ers, Ori’s favorite, googling her office address and pay­ing for deliv­ery, turn­ing up out­side Ori’s apart­ment in Tel Aviv and beg­ging her to let him in. Who were you kid­ding? Every­one was right about them being meant for each oth­er. A slow ache spreads through your chest. You’ll miss that blank­ness when he holds you, that sense of the world being very far away. But you won’t cry. After all the real tragedy, you don’t have the right.

____

At break­fast the next day, Ori and Tal come in late togeth­er and Sav­ta Sara nods at them across the room, mak­ing jokes about star-crossed lovers, how with those two, you can nev­er keep track. You grunt some­thing non­com­mit­tal — it feels pathet­ic that Ori has beat­en you again, even as a ghost — and scroll through your phone. You have dozens of What­sApp mes­sages from well-mean­ing peo­ple check­ing in that you don’t have the ener­gy to answer. You flip through Insta­gram instead: peo­ple are claim­ing you can’t prove babies’ heads were cut off. You look

at pic­tures of charred bod­ies and a dizzy­ing feel­ing spreads through you, as if you’re lev­i­tat­ing sev­er­al inch­es above the floor. You push your phone away, and across the din­ing room, Tal meets your eyes. Ori says some­thing and he turns to her, smil­ing. He leans close like he might kiss her. Are they hold­ing hands? You taste bile. When Ori spots you, she ges­tures for you to come over but you pre­tend not to see, and as soon as you can, you escape the din­ing room.

Tal is going back to reserve duty tomor­row morn­ing. You try to believe it’s bet­ter that way. But you have to say good­bye. If some­thing hap­pens to him, you’ll nev­er for­give your­self for hid­ing from him and sulk­ing like a child. 

There’s no one by the pool so you stretch out on a lounge with your sun­glass­es on. Here, every day is Sat­ur­day. You wish you had a job. Or some­thing to do. That you could go home to the kib­butz. Not that you have a home to go to. You check your­self: at least you’re safe. If you want, you can do what­ev­er you like.

“Take a pic­ture,” Ori says.

You look up. With your sun­glass­es on and the light shin­ing behind her, she’s sil­hou­et­ted against the pool. You reach for your phone and aim it at her but she comes close to you and throws an arm around your shoul­ders. You feel a sense of ver­ti­go, of being thrown back against a wall, the pain of crack­ing against it. There’s smoke in your mouth and nose. You lean for­ward and cough.

“Sor­ry, sor­ry,” Ori says, tak­ing her arm away. ​“I meant take a self­ie. Of the two of us.”

You drop your sun­glass­es into your lap and take a pho­to but when you check the screen, Ori isn’t there. You’d for­got­ten that Sav­ta Sara keeps beg­ging you to take fam­i­ly pic­tures, and when­ev­er you do so, she’s miss­ing from the image.

“That hap­pened with Tal, too,” she says. ​“I want­ed him to post it, but I’m invisible.”

She set­tles on your beach chair and you perch on the edge, care­ful not to touch her. She lifts her head towards the sun. ​“I tried to leave just now,” she says. ​“I start­ed to go for a walk — I want­ed to give those reli­gious guys some­thing to real­ly get excit­ed about — and I end­ed up right back in the din­ing room. It was like there was a hand on my shoul­ders, forc­ing me back.”

She glares at you as if you’re respon­si­ble, but just as quick­ly, her shoul­ders sag and she twists away again. You’re both qui­et for a while. ​“There was so much I want­ed to do,” she says.

“Think about the good times,” you say, stu­pid­ly, and when she doesn’t reply, you find your­self bab­bling about the fun you had togeth­er, pregam­ing with the cheap vod­ka from the mini-mart before Fri­day nights in the pub, how fun­ny that it was writ­ten on the bot­tle that it could be used ​“for drink­ing or clean­ing pur­pos­es.” You trail off as you remem­ber that nei­ther the mini-mart nor

the pub exist any­more. The thought gives you a strange dizzy­ing feel­ing, the sun too bright in your eyes. ​“We can still hang out,” you mut­ter. ​“At least that.”

She sighs. You bite your lip hard. Ori was going to start her own NGO. Next month, she would have trav­eled to India. You want to tell her the world is silent with­out her.

“It sucks,” you say, forc­ing your voice steady. ​“It shouldn’t have been you.”

“Who should it have been, then?”

You blow air through your lips. You want to kick the beach chair or hurl your phone into the pool. ​“It’s not fair.”

“At least you’re alive. Stop sulk­ing, for once. Why didn’t you meet Tal dur­ing break­fast? He was wait­ing for you.”

You start to stam­mer a reply but she speaks over you. ​“I asked you why you had those con­doms. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Sib­lings, a boy and a girl, approach the pool, float­ies inflat­ed. You say, your voice thin, ​“I nev­er would have start­ed any­thing if I knew you were com­ing back.”

“But I’m not back.”

You squint at her. ​“What do you mean?”

She leans her shoul­der against yours, demon­strat­ing. You jump, winc­ing at the sound of some­thing heavy crash­ing to the ground. Some­thing hard flick­ers across her face.

“Sor­ry,” she says flat­ly. ​“Tal real­ly likes you, you know. He went on and on — Tal, the big talk­er — about how he didn’t want to see any­one else but you after that day. That it suddenly

felt like the most nat­ur­al thing in the world. He told me it’s been four weeks. The two of you together.”

“He said that?” You stare at her. You shake your head. ​“Peo­ple say you’re des­tined for each other.”

Ori looks at you for a long moment. ​“Nao­mi,” she says, in that way she does, ​“grow up.”

“It’s not going to work.”

“I mean, his snor­ing might put a damper on things, but if you can get over that, I don’t see why not.”

“I can’t believe you don’t mind.”

You clench the sides of the beach chair. The sib­lings are in the pool, their float­ies gar­ish. The water slices light.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Nao­mi, stop pun­ish­ing your­self. Are you going to wait around until he meets some­one else?” Ori sighs. ​“You have to make the most of it.” She flings up her hands. ​“Will you at least try?”

You shrug. The girl screams as she splash­es her broth­er and you flinch at the sound. He splash­es her back and the pool fills with cries of laughter.