Who By Fire by Spechler Diana

Author:Spechler, Diana [Spechler, Diana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion
ISBN: 9780061572937
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 3055326
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2008-09-22T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

DAVID IS STANDING on the front steps, his head tipped back, his lips rounded, blowing smoke rings like tiny nooses. He looks up when he hears me coming and grins, tapping ash from his cigarette. “What’d you see a ghost?” he asks. “What’s the matter with you?”

I hesitate, trying to decide how and what to explain. The girl in the white dress? The strange breeze around her? The red wires?

“I feel a little sick,” I say finally. My hands are trembling. I stuff them into my pockets.

Still grinning, David shoves my shoulder, hard, and I stumble.

“Stay away from me then. I’ve got a gig tonight.”

“Not contagious,” I say. “Just, like, sick to my stomach.”

“You got shil-shul?”

“What?”

“The runs?” He’s looking at me with mock concern.

“Whatever. Like I want to discuss it with you.”

“Someone was just here looking for you,” he says.

I stiffen. Monica? No. Monica hates me. I sent Monica away.

Monica wouldn’t come looking for me.

“A girl,” David says.

“Must have been a mistake,” I say, looking down and kicking my toe into a brick.

“Okay, then. I’ll just assume it was a mistake.”

“I don’t really know any girls out here,” I say.

“Fine. Consider it a closed subject.”

I try to brush past him to the door. My face is sticky with Coke.

I want to wash up before class.

“Hey, Asher.” David takes one last drag off his cigarette, then pulls another one from his pack and uses the butt to light it. “You have a minute?”

“Well, we’ve got class.” I look at my watch.

“In ten minutes. Just relax a sec, okay?” He sits on a step and pats the space beside him. I start to lower my body and he ashes on my seat.

I sit on the step below his.

“So how’s your b’sheret these days?” he asks.

Quite a stretch, of course, to call Monica my soul mate. He’s just trying to get me to talk. “I barely know that girl,” I say, and then I feel my face get hot, because I just admitted that I knew he meant Monica.

“Look, it’s nothing to me,” David says, rolling his cigarette between his thumb and index finger. “You want to mess up your life for a girl? B’seder.” He holds his cigarette up to look at it. “But we’re friends, you and I.” He claps me on the back. “So I have to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

He leans back on his elbows and yawns.

“We’re going to be late,” I say, glancing at my watch again.

David takes a long drag off his cigarette, and I watch the gray smoke escape from his beard. Even his neck is hairy. “Your girlfriend—”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“She’s trouble, Asher,” David says. “Nothing but tzoris. You have to trust me on this. Look. I don’t mean to speak badly of her.

I wouldn’t do that, you know. I’m the kind of person who’s protective of people’s privacy. I’m not about to tell you every single thing I know about her. I’m a good person.”

I don’t answer. What am I supposed to

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