The second guy turns to me. "What's your name?"
"Amy."
"Hi Amy, I'm Doo-Doo," he says. Then he points to the other two guys. "And this is Moron and O'dead."
Now, I've never said these four words in a row before. In fact, I don't think they've ever come out of someone less than the age of sixty, but they come out of my mouth almost automatically.
"I beg your pardon?" I say. My eyes are squinting as if that would clear my ears so I could hear right.
They all look at me like I'm the one who's got the problem. I have this urge to burst out laughing. But I suppress it because they obviously don't get the joke. Which actually makes it all the more funny. Okay, so some parts of my trip are actually going to be amusing.
But my amusement fades as another guy comes up to us. He's got dark brown hair that matches his eyes. And he's tall, bronzed, and wearing no shirt. He has jeans hugging those slender hips of his, a washboard stomach, and by every measure he's just about the toughest looking teenager I've ever seen.
"Americayit," Moron says, pointing to me.
No-shirt guy says some stuff to Doo-Doo, Moron, and O'dead in Hebrew and ignores me completely. Which just proves one of my many theories ...the gorgeous guys are always the biggest jerks. At least the other guys smiled and introduced themselves. No-shirt guy just barks some words at his friends, then walks away.
"How long are you visiting for?" Moron asks, eyeing the suitcases in the back seat.
For a helluva lot longer than I want to. "The whole summer."
"We're going to hang out at the beach tomorrow tonight. Do you want to join us?"
Doo-Doo asks.
"Sure," I say.
I look over at the house and there's a crowd of four strangers plus Ron standing in the open doorway. They're all staring at me. How could I have forgotten why I was here in the first place?
Ron walks up to me. I want to ask, "How did it go?" but don't.
So now I find myself walking up this muddy pathway, to this small house that's going to be my residence for the next three months. As the cherry on top of the cake called my life, I'm going to live with family members who I've never met before and a biological father who I hardly know.
"Amy, this is my brudder, Chaim."
My uncle holds out his hand and shakes mine. He's a tall guy with a definite resemblance to Ron. They both have that same strong, muscular build.
The guy is smiling, but I can tell there's tension behind that facade. Anger, too, although I don't know if it's directed at me or SD (short for Sperm Donor, I'm too hot and sweaty to think of him as anything other than SD).
"Call me Dodor Uncle Chaim," he says.
As if I could even say that name. He pronounces the C-h like he's about to hack a loogie. I swear I can't do those back throat noises for the life of me without making a complete ass of myself. I'll just call him Uncle Chime and leave off the gurgling back-throat noise.
The lady beside Uncle Chime steps forward. I'm shocked when she pulls me to her and hugs me tightly. My first instinct is to push her away, but her embrace is so warm and loving. I find myself leaning into her arms. She releases me after a long time, puts her hands on my shoulders, and holds me at arm's length.
"Beautiful girl," she says with a deep Israeli accent.
She has these earrings with bells on them and no makeup on her face. My mom wouldn't be caught dead outside the house without makeup. Or earrings with bells dangling from them. The truth is, this woman is pretty without makeup and the bells just make her look angelic instead of stupid.
She lets go of me and says with a smile, "I'm your aunt Yikara. Just call me Doda Yucky, okay?"
"Ookaay," I say in a singsong voice to alert SD I'm not comfortable calling this lady Yucky.
"Doda is 'aunt' in Hebrew," SD explains as if that was the part of this whole exchange that needed explanation.
She just asked me to call her yucky!
There are two more people standing there. One is a small boy, probably around three years old, with blond curls spiraling out of his head like Medusa's snakes. He's wearing nothing but a pair of Power Ranger underpants.
"Shalom, ani Matan," he says in a cute little voice. I have no clue what he's saying, but he's so adorable and his curls bounce on his head as he speaks. I step toward him and shake his little hand affectionately.
The last one, a dirty blonde-haired teenager who is a bit taller than me, just stands there with her arms crossed over her chest. She's wearing the tightest jeans I've ever seen on a human being and a crop shirt showing most of her flat stomach. I don't need a sixth sense to know she's royally pissed-off.
"This is your cousin, O'snot."
This time my laugh just comes out without warning. Although when I come to my senses and realize nobody else is laughing, I stop pretty quick. Okay, now O'snot is not just pissed-off, she's got my famous, one-of-a-kind sneer down pat as if she'd invented it herself.
I don't hold out my hand in greeting because I'm pretty sure my snotty cousin will ignore it. So I just say, "Hi."
"Hi," she says through gritted teeth. Nice.
"Let's go inside so you can meet your Safia," Uncle Chime says.
I'm getting a little piece of satisfaction when I notice Ron's armpits are wet through his shirt. My armpit wet spots are the size of grapefruits, but Ron's are the size of small watermelons. He's more nervous than I am for me to meet my grandmother.