I spill the beans to Nathan softly, as if nobody else knows yet. "He's been fooling around with Liron. He's probably dating her for all I know."
"I know. Our entire team got the rundown before he finished our ditch, remember?"
"Don't you feel sorry for me?"
"Amy, didn't you tell me during your conversion class that God gives us challenges to test how strong we are? Maybe this is your test." Now two bees are hovering around us. Nathan shoos them away. "Were bees one of the ten plagues back in Moses' time?"
"Nope."
"Well, God is obviously sending them as the eleventh plague. We had a bunch buzzing around our bunks yesterday. It's a miracle we haven't gotten stung."
The talk of plagues and getting stung makes me look for Avi. He's talking to a guy from Sayeret Tzefa, and looks murderous as he stares down Nathan and me. He tries to walk over to us, but the guy he's with pulls him back.
Nathan taps my shoulder. "Talk to him and find out what the deal is, Amy. 'Cause I'm not gonna act like your boyfriend just so you can save face. That's a cop-out, and the Amy Nelson-Barak I know isn't a coward or a cop-out."
"You sound like Rabbi Glassman," I tell him.
Nathan smiles wide, proud to be put in the same category as my awesome rabbi who sponsored my conversion to Judaism. He stands tall and proud, as if he's Abraham Lincoln addressing the United States Senate (without the top hat, of course). "Yes, well I'm smart beyond my seventeen years."
"Yeah, right. You just said you wanted to date Tori because she was double-jointed. You sounded like an idiot then. Don't push that 'smart beyond my seventeen years' crap."
"Yo, Nate, we gotta do cleanup!" Brandon, another guy on the Sababa trip, calls out.
Nathan chucks me under the chin. "I gotta go, Amy. While I probably just signed my death warrant by talking to you for so long, I have to go before Susu starts his inspection."
"Girls' inspection in fifteen minutes!" Ronit calls out. "Nathan, you better not drag your feet. You should have been at the guys' barracks five minutes ago!"
Nathan jogs off, his sandy blond, bed-head hair bouncing with each step and his shirt sticking to his back from the heat of the Israeli sun.
Chapter 12
Bees are God's little reminder not to get too comfortable in life; something or someone is going to come out and sting you when you least expect it.
I walk into the girls' barracks (which is now a sauna because the stifling air doesn't move in here). I'm surprised my bed is already made, with perfectly tight hospital corners. Even my wool blanket is folded neatly at the foot.
Vic, who just finished making her bunk above me, clues me in. "Jessica did it."
When I turn around, my best friend gives me a big hug. I haven't told her what's up with Avi, but she obviously guessed from the conversation we had back at our ditch.
"So I guess that Avi guy isn't your boyfriend anymore, huh?" Tori says. "That's so... sad. Are you okay?"
I'm holding it together by a thin thread, lucky to have Jess beside me for support in the face of Tori's fake concern I don't believe for a minute that she cares about me and Avi. In fact, I catch a glimmer of triumph in her eyes. I wish a bee was around to sting her in the butt. I know that's rude, and Rabbi Glassman would say that wishing someone harm isn't being a righteous Jew. I can't help it.
Girls my age either love me or hate me, and I have no clue why it's so cut-and-dried. Jess says it's because I come across as confident, and even if I have insecurities I cover them up at all costs. So when the haters see a glimpse into my misery, they're all over it.
"It's not a big deal," I tell Tori as I kneel next to my bed and pull my flat iron out. "You can find someone else to worry about 'cause you're wasting your pity on me."
I plug it in (with the 220 voltage converter attached), thankful for (1) the lone outlet in the room and (2) that my trusty flat iron heats up in thirty seconds.
My hair is already dry from the mid-morning heat. I sit on the floor next to the outlet with my travel mirror and brush in hand, ready to make the curls disappear. Balancing the mirror between my knees, I clamp the flat iron and get to work on the frizzy, curly pieces.
"I can't believe you're doing your hair when we're supposed to be cleaning," one of the New York girls says.
Looking up, I explain. "I can't have half my hair curly and half straight. That would look stupid."
"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.