Anyone else, Lewyn thought. He had a horrible image of himself, Harrison, and Sally sitting at the family dining table as the baby masticated its dinner. Which of the three of them could conceivably care for this? Which of the three of them would want to? It seemed incredible that Johanna didn’t recognize the state of her own family, which was that he and Sally and Harrison couldn’t get far enough away—first and foremost from one another, but equally from our parents, and it should go without saying from this unasked-for and utterly ill-advised extraneous Oppenheimer. Not one of the triplets was coming home again, not in any sustained way. Was she out of her mind?
But he signed. Of course he signed. What was he supposed to do in front of these very competent and professional people?
Four days later he repacked his bag and took a cab to the Cornell Club to pick up the chartered bus back to campus. It was brutally early on a morning that promised very little for the day ahead, and he shoved his suitcase into the hold and went up into the bus to find a seat. Even on this less-than-social occasion Lewyn couldn’t escape the sense that everyone else in the group seemed to know one another and be on friendly terms. Chatter hummed down the length of the aisle as he passed, moving closer to the back and the remaining empty seats. People looked up, decided he was not worth smiling at, and went back to their conversations.
He took a seat at the very back, just beside the toilet; a deliberate move, meant to discourage company, but as the seats continued to fill, his gamble looked less and less promising. He kept his head down, reading then rereading the same page of his book on Mary Cassatt for his art history seminar, willing himself not to look up as first one, then another, then another shadow preceded a new arrival down the aisle, until finally one stopped, indisputably beside him, and a little voice said, “Well, hello.”
Lewyn, reacting in his every nerve ending, looked up—but barely up—into the glowing face of the girl from Jewish Life. In the supernova of that moment, he could not remember her name, a fact made even more appalling because, incredibly, she remembered his.
“It’s Lewyn, right?” she said merrily, wedging her backpack under the seat beside him.
Lewyn nodded, stricken and mute.
“Who brought the Jesus freaks to our Seder.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. It was all he could think of, and it was amazing he was able to say anything at all.
“Oh, it’s all right. We thought it was hilarious. Well, the rabbi was a bit freaked, but she’s kind of uptight. You don’t mind if I sit here?”
Of course, he nodded. “I mean, of course not. Is it full?”
“Is that the only reason I’d want to sit with you?”
He stared at her. Her pointed chin, those thick braids, the dark eyes a mite too close together for perfect symmetry. She was beautiful. Heart-stoppingly beautiful. Already Lewyn was terrified of what might happen if he stopped looking at her.
“Please, sit.” He had no idea how he was even making words.
She folded her short legs into the seat, kicking the backpack forward under the seat in front, then sighed. “I love the smell of industrial-strength bathroom air freshener in the morning.”
“Sorry,” he said, as if he had entrapped her in this awful position.
“Remind me how your name is spelled? I remember writing it down when you called CJL about your friends. Something unusual.”
He spelled it out for her. Never had his name seemed so ridiculous. “After a relative named ‘Lou.’”
“Naturally,” she said with extravagant sarcasm. “So many Aidans named after Avrahams, and Tiffanys named after Tzipporahs. I’m sorry.”
For his name? Lewyn wondered. Or for teasing him? Was she teasing him?
“No, it’s okay. We don’t choose our names, after all.”
“Very true,” she said. “I certainly would not have chosen Rochelle.”
Rochelle. Rochelle, Rochelle, he thought, ramming it into his brain.
“It’s a nice name,” he said at last, because it was. Whatever her name turned out to be would be a nice name.
“Sure, for 1925. So. Lewyn what?”
“What?”
“Your last name. Lewyn what?”
“Oh,” he said. “It’s Oppenheimer.”
The girl—Rochelle—turned to him. “You’re kidding! That’s my roommate’s name! That’s crazy!”
Into the awful void of this moment a number of insights came rushing, each dragging behind it a careening wave of numbness and horror. Not possible. But clearly possible. Not likely. But somehow the case. And horrible, horrible, horrible, Lewyn’s thoughts were screaming, but on the other hand how could it be that this girl was his sister’s roommate, that she had slept as close to Sally as Jonas slept to him, and still had not just offered him the slightest recognition: “That must make you the mystery brother!” or “I’ve heard a lot about you!” Or something, something that implied she already knew her roommate had a brother—also named Oppenheimer, if not, in fact, Lewyn!—who lived a stone’s throw away in the dormitory next door. He had long understood that Sally had written him out of the life she wanted to live at Cornell—Lewyn wasn’t even hurt by that anymore—but now he saw that she had written him out of her life in its entirety, because it was clear as day that Sally had lied to this marvelous person from the very beginning. She must hate me, he suddenly thought, and then he realized that he barely cared, because he didn’t care about his sister. Not now. Maybe not ever, after this.
It was all too shocking to get his head around. It was cruelly dealt. It was a disaster.
And yet, he also felt a dizzying jolt of freedom, because what this also meant was that Rochelle, this lovely, small person looking across at him with a kind of open, amused, but thoroughly genuine interest, didn’t know who he was. And that meant that Lewyn was allowed to be somebody else, and not whatever pre-set character Sally might have conjured for him and viciously communicated to her. (He could well imagine the deficiencies of that character.) It was an astonishing opportunity, and he would be a fool not to take it. And he wasn’t a fool, despite what his sister thought, and his brother.
“Not crazy,” Lewyn said, lying to her for the very first time. “Oppenheimer is kind of a common name.”
Chapter Nineteen
Thresholds
In which Sally Oppenheimer is not invited inside
The visit Sally Oppenheimer made to Ellesmere, New York, over spring break was not communicated in advance to Rochelle (something Sally had decided would “ruin the surprise”), and not well thought out in general, but in her own defense, Sally was aware of no specific reason Rochelle wouldn’t welcome a visit. Yes, there had been that time back in the fall when her roommate had gone home due to a “family problem,” and Sally’s offer to go along (to support or assist with whatever it was) had been declined. And that other time Sally had asked to visit over Christmas? Also declined. But she had put these prior events out of her mind, and besides, why shouldn’t Sally see where her roommate and closest Cornell friend had grown up? And meet Rochelle’s friends and get to know her mom and maybe even treat her to a few frolicsome adventures in the city, the kind any Long Island girl must secretly long for?