T

he next two days passed blissfully.

I awoke to the sound of birds chirping, luxuriated in early morning walks — I’d adopted Chayala’s habit — and met the group after Shacharis for a kazatzka workout, followed by breakfast; the Zone kitchen had a machine that made these amazing ice-blended cappuccinos. Savta Simcha, as Chayala had dubbed Mrs. Kokosh, stayed away, which was a relief; I’d suspected she’d try date-coaching us back to reality. She wore black every day, color-coordinating her fluorescent ribbons and eyeglass frames. Rumors flew over her identity. According to Dafna, her husband was an MIT-trained astrophysicist who coached the men’s division — they were awed that I accidentally ended up there (“Did you see anyone normal?” Chana wanted to know) — while Miriam claimed she was a Chabad shluchah.

I managed to keep Gila at bay, except for one incident where she’d called me hysterically from the bathroom to kill a cockroach that “wasn’t becoming dead.” I found her crouched under the sink, brandishing a shoe and a hairspray container she kept spritzing toward the scurrying cockroach. I crashed my own slipper down, but when I lifted it, the cockroach scuttled out… We finally managed to sweep it out the cabin window with a broomstick, screeching in unison.

“So I mentioned the cockroach story to Savta Simcha,” I told the group that evening while setting up a campfire barbecue. My ponytail still stuck straight up due to Gila’s Pro-V Ultimate Hold, which I’d gotten when I stepped into her line of fire. “I knew I’d killed it, I heard the crunch — and it just walked off! And she’s like, ‘Oh, of course you wouldn’t have been able to kill the cockroach, it’s not really here, just a superposition into our Hilbert space. Haven’t you heard of string theory?’ ”

T

our hours later, around the campfire, the marshmallows were long gone. Mrs. Kokosh had retired for the night. And instead of ghost stories, we were relating our shidduch ones.

“Okay, so I just finished describing how he blew his top at the parking attendant, and the dating coach tells me, ‘Well, don’t be hasty, you’re 29, maybe he’s a lamed- vavnik—’

“So I’m like, maybe instead of circling a fourth time, let’s just find a parking lot — and remember, this is the same guy who came the first date on Access-a-Ride and told me to tell the driver my name was Zbigniew Matislavitskiy — but he’s like, no, no, keep saying kapitel kuf-lamed and we’ll try again…”

Dafna sniffed. “You call that crazy? I went out with a guy, we spent 40 minutes circling for parking and finally he ended up yanking out a hydrant with his bare hands.” She fixed a pointed look at Gila, who listened, openmouthed. “And this is why you bring a credit card on dates. You don’t want to end up like the Prince of Nigeria, getting strangers to wire money over e-mail so you get home safely.”

Credit card? With her track record — Dafna’s wacky experiences, in her words, averaged a nine on the shidduch Richter scale — she should carry a change of clothing, oil refill, trail mix, crazy glue, and a first-aid kit. And pepper spray. I imagined Dafna clickety-clacketing across the Ritz lobby in heels, balancing the world’s largest wristlet on her arm.

Or a wheelie. I bet she schlepped a little wheelie on dates.

“The other person, he had no problems parking.” Dafna’s voice, when she spoke again, was so low I had to strain my ears to hear.

“Which other— oh.” Gila clamped her mouth shut as four pairs of eyes wordlessly glared at her. “Oh. Sorry.”

And then Dafna started to cry.

Frozen, we watched her rise and stumble toward the bungalow area. From afar, Mrs. Kokosh’s cabin light flickered on and a shadow emerged. The campfire crackled, its embers sending up a whispered tail of smoke, then died out, submerging us in darkness.

No one moved.

Gila was the first to get up and say she was bunking for the night — she looked ghostly pale, actually — and the rest of us disbanded soon after.

Dafna’s tears left me in a sour mood as I followed Gila into our cabin. My roommate shouldn’t be here. Seriously, an 18-year-old schnook-face when there were real issues to deal with? I turned on her as she exited the bathroom.

“Honestly,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

She stared at me, wide-eyed, and didn’t answer. Her hands were shaking.

“You’re 18. Don’t you have shadchanim to meet? CLEP tests to study for? Shidduch selfies to shoot?”

No response.

“Are you okay?” She didn’t answer, and my heart dropped in my chest. Something was wrong. “Gila! Talk to me! Should I call for help?”

“No!” Her words were slightly slurred. “There’s — in my drawer, the middle one, on the side, wrapped in aluminum…”

I rushed, panicked, to the dresser and found a small, foil-encased package in the middle drawer. Understanding slowly dawned as she unwrapped what looked like a gel tube, broke off the cap, and fingers trembling, squirted its contents in her mouth.

“You’re diabetic.”

“Don’t tell anyone!” Her eyes were panicked, even more than before. “My parents will kill me. Nobody knows. I’m not allowed to tell people. Please, Shuli, don’t tell anyone—”

And Gila’s story slowly unraveled.

At age 14, she’d collapsed one morning and was rushed to the emergency room. I listened as she revealed how her parents sat her down, in the hospital still, instructing her on “the rules.” How she was forced to keep her diagnosis a secret from everyone — friends, teachers, everyone. “You’ll thank us later,” her mother had told her, but her high school years had been miserable.

Now, entering shidduchim four years later, Gila was terrified.

And what could I tell her? Everything would be okay? That wasn’t necessarily true, and we both knew it.

“I know in my brain it’s bashert, all this shidduch stuff.” Gila looked at me. “Everyone says that all the time. Right?”

I nodded slowly.

“And I’m frum, so I believe that, too, right?”

I paused.

Gila was still looking at me.

I swallowed. “Right.”

She rested her head in her arms for a moment, then looked up. For one instant, our eyes met.

“Shuli, tell that to me in words a heart can understand,” she whispered brokenly, and I felt something inside me shatter.

And suddenly, I was furious. Furious at Gila’s parents for making their daughter — their cute, freckled, slightly goofy daughter — feel like a second-class citizen. Furious at a system where this girl was a second-class citizen, furious at a society that relished, in an obscene sort of way, the melodrama of the “singles crisis,” that created Miriams, that fed the panic of parents terrified of navigating that system with their less-than-perfect child.

“You listen to me, Gila, and listen up good.” My voice shook with anger. “You’re cute, you’re funny, you’re nice, you’re smart. Diabetes doesn’t change who you are, do you hear me? All those people — don’t you dare listen to them.” I drew in a shaky breath, plunging ahead. “They’re idiots, all of them! Society is one bumbling, massive idiot. Remember that, do you hear me? I’m not speaking against your parents, maybe they did what they felt was needed, but society is an idiot. Repeat that after me! Society is—”

“An idiot.” She said it in a half-whisper.

“Say it louder!”

“Society is an idiot!” She was smiling, a little shakily.

“Good for you. Exactly.” I let out a breath. “You remember that. You’re not an idiot, and the boy you’re going to marry isn’t an idiot. Individuals, generally, are mostly non-idiots. So you’re safe.”

She nodded slowly.

“And you need to move on, okay? I’m not saying to start going out tomorrow — you want to take a year, two years, school or whatever, fine. But move! You don’t belong here, Gila. You really, truly don’t. Move on. Honest, it’s not so bad out there. Don’t listen to Dafna, to any of us — stay away from Miriam. It’s… it’s good. It’s okay. If you’re meant to be married at 20, that’s great. But if not — whenever it happens, you’re good. And it’s not because of your diabetes or anything else. I don’t have diabetes, okay, plus I was chesed head and G.O. president, and I’m here, too.  It happens when it’s supposed to and whenever that is, you’re good. There’s so much — there’s life hidden in those years too.”

The tenseness in her shoulders noticeably eased. “I need to check my blood sugar now,” she said. “I went low before. Um, you mind if I do it in front of you? It’s not gross, just a finger-stick.”

I realized, as I climbed into bed later, two things. One, that my little speech was true; I couldn’t imagine what my life would’ve been like without these extra years. I wasn’t a 21-plus-ten. I was 31, and each of those years meant something, and in retrospect, I don’t think I would have planned it any differently.

After all this time, my heart — in Gila’s words — finally understood.

And two, there was no way I could have said this without the knowledge of J-Man waiting in the background.

You don’t belong here. You really, truly don’t.

I pushed that thought aside.

T

he trail curved ahead of me, dew filtering through my walking shoes as I brisk-walked the windy path in the woods the next morning. My mind wandered to Gila. A part of me felt like sitting on the floor and weeping for the painful experiences she was bound to face in upcoming years… But she’d figure it out. Somehow, we all did. I gave a wry grin. She’d probably surprise us all and get engaged to the first boy she met.

Everybody’s got their shidduch backstory, I realized, as a squirrel scampered across the trail. I also realized I loathed the phrase “older singles.” The universal term lumped us together, undermining the uniqueness of each one’s experience. I had friends back home — one confided she hadn’t even wanted to get married until age 28, another could barely get a date because of a brother who’d gone off the derech. There was Gila — well, technically she wasn’t “older” — and her medical issues, Dafna and her almost-engagement…

“Hey, Shuli!”

…and Chayala, frozen in Time-Out Zone for whatever reason she had.

I waved. “How’s it going?”

Then I noticed the suitcase at her feet.

“I’m on my way outta here, I guess.”

“You’re serious? Wow.” I hugged her. “That’s great!”

“Whatever. Wish me luck.” She paused, opened her mouth, shook her head, then closed it. She opened her mouth again. “Whatever. Shuli… What about you?”

You don’t belong here. You really, truly don’t.

“Goodbye, Chayala.”

“Sorry.” With a wave, she was off.

“All’s well that ends well, right?” Gila asked brightly, approaching from behind. “You think they’ll get engaged?”

I shrugged. “Who knows. Why are you up so early?”

“Um. I went to speak with Savta Simcha just now….”

I raised my eyebrows, comprehension dawning in a mix of surprise, pride, and a niggle of something else I couldn’t quite identify.

“Yup. I’m leaving.” She smiled. “Help me pack?”

I forced a grin, and that’s when I recognized the emotion that had flitted its tiny wings.

It was envy.

A

nd then there were four.

The dining area felt too quiet that night. Dafna and Chana were engrossed in conversation and it seemed rude to interrupt; Miriam was busy playing Candy Crush on her phone and didn’t need company, either. I headed to my cabin but felt unsettled there, too, with Gila packed out. I wondered how she was doing. Funny, how she landed in Time-Out because she was scared of starting shidduchim, while I ended up here—

I shook my head. Time-out. I’m not thinking about this.

I perched on the top bunk bed, feet dangling down, arms propped behind me. Gazed aimlessly at the ceiling. Tried to suppress the feelings of emptiness cascading down in thick waves.

You don’t belong here. You really, truly don’t.

I exhaled slowly.

There is nothing more painful in shidduchim than the angst of making a decision.

I remember my friend once describing her shidduch parshiyos like a plane taking off. “Sometimes it’s my brain in the pilot seat, ready for takeoff, and sometimes it’s the heart,” she’d explained philosophically one night, as we were polishing off licorice bites in the front seat of her car. “But never both. The other organ, it’s not even checked into the shidduch airport.”

I hadn’t understood back then. “I have no planes, even,” I’d said mournfully, and we’d both laughed like maniacs until tears streamed down.

I got her now, though. The brain says one thing, the heart says the opposite. And vice versa, and usually the brain is announcing multiple things at once and the heart is torn in different directions within itself, too. And those two forces — the heart and the mind — squeeze together, chafing against each other so painfully… But it’s at that interface where human experience resides, making decisions, navigating those opposing forces to propel your life forward, forward, forward.

Which would mean, I guess, that in this place — Time-Out Zone — I’m not really living.

You don’t belong here. You really, truly don’t.

I sighed.

It was fear keeping us all here, I realized, climbing down from the bunk bed and rummaging for a flashlight; the grounds in the Zone were pitch-black by nightfall. Chayala’s fear of whatever it was; Gila’s fear of a process that rejected her before she even started. Dafna’s fear of heading back into shidduchim and getting burned again. Kamikaze dating, I heard her call it once. And me…

I stepped out of the cabin, breathing in a rush of crisp night air, and trekked across the grass. Me. Fear of… I don’t know. Fear of change, maybe. Moving on. Despite the many years in shidduchim — or maybe because of them — fear of the next step. I absently climbed over a tree stump. Fear of allowing myself to finally dream of an engagement, after years of keeping that door barricaded tightly shut because simply giving up was less heartrending than the emotional seesaw of hope and letdown. Fear of making a decision.

It wasn’t even so much a mind-heart conflict, if I were truly honest with myself. Most parts of my brain were there ages ago; the heart caught up some dates later, and everything just needed time to marinate in the same spot before moving on.

Don’t pickle a pickle, I heard Kokosh’s voice say, and I started to smile.

Ahead of me, a garden light illuminated a small set of bungalows, and I ran the last few meters toward Mrs. Kokosh’s cabin…

…And nearly crashed into a silhouette that had just staggered out.

Wait. Was that—

“Chayala?” Uh-oh. “Chayala! Why are you… what happened?”

She looked at me.

“I’m back, is what happened,” she said flatly, and slammed the cabin door shut.

I

wanted to stay on, but Mrs. Kokosh refused.

“Once you decide to leave, you’re out,” she stated. Her hairband was bright pink this time. “Something happens after and you need another brake, we’ll negotiate. Pack your bags, dear! We’re leaving in 40 minutes.”

I didn’t have a chance to speak with Chayala by the time I found myself wheeling my suitcase down the dark gravel path, Mrs. Kokosh alongside me holding my garment bag and a flashlight. I’d call the shadchan when I returned home. Maybe we could still arrange a date for tomorrow — I needed something to wear, I wondered if the cakes were actually frozen. What was tomorrow? Friday? Monday?

I guess I’d find out.

“He’s a good person?” Mrs. Kokosh suddenly asked, abrupt. “Your Mister J?”

“J-Man,” I corrected, nodding. He was nicer than I was, actually.

“You like him?”

“That’s classified information.”

Her mouth twitched, but she didn’t say anything.

“How’d you know to come get me, the other day?” I asked suddenly. “You never told me.”

A small smile played on her lips. “Let’s just say we received an insider tip from a certain young man…”

My mouth formed a round O.

“You think it’s easy for a 36-year-old man in shidduchim? He was a VIP. For years. He sponsored the slow cooker for the morning cholent, and the past two months, he was here almost daily. He gave a morning shiur for the men — very chashuv, your J-Man. Last week he made a siyum on Maseches Eiruvin, I think it was?” She paused. “He’s allergic to mushrooms, by the way.”

I stared at her, speechless.

“But…” I sputtered. “But— we were going out! When did he—”

Mrs. Kokosh adjusted her pink eyeglasses. “Well. Haven’t you heard of the Turing Paradox?”

I felt a giggle bubble inside me and quickly suppressed it.

“He said he’d come back to give out chassan cigars. Just so you know.”

From afar, I heard the incessant pounding of drums, the train platform gradually becoming larger as we drew closer into the area. Mrs. Kokosh handed me my garment bag, waving her other arm.

“And here we are. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.”

She pressed some buttons on her flip phone, and the grandfather clock embedded in the platform wall chimed. She put an arm around my shoulder, and her voice softened. “Don’t think, Shuli, just go. Go.”

I nodded, a lump forming in my throat as I tightened my grip on my luggage. “Help Chayala along.” The words popped out before I could help it.

“It’s her third time here.” Mrs. Kokosh hesitated. “It’s complicated — she’s got that shidduch fortress up — but never mind her, let me deal with that.” She leaned closer and hugged me. “Mazel tov to you, for when it’s official.” She gave me a half-smile. “You and your J-Man.”

I opened my mouth to protest. Then closed it.

And I nodded again.

(Originally featured in Family First Issue 539)