****

Okay, I’ll be honest, I hated special ed anyway, those stupid reports and IEPs and endless paperwork and dealing with parents who drove me berserk, honestly, terrible people, all of them. I did it because that’s what you did at nineteen, but hated every minute, despite the first-date party line that I found it so fulfilling. Oh please; half the time I felt like stomping out of session. So it was probably a good thing that I am never showing my face in Bais Shifra ever again.

I finished my two weeks advance notice, calling in sick for seven out of ten days, technically a no-no but Mrs. Sternberg didn’t comment, avoiding eye contact when she saw me. The principal did the same; she was probably relieved I was quitting.

And when Iabsconded that last day, and rushed to my car only to find a paper plate stuck on my windshield scrawled with the words, YOU’RE BLOCKING MY DRIVEWAY IDIOT, that was the clincher: I sat behind the steering wheel and cried for ten whole minutes.

Ten years stuck in this dead-end place, with my birthday — my thirtieth—looming around the corner.

I’m done.

***

I spent the next three days in my bedroom, bonding with my computer and a few stale family magazines. My mother peeked in every few hours to check on me, worried; I informed her I was working on a class project and needed the past five years’ worth of Jewish Zone magazines for research. My friend Leora stopped by, concerned after I’d ignored three of her texts. I was “re-evaluating my life,” I told her, then quickly changed the topic.

“You going to the high school reunion?” I asked her.

“What reunion?”

“I got an email from Rochela Kokosh —was she in our class? — about a reunion, next week.”

“Thirteen years, gosh. We’re ancient.” She rose briskly. “Not thinking about it. And I wouldn’t go to a reunion even if there was one. Not until we can afford a house. I’m the only one in our grade—”

“You didn’t get the email?”

She left to pick up her baby, telling me not to bother forwarding it to her, and I logged into my account to retrieve the invitation. I forwarded it to Leora anyway, then stared at the latest mass class message, from Leah Green, former class president, current assistant principal in some out-of-town Bais Yaakov establishment, husband a rebbi — i.e., a Shalvas Bais Yaakov success story. I should post, too, some cute message. To show I wasn’t not participating.

I had a crazy itch to hit Reply All with something totally outlandish, like Hey guys, any recs for a good pimple cream? Or, Hiya! Anyone hear of Moishy Schwartz from Boro Park, like 32-ish?

Instead I typed, Hi everyone! Looking forward to class reunion! Rachel Wisser, Miss Confidence. Totally.

Leah Gunzberg’s response came in first. Reunion? What reunion?

Gila Cohen: Cheli!!!!! You’re alive! You coming to Lakewood to visit?

Weird.

Another email appeared, from Mailer-Daemon. My forwarded message to Leora was undeliverable.

I examined the evite, the SBY logo, the RSVP to Rochela Kokosh, reunion coordinator. Was she in our class? I don’t remember.

Why was I the only one who’d received the invitation?

***

Obviously I went, driven mostly by curiosity. As I pulled up to a small shed near a huge mansion surrounded by a garden that looked like my head on a bad hair day, with little mounds of mud with tiny holes tunneling through them – okay, a really bad hair day – it occurred to me that this might be dangerous.

A uniformed, skinny girl sat on the grass, back facing me, so all I saw was curly auburn hair tied into a deliberately messy bun and a knapsack. I put the car into park. An odd-looking woman wearing a pink headband appeared, smiling.

“Ta-ta! Ready when you are, dear,” she sang, her accent slightly British, after introducing herself as Rochela Kokosh. “Everyone’s here.”

It was just me and a schoolgirl.

This was weird.

Also, there was something familiar about the girl. Her posture, her figure. Her bun.

I fingered my own reddish hair, straightened and parted neatly to the side, a frisson of tension jolting through me.

“Wait,” I said slowly. “This class reunion, it isn’t a reunion with my entire class, is it?”

Mrs. Kokosh smiled. “Well, no, dear, not at all. It’s a reunion….”

The girl turned around, and waved.

…With myself.

***

My seventeen-year-old self leapt from the grass, tossed her knapsack over her shoulder, stuck out her hand and grinned. I was still frozen in place Her dimple — my dimple — flashed on her right cheek. “So, I call myself Rachel now? What’s up with that?”

I blinked, accepting her handshake. How was my 17-year-old self dealing with this better than I was? “Seemed more mature. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Whatever.”

Mrs. Kokosh clapped her hands. “Lovely, you’ll get along just fine! Let me explain the wormholes— ” She launched into a detailed description of rotating black holes, ending with, “so we can bypass the grandfather paradox, and ta-ta! Couldn’t be simpler! Do you understand?”

“No,” we said simultaneously.

“Wonderful!” Kokosh adjusted her pink headband, gesturing towards the shed. “Now for the reunion activity!” A line of sheds spread behind the trees. A middle-aged, balding man, carrying an attaché case, stumbled out from a distant shed, a scrawny yeshiva kid at his heels.

“The door is shut. Inside is a chain of clues — I’ll give you the first — to guide you. The goal: Work out, together, how to get that door open.” She handed Cheli a pink envelope. “Here’s the first clue.”

“Oh, like an Escape Room?” I asked.

“Precisely.”

Cheli looked confused. “I’ll explain,” I told her. I turned back to Kokosh. “Any hints?”

“Yes. There’s a red button near the door if you need it. Press it and someone will come to assist.”

“How much time do we have?”

“One hour.” She fiddled with her flip-phone again, and the door opened. I swallowed. Cheli still looked confused. “Then back to your present. Ta-ta!”

And then we were inside, and the door slammed shut, the ominous clink of chains rattling from outside.

I was locked in an Escape Room.

With myself.

***

I surveyed our surroundings, then explained to Cheli how the game worked as she ripped open the envelope. A computer and printer stood in the right corner, a full bookshelf directly across from them. The red button Kokosh had mentioned was near the door. There was a combination locker (locked, a quick tug revealed), a stepladder, and a ceiling decorated with hanging stuffed animals and a large mirror flat across the right corner. Near the bookshelf stood a Shabbos lamp, a jewelry box, a color wheel, and other paraphernalia I’d examine later.

“Wisser042290,” she read. “Our name. And our birthday.”

“And the password to my laptop. And half my accounts.” I gestured at the computer. A pair of scissors was lying near the mousepad. “Let’s start there.”

Sure enough, the computer was password-protected, whirring to life when she typed in the code.

“Coooooooooool!” Cheli exclaimed.

I assumed the mouse to navigate the computer. An empty Word file was minimized on the screen, labeled Document1. The rest of the hard drive was empty—no potential clues there.

“The internet is working?” Cheli pointed at the Internet Explorer icon. “Maybe something there?”

I clicked the Internet and the MSN homepage popped up, the reddened face of Bernie Sanders filling the screen. I checked the browsing history. One site appeared; when I clicked it, I was redirected to a webpage, empty except for an image of a pair of scissors and clipboard.

“This has to mean something,” I said slowly. “Okay, verbalize.” One escape room technique is verbalizing whatever is in front of you, so your brain, and the person you’re with, can connect dots you might not be seeing. “An empty Word file. A computer. Internet, scissors— ”

“Cut and paste?” Cheli suggested. “The scissors and clipboard? Hit control-V on Word, see what happens.”

I did, and the next clue immediately appeared. Cheli shrieked in excitement behind me. Nature’s first is gold, in 14-point Arial font. Kokosh must have typed and then cut the phrase on Word before setting the computer up for us. The number 5 was written below, along with the phrase, I spy with my little eye….

“Green!” Cheli yelled. “Nature’s first green is gold! Robert Frost! I spy! What’s green in this room?”

We both turned to the color wheel. After staring for a minute, I noticed a nick in the red segment and scraped at it. The red coating came off onto my nail. “It’s a scratch-off!” I worked on the green section, and the next clue appeared.

But it can’t stay. 4.

The next series of clues were relatively uncomplicated, each with a number on the back. The scratch-off directed us to the jewelry box, which contained a gold locket — nothing gold can stay, the end of the poem — with a paper inside directing us to a series of softball clues until we reached the next card, hidden in a Tehillim on the bookshelf.

“Spell the difference between now and then,” Cheli read, leaning over my shoulder. “This fell out, too.” She bent down to retrieve what looked like an anagram piece, labeled with the number 6.

“Spell, anagrams,” I rattled off. “Now and then, now and later—”

“There’s something on the back.” A downward-pointing arrow was etched on the reverse side. “Hmm.”

We fell silent.

“No idea,” I said finally. I glanced at the clock; twenty minutes left. “We need a hint.” Reluctantly, Cheli pressed the red button near the door. Kokosh’s face filled the mirror on the ceiling.

“Ta-ta!” Kokosh smiled widely. “Robert Frost was wrong, by the way…”

“Nature’s first green isn’t gold?” Cheli asked doubtfully, craning her neck to see her.

“…but that’s not your hint. One moment, please—”

“Wait,” I called. “What’s the point of all this? This activity? Tell us that, at least?”

”You’ll work it out, dear. This Time Rewind reunion, it’s for anyone at a spot in life where they need it. Forties, fifties, any age. Men, women, married, single, divorced. Once my husband worked out how to control the wormholes — piece of cake!”

She disappeared, and an older woman, likely in her eighties, appeared in the mirror.

“Who are you?” the woman asked.

Cheli squinted her eyes. “Who are you?”

She smiled, flashing a dimple on her right side, visible even beneath the wrinkles, and my heart started to pound.

“Ah, I know who you are,” she said, mimicking my thoughts. “That was the hint. You need to climb.”

Her image disappeared.

“Hey,” Cheli said. “Her eyes kind of looked like—” She balked, and I knew she’d figured it out, too.

“The stepladder,” Cheli offered, after a beat. “We need to climb.” Ahead of me was the base of the stepladder. My eyes traveled upward.

“It’s an arrow up. That’s the hint.” I pointed at the stuffed animals hanging overhead. Directly above the ladder base, a stuffed lion swung. And in a flash, I had it.

“Spell the difference between now and then,” I breathed. “Who are you?”

“I’m Cheli…”

“And I’m Rachel. Spell the difference between now and then — the letters, the anagram letters—” I pointed at the zoo hanging from the ceiling, and with a whoop, Cheli clambered up the ladder for the lion – the Ari, the difference between the spelling of our names.

“There’s a button switch in the back!” she shrieked. She hit the switch, did a little victory dance, and as she tripped and tumbled down from the ladder, the printer from across the room whirred to life.

The Journal of Henry David Thoreau.

The next clue was printed on the paper spewed out of the printer, and Cheli, after re-gaining her balance, grabbed the annotated writings of Henry David Thoreau from the bookshelf. A folded, 8 ½ x 11 paper stuck out slightly on page 54, with twelve small black boxes scattered across the page. On the back of the paper was a dotted line, similar to what you’d see on a mailing label, a tiny pair of scissor sketched in. Behind the book, tucked against the wall, was a deck of cards, blank except for the number 6 written on the back of the first.

“What if…..” Oh gosh. I probably wouldn’t have figured it out myself, except I’d had a clue like this when I’d done an escape room with friends. I extended my hand. “Hand me the scissors.”

I cut out the boxes on the paper, then laid it — now with cut-out boxes in random spots, forming a grid — horizontally across so the sheet covered pages 54-55.

Individual letters from Thoreau’s text were now exposed in the cut-out areas, reading, KQIUN!THB?YD.

“Other side?” Cheli grabbed the sheet and flipped it over, then laid it down again.

LEMONJUICE.

The last box contained the number 8.

“Invisible ink. Oldest trick in the book.”

We spent the next few minutes exposing each card to the lamp light.

“Perfect Matches,” Cheli read aloud, lifting the first card as the letters appeared. “What’s that?”

I groaned.

***

The remaining cards’ messages — written in lemon juice, revealed once exposed to the light — were questions, and I explained the dating game to my seventeen-year-old self, ignoring her eye-rolling. Then we began to play.

The first few—the icebreakers—were easy. Favorite foods (I’d forgotten about my obsession with bananas and peanut butter, and Cheli almost passed out when I described pineapple pizza), favorite books, most embarrassing moments. Then the questions advanced.

“What surprised you most when you met yourself?”

“I’m not married?” Cheli said promptly. “Why not, by the way? At age— ” I could see her mentally doing the math, her eyes bugging out a second later. “Whoa!”

I glared at her.

She shrugged. “Listen, whatever. I’m not gonna lie and say I’m not shocked. I mean, me? But hey, I’m just happy you didn’t get fat.”

“Next question. What’s your biggest life stress?” I laughed. It came out like a bark. “That’s easy. My job. My life. Don’t ask.”

“Seminary,” Cheli declared. “That’s mine. The competition this year is crazy, and— ”

“Well, I can help with that! You got into BJJ.” Except when I uttered the seminary name, what came out was a warbled, brandesnatchjabberwocky.

The mirror in the corner of the room cracked as Kokosh’s face appeared. “Rules, rules!” she sang. “You can’t tell her what’s going to happen beyond what she sees right now.” She disappeared.

We both blinked. I shrugged. “Next.” I read the next card. “Empty your bags.”

Cheli laughed. “A time capsule! You first.”

I retrieved my tote from the corner, dumping out its contents. A brush, tissues, lip gloss, wallet, keys, and a gas station receipt spilled out, along with the resume of a guy I’d gone out with two months ago, my last paycheck, and a dog-eared copy of the Jewish Zone from last year Sukkos.

My life, in a bag. I winced.

“Cool!” Cheli held up the paycheck. “You ended up teaching piano?!”

“Sorry. Special ed.” I used to give piano lessons, once upon a time fantasizing about making it a career.

“Piano wasn’t practical enough? I guess.” Cheli wrinkled her nose. “You just quit your job, though. Shouldn’t have done special ed to begin with.”

“Don’t blame me. Nu? Empty your knapsack.”

Cheli obliged, and out spilled two jawbreakers, a student MetroCard, five colored pens, compass, and a wadded set of papers that, Cheli explained, was a Chumash report she’d just gotten back.

“What’s it about?” I glanced at the first page; red ink, a circled Aleph and metzuyan comment. “Nice.”

“Nisyonos, life. Min ha’koach el ha’poal. You know.”

I skimmed through the subtitles. When did I learn to write this nicely, in Hebrew? Or — more accurately — when did I forget?

            Avodah atzmis: Nisyonos. Nisayon ha’Akeida. Tachlis haNisayon.

I sighed. Life at seventeen. So simple and academic…

And pure. I skimmed through some of the content. Ha-tachlis ha-klalis shel ha-nisayon — the purpose of a nisayon, to bring essence from potential into reality, so one can receive s’char on a good deed, not just a good heart. Cheli — her perspective and hashkafos were so idealistic, optimistic, full of positivity and passion.

Not like me.

Next card. “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” I read.

Our eyes met, sending a shiver up my spine.

What had happened? Forget a reunion with married, bugaboo-and-latte brained former classmates, the unspoken competition over whose husband is doing what, who bought the nicest house, whose kids got accepted to Morah Shira’s playgroup, who got honored at their school’s dinner. What’s most — okay, I’ll say the word — depressing is having a reunion with yourself.

What had happened to my idealism? To that perspective? To that clarity about how life worked? My dreams, my goals for my future?

Cheli looked baffled. “I see myself…Well, you’re right here.”

Where did I see myself in ten years?

Not in Bais Shifra. I quit, anyway; the failure of the past ten years.

            Min ha’ko’ach el ha’poal. Life challenges meant to test us, to draw out strengths we weren’t aware we even had.

Cheli pulled out the next card, the second to last.

“List one thing you taught yourself,” Cheli read.

I picked up Cheli’s neatly handwritten pages again. My eyes skimmed her Hebrew cursive, read how she’d explained so thoroughly — a seventeen-year-old’s assessment — of life. And suddenly, a memory of myself thirteen years ago flashed into my mind. I remembered working on this, remembered poring over my loose-leaf, seforim and a Hebrew-English dictionary scattered over the kitchen table. I’d spent hours bent over the seforim, my father in the background making cracks about tuition money and Ohr Gedalyahus and potato kugel. I’d had such organized notes, references, footnotes. Then I went to meet with friends to go bowling.

It was beautiful, the writing.

But it was also empty. Small. Limited.

Because only I can only attest to that, now. Thirteen years later.

Not Cheli.

“List one thing you taught yourself,” Cheli repeated, snapping me back into our current reality. “I guess….” She suddenly looked nervous. “Life isn’t the way I’m going to expect it,” she said finally.

I laughed wryly. “Correct.”

“Rachel….So what do you do?”

I quit my job and escaped in a Time Travel game, honestly, but I didn’t say that.

“It’s… I don’t know.” Maybe quitting didn’t make my past ten years a failure, but step one to getting to where I wanted to be in the next ten. “Life has this way of doing funny things. But you’re an amazing person. Stay that way. Something gold can stay, if you pay attention to it.”

Cheli met my eyes. “But what if life breaks it.” It came out as a statement, not a question, and I thought I saw the older woman flash across the mirror again.

“Frost was wrong, Cheli. The gold becomes real only after you’ve traveled a bit through life. Ideals at seventeen — they’re not real, Cheli. Life is the gestation of those ideals into reality. Ko’ach el ha’poal — that’s not a high school assignment. That’s life.”

Except the mirror cracked again, and all that came out from my little speech was a warbled, jabberwockywonkerdoodle.

Kokosh appeared. “Some things,” she told us, directing her words towards Cheli, “life will teach you. No chit-chat. Focus on the cards.” She disappeared.

List one thing you taught yourself. What had Cheli taught me?

My mangled answer to Cheli, I realized, was my own response to the Perfect Matches card. A heavy silence filled the gap between us. The gap between Cheli and Rachel, spanning thirteen years. The gap between idealistic expectations and life’s realities. The gap that isn’t so wide, really.

What I’d taught myself.

“Ready for the next one,” I said quietly.

The last card wasn’t a question, but a list of parshios, starting with Naso and Korach and continuing along with all the parshios in sefer Bamidbar, just out of order.

Cheli bit her lip.

“No idea,” I said finally.

“Me neither. And we’ve got just a few minutes left. They excused a bunch of us from home ec for this when that weird lady crawled out of the locker, but I really gotta get back for next period, we have a precalculus exam…”

Verbalize.

“Bamidbar. Parshios. Let’s work backwards. What loose ends do we have to tie up?”

“Numbers. Sefer baMidbar. Numbers.”

I tingled with anticipation. We hadn’t used those numbers on the back of the cards yet…

“The locker?” Cheli’s eyes lit up. “The combination? The numbers on the cards, in order?”

We worked furiously on the cards, spreading them in the order in which we’d found their corresponding clues, from the cut-and-paste to Frost, down the rest of the list. Cheli flipped the cards, revealing the set of numbers.

542366858.

Two minutes left.

My fingers pounded on the buttons, and after two tries – Cheli realized the fifth 6 was a 9, since the arrow direction pointed upward, not down – the door sprung open, revealing a matryoshka doll. Fingers flying, Cheli whipped off layer after layer. Hands trembling, she withdrew a slip of paper, hidden inside the last of the dolls.

A key was attached.

“The key to unlock yourself comes from inside,” I read aloud. There was no number on the back.

Our final clue.

“Wait.” Ahead of us, the door loomed. “When we do this,” I said tersely, “the door will open. And I’m not sure what happens next.”

“Like if we see each other again?”

I nodded. She swallowed. I felt a lump form in my throat, too. “Remember what I taught you,” I whispered.

“You kidding me?” she said, regaining her composure. “Remember what I taught you.”

We hugged, closing that gap. Me and myself, one entity now, and I sank into that feeling of inner peace for a few beautiful seconds.

One minute left.

I took the key from Cheli’s hands and approached the door again, inserting the key in the keyhole.

It didn’t fit.

The key to unlock yourself comes from inside.

“Forty seconds.” Cheli watched me tensely.

“The key doesn’t work!” Frantic, I pushed the key inside, forcing it in.

I turned the key. It didn’t budge.

I yanked in the other direction.

And heard a snap.

Thirty seconds left, with a broken key and a jammed door. A wave of hopelessness spread over me. You’re blocking my driveway, idiot—

Cheli was working the hinges with the scissor now. That persistence, stubbornness – she’d taught me other things, too, I realized.

The key to unlock yourself comes from—

“From inside!” Cheli shrieked. Ten seconds left. “Pull! Rachel, pull!”

I held my breath, screwed my eyes shut, and pulled back. The door opened with no resistance, and I rushed outside to the grass, blinking from the bright light, giddy with relief. “We made it!” I turned to high-five myself—

Cheli was gone.

“Congratulations,” Kokosh said. I realized that with the keyhole still jammed, the door must have been unlocked to start with, the clinking chains we’d heard earlier likely just a prop. Other sheds were opening, releasing men, women, some with their younger versions trailing after them and some on their own, like me.

“Where’s Cheli?” I heard myself shriek, then heard Kokosh’s whispered response still inside, dear. I struggled to run back into the shed but she pushed me forward, forward in time, pressing buttons on her flip-phone as another shed door sprung open and Leah Green lurched out, a frozen look in her eyes but her younger version also exited, a ghastly apparition sobbing, and I somehow knew they hadn’t made it out in time.

I also understood, suddenly, the doll layers, the key to unlock yourself message, the difference between now and then—and that Kokosh’s whispered last response hadn’t meant inside the shed, she hadn’t meant that at all.

***

I still dream of myself, sometimes.

I’m always on the beach, and Cheli is dancing from afar, smiling in that know-it-all attitude and waving, hair blowing in the wind. I want to hug her again, to hug her so badly and tightly and never let go of that brazen confidence, that carefree way she attacked life, open-armed and unafraid. Myself at seventeen. That idealism. The dreams, those beautiful dreams.

But she always fades away, dissolving into the horizon’s muted colors; she wasn’t real to start with. The older woman with the dimple appears sometimes, too. She is real, and in my dreams I search her face for traces of disappointment. That haunts me, the nights she comes back.

Who are you? she’d asked, in that shed. I hope my life never, ever gets to the point that I ask myself that question, that I cannot recognize my own self anymore. She speaks to me sometimes, in my dreams. But it comes out as gibberish.

My thirtieth birthday came and went. It was fine. It helped that I had a date scheduled for the next day, the nephew of Bais Shifra’s physics teacher. I’d never met her, but she’d “heard about me,” she’d said, tactfully not mentioning it had been blasted over an intercom. It didn’t work, of course, ended after two dates, but it helped my attitude. He drove a Toyota, at least.

Two weeks after the Escape Room, I got an email from Leah Green, asking if I wanted to “catch up.” She must have spotted me, too. We’re meeting next week for coffee.

I also registered for a course in music therapy and restarted piano lessons. So far, five students, all high school kids. I love it. I also love them, that age, full of unlocked doors—which, honestly, are always unlocked, but life has funny ways of pretending they’re bolted shut.

Life is complicated. But so far, the older woman is always smiling when she visits at nights. And when morning dawns, I bask in that delicious half-sleep when part of my conscious reality still tastes the sweetness of dreams, and allow my body to register my surroundings. My present room, my present life; I inhale deeply and open my eyes to meet my present self. Rachel Wisser, with Cheli still inside.

Still inside me.

And with that thought in mind, I begin every next day of my life.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 688)