“I’m in,” I say evenly.

I settle cross-legged on the floor. “Who has a coin?”

Yael joins me, then Shan, Debbi, Zeesy, Faiga. One by one, the entire bunk settles into a circle.

Well, then. Here goes nothing.

“I have no idea how to play,” Gila announces.

I square my shoulders dramatically. “I shall teach you, young one. So we all sit across from each other, right? And I whisper a question, like any question, to the girl across from me, that’s Yaeli, right? So she answers out loud. Like, let’s say I whisper, ‘Who is the person here you’d want next to you on a desert island?’ And she answers, ‘Faiga.’

“She then flips a coin. Heads, she has to tell Faiga what the question was. Tails, Faiga will never know why she was the answer. And that, my dear, is The Coin Game.”

Gila is staring at me. “That is the worst game in the world. Like I can see like nine thousand reasons why that would lead to fights and crying.”

Zeesy waves her hand. “Pish posh,” she says in a terrible British accent.

We crack up.

“Okay, who has a coin?” I ask again.

Zeesy whips out a quarter. “Let’s do it.”

I’m across from Debbi. I lean over. “Who do you think will get married first?” I whisper.

She thinks a minute. “Faiga,” she says out loud. Faiga’s eyes widen. “Ohmigosh, heads, heads, heads,” she says, flipping the coin.

It’s tails.

“Sorry, hun,” Debbi says, wrinkling her nose.

Faiga leans toward Yaeli and whispers a question to her. Yaeli pauses, then clears her throat. “Naomi,” she says.

I freeze, then practically grab the coin from Faiga. Oh, gosh, if this isn’t heads, the curiosity is going to kill me.

Heads.

I raise my eyebrows at Yaeli. She blushes. “Uh, she asked me who I would change lives with if I could.”

The word stunned would be an understatement. “Actually?” I ask.

“Actually,” she confirms.

I wave a hand modestly but inside, I find myself, well, stunned, at the way you can be surrounded by people all day, but they don’t really see you at all.

Being real has never really been my issue. I don’t have a great filter, and I usually say way too much of what is on my mind. So the fact that Yaeli has summed me up so incorrectly is… almost liberating. Like I’m being given a chance to show the world a different side of myself. One that has it all together. A life that girls would want to switch their own for.

I’m suddenly extra conscious of my hands, my hair. I sit curled up neatly on the lobby couch instead of slumped over the way I usually sit. I see Yaeli out of the corner of my eye and throw my head back to laugh at whatever Debbi’s just said. Debbi looks highly confused.

“Wait, what? Naomi, I just said that I think we’re having meatloaf for dinner tonight.”

I flip my hair over one shoulder. “I know. I thought you were kidding?”

Now Debbi looks perplexed. “Uh, nope, not kidding. I saw Mrs. Miller before, she mentioned it.”

Yuck.

“Oh, well,” I say breezily. “I have enough Reisman’s Brownie Bars for us all.”

Debbi high-fives me.

She and Zeesy seem to not be talking. Gila was right, The Coin Game is awful. I feel really bad that I convinced people to play it. But it is insane fun, and what else were we supposed to do on a rainy day? And besides, it opened my eyes. Just because I’ve always considered my life to be boring and complicated doesn’t mean everyone perceives it that way. And it’s kind of nice that I give off such a put-together impression. I smooth my hair back, and curl my legs up the other way, because they’re starting to cramp.

Debbi is staring at me. “What is with you?” she demands.

I just shrug.

She stands up, looking grumpy. “Whatever, let’s go eat the gross meatloaf. Or you know, poke it with a fork while we slowly starve.”

I stand up, too. Sorry, Debs. I’m too perfect right now to be worried about things like meatloaf.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 958)