*

Later, once we’re safe and sound at Temmy’s apartment, I lean on the balcony railing, looking out over Yerushalayim. The view is insane. I love it. I want to stay here, forever, never fly back to Lakewood, miss ninth grade high school orientation, and just watch my yummy nieces until it’s time to apply to sem in four years.

Temmy comes out with a scoop of ice cream. “How was the Israel Museum?” she asks brightly.

I make a face. “Expensive. That cab ride cost us like three days’ worth of spending money.”

She slings an arm around me, and we face the view together. “I can’t believe you live here,” I say.

She takes a deep breath in of summer night. “I know, me neither. And I can’t believe I’m finally sharing it all with my favorite baby sister.”

“Aaaah,” I sigh, “how much more that would mean if I wasn’t your only baby sister.”

She steals my ice cream and takes a big bite. “I wish you could stay forever.”

Laughing, I brush my newly styled hair out of my face.

Upon arriving in Eretz Yisrael, Temmy and our other sister, Hadassah, promptly brought me over to Simi’s Salon, which, conveniently enough, is located in Hadassah’s building. My big sisters have always been larger than life to me, like storybook characters. Shiny and pretty and always saying and doing the right thing. Basically, my complete opposite. But I still love them. Simi gave me something called a Keratin treatment, and just like that, my entire repertoire of jokes about my crazy hair were gone. Then we went to Papaya Spa, conveniently located in Temmy’s building — Ramat Eshkol rocks — and I got my eyebrows done for the first time, which, in case you don’t know, hurts. Like a lot. Chaviva from the spa couldn’t handle that I’ve never touched my eyebrows, and I left feeling oddly proud over my thick eyebrows, which is a very strange feeling, considering I hadn’t spared them a second thought before this trip. So now I have silky straight hair, thick, shaped eyebrows, and everyone is suddenly telling me I look exactly like my sisters.

Of course, then I tell them a joke and they raise their own not as thick eyebrows, and smile politely, but I’m used to that.

Oh, I’m very used to it.

I think people are under the impression that I’m oblivious to the fact that not everyone likes jokes and puns and limericks. Well, I’m not. I just think that everyone likes different things, and honestly, they’re ice breakers.

Not that I’m in a position usually to, uh, break the ice.

Nope, all the ice was firmly broken waaay back in kindergarten. Since then, we’ve been the same group of girls, filling the same roles, year after year after year. And of course, we’re all continuing to high school together. Which, you know, I’m pumped about.

Popular Perel. Trendy Tirtza. And then, yours truly, Dopey Dahlia. I pretend I don’t care, but honestly, if I didn’t care you should probably take my pulse, because then I’d be actually dead, instead of dead to the world of social ease.

I snatch my ice cream back from Temmy, cackling wickedly as I think, fleetingly, about Popular Perel and what she would say about my new silky hair.

*

The Kosel is teeming with tourists and traveling camps and Israeli girls in small groups. I love that this is what they do with their friends. Back home, the girls who actually have friends to go out with either get ice cream or go shopping; davening at the outer wall of the Mikdash is just not an option.

I step closer, squeeze past an old woman handing out little olive branches, tiptoe around an Ethiopian woman having a very loud, very earnest conversation with Hashem, and find myself nose to nose with the wall.

I’ve come almost every day of my trip so far, and it’s incredible how there can be thousands of people here yet I feel like this Wall belongs to me.

I look up, up, up, where the white stone meets the blue sky. Hashem, I think, please let it all be easier. High school, classes, teachers.

Please let me get it.

Please let them get me.

Please let me be successful.

And Hashem. Here I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated every bit of kavanah I have into my tefillah. Please let me have real, true friends. For the first time in my life. Please.

*

We don’t stop for bagels on the way out of the Old City like we usually do, because Hadassah’s Aunt Brenda is waiting for us to join her for lunch. We take two buses to Har Nof and bang the double stroller onto the sidewalk. I’m sweating, and my silky hair is sticking to the back of my neck. I pull it into a scrunchie and then we walk the block to Brenda’s house.

Hadassah spends five minutes primping in front of the lobby mirror, which is strange because she had just told me she feels terrible that we’re late.

The apartment is big and cool, and the air conditioning envelopes us like a giant hug.

“Excccceelllent,” I say, bounding through the front door and making a beeline for a creamy-looking leather couch.

Yessss. Exactly what I need.

I plop down, eyes closed, and only open them when Avrumi pinches my arm.

Hadassah is looking down at me, wearing an expression of complete mortification, while an older woman, who must be Aunt Brenda, looks down at me, bemused.

“You must be Dahlia,” she says. And the way she says it, I know she’s heard a lot about me.

“I must be,” I say lightly, pretending I don’t see my older sister cringing behind her.

Yup, that’s me. Dopey Dahlia. With silky hair and great eyebrows and a totally socially off personality.

 (Originally featured in Cozey, Issue 1002)