Read Since You Left Me for Free Online Page B

attention, but the potential stirrings ofa heart attack do, especially after losing two professors to myocardial infarction in the last year.
    “Are you in the heart attack pool?” I whisper to Herschel.
    “That’s disgusting,” he says.
    “I’m just saying Schwartzburg doesn’t look good.”
    Herschel shakes his head. He’s too pious for a heart attack pool. I can’t really blame him.
    Barry Goldwasser jumps up. He’s obviously not in the pool either.
    “Are you alright, professor?” he says.
    Just my luck. Barry is going to save Schwartzburg from a heart attack in under a minute, and he’s going to do it right in front of The Initials. He’ll become the hero of the junior class, and I’ll fade a little further into obscurity.
    But Schwartzburg pulls himself back from the brink. He stands and brushes himself off. “Sorry. This situation with Aaron’s family has me flustered,” Schwartzburg says.
    “It has us all upset,” Barry Goldwasser says. “We should do something for them.”
    The students nod in agreement.
    Barry looks at me, his face full of kindness and pity. I want to punch him.
    The end-of-class tone rings through the school. Another English class is over without our having discussed English.
    The Initials stands up. I look at the outline of her butt beneath the long skirt. Does she have on bicycle shorts, regular shorts, or leggings today? She bends over to get her books. I decide it’s probably leggings. And under the leggings?
    “Hello?” Herschel says.
    “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
    “I said that maybe I should talk to Schwartzburg. He seems upset lately. He’s lectured about dark matter three times this week.”
    “Don’t talk to him.”
    “He might need an ear.”
    “He doesn’t need an ear. He needs an antidepressant.”
    “You never want to get involved, Sanskrit. That’s not service. HaShem would have us be of service.”
    “I’ve got enough problems. I can’t take on God’s problems, too. If HaShem is all-powerful, why does he need my help?”
    Herschel looks at me with that pitying look on his face. He not only found God in Israel; he found superiority.
    The class shuffles out of the room. I notice Barry Goldwasser falls in next to The Initials.
    “I saw you davening this morning,” he says. “Very nice.”
    Davening. That’s what we do during the mandatory morning prayer service—rock back and forth as wetalk to HaShem . I like to sneak peeks at The Initials davening through the divider that separates the guys and girls while we’re praying. She really gets into it, her eyes closed, her breath coming in little gasps.
    “You shouldn’t be watching the girls during prayer,” The Initials says.
    “Not the girls,” Barry says. “Just you.”
    The Initials smiles.
    Ugh. Another reason to hate Barry.
    For the next few days, most of the school will be praying for the Zuckermans, asking God to help my mother, asking him to be with my family as we struggle through this trying time.
    And me?
    I’ll be thinking about other things like I always do during prayers.
    Nobody would confuse me with a religious kid. That’s because I hate B-Jew, and I’m not exactly subtle about it. Not everyone loves the religious part of school, but even the most cynical of them can admit we’ve got great academics, a cool faculty, lots of extracurriculars.
    None of that matters to me. I just feel trapped.
    It’s because I never chose this place. It was chosen for me.
    For that, I can thank my grandfather, Zadie Zuckerman.

“Your grandpa was a real mamzer bastard.”
    That’s what my father said one day when I was ten years old. We were in Roxbury Park watching the lawn bowling tournament. It’s a Los Angeles tradition. Old men dress in white and lawn bowl in the middle of Beverly Hills. I guess the men reminded my father of Abe Zuckerman, my grandfather who we called Zadie. He had died a few weeks before. My father cried like a baby at his funeral, but the minute it