Between the Cracks

“You know why I did it? Not for her. For me. I didn’t have anybody else to speak to!” she spat.

I see the cracks grow longer and wider as the years pass and the student body increases tenfold. There’s so much more space to fall between them. Since my second year of teaching I measure success by how many girls I manage to pull from between the cracks. Each of those names is a zechus for refuas hanefesh for Tzippy.

Tzippy and I weren’t even classmates just grade mates. I barely knew her name but Tzippy knew my name and hated it — both first and last. She hated the way if someone said my name everyone knew who I was. “Oh Shevy Greenbaum? The one who had the lead role in the school play and won the writing contest? She’s sooo nice.”

Meanwhile I was occupied with my own set of teenage struggles and I never thought of myself as popular or someone to be jealous of. So when a prominent rav in the community contacted me one Thursday during my second year of teaching I had no clue what he wanted. I detected a note of accusation in his voice when I affirmed that I was indeed Shevy Greenbaum.

“Do you know Tzippy Schwartz?”

“Tzippy? Um I think I do. Vaguely.” I had seen her at a wedding a few weeks before and had noticed that her blue eyes were barely visible under her makeup. Her hair was both lighter and darker in different places than I remembered it. But I might have been wrong.