Roger wriggles in his seat.
Oh, nobody ever told him it would be like this. They told him it would be a half hour, maybe three quarters of one, and that he would be in and out, that there was a bathroom in case he wanted to sneak out. They told him it might even be interesting, that he might like it. Maybe he didn't believe that part, but he believed the rest.
The back door is locked. He can't leave. Not even to take a piss, which he really, really needs to do.
Up on the platform – what did Mark call it? a bema? bima? – is Mark, his back hunched over as he trails a pointer-thing in his hands over the words in that big book. For a brief moment ten minutes ago, Roger tried absently to decipher what his friend was saying, but either Mark's lisp has worsened or he's mumbling. Or maybe, just maybe, he's not reading it in English. Roger thinks that might be a little far-fetched, though. Someone would have noticed, and given him the right language.
Nobody else seems to think that something's wrong. Mrs. Cohen is positively beaming, and her surly husband is staring up at his son with some level of pride. Roger knows Mark notices this, which is probably the cause for the slight smile tugging at the boy's lips as he reads.
In the back row, there are kids chattering, their lips moving swiftly as they hiss swiftly to one another. Roger knows Mark is uncomfortably aware of this. He wants to spring out of his seat, leap over the pews, and set Mark's not-quite-friends straight. But he can't, because he isn't allowed to talk. He has to be silent, he has to be immobile, and he has to be supportive.
His mother is three rows back and to the left, sitting beside her husband. Roger managed to snatch up a first-row seat because of his status as Mark's best friend, and those of a lesser status are therefore forced to sit towards the back. Also seated in the first row are Mark's parents, grandparents, sister, and a very uncomfortable-looking April, who is Mark's sister Cindy's best friend. She doesn't belong in this row, but Roger can lean over and peer at her chest, the way her button-down shirt's fabric stretches over the bulge of her –
Focus, Roger, he admonishes himself. He jerks his head back toward Mark and gives his friend an encouraging smile. He doesn't know if Mark is saying his words right, doesn't know if even Mark knows it, but he does know that Mark relies on his friends' and family's support to get him through today.
Last night, Roger slept over at Mark's house. It was nothing out of the ordinary – the two boys, whenever possible, sleep over at one another's houses. Since they live so far apart, all their visits to each other are sleepovers, and Roger convieniently elected to not stay in the motel with his parents on this rare occasion on which his parents came as well. Instead, he huddled up beside a quivering Mark in the latter boy's twin bed, reminding Mark that it would go fine, that nothing could possibly happen to ruin this, that it would all be perfect.
And Roger wants to say that now, he really does, but he can't. Because Mark's up there on that platform, seemingly a million miles away. He's counted the distance, of course, stretched his legs out as far as he can, inching his feet up a little bit at a time, trying to figure out how far it is. But after awhile, there is always that hiss from three rows back and to the left, and Roger sits up again.
He wishes, desperately, that he could tell Mark how good he's doing, because Mark looks like he needs it. The boy on the platform is so far from the Mark Roger hangs out with once a month or so. Instead of his eyes tearing up from laughing so hard, Mark's eyes are firmly focused on the scroll before him, far darker than their normal shade of pale blue. His hands are, instead of twitching and wringing, laying limply at his sides. One is, anyway, while the other one steadily moves the pointer over the unfamiliar words. Roger winces. Mark looks so… unlike himself.
He looks like his dad. He is careful and self-conscious, his eyes firmly on the page in front of him, his nervous habits all pushed aside, his glasses slightly tilted and Roger can just tell how much Mark wants to adjust them but can't, can see the way Mark's hand twitches slightly upwards as though considering, however absently, moving them in some way.
And then…
It's over.
Mark's voice slows and stops, the words ceasing to tumble from between his lips. The unfamiliar language withers and melts away, and for the first time Roger realizes that Mark wasn't only saying them, but singing them, and for all his complaints that Roger is the singer, that he makes films and that's it, well, Mark can sing. He captivated Roger with words he didn't even understand, put Roger into a trance, did everything in his power to grasp the attention of the entire audience (save for the obnoxious kids in the back who are only here because Mark's mother is a very social woman who befriends other mothers and, several months prior to this landmark event, had Mark distribute invitations to the families of every child in his Hebrew school class).
"Um," says Mark cautiously, "this… is… my speech." His voice is hesitant, slow and deliberate as he stumbles over the words that he wrote himself, and Roger has always known Mark's been good at writing, but this is something else entirely, it's a robotic kind of synopsis of whatever Mark just read – sang. Except here, Mark's voice is nearly silent, and his words tumble out faster and faster and faster as he reads it. Roger would love to understand what Mark is saying, but all he can do is listen.
"So, look to the present, God tells his companions," Mark says slowly, and Roger knows Mark is one of Scarsdale's many Jewish athiest adolescents, but the message seems honest enough. "Live your life to the fullest, every moment another chance. Live in the now, in the present, because – what else is there? No day but today."
Mark closes his eyes for a long time. Roger is reminded abruptly of his dog, June, curled up comfortably on the sofa, maybe with some ache in her tummy, eyes closed because she doesn't want to see the world watching her in pain like this.
Then, without warning, Mark stumbles backward, and his father is in the aisle, holding a plastic bowl of colorful… candies? Bewildered, Roger tilts his head, and as though telling some bizarre secret to the room's sole non-Jew ("goy," as Mark's mother will murmur distastefully), Mark's father explains, "You're supposed to throw them at Mark."
This, Roger can do.
He may have to be silent. He may have to restrain from telling Mark how well he did, or holding Mark's hand and telling him it'll all be over soon.
But thanks to Mark's dad and these slightly irrational – yet humorous – Jewish traditions, Roger has some way of communicating with his best friend, some way to let him know he's all right, it's all right, everything is and is going to be all right.
As he flicks a Jolly Rancher at Mark's pumpkin-shaped head, Roger smirks and drums his fingers in the air, silently telling Mark, it was me. Mark smiles at Roger – a real smile this time, genuinely appreciative and maybe even happy – and makes no effort to duck as the next candy comes whizzing towards his skull. Roger, at least, has the decency to unwrap the candies before aiming for Mark's mouth, and with all his skill at throwing things, he doesn't miss Mark's mouth a single time.
After it is over, Mark and Roger will walk hand-in-hand along the Hudson, best friends in a world where they have to make their own happiness, their own communication, their own distant gazes at each other.
When the weekend is over and Roger is back home in the city, gazing emptily out the window, he knows that he and Mark are staring at the same stars and moon.
It isn't a phone call, it isn't a postcard, and it isn't a stab of a doorbell. It's silent communication, and again, the boys will smile those secretive little smiles that show just how much they love this universe and the way they can warp it to fit their needs.
For now, at least. As in all things, the era of adolescence is temporary. Yet, it is long enough to give Mark and Roger the security they need, the absolute surity they have in the fact that their friendship will last until forever comes and looks them in the eye.