The cavernous auditorium was lit only by a single row of spotlights hanging over the stage, at the other end of this imposing room. One by one, the two eighth grade classes filed in through the heavy double oak doors, our excited chatter halted by the darkness, and the stern looks from our teachers. We silently walked down the isles in chronological order, with Bracha Abrams at the helm and Rivka Weinstein, resigned, for the entirety of her childhood, to being last; last to receive her marked exams back from the teacher, last to stand in line for recess, and if the teacher was the sort who color coded our school supplies, Rivka Wienstein would find herself in the far left hand corner of the classroom where the alphabetized madness would extend to the class seating arrangement.
And so we walked down the isle. Peering up at the huge darkened ceiling, its angles reflecting our teacher's hushed voices, and the footsteps of our principals, who walked across the wooden stage up front. As our class made its way to the first two rows in the front of the auditorium, I ran my hands over the backs of the Burgundy upholstered seats, enjoying the phwap, phwap, phwap sound it made, and trying not to trip over my own two feet in a room with too little light, a sloping isle, and my ever present inability to understand new surroundings due to my inability to see properly due to the positioning of the lenses in my eyes due to a genetic disorder inherited from my dad called Marfan's Syndrome.
We reach the front of the room, and sit alphabetically, horizontal to the front of the stage (Rivka Wienstien is, for a moment, as close to the action as the rest of the students, although as this graduation rehearsal progresses, she will find to her chagrin, that she is once again at the mercy of her fate, and will receive her diploma last). The auditorium we are now seated in has been rented from the local public school because the one at our school is too small for the commencement ceremonies. It is Sunday. We will rent it again for the actual graduation, two Sundays from now.
To our left sat the truly intimidating twelfth-graders, who would be graduating during the same afternoon in June as we were, except they would be wearing navy blue caps and gowns (which caused no headaches for the mothers except to shell out a forty buck rental fee), while we would be wearing fancier than normal shabbos dresses (which caused huge whopping migrains to our mothers, because dresses were either dorky or not modest enough, or too mature for an eighth grader, or too childish. We were, after all, at the cusp of that ultra awkward stage where childhood and adulthood come crashing together in a hormonal quagmire we call adolescence). The seniors, for the most part, would be attending different seminaries in Israel the following year, while we as 9th graders, would be attending the school we were now graduating from.
Our girls school, housed the boys and girls nursery and kindergarten and all the girls classes from first through twelfth grade. In total, there were about 300 students in four wings: The preschool, elementary, middle and high schools. As a fourth grader, when I first started attending this school, the sixth graders were the intimidating ones. Especially during recess, when they wore their orange safety belts and were responsible for herding us back to our respective classrooms. If we fell out of line, they had the authority to tell on us, and so, they were as deathly frightening as the principal.
As a sixth grader, I enjoyed my satus as a "safety" and wore my orange belt with pride, but I was intimidated by the eight graders, who used deodorant and lipgloss and had each class taught by a different teacher, some of them rabbis! Now as an eighth grader, February granted me a large part in the junior high play with an entire comic scene to myself. In May I had ridden a number of frightening roller coasters on our junior high graduation trip and most of the time, I had enjoyed my classes, including math, as I was now in Mrs. B.'s remedial algebra.
But the seniors! They were old enough to get married! In fact, this year there was one girl who had an engagement ring and showed it to anyone who asked to see it. They, unfathomably, were only 4 years older, and yet, they had already passed that invisible line that made them grown ups. As eighth graders, or at least, myself in my innocence, could not comprehend their world. They were the only grade that could wear makeup to school (but only on Rosh Chodesh--the first day of the Jewish month, acknowleged by Beth Jacob's everywhere with PTA sponsored cookies, and a day where you didn't have to wear your scratchy uniform shirt). They took accounting! Studied for SATs! Could drive all the way to NY if they felt like it! And didn't have to go to class! In fact, they told the teachers when they wanted to learn, at least, this is what they told us was in store for us. Except for two seniors, Aliza and Dahlia, I was terrified of the lot of them.
But enough of my reminiscing. "FO-cus, Giiiiiirls!," Mrs. Goldstein was shouting through the microphone onstage, as she simultaneously tapped it, "LIS-ten CARE-fully! In two weeks your parents and friends will be sitting where YOU are sitting NOW! We want to do this RIGHT! and YOU, GIRLS (pause), do not want to be EMBARRASSED for not following my EASY to FOLLOW directions!! (sarcasm is now overly apparent).
"You will now LISTEN CAREFULLY. Mrs. Bell has GRACIOUSLY given up her time to PLAY the PIANO for YOUR graduation. (Mrs. Bell gives a friendly wave from the piano bench). She is NOT HERE to WASTE HER TIME! Mrs. Bell has been doing this every year for 14 YEARS!! WE WOULD appreciate it if she would come back EVERY YEAR, SO DO NOT MAKE this DIFFICULT!!"
" Everyone, we will now be PRACTICING walking down the ISLE. Will the twelfth GRADE PLEASE follow Mrs. Zacks to the BACK of the auditorium. Will the Eighth grade girls PLEASE follow Mrs. Baumberg down the other ISLE? and then, MRS. BELL? (Mrs. Bell waves again). THANK you MRS. BELL! Mrs BELL will begin playing the Alma mater. Start with your Right foot and MARCH on the BEAT! MARCH GIRLS!!"
The twelfth grade follows the directions. The Eighth grade follows the directions. We march, we line up beside the stage. We listen to the speakers names get announced: The president of the school. The Rabbi of the school. The honored parent, the valedictorian, the girls who does the most chessed (charity work), the girl who is the biggest chessed case (meaning apparent). We applaud politely at the speaches that aren't said. Rehersals are so weird, I think. I smile at my friends. We have not screwed anything up. I am terrified that I will mess something up. I am terrified that I will make a mistake. I am terrified for graduation day, but I am also terrified for today, graduation day rehearsal, where every move is scrutinized by the 8 assorted faculty.
Time for a quick break. We are allowed 15 minutes to eat a snack, go find the bathrooms in this unfamiliar building, and chat with our friends. The teachers are tired from ordering us around. Everyone is relieved that this day is almost over, all that is left is the pretend handing out of the diplomas. Then everyone can go home.
We file back to our seats for the last set of instructions. Mrs. Goldstein claps her hands together, and we fall silent, our baggies of nosh, corn chips and pretzels are stowed.
"GIRLS!! We are ALMOST DONE! Please line up beside the stage in ALPHABETICAL ORDER! Eighth grade FIRST! twelfth grade BEHIND THEM! One by one when I CALL YOUR NAME, you will walk across the stage, starting with your LEFT FOOT. You will walk across the stage until you are at the CENTER beside Mrs. ELSTEIN. You will GIVE MRS ELSTEIN a HUG (90 year old lady who gave 2 million dollars to the school) You will shake my HAND with your RIGHT HAND! You will take your DIPLOMA with your LEFT HAND, you will nod to the Rabbis and school board seated ONSTAGE! You will TAKE A FLOWER from Mrs. Baum who will be standing at the OTHER END OF THE STAGE!! you will walk down the stairs and RETURN to your SEAT!!"
Mrs. Goldstein takes a deep breath. She paces back and forth a few feet and collects herself. She then starts in a lower voice:
"If there is anything you don't understand, I will repeat myself. We need everyone to understand how to do it. Okay? If anyone has a question, please raise your hand at this point, and ask it. I am sure, that if you ask this question, you will be helping someone who is too embarrassed to raise their hand. Are their any Questions?"
I feel my heart beating. There is something that has been bothering me, no, terrifying me this entire day. I feel worried sick. My hands are cold and clammy and I feel my face flush in the dark, but I am terrified and brave. I raise my hand.
"WELL..." says Mrs. Goldstein expectantly, and all sixty pairs of eyes in the room turn towards me.
"...I, um, um have a question? I, uh... am worried that... well, this happens to me a lot?" I swallow. I start again, "Sometimes? I mix up my...left hand with my right hand? I mean, it sort of runs in my family?" (my voice is getting stronger now). "My mom has it too, but see, I am mostly a lefty? Like, to write with, or use a scissors and stuff, but I also use my right hand a lot? and so I am always getting them confused? ...and I am worried that I might mess something up? by forgetting which hand is which?"
I stare up at the stage. I am relieved to have voiced my concern.
The room is silent. Then it is too silent. I hear the faraway sound of a small radio playing a non-discernable song up in the light/sound control room. Suddenly Mrs. Goldstein is marching to the edge of the stage, her sturdy heels click click clicking across, and thump thump thump down the stage stairs, and march march march to the silent row of girls. She makes her way over to me so that we are standing face to face. She stares into my eyes and then says in a voice, which to my mind, was louder than the voice of god at Mt. Sinai:
"THIS IS YOUR RIGHT HAND!" She grabs my right hand and waves it around.
"THIS IS YOUR LEFT HAND!" She grabs my left hand and waves it around.
"...and THIS..." she pushes her bony fingers into my face, hard enough for me to fall back into my chair, "THIS, is your NOSE!" She ends triumphantly, as I make out a nervous laughter from the assembled group.
...
...
...
As I sit in my chair I have the strange sensation of floating. I am floating up, into the wide chasm that is the auditorium ceiling. I hover over the assembled groups of girls, I see the piano and the chairs and the microphone. I hear the concerned whispers of my classmates. I can hear the comments of lastnames C through G. They are terrified and sympathetic. They are my friends and they are saying things to make me feel better, and I feel myself floating down from the ceiling, and my eyelids get hotter and hotter and as I reach the bottom and begin to feel the seat's armrests, the seat's back, its springy chair, hot tears well in my eyes and fog up my glasses.
Mrs. Goldstein has now made her way back to the center of the stage. Mrs. Bell has started playing Pomp and Circumstance, and the girls start up on the stage. The music notes hit me like tomatoes: ping ping ping. I am mortified. The girl in front of me is now gone and now it is my turn.
My name is called. i walk across the stage, left foot first. i hug Mrs. Elstein. i shake Mrs. Goldstein's hand with my right hand, i pretend to take my diploma in my left hand. i nod to the empty chairs of the president of the school, the board. i pretend to take a flower from Mrs. Baum. i march down the stairs and...
... fly up the isle, past all of the empty rows in the auditorium, down the empty hallways and into the bathroom. The nervous laughter of the girls still ringing shrilly in my head. I am sobbing uncontrollably.
Everyone saw! In front of all of those imposing twelfth graders! Especially the girls who I had admired and looked up to! Aliza had been my camp counselor when I was eight, and I liked her then, mainly for her long blond pretty hair and her propensity for handing out candy, and Dahlia, who shared with me a passion for the arts (which included meetings in the bathroom during davening (praying) where we would pour over our notebooks and compare elaborate doodles).
I turned on the cold water. Took of my glasses and washed my face. Without my glasses, I saw my blotchy face and red eyes fourfold in the mirror. I tried breathing slower. A few minutes later my friends found me shaken but better. As soon as they saw me they ran over and hugged me.
"My mom's waiting outside," Devorah said looking at me, "everyone is already in the minivan. Are you okay?" My friends are all there in a huddle around me.
I nod slowly and head out into the chilly dusk.
