The Amanda Project: Book 4: Unraveled by Amanda Valentino, Cathleen Davitt Bell Page A
Authors: Amanda Valentino, Cathleen Davitt Bell
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room down the hall to change—our other two roommates were watching the movie. I followed her into the elevator, through the lobby with its mirror-clad columns and fake fireplace, and down a hallway to Banquet Hall A.
We could hear music andthen we were standing at the open doors to a the ballroom. There was a disco ball hanging over a dance floor, round tables being cleared of dinner dishes by waiters, and up on a platform a long rectangular table decorated with stuffed animals and canopied in balloons—a giant floating balloon ceiling. The guests were dressed up, some sitting down, a few dancing, others talking or milling about. Thereseemed to be a lot of kids—maybe a few years older than we were.
Arabella pointed out a sign and slowed down to read it. “MAZEL TOV TO JONATHAN SCHWARTZ TODAY. I love bar mitzvahs.”
Next to the board there was a table laid with a white cloth. People had been sticking half-empty glasses, crushed cocktail napkins and used toothpicks on it, but earlier it displayed fancy calligraphied place cardsfor the tables. A few unclaimed cards remained.
“Only four no-shows.” Arabella picked up the cards and fanned them out like she’d been dealt this hand. “So who do you want to be? Shelley and Gale Scott at Table Four? Or Myra and Gary Levine at Table Twelve?”
“Um . . .” I was suddenly nervous. “Do you think this is a great idea, sneaking in? What if we get caught?”
“What’s sneaking?” Arabellasaid. She looked to the left and right to make sure no one was watching as she pocketed Shelley and Gale’s tags and laid Myra and Gary’s back down. “For Jewish people, going to a big celebration like this is technically a mitzvah.”
“What’s a mitzvah?”
“It’s brownie points with God.” Arabella smiled. “And by the way, if anyone asks, just say you’re a cousin from Ohio. Everyone has cousins inOhio they never see.” She laid a hand on my elbow. “Look,” she said. She pointed to a table at the far end of the room set up with platters and piles and towers of different kinds of desserts—éclairs, molded ice creams, miniature cakes shaped like soccer balls, a chocolate fountain, cut-up fruit, and a bowl of candy big enough to make Halloween blush.
I guess I must have been staring in disbelief.“Come on. This is nothing. My mom and I once attended an insurance convention in Las Vegas for three days and had prime rib for lunch. That hotel room had cable and a pool, too.”
“You did that with your mom?” I gasped.
“Only because we had to,” Arabella said. I didn’t understand her comment at the time, but I thought about it constantly when we were traveling from campground to campground inthe RV.
I remembered something else in that year about Arabella—once, when we went camping with the Girl Scouts, she’d gathered wood, started a fire, hung up a tarp, and laid out her sleeping bag before the rest of us had figured out where the bathrooms were.
I must have fallen asleep on the bus, because I woke up when we were pulling off the highway outside Washington, D.C., starting our lumberingride on one of those main avenues heading toward the center of the city, where there’s a massive stretch of grass dotted with monuments—the Mall.
“Okay, everybody,” Mr. Fowler announced, standing up in the front of the bus, clutching the sides of the seats to keep his balance. “I’m going to explain the rules of the first part of your trip. So listen up.”
Mr. Fowler teaches gym but has alwayswanted to teach history. The school lets him sub when history teachers are absent, but when Mr. Fowler subs, you have to be careful about what he tells you. He’s big on “teachable moments,” i.e. self-involved tangents, but he’s not much for “factual accuracy,” as in he once told my class that The War of 1812 referred to the U.S.’s record of victories versus losses in battles. We won the battles 18–12.
“As you know,” Mr. Fowler said now, “this
We could hear music andthen we were standing at the open doors to a the ballroom. There was a disco ball hanging over a dance floor, round tables being cleared of dinner dishes by waiters, and up on a platform a long rectangular table decorated with stuffed animals and canopied in balloons—a giant floating balloon ceiling. The guests were dressed up, some sitting down, a few dancing, others talking or milling about. Thereseemed to be a lot of kids—maybe a few years older than we were.
Arabella pointed out a sign and slowed down to read it. “MAZEL TOV TO JONATHAN SCHWARTZ TODAY. I love bar mitzvahs.”
Next to the board there was a table laid with a white cloth. People had been sticking half-empty glasses, crushed cocktail napkins and used toothpicks on it, but earlier it displayed fancy calligraphied place cardsfor the tables. A few unclaimed cards remained.
“Only four no-shows.” Arabella picked up the cards and fanned them out like she’d been dealt this hand. “So who do you want to be? Shelley and Gale Scott at Table Four? Or Myra and Gary Levine at Table Twelve?”
“Um . . .” I was suddenly nervous. “Do you think this is a great idea, sneaking in? What if we get caught?”
“What’s sneaking?” Arabellasaid. She looked to the left and right to make sure no one was watching as she pocketed Shelley and Gale’s tags and laid Myra and Gary’s back down. “For Jewish people, going to a big celebration like this is technically a mitzvah.”
“What’s a mitzvah?”
“It’s brownie points with God.” Arabella smiled. “And by the way, if anyone asks, just say you’re a cousin from Ohio. Everyone has cousins inOhio they never see.” She laid a hand on my elbow. “Look,” she said. She pointed to a table at the far end of the room set up with platters and piles and towers of different kinds of desserts—éclairs, molded ice creams, miniature cakes shaped like soccer balls, a chocolate fountain, cut-up fruit, and a bowl of candy big enough to make Halloween blush.
I guess I must have been staring in disbelief.“Come on. This is nothing. My mom and I once attended an insurance convention in Las Vegas for three days and had prime rib for lunch. That hotel room had cable and a pool, too.”
“You did that with your mom?” I gasped.
“Only because we had to,” Arabella said. I didn’t understand her comment at the time, but I thought about it constantly when we were traveling from campground to campground inthe RV.
I remembered something else in that year about Arabella—once, when we went camping with the Girl Scouts, she’d gathered wood, started a fire, hung up a tarp, and laid out her sleeping bag before the rest of us had figured out where the bathrooms were.
I must have fallen asleep on the bus, because I woke up when we were pulling off the highway outside Washington, D.C., starting our lumberingride on one of those main avenues heading toward the center of the city, where there’s a massive stretch of grass dotted with monuments—the Mall.
“Okay, everybody,” Mr. Fowler announced, standing up in the front of the bus, clutching the sides of the seats to keep his balance. “I’m going to explain the rules of the first part of your trip. So listen up.”
Mr. Fowler teaches gym but has alwayswanted to teach history. The school lets him sub when history teachers are absent, but when Mr. Fowler subs, you have to be careful about what he tells you. He’s big on “teachable moments,” i.e. self-involved tangents, but he’s not much for “factual accuracy,” as in he once told my class that The War of 1812 referred to the U.S.’s record of victories versus losses in battles. We won the battles 18–12.
“As you know,” Mr. Fowler said now, “this
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