I look at her in astonishment. I wasn’t expecting this kind of revelation from her.

“So why bother getting married?” I ask. “Why not just live together?”

“Well, I still want presents,” she says, looking at me like I’m an idiot. “Like I said, we’re from big families, and both Cory and I were in the Greek system in college. I’ve been a bridesmaid eight times. It’s time for a little payback. And they better fork over the loot. I want a top-of-the-line blender so I can have you up after work for margaritas.”

“Cool,” I say, smiling. “Invitation accepted.”

“I’ll show you my registry online sometime. Since you’re getting married, you need to learn the ropes.”

“I-I’m not,” I stammer. “I mean, we’re not planning on a big wedding. We’re eloping, actually.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lisa says with a shrug. “People will still want to buy you stuff, so you better register or they’ll get you crappy shit you don’t want. What’s that?” She points at something on my desk.

“This?” I hand her the PNG form. “Just something I made up this morning.”

She reads it quickly. “God. Is this the guy? The guy from yesterday?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I was thinking . . . should I change it from ‘murder’ to ‘suspected murder’?”

Lisa studies the PNG for a while. Then she hands it back to me and says, “How about simply ‘harassment’? The thing is, they haven’t proved he murdered or assaulted anyone yet, and we don’t want to leave the college open to any lawsuits if he should happen to see this. That’s the kind of world we’re living in. We say he murdered someone, and he didn’t, and he can sue us. It’s harder to define harassment . . . a guy whipped out his junk to show it to me on the subway the other day. I suppose he thought it was a compliment.”

As a native New Yorker, Lisa must find this kind of thing pretty run-of-the-mill . . . as, apparently, are guys who stalk and kill people, like on my PNG. So run-of-the-mill, you have to be careful not to insult them.

“Actually,” she goes on, “this is a good story to tell the campers when we go on the subway to the hospital this afternoon. Many of them not only may never have taken public transportation in a large city, they may never have encountered a flasher before. I want to make sure they know what to do.”

“What did you do?” I ask her. “When the guy whipped out his junk?”

“Oh,” she says with a shrug, passing the PNG back to me, “I took a video of him with my cell phone. He got off at the next stop and ran away. I posted the video on YouTube and Facebook. I hope his mom sees it. I’m sure she’d be very proud to know how her boy turned out.”

“That is exactly,” I say, “the kind of story the girls who go to Tania Trace Rock Camp need to hear.”

Chapter 21

Hebrew Fever
Joshua and Jericho
Moses and the deep red sea
Why does my name only echo?
Why does he never think of me?
I’ve got Hebrew fever
But he sees only her
I’ve got Hebrew fever
Why won’t he leave her?
I’ve known but one Israelite
My heart for him’s like Isaac’s rock
But no late ram, no saving light
To him I’m nothing but a lost sock
I’ve got Hebrew fever
But he only sees her
I’ve got Hebrew fever
Why won’t he leave her?
From Tel Aviv to Haifa
From Elat to Jerusalem
They dance and sing the hora
As if there was no one but them*
I’ve got Hebrew fever
But he only sees her
I’ve got Hebrew fever
Why won’t he leave her?
*Alternate line: I am filled with dirty phlegm

This song written, produced, and created by
Sarah Rosenberg, New York College
Department of Housing.
All Rights Reserved
“So when you sit down to write a song,” says Tania, sitting perched on a high stool at the far end of the second-floor library, well away from the windows, “what you want to do is tell a story—”

A hand goes up. Tania points at the hand. “Yes? Your name?”

“Emmanuella,” the owner of the hand says. “Yeah, so—”

Stephanie, standing beside Tania, out of the way of the cameras, makes an urgent Stand up! Stand up, you fool! motion with her arms at Emmanuella. Emmanuella, a plump, bright-eyed girl with blue-framed glasses, finally gets the message and stands up. A collective sigh of relief is heard from the film crew.

“So my question is, how do you know what to write about?” Emmanuella asks. “I get that a song has to tell a story, but how do you know which story to tell? I have so many ideas in my head—stuff happens to me every day, and I think, Oh, that might make a good song, but then I write it down and it just seems dumb.”

Cassidy, whom I happen to be sitting close to—she’s on a couch next to her best frenemy Mallory; I’m on the floor, out of camera range—leans over to say, “She’s dumb,” to Mallory. Mallory giggles.

“Shhh,” Sarah hisses at the two of them. Sarah, who’s sitting beside me, has written down every word Tania has said during the songwriting section of the rock camp, having decided that this might be a therapeutic way to work through her grief over her breakup with Sebastian, which is on-going.

I try not to take it personally that Sarah has been sitting next to me for nearly a year and never once asked me a question about songwriting, even though I’ve written way more songs than Tania ever has. I’ve never actually sold one, though, so point taken.

“Try writing something about which you feel passionate,” Tania says, in answer to Emmanuella’s question. “My best songs all come from my heart. They tell stories about times when I felt real emotion about something . . . or I guess, someone—”

Tania casts down her long—fake—eyelashes shyly, and all the girls titter excitedly. They think she’s talking about Jordan. The effect is pretty cute, like Tania is embarrassed to have been caught thinking about her crush, which just happens to be on her adorable rock-star husband . . .

But of course, I know she’s talking about someone else, and it isn’t Jordan.

Jordan has made a few appearances in Fischer Hall, though, ever since Tania—to my utter surprise—decided to take the speech I gave her to heart, got out of bed, and started showing up at her own rock camp. Every time either of them has set foot in the building, a frisson has seemed to come over the place. Far from people being upset with Tania for what’s happened, however, the frisson isn’t from fear. It’s excitement. People—even people who hate both her and Jordan’s music, like Sarah—have come to adore the two of them. They’re so attractive that when they’re together, they radiate an almost otherworldly glow.