Mom slammed the car door shut and shot me an angry look. “Never felt closer to Jesus?” she repeated. “What was that about?”
I strapped on my seat belt, breathing in the pine freshener. “I did feel close to Jesus,” I said defensively. “As a fellow Jew.” I kicked my shoes off and rolled my toes into the gray square of carpet at my feet.
“You completely misled that woman and you know it.”
“Can we just go home?”
She started the car and slowly inched around the drive. I could still feel the heat of her stare. “What is going on here, Ellie? I thought you were going to tell her at the interview. She seemed completely unaware of your Jewish background.”
I laid my head back along the vinyl. The air conditioning was blasting and I could feel the strip of cool air where it hit my neck. “Can we please be quiet? My stomach doesn’t feel good.”
Mom shot me another look as she merged onto the freeway. “It’s probably your conscience.”
“Or the three pastries I ate.” Or the bacon. God, are you mad about the bacon?
I heard her breath hiss out. “What happened to coming clean?”
“I decided not to.”
“So now you’re lying to everyone?”
Sudden anger flashed through me. I sat up, tugging at the seat belt strap across my chest. “Why is it me that’s wrong? Why am I the one who’s supposed to have a conscience? What about Doris Yeats? She’s the one who’s discriminating against Jews, and no one seems to think that’s wrong.”
“Of course we do!”
My eyes filled with angry tears. “Then be on my side for a change!”
Mom’s hands squeezed the steering wheel. “I am on your side. But two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Of course I do,” she snapped. “More than you know.” She shoved a piece of hair behind her ear, and didn’t seem to notice when it popped right out again. “You aren’t the only one who’s struggled with religion. When I was just a few years younger than you, I pretended my name was Le-Vine so I could be Christian like everyone else.”
I tilted my head, watching her hands clench and unclench on the wheel.
She sighed. “We’d just moved to Arizona. I didn’t want to be different. I already felt so lonely and awkward. I wasn’t like you, Ellie. I wasn’t confident and outgoing. So I lied. I pretended to have Christmas and Easter like all my friends.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
She slowed down for our exit. “There was one other Jewish kid in my school. She ratted me out—said Le-Vine was really Levine and she’d seen me at temple.” She shook her head. “That was Margot Wasserman and we’re still friends after all these years.”
“So it worked out okay?”
“It’ll work out for you, too.” She gave me a quick smile as she shifted lanes. “I hoped in this day and age, it would never come up. I think a part of me liked that when I married your dad, I knew you would be Jewish, but also have a foot in the Christian world.” She reached across with a hand and ran her fingers along my cheek. “It’s terrible to think that someone might hate your child just because of the religion you gave them.”
Tears filled my eyes again. “I just want the scholarship, Mom. I want to go to Benedict’s and be on the speech team, and I want Devon to be my boyfriend, and I want to be a part of all that. Why can’t I be a part of all that?”
“Oh, honey,” she said, her voice an ache. She pulled onto our street, then into the driveway. She ran a hand through my hair, sweeping the bangs from my face. Her own eyes were full of tears, too.
“I just want to be a kid at camp like all the other kids,” I said. “I want to get up there and do my oratory and be judged like everyone else. And I want Mrs. Yeats to keep looking at me the way she does, like I’m a prize she’s going to win for Benedict’s.”
“You are a prize,” she whispered.
“I’ll tell her after I win the scholarship. I promise. By then, maybe it won’t matter when she finds out I’m Jewish.”
“Ellie, you can’t continue to mislead her.” Her eyes were wet and shiny, but her lips were set in a thin line. “I’m sorry, but this has gone far enough. As your parent, I have to speak up.”
“What?” I swiped a hand across my cheek. “What do you mean?”
“I’m calling Mrs. Yeats. She needs to know the truth.”
“You can’t!” I cried. “She’ll give the scholarship to someone else.”
“Not if she’s the kind of woman you say she is.”
“But she’ll know I’ve been lying. She’ll hate me.”
I wasn’t sure why, but that thought made me cry even harder.