Snowball

Hiding in the bathroom at the Hyatt Regency in Stamford, Connecticut, was not where Annie expected to be tonight, or ever for that matter, even if it was the nicest bathroom she had ever seen in her life. She didn’t have to stand on the toilet to keep her feet from being visible under the door and risk anybody finding her. There was a full, solid wooden door that shut and locked.

There was enough space for a small table with a box of tissues and a miniature vase of flowers on top. The floor was a shiny, white marble like a perfectly smooth ice-skating rink.

It was like a whole little room unto itself in here.

Best of all, it was quiet.

Until Annie heard the bathroom door open, letting in a whoosh of thumping music from down the hall. Then soft footsteps entering the bathroom and an urgent knocking.

“Annie? Are you in there?”

“Is that you, Caroline?”

“Yes, it’s me. Let me in.”

Annie pushed open the swinging door. “Come, come. Hurry, hurry.”

Once her friend was inside, Annie shut the stall door again. She clicked the latch back into place.

“Wow, it’s huge in here,” Caroline said, looking around.

“I know. Right?” Annie sat back down on the lid of the toilet.

Caroline stepped on the pedal of the tiny trash bin on the floor next to the little table with the flowers on top. It opened the lid. It banged shut.

“Shhh.” Annie put her finger to her lips.

“Why did you leave me out there?” Caroline whispered.

“I didn’t,” Annie said, even though of course she had. Caroline was Annie’s best friend, but even a best friend couldn’t help with this problem. Still, Annie shouldn’t have run away without telling Caroline where she was.

“How long have you been in here?” Caroline asked.

How long?

Since the music started for sure. Maybe before that?

No, just after, she told Caroline.

“Well, that explains a lot.”

“Explains a lot what?”

“I’ve been looking — ”

“Wait, someone’s coming in,” Annie interrupted.

The thumping vibrations of the music and the DJ’s voice thundered in again when the door to the bathroom was pushed open. Chattering voices and clicking heels echoed, coming to a stop in front of the sink. Annie and Caroline froze. And listened. Because, well, that’s what you do when you’re hiding in the toilet stall at the Hyatt Regency in Stamford, Connecticut.

“Your mother let you wear lipstick?”

“It’s gloss.”

“Well, it looks like lipstick.”

“It’s gloss.”

“Fine, it’s gloss. Whatever. I was going to tell you it looked pretty but now never mind.”

“Do I? Do you think I look pretty?”

Caroline widened her eyes as far as she could get them to widen, and she mouthed to Annie: O-M-G, it’s Sasha Binder.

Annie shook her head the tiniest bit and tried to give her best what-do-I-care look with a slight nonchalant shrug of her shoulders.

“Shut up, Sasha, you know you’re pretty. But you better hurry up. They always do the Snowball first thing after the speeches.”

“Do you think he’ll pick me first?”

“Of course he’ll pick you. The most popular boy always picks the most popular girl.”

The tapping of high heels started up again; the girls were leaving. The opening of the door brought the rhythmic beat of the hip-hop music back in, until it was quiet again.

“Oh no,” Caroline said after a beat. “You’re hiding from the Snowball dance, aren’t you?”

The Snowball dance.

Also known as:

Ten Ways to Get a Girl to Hide in a Toilet Stall for Four Hours

1. Invent a party game where all the kids make a big circle around the kid whose party it is and have that kid choose his or her first partner from everyone who is standing there waiting to be picked. Or not. After they do that, everyone stands there and just watches them dance, until the DJ calls out, “Snowball,” whereupon that couple breaks apart and each picks another person to dance with, and so on and so forth, until the last few kids are chosen because they are the only ones left.
2. Have a Bar or Bat Mitzvah party and hire a really loud, pushy DJ who will make sure all the kids who come have a great time by humiliating them and making them participate in said party game as described above.
3. Make sure there is one girl (in this case, Annie Diamond) who has a crush on the most popular boy in the grade (Matt Miller) whose Bar Mitzvah party it happens to be. Then have her standing in the aforementioned circle knowing she will not only not be the first one picked but will mostly be the last.

Okay, that was only three, not ten. But still. Everything else was true. And everyone at school had been talking about it for weeks. The pressure had been building on both sides. Tensions were high.

“You think Matt’s not going to pick you,” Caroline said.

Annie nodded slowly.

“You think he’s going to pick Sasha Binder.”

Annie nodded again.

Matt had been in the pre-K program at the JCC. Annie went two days a week, and Matt went three, and the kids that went all five days kept getting them confused. It was understandable.

At four years old, Annie and Matt were almost exactly the same size. They both had short, curly brown hair. They both wore red sneakers every day to school. It was most likely the red sneakers that was most confusing to the other four-year-olds. When Annie and Matt finally got to see each other at the Simchat Torah celebration, it was as if they were already friends. When the two moms also met and became best friends, it was inevitable. Annie and Matt fell in love with each other the way only five-, six-, and seven-year-olds can.

The problem was Annie never stopped.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t even thinking.” Caroline wrapped her arms around Annie.

They both sat down together, sharing the closed lid, their legs touching, their shoulders leaning against each other.

“I should have remembered,” Caroline said.

“No.” Annie shook her head. “I should have told you.”

“Well, that’s true. You should have told me. I’m your best friend.”

The bathroom door opened again. The music swelled, heels clicked across the floor, no talking this time, the next stall over swung open, then shut, a lock slid into place, after a short while the toilet flushed, more footsteps, water running, a loud sigh, hand dryer blowing, music rushing in again, and then silence.

“Well, I’ll wait here with you then,” Caroline said.

“No, no,” Annie said. She jumped up and unlocked the door. “You have to go out and see what’s happening.”

“But I don’t like leaving you here.”

“I’ll be fine. Just let me know who he picks first, okay?”

Caroline nodded solemnly.

***

By the time Caroline returned to the bathroom stall, Annie had checked her Instagram no fewer than twelve times, closing it and opening it back up again, just to see if anyone from the party (no more than one hundred yards from where she was hiding) had posted any pictures of the Snowball dance. There were none.

“That’s because they haven’t done it yet,” Caroline said, slipping back into the stall, this time locking the door herself.

“Why not?” Annie asked.

“I think there was something wrong with the DJ’s microphone. They just got it working again and now Matt’s dad is going to talk. Then I think Matt’s grandfather is going to say something or do something. And then there’s the dancing part, right?”

Annie sighed. “Right.”

“You may be here for a while. Do you want me to bring you a plate?” Caroline asked. “I saw mini-hot dogs go by before.”

“No, thanks. I don’t feel like eating.”

Just as Annie said that, the clarinet began the high-pitched starting notes of “Hava Nagila,” the Hebrew song that means, “Come, let us rejoice and be happy.”

“We’re not really the party types anyway,” Caroline said, sliding herself down next to Annie again.

“You don’t have to have a party, you know?” Caroline said after a beat. “All you need to do is go to the Torah and say a blessing. Everything else is optional.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Annie would become a Bat Mitzvah next year, but she had already begun learning a lot about it. Oddly, it was only now, explaining these things to Caroline, who wasn’t Jewish, that things started to make sense — like what it all actually meant. And suddenly the bathroom didn’t feel as safe and comfortable as it had just a few minutes ago.

“It’s the age you’re supposed to act more grown up. Before, everything you do is your parent’s fault… well, responsibility, I mean.”

Annie was starting to feel like Alice in Wonderland, when Alice took a bite of a cookie and began to grow and grow until her legs broke through the window of the tiny house.

“But after your Bar or Bat Mitzvah, it’s on you. More or less.”

“Like how?” Caroline asked.

“Well, like how you treat other people,” Annie told Caroline — telling herself at the same time. “About how you are supposed to take care of the whole world really. Animals, the planet. It’s not actually about what you do in front of everyone at the service, or how good you do or bad you mess up. It’s what you do after that.”

“So then I take it Snowball is not a requirement at a Bar Mitzvah?” Caroline joked.

But Annie still looked very serious.

“Oh, no,” Caroline said. “I’m sorry. Too soon?”

“No.” Annie broke into a smile. “Not soon enough. Let’s get out of here.”

***

The hora was just winding down. From the looks of it, it had been a wild rumpus of rejoicing. Most of the men had their jackets off. Most of the boys were jacketless and tieless, and were swinging light sticks at each other like swords. The girls had taken off their dress shoes and were all wearing the little socks that had been passed around in a basket. Women’s shawls and scarfs were hanging over the backs of chairs. And then the DJ announced it.

The Snowball dance.

The adults all took their seats, while a flurry of kids moved to the dance floor and formed a big circle of anticipation. No one looked particularly comfortable, least of all Matt, who stood in the center of everyone, picking at his nails. He looked nervous, the way he did at summer camp when they were ten and he had to take the deep-water test. Or the way he looked when they were in second grade together and he had to recite a poem by Shel Silverstein in front of the entire class. In other words, super cute. But not real happy.

“What do you want to do, Annie?” Caroline asked.

“I think I just want to watch.” Annie sat down at a long table spread with chicken nuggets, M&Ms, discarded plastic garlands, and yes, mini-hot dogs.

Caroline sat down next to her. “Me too, then,” she said.

Annie dipped a nugget into the honey mustard. “The party part’s not bad either, you know,” she said, then popped it into her mouth.

Caroline nodded and they both turned their chairs around for a better view of the dance floor.

“All righty then, young man. Who is going to be your first dance partner?”

Matt didn’t move. He was looking around the circle. The DJ nudged him again, and Matt walked over to Sasha Binder. He kind of just stopped in front of where she was standing. The music began thumping, and that was that. Just like everyone expected.

Most popular boy. Most popular girl.

But what wasn’t expected was that all Annie felt was huge relief. Snowball looked like the worst of gym class and musical chairs rolled into one.

Sure, it didn’t feel good to see Matt and Sasha with their arms around each other taking tiny steps and swaying a tiny bit back and forth. Sasha took out her cell phone and snapped a selfie, but Matt was looking the other way. Then the DJ called out, “Snowball,” and they broke apart.

It was really no big deal at all. Well, not as big a deal as Annie had worried it would be. Okay, it felt awful. But certainly not worth hiding in a bathroom stall at the Hyatt Regency in Stamford, Connecticut. Even if she really, really liked him. Which she did.

“C’mon.” Annie stood up. She held out her hand to Caroline. “Let’s dance.”

***

“I’m really sorry,” Matt said.

By ten thirty, parents were showing up to get their kids and head home. A few jackets were still on the floor, along with smushed remnants of cake, light sticks, a kippah or two, Hershey’s Kisses wrappers, and quite a few abandoned white socks.

“For what?” Annie asked. Caroline had already been picked up. Annie’s mom had texted her that she would be a few minutes late. Most all the other kids were gone. Except, of course, for Matt.

His shirt had come undone, his tie was all crooked, and he had a smudge of what looked like chocolate frosting on his forehead, but he was still super cute. “For that stupid Snowball dance,” Matt said.

“What do you mean?”

“You know we both hate that kind of thing. Remember second grade when I just had to recite that Shel Silverstein poem?”

“Remember when I totally flubbed up my book report in fourth grade?”

“Yeah, you totally started crying.”’

“Yeah, and so did you that time at summer camp. Deep water, remember?” Annie said. She flicked him on the forehead with her finger. That was their trademark.

He flicked her back. “Yeah, yeah, I remember,” he said. Then he softened his voice and looked down at his feet. “I was looking for you, you know. But you weren’t there.”

“Where?” Annie asked.

“The Snowball dance.”

“You were?”

“Yeah, I guess you were too smart to stand there like an idiot. Like me.” Matt looked down at his shoes when he talked. “I think it’s what I’ve always liked about you, Annie. You stand up for yourself. You don’t do what everyone else is doing just because they are doing it.”

Annie smiled. “Well, I don’t know about that,” she began.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.” Matt smiled back.