He was twenty minutes late. She had almost given up when she saw him coming toward her in the distance, his dark hair glistening in the yellow light of Boro Park streetlamps.

He nodded to her, a bit impersonally she thought, chagrined. Then he sat down next to her, his legs wide, and his elbows resting on the back of the bench.

“So what yeshiva are you in? Who is your rebbe?” she asked him innocently, smoothing down her skirt.

He leaned back and laughed, digging into his pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He lit one and took a deep breath, exhaling smoke rings at the night sky.

“Listen, honey…,” he began.

“Shaindel,” she corrected him.

“Okay, Shaindel. Just so we get this straight, this is not a shidduch date, okay?”

“Who said I want a shidduch?” she replied, hurt. “I just turned seventeen.”

“Is that so?” He moved in closer, offering her the pack.

Why not? she thought, reaching inside and for the first time in her life touching a cigarette. Everyone else was allowed to break the rules, right? Her mother could kill herself, her father could drop out of kollel and marry a girl who once relished pig and shellfish, her stepmother, Leah, could dance around the house naked to forbidden music (or so the latest embellishments to the vicious rumors going around suggested, spread by oh-so-frum people. Not that she believed a word of it. Seriously, Leah? They had no idea. But Leah must have done something.). So I can also break a few rules, she thought, defiantly taking one out and holding it awkwardly between her fingers.

He laughed. “Here, let me show you.” His fingers felt electric as they touched hers to reclaim the cigarette. Placing one end against the glowing end of his own, he blew patiently until it caught fire. Then he placed it between his lips and blew some more. “Here,” he said, handing it back to her.

She felt more than strange putting something in her mouth that had been in his. But fearful of evoking still more mockery, she inhaled. A horrible choking feeling immediately filled her lungs. She couldn’t breathe! She coughed furiously, panic-stricken. Was this some kind of evil trick? Angrily, she spit it out.

He patted her gently on the back, grinning and unsympathetic. “Don’t worry about it, Shaindel. It happens to everyone the first time. Now, try again, but don’t breathe it in so deeply this time. Just a little bit, into your mouth.”

“You think I’m really stupid, don’t you? I’m not touching that thing again!”

Ignoring her, he retrieved it from the ground and dangled it in front of her. “Don’t be a baby,” he taunted, inhaling it and exhaling smoke rings.