Chapter 11

On a sunny day in June 2002, I graduated. The diploma was curled up in the shape of a towel paper roll, with red ribbons tied like a belt that fell away in curls. I unfurled it. Someone had typed in Hebrew on ivory the name of our school and “for the completion of high school; Freidy Wertheimer.” I did not know that my high school diploma was not valid, had no accreditation, what regents were, and I did not care. It was enough that it looked like the college certificate that hung in the pediatrician’s office.