I skimmed the room. Nobody else was worked up. They were too busy being intrigued. “…Sitting there, something tickled me.”

The girls laughed. I didn’t laugh. I was suspicious.

“Then it hit.”

Cliché?

“Not my snappiness, nor my frustration at a lazy garbage truck, was going to get me to my destination faster. You get it?” she cried.

Mrs. Heller never cried.

“I could kick and scream and yell and do whatever I so please, but it won’t change a thing.”

She was speaking in italics. This must have really got to her.

“So why not be calm and collected for the same price? I’m not in control anyhow.”

Good point.

Mrs. Heller exhaled.

“And I had to be wildly late, in some dingy taxicab, to see this.”

Hey… very good point. I liked it.

“No show?” These Russian guys all sound the same.

“Okay, Miss, new car send now. Five, seven, ten minutes, yes?”

“No! Absolutely not! I—” I’m screaming at the dial tone. Grrrr. So much for the Yekkeh in me.

The car finally shows up. I stretch a quivering smile at the driver, “Please drive fast,” I say sweetly. “I’m very late.”

He nods, yet inches on. My heartbeat storms.

We catch every red light. We stare at the back of every school bus. I sigh at my moving minute hand.

Wait, is that 83rd street he’s turning onto? That’s going to have us crawling like injured caterpillars!

I bite my tongue. He’s the one with Waze.

At the intersection, Mr. Taxi Man stops the car. “Which side, Miss?”

“Uh… oh! I meant seventy-three!”

He pulls up to a few houses down the avenue. “Good?”

“Seventy-third!” I’m yelling. I’m sweating. I’m really late.

He turns his heavy frame. “Eh?”

“Seventy! Three! Street! Street!”

Realization dawns. “No eighty-third?”

“No.”

He screws his face up and sighs.

“I guess it’s bashert,” I mumble to the window. He ain’t Jewish, Miss. “Uh… we try,” I scrape together.

The driver harrumphs, but thankfully continues driving.

Turn green! Move over! Speed up! I beg the red lights, and the trucks, and the masses.

But to no avail.

And then it hits me. I remember. “I could kick and scream and yell and do whatever I so please, but it won’t change a thing.”

Cliché.

But I calm down.

My freshly done sheitel’s a harried frizz. My cheekbones are flushed, and I’m panting heavily.

The girls blink at my arrival, as if, Hey! Where did she come from? I’m 20 minutes late to Chumash class, and they are thrilled.

“Today,” I begin, “I learned three things.”

The girls still.

“One, that Bnos Kayla is very far.”

Many, many confused faces.

“Two, that taxi drivers aren’t Jewish.”

Eyebrows arch, amused.

“And three,” I pause. To share? For what other reason do I teach?! “Is that I still have work to do in This World.”

I start my story. I hope they like it.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 916)