The noise decibel was so high, it took her a few moments to realize her phone was ringing. When ZeeZee finally looked down, she saw she’d missed a call from Mrs. Hurwitz.

Hmm. Should she return it? Would it lead to awkward questions?

But curiosity got the better of her. Besides, Mrs. H. was cool; she could handle the fact that a girl was cutting class.

ZeeZee walked out of the room and dialed. “Hey, Mrs. Hurwitz, what’s up?”

“Thanks for calling back!” Mrs. H sounded out of breath, but ZeeZee knew she always sounded like that. There were some people who just enjoyed living their life in a whirlwind.

“I wanted to talk to you about the Chanukah Chagigah,” she said, and ZeeZee blinked.

“Isn’t that in, like, almost a month?”

“Three and a half weeks, and I told Mrs. Litwin I’d run it.” ZeeZee heard the pride in her voice, and suddenly had a vision of Tammy Hurwitz the way she must have been in seminary: talented, goodie-goodie golden girl.

“Cool,” ZeeZee said, wondering where this was going.

“Your group did a fabulous job on the shabbaton last week,” Mrs. Hurwitz continued. “I heard you were the brains behind most of the activities, so I want to use your talents again. The Chanukah Chagigah, from what I’m told, is one of the biggest events of the year. Would you like to be the student head?”

ZeeZee’s eyes widened. “Wow! Seriously? Head of Chagigah? OMG, totally!” She paused, and was surprised to feel a funny prickly sensation in her throat. She swallowed, and said in a lower voice, “Thanks for thinking of me. I-um…” She hesitated, and then said quickly, “I’m gonna get started thinking of ideas!”

Mrs. Hurwitz laughed and said they’d be in touch. ZeeZee shook her head as she hung up. To think she’d almost made herself sound like a complete dork by blubbering to Mrs. H. how this was the first time in her life a teacher had trusted her enough to give her such a responsibility.

ZeeZee skipped back into the room, her mind racing with possibilities. She headed over to a small group gathered around Rikki Klein and slapped Dafna’s back. “Guess what?”

Dafna jumped and swiveled around. “What?”

“I was just made head of my seminary’s Chanukah Chagigah!”

ZeeZee was so brimming with excitement that it took her a moment to realize no one else in the group shared her joy.

“Good for you,” Dafna said with a shrug.

“Head of Chagigah.” Ilana gave an exaggerated smirk. “Are you, like, officially queen of the seminary now?”

“Gosh, I don’t think we’ve ever had a Chagigah head in the Yad b’Yad center before,” another girl sneered. “What an honor.”

ZeeZee’s brow furrowed. “Hey, what’s your prob—?” And then she realized. These girls were, like, the anti-Chagigah-head; the total opposite end of the Bais Yaakov student body spectrum.

How dumb could she be?

She caught Rikki’s eye, who was looking at her sympathetically, which made her even more uncomfortable. ZeeZee hated sympathy. Besides, didn’t they all get that the reason she was so excited was because she wasn’t the Chagigah head type?

Suddenly, she had an inspiration. “How about you all come?”

They stared at her.

“Yeah! We’ll do, like, an Achdus Chagigah! How cool would that be?”

It was sheer brilliance. The Yad b’Yad girls would feel the warmth and acceptance that they needed, while the Shvilei students would open themselves up to reaching out to girls different than them.

Frustrated by the stony silence, ZeeZee said, “What do you say, Ilana? You came already once.”

Ilana raised an eyebrow. After a long moment, she drawled, “Tell me, Brooklyn Girl, what’s happening with your anorexic friend? Have you gotten her the help she needs?”

Taken aback, ZeeZee mumbled, “No, I haven’t gotten around to it. It’s not so simple…”

She blushed under Ilana’s silent, steady gaze. At last, Ilana said, “I see. You’ve moved on to — ahem — other chesed projects.”

Chava’s eyes swept the bare shelves and empty display window of the storefront she was standing in and tried to picture Devoiry reigning here as bustling proprietress.

Devoiry was chatting animatedly with the realtor in Hebrew: “This is the right spot for the cashier’s desk, don’t you think? And here’s where I’ll display my bags, close to the mirrors by the dressing room, so the women can immediately see themselves carrying the bags.”

The realtor was agreeing enthusiastically to everything Devoiry said. Every now and then, she threw in a “What do you think, Mommy?” but Chava wasn’t fooled. She knew exactly why she was invited here today, and it wasn’t for her opinion on interior design.

Nevertheless, she’d come. Even though she’d warned Devoiry that she and Tatty still hadn’t come to a final decision about being guarantors.

“Oh, that’s fine,” Devoiry had said, although Chava could tell from the edge in her voice that she was getting impatient for an answer.

Now, Devoiry turned to her, beaming. “It’s perfect, no? And such an absolutely amazing location!”

Chava cleared her throat. “I assume rent for a store on Shamgar is astronomical.”

Devoiry threw her an incredulous look. “Mommy! Shamgar! The dream location for any retail store! Think about the thousands of young American couples and seminary girls who come here to go shopping! I was really lucky to hear about this opening before it hit the lists. It’s gonna be grabbed in literally a second.”

“Wow, what mazel!” Chava felt her chest tightening. With such an opportunity on the table, Devoiry must be feeling immense pressure to sign. But to sign, she needed money…

“Yeah, baruch Hashem for Tammy Hurwitz. Boy, am I lucky I met her!”

Chava blinked. “Excuse me?”

Devoiry spread her arms wide. “She’s the one who told me about this opening. She was shopping here the other day and thought of me, so she decided to ask around, and somehow, a friend of a friend, I don’t know, she heard that this store was going out of business, and she called me right away. I was able to set up an appointment before it hit the real estate lists.”

Chava looked away. Tammy Hurwitz. The pressure in her chest was building.

She swallowed. “I’ll speak to Tatty tonight and ask him to come to a decision.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 746)