GREAT READS → OUTSIDE CHANCE Issue 823 · August 12, 2020

Outside Chance: Chapter 18

“Who said I want to go back to the dorm?” Chaim interjected. What? That wasn’t in the script

Outside Chance: Chapter 18

 


I sat straight at the dining room table. I even had a pen and paper with me. Yehudis had texted me the other day — What time are you available? There’s something I need to discuss with you — and I wanted to be ready.

I could relate to Chaim now, to that sinking feeling of “What did I do now?” and “What will she say?” I mentally ran through our last few encounters. My last shiur was before Yom Tov, that was forever ago. I’d also met her niece, but I didn’t think that wasn’t anything. I was drawing a blank.

I don’t know what it is about Yehudis that makes me pull my creases straighter. Well, cancel that, I do know. We’re opposites and not in a complementary way. She disapproves at a fundamental level with my approach to life. It’s funny, cause I get along with everyone, but she seems determined to have herself be the exception. I think we started off okay, but it went south so swiftly. Was it just the speeches? Did she hate the kid book shtick that much?

The phone rang. I pounced.

Yehudis got to her point efficiently, “Yom Tov is always a busy time, and I just realized I never spoke to you about our upcoming anniversary.”

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