“Do you want me to try calling some of Shaindele’s other friends?” Leah asked, picking up the unfinished conversation that was on both their minds as she buckled her seat belt and started the car.

He didn’t speak for a moment, holding Mordechai Shalom close to him. Then he just shrugged painfully, shaking his head as if he couldn’t find the words.

“Yaakov, I’m sure it’s fine. She’s a good girl. She’s changed so much.”

But he just shook his head.

14

WHERE IS SHAINDELE?

“Where are we going?” Shaindele asked Duvie, who just shrugged with a lopsided grin as he swiped his metro card at the turnstile.

“I suppose you never use the subway?” he said from the other side. “Here, take my card.”

“I use the subway,” she responded, a little insulted, taking the card and swiping herself through. “In fact, last year, I even ran away from home. Got all the way to Baltimore from Grand Central, just so you know.”

He peered at her a little more closely. “Gevaldik,” he murmured appreciatively, laughing. “I want to hear all about it.”

From the decrepit outside platform, the bulky, graffiti-scarred buildings of the surrounding neighborhoods looked like the decaying carcasses of some hulking prehistoric beasts, she thought, shuddering. It was all so ugly when viewed from this unfamiliar height and angle. The wind blew cold and wet against them until she felt utterly chilled. She glanced at him to see if he felt the same. But he was studying the subway map, ignoring her, completely oblivious to what she might be feeling. She seriously considered going home and leaving him there. But then, finally, she glimpsed the approaching lights of the Manhattan-bound F train.

They sat next to each other in the crowded car, barely speaking.

“So are you interested?” she finally asked him.

He looked at her blankly.

“About my running away?”

A light went on in his head. “Oh, that. Sure. Why not?”

“Well, you don’t seem very interested.”

“Look, Shaindele. I’m as interested in you as you are in me.”

She swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“How come you never ask me a single thing about myself? About what happened in yeshiva? What I want to do?”

She was taken aback.

Honestly, almost nothing about him interested her, she realized, except for the physical attraction between them.

It was pretty obvious Duvie wasn’t what anyone would consider a “good shidduch.” He was clearly the black sheep in his family of Torah luminaries, rabbis, and principals; a yeshiva dropout going nowhere fast. She didn’t want to hear about it or to give him a platform to air all his whiny bad excuses. She was still her father’s daughter. Hearing the details would just make her even more ashamed of herself than she already was for being attracted to him and meeting him behind her father’s back.