Hope and Inspiration for the Single Soul

Here's some advice if you plan on taking the Number 7 down Bathurst Street at 7:36 a.m. Do not sit downwind from the woman eating the industrial-grade tuna fish. And if The Groomer is on the bus, get ready to duck at the first sign of the nail clippers.

You really don't want any more details. And neither did I. But by my third morning in Toronto, I could have taught a class in Number 7 Studies. Which is what happens when you vacuum-pack the population of Giants Stadium into a space the size of a hot tub. I grasped a slimy pole next to the bus driver (nametag: Ian), where the air was only slightly less gloopy. I was just learning about Ian's path to driver-dom when he broke the unfortunate news.

"You'll have to move to the back now."

Ian was the closest thing that I had to a friend in Toronto.

O Leah, where art thou?

I glanced down at my cell phone but there was still no word from my sister. She was probably just boarding the bus in New York's Port Authority with her wedding gown wrapped in layers of tissue paper and nestled safely in the garment box. I had sixteen hours until I could meet the gown in person.

I took a deep breath and squeezed myself through the maze of human heat machines to the rear of the bus. Craning my neck, I caught sight of the ginger-haired woman reading in a seat next to the sealed window. Two boys clinging to an overhead pole ogled her from above.

Her red hair was swept back in a half-bun today. Tiny ringlets spilled onto her shoulders. She wore a silky Marc Jacobs blouse that I recognized from Macy's, a dark twill skirt that covered her knees, and pantyhose.

The elderly man sitting next to her struggled to his feet and pushed his way toward the exit. I squeezed past a child barking into a cell phone and plopped into the empty seat beside the woman.

Gingie-Locks's eyes were trained on the book resting in her lap. I glanced over her shoulder and noticed the word "love" sprinkled across the page. The title was written in a tiny font at the top of the open book. I leaned over and pretended to adjust the bow on my right shoe so I could make out the name of the book. Hope and Inspiration for the Single Soul.

I could use a little of that myself these days. I leaned back and peered past her, out the window. How on earth was I going to survive this exile?

The bouncing rhythm of "Sweet Caroline" hummed inside my handbag, offering a fleeting sense of the Red Sox. Unfortunately I wasn't at Fenway Park in the middle of the eighth inning — I was on the Number 7 bus holding a new phone. And since only three people had the number and my parents had called last night, there was only one person left.

My aunt. Mira Bernstein.

"Are you at school yet?" she said. "I noticed you left a little later than I suggested." Aunt Mira's prying voice might as well have been piped in over the bus's loudspeaker.

"I'm still on the bus," I said in a whisper.

"Fine. I'll call you later." By later, of course, she meant within the next twenty minutes. At this rate, I had to assume I was going to wake up one morning and find a GPS tracker clamped to my leg. This was my life as a Prisoner of Bernstein. It was painfully obvious that this year was not going to be a piece of cake. And speaking of cake, I don't mean to sound nasty but Aunt Mira's food wasn't exactly going to explode the ratings on RateMyMeatloaf.com, if you get what I'm saying.

If living with my mother's