Sisterchicks Say Ooh La La! by Robin Jones Gunn Page B

too bad I hadn’t noticed as many details about our driver last night.
    While Amy was nodding in response to one of the questions, I looked out the glass doors and noticed a taxi double-parked in front of the hotel. Two more taxis went around the idling car. I tried to imagine how many hundreds of taxis were driving around this huge city. Another taxi sped around the parked one, and I felt a new empathy for the police and their challenge of finding our contraband cab among perhaps thousands.
    The automatic doors opened, and a dark-haired taxi driver entered pulling two wheeled suitcases behind him. He left a third suitcase outside on the curb. With my new powers of observation warming up, I noticed that he was wearing a gray sweater, but his head was down so I couldn’t see his face. And no passengers were exiting the taxi. The luggage was being delivered sans hotel guests. A dozen reasons could explain such a drop-off, but the instant I spotted Amy’s bright yellow luggage tags dangling from the otherwise nondescript black bags, I screamed.
    Jumping to my feet, I charged toward the cabbie yelling, “Hey, you! What are you doing? Stop!”
    He bolted, entered the taxi through the passenger side, and peeled out into the flow of traffic. An immediate chorus of honking from the other cars accompanied his getaway.
    The inspector looked at me and then at Amy. She was rattling a string of words in French as I ran outside and grabbed what turned out to be my suitcase from the sidewalk where the cabbie had left it. I dashed back inside.Amy was holding on to one of her luggage tags and nodding wildly.
    With one swift motion, the inspector stormed the front desk, commandeered the telephone out of the hand of the dazed desk clerk, punched in some numbers, and barked orders. Three other hotel personnel appeared from a back room just as an older German-speaking couple exited the elevator. Everyone talked at once while the inspector shouted over the commotion.
    Amy and I looked at each other open mouthed. A smile of uncontrollable exuberance lit up Amy’s face. We both laughed.
    I didn’t want to be the doubting Thomas, but this was too bizarre. Too good to be true. I hurried to open my suitcase and immediately saw that all my neatly packed belongings had been rifled through.
    “Amy, don’t get too excited yet.”
    She sifted through her suitcase and pulled out a small slip of orange paper. “Hey, did you get one of these?”
    Typed in English was a notice that U.S. Customs had searched her luggage as part of a routine security check. Spotting a matching orange card in my muddle of clothes, I withdrew my unbelief.
    “Yes, my luggage was inspected, too.”
    “See!” Amy still was giggling. “God sent the thief back here this morning with our luggage. Isn’t that a scream? Who says God doesn’t answer prayer?”
    Just then the inspector darted past us and ran out to the squad car that had pulled up in front of the hotel. The chase was on.
    “Ooh! Don’t you just want to go follow them?” Amy asked.
    “Ah, no.” I zipped up my suitcase.
    “Come on, Lisa! Where’s your sense of adventure?”
    I couldn’t help but laugh at Amy. “You know, as tempting as it sounds to go running around more unfamiliar streets in Paris in pursuit of a deranged taxi driver who demonstrated a strange sense of propriety in returning our belongings, I think I’d rather go upstairs and see if our breakfast has been delivered. Then I’d prefer to take a long hot shower and change clothes. To be honest.”
    “Well, I do always want you to be honest,” Amy said, still smiling.
    We rolled our luggage into the elevator, and Amy said, “Can you believe this? We asked God to bring our luggage to us, and He did.”
    Something inside me felt compelled to launch into a clarification of how prayer works. It seemed important to point out that God doesn’t have to do what we ask, just because we cry out to Him whenever we have a problem. Things don’t