“You know,” he told them, “the new neighborhood in Florida is only for the real gvirim, they’re very picky.”

Thursday was a big day for the residents of Wimbledon Loop.

Heshy Brucker had his second meeting with Rabbi Glatter scheduled. This one had been initiated by the rosh yeshivah, which was an encouraging sign. Gitty could see that he was nervous, and she walked him out to the car and smiled reassuringly. This moved him, because he hadn’t seen much of that Gitty since they’d come to America. Things would be good.

Reuven Stagler was going to meet Rabbi Klarberg, in an attempt to try to sell the rav on the Alameda Gardens rabbanus in person. The Lauer brothers hadn’t agreed to give up one of the new houses for the cause, but they had promised to cover half the salary for the first three years, which — they were eager to point out — was more than the other developers were doing. They had built a shul, they kept saying, and that should have been enough. The implication was that a more capable askan would have made it work already, but they would have to deal with what they had.

Both men met outside their homes on their way to their respective meetings, and Reuven Stagler offered the overly enthusiastic good morning greeting of a person who is overcompensating for not really meaning it.

Heshy Brucker paused and looked at Reuven for a minute, as if considering whether or not to have a good morning, and then smiled broadly in that way that Reuven found infuriating.

“You too, Reb Reuven, have an amazing day. Big meeting today. Let’s hope for siyata d’Shmaya,” he said and walked on.

It was only after he was buckled in and his car was already on that Reuven realized what Heshy had said, and even though he wasn’t in drive yet, he slammed on the brakes. How did Heshy know where he was going? How could he know that? He had literally said “big meeting today” as if he had access to Reuven’s calendar and was following developments with the rabbanus.

It was all so weird. He looked at the young man who didn’t even have a car of his own, who took three full turns to make a U-turn on Wimbledon. It shouldn’t have taken that long. The developers had made the streets wide enough for a person to make the complete U-turn in one shot — Reuven had actually measured this — but Heshy was also drinking a coffee and fiddling with the sound while he slowly turned the car around, so of course it took him a week to make the full turn.

What was it? How had this average-looking, average-acting, relatively simple young man captured the hearts of his neighbors? Reuven wondered. And did he read minds?