He liked to be reassuring, to tell her that everything was great. It was a husband’s job, he believed. But at the same time, it was hard to keep certain things from her

S

huey Portman carried the new chair into the office like it was a throne. It wasn’t such a big deal, but something about it — maybe the high padded back, or the serious-looking wooden arms — made him feel like an executive. He wasn’t going back to sit on the same folding chair as last zeman, but to get real work done. He was building something.

Over bein hazmanim three more bochurim had applied, and Rabbi Wasser had accepted two of them. There were others who’d inquired. There was a buzz about Modena.

Shuey had already booked tickets to Florida for the big executive directors’ conference in the winter, and, even though he wouldn’t have admitted this to anyone, he had put away the new suit he’d bought at the end of the summer, at the Nordstrom sale, for that. He imagined walking through the lobby in the sharp suit — he could wear it with the gray striped tie — and schmoozing with hundreds of other people who did exactly what he did. They would get it: The joy of new beginnings. The thrill of creating something from the ground up. The older ones, the ones he knew from magazine articles, would look off into the distance and smile as they remembered their early days, fighting for every dollar, building each relationship like it was the only one.

He would credit Avi Korman, the greatest boss in the world. Maybe, if he was feeling really comfortable, he would admit that it was Avi who’d saved him from the Kohl brothers and his freezing little office at Three-Star snacks. Avi had basically given him the job, paying his salary for a few months upfront and letting him run with it, he would say, with the unspoken conclusion that Avi’s confidence in him had paid off.

Shuey had gotten a lot done that morning. He’d switched caterers, finding someone in Monroe who was cheaper and whose food would be fresher. It might not have seemed like a big deal, but for Shuey Portman, it felt like he’d negotiated the sale of the Empire State Building.

He’d settled on basic tuition plans with most of the parents — he wasn’t secure enough just yet to demand that they make the yeshivah a priority, but he did feel more leverage than he’d had just six weeks earlier, when the yeshivah in Modena was still part-joke.

Of course, the third boy, the one the rosh yeshivah hadn’t felt a good fit for the yeshivah, was the wealthy one, but the first two parents had also agreed to something. There was money in the bank, a new coat of paint in the beis medrash, and the sound of learning filling what had once been the lobby of the Old Orchard Inn.

He was ready for his meeting with Avi Korman. He knew he’d done good.