The way he spoke left no doubt in Shuey Portman’s mind as to whose idea it really was

Korman was leading the pack outside Rabbi Portman’s office, as if to make it clear that he was on board with the plan. Lorb and Wagner were there, and Shimshy Lieber had also been invited. He was meant to do the actual pitch, firstly because he fancied himself a gifted salesman (at the BMG shuk before Succos, he had sold more sets of arba minim than the kids at the next two tables combined and in eighth grade he’d raised enough for Beis Gavriel to win the dirt bike) and also because he was the most serious in the beis medrash, so it gave the idea more heft. It wasn’t just some boys looking for a matzav.

Shuey Portman heard the knocking and shuffling feet and called out, “Come in.”

He realized that it was more than one bochur and stood up, pulling out folding chairs and trying to rearrange the small office.

“Plenty of room rabboisai, plenty of room,” he said pleasantly, settling on a small stepladder from the hallway as the final seat. “Sit down, what’s up, what’s on your mind?”

Shuey Portman liked the bochurim and they liked him, but this was the first time a group was coming to meet with him. He tried to imagine what they wanted as he watched them getting settled. It might have been about food, but then Lieber, a consistent dieter, wouldn’t have joined. It might have been about the dormitory, but poor water pressure in the shower didn’t justify a group of four.

The others were looking to Lieber to start the conversation, but he faltered. He looked around helplessly, and Korman squared his shoulders, gave Lieber a pitying look, and leaned forward.

“Rebbi, some of the oilam had a shtickel idea. It’s like this…”

The way he spoke left no doubt in Shuey Portman’s mind as to whose idea it really was.

*****

Penina Wasser had put in a full day. She’d been in the city since yesterday working, making sure that life at the office was in order. That was her therapy: paying the bills, renewing the contract with the drinking-water company, successfully fighting off the extra fee from the landlord for the new carpet he was meant to pay for, and doing payroll.

Last night, she’d taken advantage of the fact that she was sleeping in Brooklyn to go wish mazel tov at the vort of her cousin Shalva’s son.

Penina knew she was a good wife, so when they said, “Oh gosh, you live out in the sticks for your husband’s yeshivah, you’re special,” it didn’t mean that much to her. When Shalva, the baalas simchah, introduced her as “my superwoman cousin whose husband like, knows the whole Torah, and she also runs a company and commutes back and forth from like, Saratoga or somewhere… we’re very proud,” Penina shrugged it off. Big deal. It was just words.