Yochi spiraled a finger through his peyos. “What’s the problem?” he asked.

“My rav is marrying off his daughter June 13. I’m making him a sheva brachos on Tuesday the 15th.”

“The day the tour starts.”

“Right.”

Yochi waited. It was always best to wait.

“So I don’t expect you to push off the tour…”

Wow, gadlus.

“I guess I’ll have to join a day later. But in terms of Davidi, what’s the schedule? I don’t want to miss him, my Meilech won’t forgive me. Make sure he isn’t performing that night, yeah?”

He was. There was nothing to make sure. They’d almost had to give up on Davidi, he was booked solid and the only night he could fly in was Tuesday, June 15. Of course.

“Let me look into this for you,” Yochi said smoothly.

“Good. Thanks.”

Yochi clicked to end the conversation. “Don’t thank me yet,” he muttered.

Whoever thought directing tours was fun… Well.

Now the question was if he should return to the conference room to rejoin the meeting or just go to his desk and avoid questioning glances?

He didn’t have to make the decision. Voices floated from down the hallway — the meeting was over.

Kashevsky elbowed Yochi as he passed. “Smart move, Hersko,” he remarked. “You’re leaving, why should you put up with this abuse? What was he getting all nitpicky for? I mean, reminders to apply state allocations, seriously, are we in kindergarten or what?”

Yochi nearly choked. His shver wouldn’t have made a dig at him like that in public. Big Boss had obviously noticed his son-in-law leaving the meeting.

Kashevsky misread Yochi’s reaction. “ ’Kay, that’s not fair, I’ll stop. Your shver’s a nice guy, too bad he’s my boss.”

“Yeah,” Yochi mumbled, just as Chananya Hartstein passed and nodded silently in his direction.

Desk. Now.

Finally back in safe territory, Yochi tried to orient himself. Streamline, streamline. There was so much work, he didn’t know where to start. The TTS audit. All his regular clients, the ominous tax filing deadline looming. Hours and hours and hours of work. He was never going to make it.

The familiar April headache crept up on him. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t breathe. Why had he offered to stay on at the firm this long?

And then there was his iPad, tucked into his desk drawer, with endless tasks he had to take care of before the upcoming Zambia tour. Exciting, but also stressful, and he was on company time, so he couldn’t even touch that now.

Breathing heavily, he entered the password on his computer and toggled his mouse over the TTS folder.

But before he could click the first file open, his phone vibrated. Pessie.

He answered the call. “I really can’t talk now. Anything important?”

“Yochi! Don’t ask!”

“What? Quick.”

“I’m booking!”

“Huh? Booking what?”

“Tickets! To Eretz Yisrael!” She was laughing now, and he felt like there was some joke he was missing. “Don’t ask,” she repeated.

“My sister Devoiry told me about this crazy deal on Dan’s Deals, the tickets are three hundred and twenty-five dollars! And it’s exactly the time when the hotel does separate beaches! But we have to do this quickly, you know how these deals expire before you blink. So what did we finalize? We go for two weeks and then your parents take over for the next two weeks?”

What. Was. She. Talking about?

“Pessie, can you, like, slow down? Who what when where, what exactly is going on?”

“The Dead Sea. Don’t tell me you changed your mind!”

He hadn’t changed his mind, he simply hadn’t thought about it at all. She’d floated the idea by him, he’d listened, okay, sounds interesting, but hadn’t given it any thought since.

She’d been serious?

“So like, you’re all ready to do this?” he sputtered. “You mamesh want to book tickets?”

“Yes!”

“Um, that’s good. Great. And this is supposed to help permanently? Did you talk to the doctor there? You won’t have to do this every year, I hope?”

“Yochi…”

She sounded exasperated. Had he said the wrong thing? He walked his mouse around the screen. This was crazy, he had so much work.

“Yochi,” Pessie repeated. “Why are you being like this? It’s your daughter, don’t you want to help her?”

He did. Of course he did. He felt bad for her. But really…

Really? Pessie was blowing the situation out of proportions. Hindy had a skin condition, true, and they tried to do everything possible to help her. But honestly, Pessie took it too far. Psoriasis wasn’t fun, he agreed, but Pessie — and her mother — made it sound catastrophic.

He couldn’t tell that to her. He’d tried once or twice. It didn’t turn out well.

“So tell me again,” he said weakly. “What’s the plan exactly?”

“Whoever I asked said we need to spend at least a month there. So we go for two weeks, you, me and Hindy. Then your parents are renting an apartment in Arad and can stay with her for the next two weeks. Because the chareidi hotel program is only for two weeks, so they’ll drive down every day to the separate beach, it’s like a half-hour drive from Arad, I think.”

“It sounds a little crazy, no? You think my parents were serious with that offer? I thought it was just talk.”

“Of course they were serious! I spoke to your mother about it a bunch of times, she’s all excited. They have grand plans. They’re doing Yerushalayim one Shabbos and Tzfas the other. Your brother Beri’s going to take a bus from yeshivah to join them. I’ll call again to confirm before I book, obviously, but I know they’re very much on board.”

Why didn’t he know any of this?

“Um,” he said. “Well, yay. I can’t believe we’re actually doing this. So when’s this happening? When do you want to book?”

“The last day of school,” Pessie said. “It’s on a Tuesday, June 15.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 747)