Turned out, the woman wasn’t American after all; she lived in London and owned an apartment in Arad. “My husband suffers from rheumatism,” she shared. “We come here twice a year for two months.”

“Oh, wow.” Okay, she was obviously at a different stage in life. “We’re here for the first time,” Pessie explained. “My daughter has psoriasis. I’m just wondering — how do people with skin conditions handle the water? My daughter stepped in for a second and was in agony.”

“You need to make an appointment with Dr. Malachi,” the woman told her. “He’s great, he’ll give you exact instructions. His office is in the David hotel. Just walk in and talk to the receptionist.”

“Oh. I hear. Thanks.”

Another doctor. Wonderful.

But first, she needed clothing.

They waited 40 minutes for a bus to take them farther down the beach to the strip mall. The sun was growing fiercer by the minute, and they ran out of water ten minutes into the wait. Pessie bought popsicles from a street vendor. Sugar. Too bad. She’d made up her mind to drop Hindy’s diet over the trip. It hadn’t ever helped, and weren’t they here to try a new approach?

Finally, they got off the bus, hot and tired. It didn’t take long to learn that the Ein Bokek stores were a poor excuse of a strip mall. You could buy a thousand types of sea salts and muds, but basic skirts and T-shirts — that was obviously asking for too much.

Pessie hung a turquoise tunic back on the rack. “Let’s go get something to eat,” she told Hindy.

They found a table near the window in Café Café. They were huddled together over the menu, deciding what to order, when Pessie’s phone rang.

“Yochi?”

“Hey, how are you? Where am I catching you? Are you at the beach now?”

“No, we stopped at a restaurant here. In the mall.”

“Ooh, niiiice! I’m so happy you’re having a good time! It’s, what, 12:00 by you now? You’re an hour ahead of Zambia, you said, right?”

“Right.”

She still hadn’t told him about the missing suitcase. They’d spoken for three minutes in the morning. Yochi had been surrounded by people, helping all guests plan their itineraries for the day. The conversation hadn’t gone well.

“I need to talk to you,” Pessie had told him urgently.

“I know, but I’m working,” Yochi had said defensively. “I’m not roasting my toes at the beach.”

Pessie had all but hurled her phone across the room at that.

Now, a waiter approached them. Pessie motioned for him to move along to the next table.

“How are you?” Her voice was flat.

“I’m good, baruch Hashem. Great. This place is something else. I wish you could be here. There are so many interesting people on the tour. And don’t ask. Remember that Oh No guy I was telling you about?”

She did not remember, at least not clearly, and she definitely didn’t care.

“I told you he’s arriving a day late, right? So he arrives this morning, with three of his couples, you know the type where the wives bring along three sheitel boxes for a ten-day trip. I welcomed them and everything, showed them around, made sure they were served a good meal. Then they went to their rooms to unpack.

“A few minutes later, I hear this shriek. Oh No himself. He walked out of his room to bring in a suitcase, and there was an elephant holding one of his wife’s sheitel boxes. I couldn’t resist. I told him, ‘You didn’t expect to have an in-house sheitelmacher, huh?’

“You had to see his face. Oh, my, Pessie, you had to see his face. Listen, he insisted on a room right off the lobby, and elephants are what this lobby is famous for.”

No, he wasn’t roasting his toes at the beach, of course not. He was working. He was working so hard.

Pessie forced out what was meant to sound like a chuckle. “I’m so happy you’re having a good time.”

“Reels,” Deena told Shira as she hitched her phone onto the tripod, “are a necessary evil.”

“Necessary, sure,” Shira agreed. “Why evil?”

“Because I hate doing them, I hate having done them, I cannot watch them, ever. The only thing I like about them is the number of views they get.”

“Also that they keep your feed relevant and make you feel like a real influencer. I did not plan that pun, sorry.”

Deena wagged a finger at her. “Hey.”

Shira tucked her sheitel behind her ear. “Honestly, I would never have guessed. You look so natural and comfortable in your reels. Like you’re actually enjoying yourself.”

That was probably meant to be a compliment, but there was something in Shira’s tone that made it feel underhanded. Deena let it go.

They redid the shoot — a 15-step method for “the Absolute Best Pesto Sauce Ever” that Deena swore was “so quick, easy, and amazing, you’ll never go back to store-bought sauce again” — four times. That meant washing out each glass bowl and the blender four times. “Because you chas v’shalom never use a plastic bowl in your kitchen,” Shira remarked solemnly. “Ever.”

“Quick. Easy. Amazing,” Deena chanted.

When they were finally done, and Deena told Shira to please take the sauce home, she didn’t even like pesto, Shira toyed with the lid of the jar.

“I’m going to miss your food,” she said.

“Huh?”

Shira inhaled slowly, and Deena suddenly noticed how strange her neighbor looked.

“What’s going on?” she asked sharply.

Shira fidgeted. “I won’t be able to do your photography anymore.” She gave a shy smile. “I… I found a job.”

“You—” Deena stammered. “Um… wow. Wow! Congratulations! Good for you. And bad for me. Yikes, Shira, I’m so selfish, but what am I going to do without you?”

“You’ll help other girls build their portfolios, huh?”

“Not funny!”

“I know. But you’re not upset at me, right?”

“No, no, of course not. I’m really, really happy for you, Shira. Really. It was fun while it lasted, but you shouldn’t be working for free. You agreed to help me until you landed a real job, and here we are.”

She was genuinely happy for her. She’d even put out feelers for Shira several times in the past, tried to help her find a parnassah. Good for her. In a way, Deena felt proud. As though Shira was her own graduate. “Nu, so tell me about the job. Who, where, when?”

“Who is a marketing company. AB Marketing. What is still-life photography, in-house. Pictures for packaging, ads, website listings, social media posts, that kind of stuff. What else did you ask? When?” Shira winced. “I’m actually starting on Monday. Gulp, I know. I feel so bad leaving you high and dry. If you want me to shoot anything this week, I’ll really try to do it for you.”

“Come on, Shira, don’t feel bad. You’ve been doing me a huge favor all this time.”

“It was really a favor to myself. They would never have hired me without my portfolio, and my portfolio is 99 percent nutsandbasil pictures.”

Deena’s mind raced. She could probably ask Shira if she’d squeeze in a session here or there in the evening, but now that she was starting a real job, Deena would have to offer to pay.

She needed a new photographer.

But this was Shira’s moment. She deserved some attention.

“So, like, how did this happen?” Deena asked. “How did they hear about you?”

“Actually, it was really cool. I posted my CV and portfolio on this job recruiting site — it’s free, my friend told me about it. Something like a job gemach.”

“A… job gemach?”

So we were thinking, it would be so nice to do something similar l’illui nishmaso. Something like a job gemach. A job recruitment agency, but not for profit.

Zev’s parents.

“Yeah,” Shira said. “It’s called Zichron Zev. Long story short, this company contacted me the next day.”

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 758)