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ivi squinted into the mirror again, feeling self-conscious in front of the salesman, a thin young man with red hair, a shockingly raspy voice, and a string of opinions.

“It’s hard to see, because to buy glasses, you have to take off your glasses,” Kivi mumbled, but he knew it was a lousy excuse for why he’d been standing in the exact same spot, by the round mirror that made his face look huge, for 45 minutes.

Other customers had come and gone, and he sensed that Raspy Voice and the other salesmen were whispering about him.

“Wait, bring back the other ones, the clear frames,” Kivi said. “They were sort of cool.”

He was doing this for Malky. The wedding was tomorrow night, and she had asked him to have a new pair of glasses — Max was taking pictures, and she wanted a family shot with the kids, one they could hang up.

Kivi frowned into the mirror, happy with the way he looked. It was very Summit, very much the boss looking up in the middle of a complicated real estate deal to answer a question. It worked.

Except. Except it was so clichéd: left kollel, went to work, and got cool glasses six weeks later. Just as vividly as he saw himself standing in the doorway of his office, interacting with the tenants and bantering with visitors, he saw Wagner snickering. Kivi, you’ve become a Sports Jacket.

Raspy Voice was lurking again.

Kivi pretended not to notice, but he had to stop making faces in the mirror with the salesman just behind him.

“These are lit,” the salesman said. “You look sharp.”

“I know,” Kivi said, “but I just can’t decide.”

“Can I say something?” The salesman — short haircut, tight pants, fitted shirt, all smooth and slippery — almost glided in front of Kivi, speaking loudly for the benefit of the others.

“You aren’t mesupak about the frames,” he said, “you’re mesupak about yourself!”

Kivi was thinking of Landsman from yeshivah, back on Purim. The quietest boy in the dormitory room, in his striped gray zeidy pajamas by ten thirty, one of those sleeping masks they give out on airplanes over his eyes by eleven. He didn’t talk much, content to laugh along at the jokes made by others.

But one Purim, Landsman drank whiskey too early in the day, and got drunker, faster, than anyone in 11th grade. By four o’clock Purim afternoon, he was transformed into a comedian — loud, funny, and devastatingly observant. Eventually, he fell asleep on Rabbi Rosner’s couch and by the next day, he was back to zeidy pajamas and speaking in whispers. But Kivi could never look at him the same after that. (Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 721)