Still, when Mina showed up at Olga’s door that night, my stomach was in shambles. Olga blinked in bewilderment but kept silent as I took measurements. Soon her phone rang and she left the room to take the call.

As soon as she left, Mina stood up.

“I wanted to ask you, Yelena, would you be interested in doing this kind of work on a regular basis? I started a line of consignment gowns. I work with Yocheved’s customers who want to sell their gowns and I need someone to do alterations on the gowns I consign. What do you think?”

Consignments.

Oh… So that was how the Dratlers had gotten hold of the Levinson gown. Mystery solved. And alterations on a regular basis. That would significantly increase our income, and then we could invite Anna back to care for Mama.

But there was no way I was going to establish a business using Olga’s sewing room. A project here and there, okay, but I couldn’t rely on her favors, and I couldn’t afford to split my profit, and now that Mama was living with us, I couldn’t leave the house every night to go work.

I shook my head. “I can’t do it,” I said resolutely. “I don’t have a sewing machine.”

Mina

There were no new kallahs in the boutique for the next two weeks.

It was normal, Yocheved’s business worked that way. Sometimes we got six new kallahs in one week and sometimes a while would pass when the sewing staff simply worked on the existing gowns and did the fittings.

Except for Yocheved, who conducted frantic meetings with Brachfeld whenever she saw white space in the appointment book, everyone was secretly glad to work at a relaxed pace. Honestly, the business could handle a breather.

For me, this lull at work couldn’t have come at a better time. Shevy took a break from college to clear up her afternoons, and we attacked the stores every day when she finished teaching. Yocheved was a doll for allowing me so much flexibility. I’d have to do something to show her how much I appreciated it. After the wedding, of course. It had become our mantra, that line. After the wedding, after the wedding, everything after the wedding.

At the same time, while I was enjoying shopping with my kallah, the money I was spending grated on my conscience. If I ever wondered how people reached 100k in wedding expenses, I was quickly learning.

“I’m paying for my second sheitel,” Shevy informed me one day. “I didn’t realize how much a sheitel costs, and I work, I have some savings.”

I was horrified. I’d tried so hard to make sure my kids didn’t feel any financial pressure. But when I repeated Shevy’s statement to Shlomo, he felt it was right to agree. “She’s a mature girl, I’m proud of her. It’s okay if she respects the value of money. And really, Mina, these bills….”

I was well aware of the bills. Simply clothing a kallah for the week of sheva brachos could make a person go broke, and we weren’t shopping in designer boutiques. Shevy also needed shoes and some new weekday clothing. She needed a new weekday jacket and Shabbos coat — did people really spend $1,400 on a coat? — and robes and snoods and cosmetics.

The Wedding Center didn’t sell this stuff, and you couldn’t exactly buy a kallah drug store products. So we ran around town swiping credit cards, to Shlomo’s mounting horror.

On Tuesday, with Shevy’s wedding less than three weeks away, there was a new kallah penciled into the appointment book at the boutique. Yocheved asked me to conduct the consult, so I canceled Shevy’s sheitel appointment, and when the doorbell rang, draped a smile over my tired face and went to the door to greet the new client.

Only it wasn’t a new client.

It was Mrs. Kohlman.

She was back.

“Hiiii,” Mrs. Kohlman sang. The diamonds on her ears shot sparks as she smiled her most dazzling smile and shrugged out of her fur jacket.

Behind her, a woman with a striking resemblance to Mrs. Kohlman, in a very similar fur jacket, stepped forward tentatively, a young girl at her side.

I quickly collected my wits. “Mrs. Kohlman! What a surprise.”

She grinned. “As soon as Dassi got engaged, I promised my sister that the gown headache was mine. I do have some experience, after all.”

My eyes flitted from one woman to the other, marveling at their alikeness. Besides for facial similarities, their whole demeanor looked cloned. Straight backs, clasped fingers, pogo-stick skinny. Both of their sheitels were heavily rooted and set almost identically — short, with straight-edge curls.

Yet something was irksomely different between these two sisters, and as I escorted them into the showroom and started the consult, I tried putting my finger on what it was.

It was only after we’d settled down around the conference table, listening to the “vision” Mrs. Kohlman outlined for her niece Dassi Davidowitz’s gown, that it clicked.

This sister’s jacket was fake.

I continued the consult, tearing my eyes away from the two jackets draped over the backs of the sisters’ chairs and forcing my mind to focus on the kallah. I showed them samples and listened to their thoughts and turned to a blank page in my notebook to start sketching.

Mrs. Kohlman kept up a constant chatter. “I explained to Chaya that the kallah’s gown is one place you can’t look at cost, and only a Lewin gown will do. It’s her day, she deserves the absolute best. And with all the wedding expenses, this money won’t make it or break it.”

Yocheved joined us at the table, dripping charm as she exchanged humorless jokes with Mrs. Kohlman to rounds of forced laughter.

Now that I knew, everything Mrs. Kohlman’s sister said or did screamed trying too hard. I detected the uncertainty in her voice, the fidgeting while she asserted her opinion and the constant darting eyes at her sister, questioning whether she came across as sufficiently sophisticated and fashion smart.

At one point, Mrs. Kohlman raised her hand and waived to Anuradha, who winked in return. No, no, I thought desperately. Don’t put that idea into your sister’s head.

Yocheved took over the sketching and my heart sank. Because I knew — and I knew that Yocheved knew — that although these Davidowitzes would give a deposit eventually, whether it meant taking a second mortgage on their house or selling their share of their inheritance, this was another Levinson. Another Dratler. Another Kramer.

And I was overwhelmed with pity.

(Originally from Family First, Issue 678)