Huh?

Okay, so, this was weird.

But first, a little background.

When I was looking for an apartment, one of the places I looked at was an awful, awful 60s apartment building that was being rehabbed into "luxury" condos. I use those quotation marks for extremely heavy emphasis. It was the usual quick conversion--mirrored closet doors, granite countertops and maple cabinets, thin doors and walls. It was shown to me by a realtor named... well, let's just call her Fraidl, okay? She looked, for all the world, frum. Long skirt, hair tucked under a baseball cap. She knew the lingo and told me all about the frum families who were moving in, how it was close to the shuls, etc. I was so not interested I didn't even go inside--it was clear from the sidewalk it wasn't for us, and since she had been late I was late to see another place (the one I'm sitting inside now, in fact.) End of Fraidl, Act I.

On Sunday, on a walk with Barak, I passed an open house in another new conversion a few blocks away. Because I wasn't in a hurry and I'm always interested in these things now, I went in. And saw... Fraidl. Except it wasn't Fraidl. It was Fraidl in a very short skirt with no hose, high heels, a very tight green tank top that left the top inch of her bra exposed in back, a lot of makeup and even more hairspray.

Fraidl? Or her frei twin?

I sneaked a look at the cards on the table. Nope, Fraidl all right. Fraidl who appears not even to be married, from what she said to me about where she lives, which makes the fact that she had her hair covered the first time I saw her even more bizarre. She wasn't just wearing a hat--she was wearing a hat with all her hair tucked inside.

Is it possible? Her name is sure convincing. Could she have just dressed the part to show the apartments in a religious neighborhood? Was it actually a costume? Or does she just dress like an, er, not religious person when showing an apartment in a different neighborhood?

Weird. Weird, weird, weird...