The Buzz
My parents won the recuperation-location battle. We were heading north in a rental car, chosen for its roomy backseat. Their closing argument: in D.C. I’d have only a nonchalant, near-stranger of a roommate; whereas they’d take turns staying home from work so I wouldn’t have to lift, bend, cook, eat or sneeze without assistance.
As they were painting a rosy picture of our reunited nuclear family, I’d remind them that my visit was temporary, that Ruth Bader Ginsburg hadn’t missed a single day of work after breaking three of her ribs. And surely I’d find another job in D.C., maybe even in one of my old departments.
When that prospect wasn’t seconded, I added, “I know I was fired, but then I got those televised get-well wishes and flowers from Ivanka and Jared . . . Maybe my old boss is thinking, ‘She sent one toxic email by mistake. She was a really good worker. Everyone deserves a second chance.’”
My mother said, “You’d want to go back to that job you hated? Do you think that taping scraps of paper back together is a good use of your talents?”
“You’re not thinking I’ll come to work at the store, are you?” I asked the silent front seat.
Too quickly they protested: No, of course not! Do you think we sent you to college for a career in paint and wallpaper?
I said, “You both went to college.”
They reminded me that the store had been in the family since 1953, and they’d brought it into the twenty-first century. Wallpaper reproductions of Warhol and Lichtenstein! A cappuccino machine!
“It was a good family business,” said my dad. “And don’t forget: I majored in business.”
“How many people can say that their jobs feel like their life’s work?” my mother asked.
I couldn’t. Had they forgotten the three summers I’d worked at Klein Wallpaper & Paint? I was okay at the cash register, but terrible at offering artistic opinions. I had even less patience with the customers who couldn’t decide on which shade of white to paint their walls. Chantilly Lace? Cotton Balls? Crème Brûlée? Mascarpone? Mayonnaise? I might advise a dithering customer, “You paint the walls, the ceiling, the moldings; let it dry, put back the furniture, hang up the art and the curtains, and you know what happens? You never give it another thought.”
Which was not the attitude that gave Klein Wallpaper & Paint five stars on Yahoo. I reminded my parents of that—how I wouldn’t contribute anything to the business except cranky reviews.
“Were you like that at your last job?” my mother asked.
She meant impatient and unhelpful. I said, “I hated it, but I did the work. I didn’t complain more than anyone else did.”
My mother twisted herself around as much as her seatbelt allowed. “What you did, and what you might mention to these nosy reporters calling, was speak truth to power.”
I had? Could that be the takeaway from my rude and fatal e-etiquette?
“You need to start thinking of yourself as a whistle-blower. You announced to your fellow citizens: ‘Your tax dollars are paying me for doing a stupid, unnecessary job.’ How many people in this administration have done that? Nobody.”
I said, “But I was a nobody.”
“If all the nobodies in that administration got fired for telling off the president, you’d all get a name!”
“What kind of name?”
“As a group, like a team. Like the Secaucus Seven, or the Gang of Eight or the Three Amigos.”
“Highly unlikely. You’re giving me way too much credit. I didn’t resign in protest—”
“But you have the goods—he could not help ripping up everything he read, no matter how many times he was told that every paper that crossed his desk had to be saved for posterity!”
I said, “Could we drop this subject? It’s exhausting. I’m going to close my eyes.”
She dropped it only until we were in the ladies’ bathroom at the Clara Barton service area on 95 North. “I have an idea,” she announced from the next stall.
I waited until we were side by side at the sinks before saying, “Okay, what?”
“I think you know that Murray’s son Doug is in marketing?”
I said no I didn’t, and wasn’t he the goofy one who’d done deliveries for KWP?
“No, that was Mark, his younger brother.”
“And Doug came to mind why?”
“Because if he’s in marketing, he knows his way around the media. It’s like advertising, only instead of placing print ads like our guy does, he helps clients get themselves attention.”
“No, thanks. I have all the attention I can handle.”
Still, back in the car, she ran this unformed idea past my father, who said, “Dougie did work for us one summer, driving the van. When he was at Harvard.”
“Not Harvard! I’d remember Harvard!” my mother scolded.
“B.U.?” he tried.
Back under the blanket they’d bought just for this commute, I said, “One of Murray’s sons went to Wesleyan. I don’t know which one, but he used to brag about it. Early decision.”
“That was definitely Doug,” said my mother. “He majored in whatever it is that gets you a job in public relations. And his dad thinks he’s a shark!”
I said, “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to hire him.”
“‘Hire’ might not be the right word, if you know what I mean.”
“If you mean he wouldn’t charge me, dream on.”
“But it’s us,” said my father. “As good as family.”
“And I don’t think you realize what you’ve been through,” my mother said. “Your phone was ringing off the hook, and you were taking those calls, one on top of the other—”
“And not sounding always . . . compos mentis,” said my dad.
I asked if a neurologist had used that phrase, or was it their home-grown diagnosis?
“Your father shouldn’t have said that. He meant that when a call woke you up, you could sound dopey. You were a little fuhmished, that’s all.”
“I’m better. And I’m managing.”
“Only because your phone’s turned off! And when it’s on, you can’t just keep saying ‘No comment.’ Sometimes an explanation is the right way to go,” my mother added.
“These calls aren’t going to go on forever.”
“I think you need back-up, and I think he’d be willing to help,” my mother said.
“The shark? You talked to him already?”
My father said, “I don’t think the word Murray used was ‘shark.’ I think it was ‘sharp.’ This one was the sharp son.”
I said, “I’m drifting off back here. Wake me when we’re home, if I haven’t slipped into a coma.”
When I turned my phone back on, I learned that a White House correspondent for BuzzFeed had unearthed the name of the driver who’d hit me: Veronica Hyde-White. Why was this news? Only because some official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that Rachel Klein had been fired for criticizing the President. Pretty dull stuff, I thought. No one other than Beverly Klein considered me a whistle-blower or a brave big-mouth willing to speak truth to power.
I supposed I could talk to this Doug. I Googled him from the back seat. He had an actual company, an office in Soho, and a list of clients whose identities he protected. I liked that—his website made it sound as if the people who needed marketing help also needed discretion.
If my parents were right in characterizing Dougie as family, grown-up now, grateful for the decades of his father’s employment and the resulting roof over his head, food on the table, clothes and tuition, perhaps he would spare me a few hours of non-billable time.