When Can You Start?
After a handshake and a backslapping “welcome aboard,” I asked Mr. Champion for something in writing.
“Salary and benefits? That kind of thing?”
I said, “I wouldn’t want to find out this was an unpaid internship.”
Once again, he laughed appreciatively. Was I about to work for my best audience, ever? I said, “This is a real job, right?”
“Of course! I’m sending you downstairs. My sister deals with the nuts and bolts.”
Did he mean . . . was he the brother of . . . Sandra? “Would that be Sandra?” I asked.
“She’ll be civil, now that you’re on the team. And thrilled that she’s done with the finding and the screening.” He pushed his reading glasses back up his nose, and tapped my handwritten, vague account of life since the accident. “This,” he said.
“Needs more?”
“It begs a hundred questions.”
“Like . . .”
“Like there’s something pretty big that happened when you worked for Trump, and someone’s either trying to get it out of you or trying to shut you up.”
Should I admit he was totally off base? I said, “Not exactly. But you’re good. I do know more. I was too stunned to ask the latest caller anything except ‘How do you know what you’re alleging, and why tell me?’” I glanced behind him at the framed photos of daughters at various ages, arms tucked around each other’s waists, numbers pinned to their race-wear and skiwear. But no wife.
If he saw me studying them, he didn’t acknowledge it. He said, “This big secret you’re holding onto—does anyone else know? I mean, anyone who’d use it?”
“Do you mean write about it? No.”
He grinned. “In that case, I thank you for this future scoop.”
Scoop? I told him I’d brought up the alleged interesting tidbit when I was negotiating with the lawyers about a settlement—
“You were negotiating yourself? Without a lawyer?”
I confessed, yes, unfortunately—couldn’t afford one.
“Who’s their client? The driver? Her insurance agency? Whoever fired you at the White House?”
“The driver. I was asking for more than they were offering—”
“Which was what?”
“Ten K.”
“And you said, ‘I have some intel that would embarrass your client’?”
“Pretty much.”
“And their move?”
“They said they didn’t find me credible. I haven’t heard from them since.”
“How much do you want?”
“Well, more than their ten K—”
“No! I didn’t mean for compensation. Here.”
Did he want me to name my own salary? I asked if he could give me a range.
“How’s ten per cent above your last job? Sandra can work out the numbers.”
“Fifteen per cent?”
“Twelve-and-a-half per cent above whatever Donald Trump was paying you. I’ll text Sandra.”
When I told him I was thrilled and grateful to be part of the Champion team, he said he was pleased, too, having interviewed a half-dozen candidates before me. And not one of them had more than garden-variety hatred for the president—none personal, just political.
“Well . . . good for me!”
“One sec.” He’d picked up his phone. “Sandra—we’re hiring Miss . . . ?
“Klein,” I supplied. “Rachel.”
“And have her sign the T.I.P.”
“Tip?” I repeated when he’d put down his phone.
“Transfer of intellectual property. Essentially, what news breaks here, stays here.”
That sounded reasonable. I went downstairs and signed it.
My mother squealed, “I’m ordering all of his books the minute I get off the phone! Congratulations! Kenny! Pick up! Rachel got the job with that author!”
My dad was on the office extension within seconds. “Sweetheart! What’s the actual job? And when do you start?”
“Tomorrow. And I’m not totally sure what the actual job is—his human resources person-slash-sister said I’d be recording his interviews.”
Apparently they were too relieved to mention that I might possess talents beyond pushing a button on a recording device. Anticipating that, I told them that I’d beat out a half-dozen other candidates.
“I’m not the least surprised!” my dad gushed.
“Did you have to finesse the part about getting fired?” my mother asked.
“Just the opposite. I think it was my grudge-holding that put me over the top.”
“Salary?” my mother asked. “Not that we care.”
“Twelve-and-a-half per cent higher than my last job.”
“Health and dental?”
“One thing at a time, Bev,” said my dad.
“Both,” I said.
“I know you’re going to find the job fascinating,” said my father. “I took a look at his past works: these interviews are going to be with senators and campaign managers and chiefs of staff—”
“And ex-wives and girlfriends,” added my mother.
“Starting tomorrow!” said my dad. “Your mother and I thought you’d have to go back for another interview, and maybe a third. You must’ve aced it.”
I said I had to get off, was in an Uber, almost at Nordstrom Rack, hoping to find outfits that announced “journalist at work.”
“Then nothing Bohemian, please,” said my mother.
“Can we help?” my dad asked.
I said, “I think you’re forgetting that I never spent a nickel while under your roof. But thanks.”
“Is he a nice man?” my mother asked. “I was worried that he might be very . . . brash, considering the books he writes.”
I spoke an utter truth: “I’m still recovering from how nice he is.”
After a successful shopping trip that spilled over into nearby Macy’s, rendering two skirts, two sweaters, one shirt in two different colors, tights, and a pair of red suede shoes I couldn’t resist, I went back to the apartment, unpacked my suitcase, laid out the new purchases for subsequent admiring, and went out again to buy a bottle of something.
“How ya doin’?” the wine-shop clerk asked. And though I knew it was his standard, meaningless auto-greeting, I said, “Great! I just got a new job!”
“Congrats. I remember you,” he said. “Vodka, right?”
“My Cape Codder phase. That’s over.”
He pointed to the Prosecco I’d brought to the register. “Good choice. Good price. Having friends over to celebrate?”
Had this clerk just asked me a personal question? I said, “Only my room mate. Well, two roommates. The second one is new. I haven’t even met her.”
I signed the credit-card reader with my index finger. He bagged the bottle. With nothing left to transact, I volunteered, “The other two roommates are girlfriends . . .” And in case that needed elucidation, I added, “A same-sex couple. Though I happen to be straight.”
He smiled and murmured, “What a coincidence.”
“I’m Rachel Klein.”
“Rachel Klein, just like your credit card says. Good to know.”
“My new job? Do you know Kirby Champion, the author? That’s who hired me.”
“I don’t. But congratulations.”
“Thank you.” When I didn’t pick up the bag, he asked if there was anything else. I said, “Just that I’ve worked in retail, and I think you’re exceptionally good at client facing.” His name badge said “Alex”, which I pronounced with some oomph, as if committing it to memory.
He pointed toward the back of the store where an older man appeared to be lecturing about something in the Loire Valley section. “That’s my dad, client-facing in action. We’re a team.”
I made a mental note: next time, tell Alex that I too had parental employers, in retail. The Loire Valley customer was heading toward us, juggling three bottles. I said, “I should run. First day of work tomorrow.”
“Knock ’em dead,” said Alex.
It had to be Yasemin in the kitchen, hard at work with a cleaver on a lump of raw meat, her long dark hair loosely pinned up with what looked like a bamboo kebab skewer.
I introduced myself—hardly necessary, because her first question was, “How did it go?”
I held up the bottle: “I got the job!”
She rinsed her hands, crossed the room and gave me a damp, congratulatory hug. I said, “I feel like my luck is changing. My ribs didn’t even hurt when you hugged me.”
“Sit,” she said. “Entertain me while I cook. Do you eat lamb?”
Did that mean I’d be joining them? I said, “Yes. I eat everything.” I put the Prosecco in the fridge, cleared mail off the table, and, to show I wasn’t taking reentry for granted, set a mere two places.
“Hey! Three plates and three salad bowls. Can you do vinaigrette?”
I said I could follow a recipe for vinaigrette. I’d look online.
When I returned with my phone, she asked about the job. I began with the name “Kirby Champion,” which produced a “You’re fucking kidding me?”
“Is that bad?”
“I work for D.O.J. He calls a lot, always hoping to hit on a leaker.”
I said, “That could be me harassing federal employees from now on.”
“Lessons at the knee of a master harasser. Should be fun.”
I asked her if Elizabeth had filled her in on my checkered federal career.
Yasemin said no, just that I was recovering in New York from a car accident. But she’d Googled me. “You’re kind of famous,” she said.
“My fifteen minutes . . .”
“Your new boss must’ve Googled you, too, and said, ‘Hmmm. She told off the president. Just what I need!’ Can we open the bubbly now?”
I retrieved the Prosecco from the refrigerator, uncorked it and poured us each a glass in etched flutes I’d never seen before. Yasemin raised hers. “May your fifteen minutes turn into fifteen years, or fifty, and your name added to the jacket of every snarky book!”
From a kitchen stool, I sipped my drink and watched her sear chunks of lamb. Had I fallen down a rabbit hole into Opposites Day? How else to explain all of this—unaccustomed domestic cordiality? A friendly exchange with a heretofore low-key wine clerk? And the best topsy-turvy development of all: a famous muckraker had hired me precisely because I’d been fired.