I pause like a dog that had its leash yanked. I approach the desk and give him my name. I want to see the director, Deborah Brinker, I say. Miss Deborah, he corrects me. OK, Miss Deborah. No, I don’t have an appointment, but she will know me. I was the director before her. He appears unimpressed. He gets on the phone and calls her office.
Jay still here?
We’re not allowed to give out information on our clients. Confidentiality.
He’s not a client.
Talk to Miss Deborah then.
After a brief conversation in which the front desk guy gives my name to, I presume, Miss Deborah, he hangs up and tells me to sign in. Then he points to the stairs.
You can go up now.
When I reach the top, I pause and consider what had once been my office. The door is closed. Framed university degrees hang on the wall. Miss Deborah sits behind a desk bare of anything but a computer and plastic trays filled with papers.
I knock on the door. With a sigh, she shuts off the computer, looks up, and waves me in. She reaches across the desk and shakes my hand. I wait for her to tell me to sit down. She doesn’t.
Yes?
My name is Tom Murray, I say. I was the previous director.
Miss Deborah, she says. Pleasure.
I know you weren’t expecting me. I just wanted to come by and tell you how sorry I am to hear about Michael and to offer my support. If there’s anything I can do.
The offer hangs between us. I feel a little desperate. I want to talk about Michael. How awful I feel, how confused. But sitting and facing Miss Deborah tells me I made a mistake. I don’t belong here. Not anymore.
Thank you, Mr. Murray, Miss Deborah says. It’s been quite a shock. Totally unexpected.
I can imagine.
The board of directors knows about this but not our funders. I hope it doesn’t go that far. Everyone understands, of course, Michael wasn’t my hire.
What does that matter?
Nothing, I hope. But if this frightens funders, if they worry about the type of staff we have, I’ll be forced to emphasize he wasn’t my hire.
I don’t say anything. I’m her excuse. She’ll beat hell out of my name as long as she needs to. I don’t blame her. I’d do the same thing.
Did you do a background check on Michael, Mr. Murray? Did you confirm his job histories? Michael’s so-called time with the military? I did. No Michael Kelly with his birth date and Social Security number was in the army.
It’s probably not his real name.
All the more reason for background checks, isn’t it? And did you know Vernetta lived with him when she was pregnant? I’m sure you didn’t, but why did you permit Michael to babysit for her?
What he did on his off hours . . .
He brought her baby here to work, I’m told. You must have known that much.
I don’t say anything. I feel like that apostle what’s-his-name when the rooster crowed every time he lied. I didn’t see the harm, I want to say. Not from Michael.
I mean no disrespect, but it’s a good thing you left when you did or you’d be answering a lot more questions, Miss Deborah says. I’ll try to keep this from following you. You work with refugees now, right?
I just came to offer my support, I say. That’s all.
Thank you.
Miss Deborah returns to her computer. I stand to leave. Then I think of Jay again.
Does Jay still work here?
He’s on disability now, she says, still facing the computer.
Disability?
I had the benefits advocate enroll him in SSI. He didn’t need to be here. He’d never get a job anywhere else. That does us no good. I want people who can find work and move on. Jay could barely answer the phone.
She pushes back in her chair until it rests against the wall behind her and faces me, offering a tired, even sympathetic smile that tells me she knows I think she’s a bitch. She’s not. She’s doing what she’s doing because that’s what she learned in school. Comes with the degrees. She doesn’t want Jay. She wants suits. She wants order. She wants to triage the Jays out of here.
You put up with a lot taking on people like Jay, Mr. Murray, she says. I’ll give you that.
Vernetta had a baby boy and named him Stevie Jr. That was more credit than I’d have given his father, who never made it to the hospital. Nine damn pounds. Because Vernetta had stayed clean, the doctors thought the boy would have little to no brain damage from her use of crack. Over time they would know, but his prognosis was good.
She entered a halfway house for single moms in recovery. Michael and I used the agency van to deliver her to her new home. He hauled her things up three flights of stairs to her room. It had bay windows and a nice view of the ocean and hardwood floors that caught the sun and shined like ice.
Michael set up the baby crib. When he finished, she embraced him and sobbed. He held her like a robot and looked over her shoulder at the ocean, but nothing in his face revealed what he might be thinking. Not a blink or a tear or an expression of any kind. Just a blank stare and a stiffness to his body as he patted her back one, two, one, two and then stopped.
Pretty controlled in there, I said when we got back outside.
