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‘You move the bishop like that and it’s game over, buddy. You’re crazy! Think again.’
OK. He was preoccupied. I waited two minutes then tried again. ‘So. Sorry to bother you, but I’m just so curious. Is this for a school?’
This time he looked directly at me. ‘You really interested?’
‘I am.’
‘It’s not a school. This is a group from a summer camp for kids with special needs or special situations.’
‘Serious situations?’
‘Some very awful situations. Yes.’
‘Why chess?’
‘Because it’s hard, I guess. Must make ’em feel smart. Do you know anything about chess and kids?’
‘I have a son who’s nine.’
‘Does he play?’
‘They do it at school, but he hasn’t gotten hooked.’
‘Well, maybe you should get him hooked.’ He smiled. Major-kilowatt smile.
Bingo.
‘Are you also a teacher?’ I was so excited. I knew this was my guy. ‘Are you working at a steady job in this field?’
‘I’m not a teacher at all.’
Shit. I thought he was a professional. Maybe he wasn’t my guy.
‘I’m taking a break while I figure out some plans.’
He waved to the kids. ‘OK. You in the white shirt.’ He pinged a bubble gum at the girl’s head. ‘You, with the goofy smile, you’re in charge of the whites and Walter is going to do the blacks. You can argue with their moves, but they get the final say!’ When he saw that I wasn’t leaving, he stopped and rested his arm on the park gate and looked me in the eye.
‘I’m just subbing for a pal. He’s my roommate who’s a teacher in the public school system and a counsellor in the summer. I’m not an expert with kids like him.’ He picked up a pile of cloth on the ground and smiled. ‘Excuse me, if you don’t mind …’ Still. He was really good with them.
One of the kids had stepped off the chessboard, and turned his back to the game. His shoulders were hunched up around his ears. Mr Director tried to drape the cloth on the kid’s shoulders, but he shrugged it away. He stuffed some candy down the back of his shirt, but the kid didn’t laugh. He threw the cloth on the ground and got down to business with the distressed kid, dragging him a few feet away to talk to him privately.
I couldn’t help but notice how his worn-out khakis traced the lines of his impossibly hard ass. I put down my tote bag full of newspapers and waited.
Mr Director flicked the kid’s baseball cap up. ‘Darren, c’mon.’ He held the kid’s shoulders and tried to manoeuvre him back into the group. Darren just slowly shook his head and then pushed the brim of his hat further down. Mr Director smacked the cap off the kid’s head. Darren didn’t think it was funny. He put it back on and pulled it down real hard. Something was wrong.
The Mr Director bent his knees and looked up under the kid’s hat, and then sucked hard on a lollipop as if it helped him focus.
‘Talk to me, man.’
Darren shook his head.
‘Russell! Take over.’ Russell, an older kid on the sidelines, waved back.
Mr Director put one arm around Darren’s shoulder and another on his arm and led him over to a park bench about thirty feet away. Darren, who seemed about eleven years old, wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. I was riveted. A few minutes passed and he seemed to be breaking through, gesticulating wildly. The kid started to laugh and this cute guy knocked his baseball cap off again – this time they both laughed – and Darren raced back and took his place again on the board.
All right, I thought. He doesn’t look like a psychopath. He doesn’t smell like a psychopath. Obviously, the kids like him. Let’s try this again.
‘Sorry …’
His expression was direct and polite. I was sure he wasn’t a native New Yorker.
‘You again?’ He smiled at me.
‘Yes, me again. I have a question.’
‘Want to get into the game?’ He cocked an eyebrow.
‘No … I mean, yes. My kid might.’
‘I’m afraid the group is pretty tight-knit. They’ve been together the whole summer …’
‘No, no, not that. I just was wondering,’ I asked, ‘do you have a full-time job?’
‘Yeah, I’m CFO of Citigroup. This is the investment banking division.’
I laughed out loud. ‘Seriously. Is this your job?’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Do you have a job?’
‘Does it look like I have a job?’
‘Do you want a job?’
‘Are you hiring?’
‘Well, maybe. Do you know what a manny is?’
‘A what?’
‘Oh, God. I apologize. Let me start over. My name is Jamie Whitfield.’ I pulled out my business card and handed it to him. ‘I work at NBS News. I have three children. And I live nearby. Do you work with kids often in any capacity?’
He kept one eye on the group of kids. ‘Not really.’
‘You don’t work with kids? Like ever?’
‘I mean, I can fill in. They’re in no danger here, maybe have a little sugar high, that’s all.’
He just seemed like a guy who wouldn’t take any nonsense from Dylan and might turn things around. Maybe he had some free hours. Obviously if a real teacher asked him to control a group like this …
‘And what’s your name, and, if you don’t mind me asking, I have another question …?’
‘It’s Peter Bailey.’
I didn’t know how to begin, so I just blurted out: ‘I’m looking to fill a really good job that is high-paying. Afternoons and evenings.’
‘OK, so maybe I’m interested in a really good job that’s high-paying. What kind of job?’
I took a breath. ‘It’s complicated.’ I needed a few seconds to come up with my marketing strategy.
‘OK.’
‘I have a son. He’s nine. He’s, well, he’s kind of down. A bit depressed even.’
‘Clinically depressed?’ Now I had his full attention.
‘Well, no, there’s no formal diagnosis, he just had some panic attacks. Can’t perform at sports any more really because of them.’
‘And how do you see me fitting into this?’
‘Well, I don’t know, maybe the chess …’
‘I know how to play chess. But I’m not a chess tutor. Though the high-paying part might make me a good chess tutor.’ He grinned.
‘Well, not just a chess tutor exactly, but yes, why not, some of that.’
‘I see.’
My cell phone buzzed inside my purse. I reached to turn off the ring tone and saw Goodman was calling. Maybe he wanted more Windex.
‘Look, you need to get back to them and I have somewhere I’m supposed to be. You have my card. If you wouldn’t mind, please call me in the morning and I’ll tell you more.’
‘Sure. I’ll call you. Nice to meet you.’
I stopped for a moment and then walked back to him. ‘Can I just ask you one thing?’
He nodded.
‘How did one person get thirty-two kids with huge papier mâché contraptions on their heads into the middle of Central Park?’
‘Hey. I didn’t do anything. I had help: them.’ Then he turned back to the kids.
And as I wandered back to the West Side, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
CHAPTER SIX Time to Talk Turkey (#ulink_1e3c9b03-d631-5214-af7e-1fe43bee4fff)
‘So!’ I had no idea what to say.
Peter Bailey looked at me expectantly. He sat in a chair across from my desk at work wearing khakis and a white button-down shirt. I found his stillness strangely intimidating. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so ill at ease if I was hiring him.
‘So, thank you for calling me back,’ I said.
‘Thank you for asking.’
‘So!’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you get here OK?’
‘This building is on one of the biggest intersections in Manhattan. Avenue of the Americas and 57th Street is pretty easy to find, you know.’
‘It is. Yes. I …’
‘Cool seeing a newsroom behind the scenes.’
He took in the hundreds of tapes lining my office shelves, each categorized by topic and show with huge letters on the spines. Two colourful posters advertising a past broadcast inside the CIA and a ‘groundbreaking’ West Bank town meeting filled the walls on either side of my desk.
‘Yeah, it’s kind of messy behind the anchor desk.’
‘Not in here.’ Next to me were four newspapers neatly piled in a descending row and my office supplies in their black wire baskets on my credenza: Sharpies and Post-its in every colour, little boxes with drawers for different sizes of metallic binder clips, legal pads and reporter’s notebooks in perfect bunches.
‘You’ve worked for Joe Goodman for a long time?’ he asked.
‘Ten years. Since I started out here. I was twenty-six.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘Great mind, lyrical writer. But, well, he’s demanding, let’s just say that.’ I didn’t want to tell a manny candidate that Goodman was cranky, crusty and usually ungrateful.
‘Yeah, seems like he’s pretty full of himself.’ Peter pointed to the enormous portraits of Goodman lining the hallways outside my office: one of Anchor Monster in front of an armoured personnel carrier dressed in a Kevlar vest and a blue UN helmet, another next to Boris Yeltsin on a tank and another with cameras and lights visible as he interviewed Lauren Bacall who threw her head back laughing as if he’d asked her the most brilliant question in the world.
‘You watch the show?’
‘Not really.’
Most people would at least pretend.
‘You’re at your computer a lot, I guess. I read on your résumé that you’re developing this online software? So doesn’t that take up a lot of time?’
‘The hours are flexible. The software program – I’m calling it Homework Helper by the way – will, I hope, change the way students in public schools communicate with their teachers. It’ll help them collaborate on assignments. Some people tell me it may be quite lucrative once the schools catch on.’
I liked this guy. I had no idea if this software thing was some lofty plan or if it had legs, but he seemed focused and assured underneath his scrappy exterior.
‘Well, that certainly sounds like it will be a full-time job. And if that happens, I worry you’ll …’
‘The software program isn’t a job. It’s an idea. And I believe it’s going to be big at some point, but, truth is, I’m not there yet.’
