Bylines

Chapter Two

 What was so hard about sports reporting, anyway? Teams win. Teams lose. Red Sox fans riot either way. She tried to talk her blood pressure down with every step she took.

This column was hers. It had to be hers. No one else in their right mind would've given this job to a complete stranger. She wasn't giving it up. Not after everything she'd been through over the last few months.

She knocked on the glass door etched with Editor-in-Chief.

"Jo!" Robert Kleffman's rounded eyes and billowed from wrinkles lifted as her curly brown hair bounded into his office. He stood to walk around his desk, leaving his tortoise-rimmed reading glasses on a stack of staggered papers and reached for a hug. 

Jordan leaned into the man she'd known all her life. He smelled as he always had. Peppermint with a cigar aftershock. So many times his office had been a place of counsel, when she needed a letter of recommendation for her college applications or when her softball team had lost the state championship. When she'd gotten the job at the paper, she'd insisted that she gain her entry level job by her own merit. And when she'd graduated at the top of her class, with a byline–if not two–in nearly every edition of The Cavalier Daily, she'd known she was ready for a job at a large local paper.

Even if her boss had seen her in diapers.

Robert Kleffman had always been a part of her life. And a few weeks ago at the funeral, he'd promised that he'd always would be.

"Whatever you need, Jordan. Joanna and I are here for you," he'd said, with is wife on his arm blotting her eyes with a handkerchief.

They'd promised her dinner, or a basement to crash in if she ever needed a change of scenery.

She'd been so thankful for them, her surrogate parents, in that moment. Now looking at him from across the room, Jordan felt her attitude toward Mr. Kleffman soften. Her anger melted to relief at the sight of the man who'd done so much for her family over the years.

"It's good to have you back, kiddo."

She winced at the word kiddo.

"Good to be back," she almost meant it as she swallowed hard and her voice found its lilt. Robert Kleffman was not an easy man to lie to–even if you happened to be a good liar. He'd always reminded Jordan of the Monopoly man, personified. Or a private investigator. With a nose buffed around the edges and dark hair that stuck out from behind his ear like straw, he couldn't have opted for any other career. His DNA wouldn't allow it.

"Have a seat, have a seat," he motioned to the maroon leather seat that sat across from his. "How are you settling in?" His pale blue eyes were earnest as he snuck back into his office chair.

"I'm fine," Jordan said. "It's good to have a distraction."

Mr. Kleffman's lips rose in a half-smile. "I know what you mean," he said. "When my mom died a few years ago, I couldn't stand the thought of taking off," he motioned to his office with both of his hands. "This'll keep you busy."

It'd keep you from having any semblance of life in the outside world.

Jordan nodded. Even now, she could spot the red lights on his phone blinking with impatient lines on hold. They blipped in a funny series of mismatched patterns.

This is what she wanted more than anything. To charge head first into a new start, a new career. To put as much time, space and activity between D-day and the rest of her life.

"I'm glad you came by, actually. There's something I need to talk to you about."

Jordan cleared her throat. There was no use in playing ignorant now. "Caroline told me."