When the conversation hits a lull, my mom goes in for the kill. “Ben, tell me about your parents.”
I nearly groan at her obviousness, but he doesn’t blink. “Mom and Dad, sure. My mom is a high school English teacher, and my dad’s an accountant. They met at the University of Texas and they’ve been married for thirty-some years now.”
“And you didn’t want to follow in their footsteps and go to UT?”
He hesitates. “No, I needed a change of scenery. It’s a big state, but Texas started feeling very small after a while.”
“I don’t know anyone like that,” my mom quips, dry as day-old paint. “So how did you two meet?”
This should be good.“Yes, Ben, how did we meet?” I echo, tilting my head. Let’s see how Mr. Charming handles this one.
He shifts in his seat. “Well, uh, Kate and I met during the course of her work on the child care bill.” He glances at me as I make a face, and then his eyes spark, as if struck by inspiration. “We really hit it off. Got along great,” he lies. “And we discovered so many shared interests, didn’t we, Kate? Like running, for example. Although sometimes she gets tired and needs to be carried. Oh, and we bothlovetrying new restaurants. Of course, she likes bars more than I do—”
“All right, she gets it, we have things in common,” I cut him off, glaring daggers. He grins back as if to say,Checkmate.
My mom continues her interrogation, oblivious to our power struggle. “And what brought you to Washington?”
“You don’t have to respond to her third degree,” I break in, frowning at her. “This isn’t an interview.”
He waves me off. “There were a few different factors. I’ve always been interested in finance—it runs in our family, I guess,” he says sheepishly, “but politics was never really on my radar until I got to college. It was during the recession, and a lot of my classes were analyzing the economy, the factors that led to the housing and banking crisis. I’d seen up close how badly the recession hurt small businesses. My uncle had a construction company that didn’t survive the downturn. My cousins and I all worked for him at certain points, so it made it personal, you know? His business was his life’s work.” He pauses to drain his glass of water. “There were so many different theories about how to fix the economy, or even how the recession could have been avoided in the first place. I guess I just got swept up in the idea that I could be part of the solution, help people like my uncle.”
My mom and I are both staring at him in rapt attention. He looks from me to her and lets out a self-conscious laugh.
“Sorry, that was a really long-winded answer to your question. Anyway, that led to my first job on the Ways and Means Committee. And that’s how I got to know some of Hammond’s team, and he was looking for a director...” He trails off.
“And he poached you away,” I supply.
“Sort of, I guess.” He looks embarrassed.
“Can’t say I blame him,” my mom pipes up, eyeing me meaningfully. She’s practically drooling.
I keep my face neutral, but I’m shriveling into myself. In ten minutes, my mom has learned more about Ben’s passions and motivations than I have since I met him. Am I this self-absorbed? Have I never even asked him why he does this work?
“Good for you, Ben,” my mom continues. “That’s very noble, especially since I’m sure you could be making a lot more money elsewhere.”
I look at him like he’s someone new. “You never told me any of this.”
“You never asked.”
We stare at each other in a charged silence until my mom breaks in.
“Well, I, for one, am ready for lower taxes. Ben, how much am I going to get back?” She rubs her hands together like a greedy Scrooge.
“Mother!”
“What? I’ve never understood how we became the party of higher taxes. No thanks. Unsubscribe.”
A laugh bubbles out of me. “Unsubscribe?What are you, sixteen?”
“No, I just look it,” she says, tossing her hair and preening. “Oh!” She snaps her fingers. “Speaking of being young, how are your sisters? Didn’t Alexis just have a birthday?”
Ben looks puzzled. “You have sisters? I thought you said you were an only child.”
Now it’s my turn to squirm. “Iwasan only child until recently.Besides, what you actually asked was if I had an older brother, and I don’t.” My voice is a little testy.
My mom’s giving me a look. “You haven’t told Ben about your sisters? Why not?”
“It hasn’t come up.”
