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“Mr. Wales,” I greet him.
“You can call me Irving. After all, I’m not your boss right now, am I? We can talk candidly. Like a pair of men at lunch. Come, take a seat, Connor.”
I take a seat in the soft, cushioned chair. His desk is cluttered with three laptops and a notebook, all of them opened, plus two stacks of folders.
At once, Mr. Wales closes each laptop, then folds his hands on the desk and faces me with an unexpectedly warm smile. “You know, Connor, I go way back with Mike, your professor at Wortham Academy of Kansas. Do you still call it WAK, by the way, as in ‘whack’ for fun?”
I let out a chuckle despite myself. “Yeah.” I clear my throat. “I mean, yes, sir, we do.”
“Seriously, no need for formalities. Irving. No ‘sir’ stuff.” He inclines his head toward me. “When Mike recommended you to my program, I have to tell you, I was thrilled. Do you know how long it’s been since he put in a recommendation for one of his most bright, promising students to intern here?”
I shake my head no. “How long?”
“Never.” He lifts his eyebrows in response to the surprise on my face, and smiles. “I imagine you know what I’m about to say next. Mike thinks very highly of your ability. From what I’ve heard from Brenda, and what I’ve seen myself, I do as well. Ah, you look surprised,” he says when he notes the look on my face. “Brenda comes off a certain way, and perhaps she seems to be hard on you, but it’s only because she knows you’ve got what it takes.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“Keep in mind that I set aside another qualified candidate to make room for you.”
“I know, sir, but I—”
“Let me make something else clear to you.” He points at a large, framed certificate on the wall with a bright golden emblem pasted on it—a proud set of wings with a feather pen striking down their center. “Do you see that, right there?”
I look up. “The Phoebe Wordsmith Honor,” I say, identifying it.
“Eleven years in a row … until last year.” He sets his hands back on his desk. “Last year was the first time we lost in eleven years. There is a reason, too, a reason I’ve been reluctant to face. We need new blood here at Wales Weekly. We need young perspectives. We need to stay ahead of the stories other publications are putting out there.” He takes a breath. “We need you, Connor.”
It’s too overwhelming to look him in the eye. I find myself staring at his desk, and the pictures that are set in front of his ornate, chrome desk lamp.
My eyes settle on one photograph in particular.
My heart stops.
He follows my gaze, then smiles. “My wife,” he says. “Twenty-five years, this fall. The time really flies by. Of course, they all say it will, and you doubt it all your life, and then there it goes. Her name’s Liu.” He takes the picture and gazes into it. “I met her on a business trip to Hong Kong.”
His story is moving. It may even have a deeper impact on me, realizing that the head of the dream company I aspired to work for is sharing this sweet and intimate tale with me of him and his wife.
But it wasn’t that photo that caught my eye.
Mr. Wales notices. “Ah, yes.” He places the pic of him and his wife back on the desk, then turns the other one toward me fully—and every little bit of doubt in my heart is obliterated at once. “Our son,” he says, pride sparkling in his eyes.
I swallow hard, staring at that photo for a long, pensive moment.
“Alan,” I finally let myself say.
“Yep,” he affirms with a proud smile. “I can’t take all the credit, of course. He’s the best parts of me and the best parts of Liu. I mean … sure, he and I have our differences, too. He’s so like me in other ways, too; we butt heads. But he’s my pride.”
He seems to gloss over the fact that I knew his son’s name already. Perhaps I did my research. Or I heard about him from another intern. Or maybe Irving just presumes everyone knows everything about the Wales family. Maybe my eyes did skip over his son’s name in a few articles, never quite letting it stick to memory.
Regardless, here I am, dumbstruck yet again by something that’s been hiding in plain sight.
How did I not know? And why didn’t Alan tell me whose son he is? He knew where I interned. He knew who my boss was.
I caught him leaving this building, that evening we went on our very first date. I never asked him again why he was here, shrugging it off.
