Page 75 of The Dreidl Disaster

“I’m sorry,” Naomi said. “Really.”

“We’ll talk at some point,” Liv managed, the tone that had come into her lexicon of ‘it’s fine but not really.’

“I owe you,” Naomi said.

“Yes, you do,” Liv replied, as she ended the call.

Thankfully, when she opened the door to the bathroom, her parents had headed off and Artur was waiting with a hanger, talking to her mother through the hallway. Without a word, the lovely man took her coat, hung it up and put it away before putting his arms around her.

“I told you,” he whispered, his voice making her insides jelly, “you have my sword.”

“Hopefully you don’t need it,” she replied as she headed into the kitchen.

*

Despite Liv’s concerns,the night and the dinner had gone pretty well; the candlesticks that were Liv’s mother’s prized possessions reminded him of candlesticks he’d seen pretty much every Friday night during his childhood.

“So where were you bar mitzvahed again?” Liv’s father asked.

“Rivertown Hebrew,” he said.

The gentleman, who cut a good London broil, nodded. “Good to hear. Now where do you work again?”

He smiled. “I worked in-house for a company for a while, then I moved to a consulting firm for quite a number of years,” he said. “But I had burnout and ended up doing five years working on a Mitzvah Alliance project in Eastern Europe.”

Liv’s mother made a noise that sounded like approval.

“And now?” Liv’s father asked, continuing what Artur now was absolutely sure was some kind of interrogation.

But he was prepared; as Asher had explained both at Jacob’s house and over a hastily conducted conversation in between talking about Jewish players and the Empires, this was the first time Liv had ever brought someone to her parent’s house, and apparently, from what he’d heard from Asher, the first time the family noticed she’d actually noticed anybody.

Hence the full court press from Liv’s parents. Of course, he never minded answering questions.

“Now? I’m back,” he said, smiling as if there wasn’t any other thing he’d rather do than be there with her or them on this Friday night. Because there wasn’t. Shabbas dinner was warm and comfortable. If he could help make Liv feel any of those things on a night where her natural inclination was to feel the complete opposite, he’d submit to any kind of interrogation possible. Including interrogation by applesauce.

But talking about his professional goals in a way that made him look stable to concerned parents?

Easy.

“At the moment,” he said, “I’m working for the Empires on a temporary basis here in Briarwood. While I’m doing that, I’m investigating a few possibilities for my next gig, one of which is with the Empires.”

He saw her smile; found himself very glad he’d told her already about what his plans were.

Liv reached for his hand, “I think he might be talking about possibly doing something with one of Leah’s clients.”

He nodded, taking her hand in his. “I think that’s what it is. They haven’t told me very much. Odds are, they won’t until the end of the opening here.”

“But,” Liv’s father said. “Regardless of what position you end up taking, you’re going to stay in the New York area?”

He nodded, taking a bite of his challah. G-d that was good. “My expertise is in fixing large-scale corporate PR crises. I have experience in other crisis forms, but that’s where I’m comfortable working. Most of the companies that usually hire someone like me tend to be based in the New York area. But I’m actually hoping to go in-house.”

“Freelance, or having your own shop has the whole time dilemma, right?” her mother said. “You set your own schedule, but you have to be more active in finding things.”

He nodded, smiling. “I’ll always have the potential of getting the 3 a.m. phone call, because corporate crises wait for nobody, but the reality is that if I’m in-house, I might be able to see that coming and work with the company to avoid the danger.”

“So,” Liv interjected, “if you were in-house with the Empires before this…”

“There is a good possibility I would have jumped in and never let Flaire’s plan see the light of day.”

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