But it’s almost seven o’clock. On a Monday! The most important day of the workweek! Often crises pop up over the weekend, assneaky as overnight dandelions, and people sit on them, stewing in them, chewing on them, enduring one or two dark nights of the soul, until Monday comes, andbam. The phone starts ringing.
“Oh my god, Bernadette, did I wake you?”
“No,” croaks Bernadette. “Well, sort of. Not really. The family is still away, so I went out with a couple of girlfriends last night—”
Bernadette sounds almost like a regular person, a person who will let herself sleep in after a night out, a person with girlfriends! Jordan has known Bernadette for a long time now. She’s heard her talk about colleagues, and journalists she has a good working relationship with, and politicians whose kids’ birthday parties she might go to, but girlfriends? She’s never heard about the girlfriends. She imagines Bernadette in college, out to breakfast with a hungover crew, reliving the shenanigans of the night before. Bernadette, brushing her teeth next to someone in a dormitory bathroom. Borrowing a dress for a semiformal. If she squints her mind’s eye hard enough, she can almost see it.
Jordan hardens her heart. She cannot let Bernadette be too human. Since Memorial Day, Bernadette has owed heran apology. And even if she gives it, Jordan is not sure how she’ll feel.
“You didn’t return any of my calls or texts yesterday,” says Bernadette, already playing offense. “That sort of lack of communication is unacceptable.”
When Jordan started in crisis communications Bernadette imparted three rules. One: There are two sides to every story. If we judge our clients, we can’t help them. Two: Communicate, communicate, communicate. And three: Your relationships with the press are sacred. Don’t lie to the press.
“I’m using vacation days.”
“Even so, you need to answer when I call you. If you want me to make you partner, there are no vacations.”
“Ever?”
A pause. “Rarely.”
Jordan starts to apologize, then sits on the wordsorryuntil it goes back to where it came from.When you need to apologize, do. When you don’t, don’t.A Theresa-ism.
“Irina always answers her phone,” says Bernadette.
Bernadette is baiting her. She may as well be loading bags of herring into a lobster trap. Irina is twenty-six, younger even thanMae, and has only been working for Bernadette for three years. Jordan will not take the bait. She knows her own value; she knows what she brings to the table. She knows the monsters that live under the table. She says, “You have me now. What’s going on?”
She hears Bernadette gulping something—probably her first of many daily cups of coffee. Bernadette has been known to sip cold brew instead of water during a Peloton workout. In the afternoons, to relax, she switches to espresso. Someday, Jordan believes, this habit will catch up with her, but it hasn’t yet. “I have a very important client that I want you to work with.” Jordan’s heartbeat picks up. A very important client! Bernadette usually takes the VIPs for herself. Last year the firm was approached by the family of a Qatari prince whose high jinks around the city were resulting in negative press for his family. Jordan never even got to sit in on a meeting with the Qataris.
“Who is it?”
“I need you to call Samantha Braddock from theTimesabout a client. You have a good relationship with her, right?”
“IloveSamantha Braddock,” says Jordan. Dammit! She feels herself getting pulled back into work, back into Bernadette’s orbit. She wants to resist, she should resist, but she can’t resist.
“I know you do. And Samantha loves you.” Bernadette is flattering her, and Jordan, despite herself, is here for it.
“What am I calling Samantha Braddock about? Who’s the client?”
Another pause, more gulping, and now Bernadette sounds fully awake. Mae has explained to Jordan that a dog shakes to release tension or energy, to reset itself. She imagines Bernadette shaking off the cobwebs of the night, morphing from a person with girlfriends to her regular professional, witchy self. “There’s a story coming out that we need to get ahead of.”
“By get ahead of it, you mean...?”
“I mean, you need to make sure Samantha Braddock knows there’s nothing to this story. So it doesn’t run.”
A common misconception about the crisis communications industry is that its practitioners do dishonorable things to protect dishonorable people. But much of the job is giving context to a story, managing an inevitable reaction rather than making sure the reaction doesn’t occur. The best people in their business pride themselves on keeping their moral compasses pointing in the right direction.
Jordan clears her throat. In this case, italmostsounds like Bernadette wants her to kill a story. But that can’t be right.
“Isthere nothing to the story?” she asks.
There’s a silence that, were you looking for a description, you might characterize as ominous.
“Correct,” says Bernadette finally.
“What’s the angle?” Jordan watches a sandpiper skitter across the sand, its little legs moving so fast. A brown Lab chases a ball joyfully into the water. A gull flies overhead, dips down for breakfast.
With her degree in political science, Jordan’s first job had been working on a series of Senate campaigns. Nothing brings out the best and the worst in people like a political campaign. Jordan has watched candidates snap at a spouse and then, ten minutes later, bring a crowd to their knees with a story about an immigrant grandmother. She’s found a box of tissues when someone was cryingliteral tears ofexhaustion,and then helped that person reapply mascara so she could hit the Sunday-morning show circuit and talk Medicaid and Social Security. Many of those skills translated readily into crisis comms.
