“I think I just want to go,” she said, and then she sort of . . . drifted over to the van, her shoulders curved in defeat, leaving Jess and me to say our goodbyes—well, goodbyes for now, at least; we’d exchanged numbers—to Luís.
I knew, as I stood there, that I needed to get back to the hotel; I needed to make a plan. The next time I talked to Salem, I needed to be able to tell her what we’d take care of in her absence. Would we stay here, talk to Luís again? Would we go on to Tulsa, me fully taking the lead in Salem’s absence? Obviously, I didn’t want Salem’s daughter hurt, but I also knew that Salem’s leaving gave me a professional opportunity.
I knew that what I did during the time Salem was gone would matter to my future. At Broadside, and for my story.
But once I was back in the van, I took one look in the rearview at Tegan—her lips pressed in a firm line, her eyes staring blankly out the window—and I knew something else, too. If we went back to the hotel, both she and Jess would have just as bad of a night tonight as they had last night, maybe worse. I imagined Tegan giving Jess the cold shoulder. I imagined Jess alone by the pool again, staring up at those trees as though they’d have an answer for her.
So instead of going to the hotel, I’ve taken them out to dinner.
I didn’t really ask, but in the end, no one really objected, either. I pulled into a spot outside a well-reviewed oceanside restaurant I’d programmed into my phone’s GPS and looked over at Jess, and before she could even give me a shrug of resignation, Tegan slid open her door and got out.
It’s a way nicer restaurant than I should’ve picked, both based on what we’re all wearing and also based on my allotted per diem for meals. But in the first place, dress codes in the state of Florida in general seem open to interpretation. In the second, I don’t really care about the per diem. This one, I’ll pay out of pocket. I didn’t do two cheeseball commercials for local businesses in my Missouri hometown after I graduated college for nothing. Apparently, I did them to sit at a candlelit white-tableclothed table with an ocean view, and to watch two sisters pick unenthusiastically at their fancy food while I forget about my journalism career and worry about the both of them.
Tegan, obviously bruised from what Luís didn’t even have to say out loud—that her mother neverhadmentioned her, that whole week she was here.
Jess, desperately—and so far unsuccessfully—trying to draw her sister out of this wounded silence.
“Teeg,” Jess says quietly from her seat across from mine. “Want to try my potatoes?”
She turns her plate slightly so her still-mostly-full serving of fingerlings faces Tegan. It’s such a small, trying-so-hard gesture, and I hate that I’m not sitting next to her. That I can’t cover her hand with mine again.
Tegan rebuffs her with a tight shake of her head, not even looking at the potatoes.
I watch Jess turn her plate again, back to how it was before, her lashes lowered. Briefly, I wonder if anyone’s ever stood up in the middle of a restaurant to ask if there’s a therapist in the room.
I look down at my own plate—it’s an impressive arrangement of red snapper and roasted vegetables—and realize I’m not doing much better than Jess and Tegan on making a dent in my food. I’m pretty sure this dish was at least thirty-five dollars. Maybe if I’d done three commercials instead of two I’d have been fine with not cleaning my plate, but as things stand, I better get back in there.
But right as I’m picking up my fork and knife again, Tegan sets hers down.
She says, “So, Adam,” and it’s pretty similar to when I was about to eat my first bite of beautiful pancakes back in that Columbus diner a few days ago. My red snapper will be at room temperature by the time I get back to it, probably, but at least she’s talking.
“Yeah?”
“What’s it like to go viral?”
I guess it’s not all that similar to that day in the diner a few days ago, because Tegan’s spoken with a sharp edge to her voice, as though she’s spoiling for a fight.
I slide my eyes toward Jess, wondering if she’s going to come through with one of her absurdly loud throat-clears, but she seems a little too shell-shocked. She’s staring at her sister, eyes slightly widened. I bet going viral is Jess’s worst nightmare.
No, I betTegangoing viral is Jess’s worst nightmare.
I set my fork and knife down, too, and look back at Tegan. If she wants to level all her hurt and frustration from today at me, that’s fine. I can take it.
“It’s pretty shitty, honestly,” I say. “Especially when your best friend just died.”
Tegan blinks, obviously surprised at my blunt answer. I wouldn’t sugarcoat it, no matter who asked. Still, I feel a pang of regret at the way her cheeks flush. I didn’t mean to embarrass her.
I add, with a shrug, “But I brought it on myself, so.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t really think so. All those people, posting empty statements. Condolences they probably didn’t even mean—they deserved to be called out for it. I think it’s brave, what you did.”
I can still see some of those statements, most of them accompanied by old press photos of Cope on the football field.Copeland Frederick was one of the toughest young men I ever had the honor of coaching, one of the first to hit the internet had said. I’d screenshotted it and posted my own response.
You called Cope a pussy in front of the entire locker room at the half of the national championship game. You told him you were ashamed to have a “fucking nut job” on your team. You said he could check into his “padded room” after we won the game.
Over and over, I took those phony, synthetic-sounding statements to task. I wasn’t going to let anyone who’d betrayed Cope during his life play the hero after his death. I wasn’t going to let them rewrite the story.
Eventually, though, I realized.
