The camera cut to Tammy and Toni, already cutting it up.
Thank you, John! Tammy said with a broad smile, the words on the screen slightly trailing the movement of her lips. Well, I don’t know about you, Toni, but boy am I excited for our show today!
Without sound, Olga thought, this show was a grotesque pantomime.
You’re just excited because we are talking EVERYTHING WEDDING today! I hope we don’t have a Bridezilla on our hands!
Me? Tammy reacted with exaggeration. Never!
* * *
IT WAS ALMOST over. Olga had already walked the highly enthusiastic Tammy through a Getting Going Checklist to help begin her wedding planning journey （“Because it is a journey, Tammy,” Olga had ad-libbed. “You and Glenn will get to know one another in completely new ways!”） They had talked through the importance of a budget （“That’s never been your favorite word, Tammy,” Toni had quipped） and how to make your guest list （“I’m just worried about hurting people’s feelings,” Tammy lamented）。 Then, they got to the last topic, questions to ask when looking at possible venues.
“Well, you want to be sure you understand their capacity. You’d be surprised how many people book a venue they fall in love with and don’t realize they simply won’t fit.”
“Oh my goodness! Can you imagine? What a nightmare!” Toni offered.
“I know,” Olga continued. “And, of course, if there’s an outdoor component, you should inquire about your contingency plan in the event of inclement weather.”
“Oh yes.” Tammy nodded. “Especially these days! All of these horrible storms!”
“Just terrible, Tammy,” Toni agreed. “These poor people down in Puerto Rico! Can you imagine?”
Olga nodded, a tight smile of concern crossing her face—concern that they would try and tie this segment about nothing to a humanitarian crisis. Only Tammy, Olga thought, could get this segment back on the fluffy track where it belonged.
“Oh my!” Tammy suddenly exclaimed. She paused. “Olga, I just remembered. You are of Puerto Rican heritage, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Olga said with a solemn nod. Internally, she screamed, Fuck. Fuck! Tammy!
“And is your family over there okay?” Tammy asked, gently resting her hand on Olga’s shoulder. “The images look just awful.”
“Well, Tammy,” Olga began, and as soon as she opened her mouth she knew that she was not going to give them the Good Morning, Later version of this conversation that they wanted. She wasn’t even going to give them the Good Morning version of this conversation, “the images look awful, because it is awful. This morning, right before I came on, I saw pictures of American children lapping up rainwater because their water supply has been contaminated by the dumping of toxic waste by U.S. corporations all over the island—”
“Yes, Olga,” Toni tried to cut in, “it really is hard to—”
“No, Toni, Tammy asked me how my family is, so I want to tell her. My cousin can’t locate her sick grandmother because they have no cell service and in the unlikely event that she got to a hospital, she’s still probably dead because the hospitals don’t have enough fuel to operate the generators. But she won’t be the only one. When this is over, mark my words, thousands will be dead, because this is just the beginning, and I want to be really clear here—”
Tammy tried to cut in, but Olga swatted her away before a word could get out of her mouth. She could see that the red light of the camera was still on. The producers were going to let her keep going. Fuck it, she thought.
“These deaths will be blood on this president’s hands, this administration’s hands. They can try and blame the Puerto Rican debt; they can blame their lackey—the governor down there—but he’s just a figurehead. At the end of the day, this was not an earthquake, it was a hurricane. A hurricane that the government knew was coming for a whole week and did nothing to prepare for. What we are witnessing is the systemic destruction of the Puerto Rican people at the hands of the government, to benefit the ultra-rich and private corporate interests.”
Toni awkwardly laughed. “Oh my, Olga, that sounds a bit conspiratorial, no?”
“If it does, Toni, it’s just because you aren’t informed. It’s not your fault. Our schools whitewash history. So, let me explain. Puerto Ricans are Americans, but they have no elected representation in Congress or the Senate, and because they also aren’t a state, their governor has no authority to do things other governors can do, like call in the National Guard. Only the president can do that. Only the president can call in FEMA. Fifty percent of the island didn’t have power before Maria, but somehow the government didn’t think to call in the USS Comfort until this weekend? They knew before the storm that the island’s infrastructure was fragile, that they would lose communications, yet they only sent two Black Hawk helicopters? My brother—a U.S. congressman—traveled with the governor of New York to Puerto Rico two days—two days—after Maria hit. And the federal government just sent someone on Monday?