She looks at me as she says this, really looks at me—and I slide my hands forward on the greasy table, close enough that she could grab them. She doesn’t.
There’s no graceful way to change the subject, to turn it back to Kevin and me, but I don’t have a choice. It’s the reason I came here to Monty’s in the first place. “So you saw that I called last night?”
“Yeah, I did. You didn’t leave a message.”
“Since when do I have to leave a message for you to call me back?”
Riley doesn’t answer. It’s suddenly like I’m at a job interview or in the principal’s office—formal and furtive. I’m at the mercy of her judgment, and it makes me feel like I’m trying to run on solid ice.
“Well, I wanted to ask you in person. For a favor.” I clench my fists, gather my nerve. “I was wondering… you know how the media can be. No offense.” I was trying to go for a joke, at least I thought I was, but it doesn’t land that way. I quickly continue on. “I was hoping that maybe you could do a piece about Kevin, his side, you know? I saw that you’re covering the story. You could talk to him and he could tell the viewers what really happened?”
Kevin and I came up with the plan over the weekend, or rather I did. He was still wary of Riley as “media,” and didn’t think there was any way the department would let him talk publicly, but I convinced him that maybe she could actually help us. It was worth a try. But Riley’s mouth twists like she drank something sour. She shakes her head even before she answers. “I can’t… I can’t interview Kevin. It wouldn’t be… right. What I mean is, I couldn’t be objective, and that’s my job. Professional objectivity.” The words she mutters are white noise; it’s the tone that hurts, so distant, robotic. She’s wearing the Riley mask—that’s what I call it when she shuts down her emotions like this. She’s an expert at it. After Corey dumped her, or whatever happened between them last year, she acted like she was a-okay. Same responses every time I asked about it: “I’m fine.” “It wasn’t meant to be.” “We were never that serious.” The mask. But I know better. Corey was good for Riley. He made her way less uptight. She loved him in a way that I’d never seen her love anyone, and as much as she may think she has people fooled, she’s never fooled me.
“It’s just… I get it. I don’t want you to do something you’re not comfortable with, Riley, but it’s already starting, everyone saying terrible things about Kevin. We need his side of the story out there. It was a mistake, an awful mistake. It would help for people to understand that he isn’t a bad guy, which he isn’t. I mean, you know that.”
But the way Riley is looking at me, it seems she doesn’t know that. It seems like I have to allow for the possibility that she thinks my husband is a bad cop or, worse, a racist. Surely she can’t think that? It’s dawning on me that she expects me to be ashamed of my husband. And that, more than anything, starts to piss me off.
“Well, let me ask you this: Would you do the interview if Kevin shot a white kid?”
“Jen… I don’t… it isn’t just…”
I’ve seen Riley lock words away and hide behind silence; I’ve never seen her at a loss for them though. Why did I have to bring up race? It’s never mattered between the two of us.
Finally, she meets my eyes. “I don’t know, maybe, Jen. Maybe.” It was like admitting that cost her something. “And, well, it’s not usually white kids being accidentally shot by police, is it?” This time there’s no stammering: the question glides out of her mouth and slices like a knife.
“Look, I don’t want to turn this into a conversation about what kind of lives matter. This isn’t even about race, Riley. It’s about Kevin.”
“How can you even think this isn’t about—”
I cut her off. I hate where this conversation is going. The anger that’s been simmering beneath the surface since I sat down is building into a furious blaze. It’s the only reason I say what I do next. “You never liked Kevin. That’s the real reason you won’t do the interview. Admit it.”
I don’t even know if I believe that. It’s more like an idea I’m trying out in the moment, and the accusation, being on the offensive, it feels good. Or maybe it is true. Maybe Riley tolerated Kevin all these years but never really liked him, and that’s why she won’t help us. I’ll always have to wonder, because I’m out the door before she can even open her mouth.
* * *
Ever since I was little, I’ve loved cramped, claustrophobic spaces. I would nestle into Lou’s closet, cocooned in the familiar scents of faux leather and stale cigarette smoke; it made me feel safe somehow. At the moment, this closet-size powder room in my mother-in-law’s house is the closest I can get to squirreling myself away. I know better than to hide in Cookie’s closet.
I sit on the lid of the toilet and replay the conversation at Monty’s, trying to make sense of it. It’s been five full days since Riley and I have spoken. It’s the longest we’ve gone without talking or texting or emailing that I can remember. I do some deep breathing. That’s all I do these days: deep-breathing exercises. There’s a basket of cinnamon-scented potpourri on top of the toilet tank, and I can almost taste it with each inhale. I stare at the peeling floral wallpaper in front of me, fight the urge to grab the loose corner and tear it all off. It would be so satisfying to do that, to destroy this one little thing.
Cookie’s voice travels down the hall. I can’t make out what she’s saying, only the shrill cadence, the soundtrack of my life since Kevin and I moved in with his parents last Friday, the night after the shooting. We’re hoping the reporters and protesters won’t follow us all the way out here to Bucks County. But every so often, I peek through the curtains in the living room and expect to spot a news van. It’s probably only a matter of time. They’re still camped out at our house, round the clock, waiting for someone to arrive or emerge so they can swarm like flies to a carcass. I know this because Mrs. Jackowski from next door texts me updates.
“Where did Jenny get off to? Is she okay? She’s got to keep it together.” Cookie’s voice fills the bathroom now, loud and clear, as if that’s her intention, which it damn well is.
Cookie’s had this song on repeat over the last week, that I’m checked out, that I’m not doing enough to help Kevin. It’s so obvious Cookie is projecting her own powerlessness onto me, but that doesn’t make it any easier not to scream at her, What the hell am I supposed to do exactly? Tell me and I’ll do it!
I keep swinging wildly back and forth between a manic adrenaline rush—How can we fix this, what do I do?—to shutting down, pretending this is all happening to someone else, until I can’t pretend any longer. Like now.
I splash cold water on my face and take yet another deep breath. “Come on, Little Bird, we got this,” I whisper to my stomach before forcing myself to open the door. I find Kevin and Frank exactly as they have been for the last hour, father and son sitting at the built-in banquette in the corner of the kitchen, which has essentially become a war room.