We Are Not Like Them(28)

Julia lets this sink in. I can tell she doesn’t want to have to say the obvious: How about you don’t call people animals? When Cookie nods, she continues.

“We have to count on the fact that both sides of this story will come out. When it comes to the march, try not to take it personally.” Julia pointedly says “march” instead of “protest.” “People are marching about an issue. It’s not about Kevin per se.”

“Well, it sure feels personal. They want to send my son to jail. For doing his job.”

“They’re gonna riot, you know they are. Set fires, break windows, punch a police horse. That’ll be good for us.” Matt again. No one reminds him that the one time someone punched a police horse in this city, it was a drunk white guy celebrating an Eagles win.

“Oh, shut your mouth, Matt, it’s a peaceful event,” Annie says, ever the diplomat and always quick to put her husband in his place. But he’s too worked up and skulking around the kitchen. Like mother, like son.

“First of all, whose side are you on, Annie? And mark my words, those people are ready to riot. They riot. That’s why they do. Hello, Ferguson? They’re going to turn Broad Street into Ramallah.”

If one more person says “those people,” I might lose my shit. Besides, I’m willing to bet Matt can’t locate Raleigh on a map, let alone Ramallah.

I try to catch Kevin’s eye, but his are squeezed shut. He leans his head back against the wall as Matt blusters on.

“March for Justice, my ass. How come they can’t see that? You asked him to drop his weapon. He went into his pocket. Better to be tried by twelve than carried by six, man. If you have to take the shot, you take the shot. You did the right thing Kev-o. You’ve got a baby on the way. Your job is to get out alive.”

I have a flashback to last May, standing in a hot banquet hall in Passyunk at the wake of a cop named Jamal who got shot Memorial Day weekend while trying to stop three guys from breaking into an ATM at the Navy Yard. Kevin hadn’t known Jamal all that well, but it had hit him hard; any officer’s death anywhere does. It hit me too, and again when Matt says it now. Your job is to get out alive. At Jamal’s wake, the officers stood in tight clusters, stiff and formal in their dress blues on one side of the room, while the spouses, mostly women, clucked over sweaty deli platters at the buffet on the other and passed around an envelope growing fat with cash—including the $100 bill that Kevin slipped in that we really couldn’t spare. One of the LEO wives set up two weeks of meal delivery for his widow, Denise, and three kids and I did my duty by dropping off a chicken casserole on my designated day. I left it on her doorstep though. I couldn’t face her knowing I was going home to my husband. That very night, I started researching bulletproof vests.

“I just wish I was on duty tomorrow,” Matt says. “If Annie wasn’t working, I’d happily volunteer for overtime and keep the knuckleheads in check.”

Matt’s normal beat is Rittenhouse, safest neighborhood in Philly; the other cops call it Hollywood, but you’d think he was battling ISIS to hear him tell it. As I watch him fume, a thought that has always hovered just out of reach crystallizes, like a camera lens clicking into focus: I hate my brother-in-law. He and Kevin are close, so I tolerate his bullshit, but suddenly, after all these years of stomaching his mansplaining tirades and moody tantrums, I can’t ignore the simple truth: Matt is spoiled, immature, entitled. And now that I’ve allowed this thought into my mind, the door slams behind it and I won’t be able to deny it any longer. I wonder, not for the first time, how Annie—lovely, funny, smart Annie—can be married to this man. They’ve been together since they were kids though, and in that time Annie got sober, lost her parents, had a baby and a miscarriage. Matt was her rock, her person, even if he’s an asshole to everyone else.

“Fuck you, Matt.” I say it under my breath. It’s not as satisfying as saying it to his face. I might as well be ten years old in the back seat of Blazer’s car again, when that dirtbag called Riley and Ms. Sandra the N-word and I stayed silent.

Annie does speak up. “You can be a real asshole, Matt, you know that?” And I secretly cheer.

“Please stop. We have company.” Cookie shoots daggers at both of them.

Julia waves a hand in the air to dismiss the concerns, and my eyes catch on her giant diamond ring, a sparkling boulder on a ridiculously skinny finger. I hide my own hands beneath the table, finger my sliver-size diamond.

Cookie leans over to Julia as if taking the woman into her confidence. “Listen, we know someone who’s a reporter. Don’t you think it would be smart if she interviewed Kevin so that people could see he’s a good guy? She’s a personal family friend—Riley Wilson.”

This was inevitable; still, it blindsides me, especially Cookie’s ownership of Riley when they’ve barely met. In fact, it was right here at this kitchen table that Cookie tried to talk me out of having Riley as my maid of honor. She leaned into me as we were flipping through inch-thick copies of wedding magazines, her breath sweet with chardonnay. “Are you sure you want Riley to be your maid of honor? You and Annie have gotten so close. It would mean so much to her, and wouldn’t she look beautiful up there at the altar with you? She’s going to be family, after all.”

Clever the way she’d couched it, but I knew what it was really about. Riley had once tried to explain this particular mindfuck to me: you could never be sure what was about race and what wasn’t, so you always had to second-guess yourself (Was that because I’m Black?). In that moment, I got it—in Cookie’s mind, Annie made for better wedding pictures.