She nods a greeting, beelining to the coffee machine.
“Thank God. We need a new pot,” Hannity says. “Tried making some but you’ll see.”
And she does. It’s pale. Like water run through a teaspoon of grinds. As she dumps it in the sink, another editor walks into the room.
“Oh, good,” he says. “Stronger this time, ’kay?”
This doesn’t matter. She scoops the grounds into the filter, over and over till what will brew will be sludge. Then she pours in the water, flips the switch, and heads toward the door.
“Putting money on the game this weekend. You want in?” Miller asks Hannity.
“Nah, if there’s one thing I hate more than wasting time, it’s wasting money.”
“Ever tell you I did two years premed? Talk about wasting time and money. Always good to know what you can handle. And what you can’t. Some people just aren’t cut out for things.”
This doesn’t matter, she repeats again in her mind. The machine begins to chug as she pushes through the door, frustrated that muddy coffee is her only retort.
People are still gathered in the hall, observing and scrutinizing the photos, and with this, all thoughts of coffee and insults are gone because the truth is she’s violated Delan and his family by allowing them to be here for anyone to see. Hewar especially. To capture his joy like that and place it on a wall—how did she not see it as invasive? A betrayal? His wrinkles, the folds in his face from years of life hard lived. And those ears. What if people are making fun of him for his ears? The very thought makes her hunch at her desk, coffee from the morning rising in her throat. Him and his quiet kindness, his love for birds and animals—now he’s on a wall and people are pointing. Everything inside her feels as though it’s collapsing. Wrong. Everything she’s done is wrong.
“Lunch?”
She looks up, angry, expecting it to be Ben coming in for the scoop, but it’s Peter Darrow.
“Come on, come on,” he says. “I told you we gotta talk.”
Around them, the bullpen watches.
“Okay.”
He nods, then knocks on her desk twice before heading toward the door.
The restaurant is ten tables long. Old newspapers shellacked on the wall. Tortilla chips served in red baskets with oil-darkened paper. Now and then, onions and meat sizzle, scattered on a grill, and in the corner of the room hangs a dusty sign advertising beer.
“This isn’t because you won the contest,” Peter says, sliding his menu toward the edge of the table. “You know that, right? Because I’m not saying who won. Not till the end. There are politics about who gets picked. You mighta guessed.”
She’s thrown. “But how? It’s anonymous.” Fair. Based on merit.
He unfolds his napkin to tuck it in his collar. “Even you know who took half the photos up there. Nothing’s anonymous. And I know this bib business looks like I’m ten, but I’ve recently been told by Byron I need to up my caring percentage. As if my inability to eat a burrito without wearing it means I don’t care. Might even have to shave, he said.”
Her eyes go wide. “No.”
“Worse than my wife, that man is. Even she just asks me to trim it.”
“I guess he is the boss.”
“Says anyone who hasn’t met my wife.”
She nods, staring at him, trying to figure out what he’d look like, where the lines of his jaw actually are. “What you said, though. I feel like you’re telling me I didn’t get it.”
“I’m just saying I want it to be talent only, and that’s not so easy. But that’s my battle. You let me fight that. Now, we’re talking. But first, figure out what you want to order because these guys are fast.”
She studies the menu for only a second, then copies him and slides it to the edge of the table.
He nods. “A friend once told me that to be an artist, you have to have a little monster in you. I don’t mean you gotta be cruel, though maybe some see it that way. What I mean is, you gotta be fierce. Taking photos of something means you’re observing. You’re not changing. Of course you need compassion—you save someone if you can—but in most cases, you can’t. You’re there to document. And though you know that, it can do a number on your head because there’s a ruthlessness there. Witnessing and walking away. Lotta guilt.”
“But I didn’t even document when it mattered. Any bravery I thought I had, I didn’t. My camera was the last thing I thought of. I thought of me.”
“First and foremost, we gotta stay alive.”
The waitress appears, pen in hand. Peter motions for Olivia to order first, and she asks for two chicken tacos. Then sees the sign in dulled red and green. “And a cerveza, please.”
Peter’s eyebrows lift, and for a second she thinks he’s going to tell her that drinking on company time isn’t wise. But instead he nods and turns to the waitress. “Same for me. Cerveza, as well.” He waits till the woman is gone and then turns back to Olivia. “All right. Give me the skinny. Tell me what you saw when you weren’t thinking of your camera.”
So she tells him of the night at the restaurant. The dust, the blood, the shoes in the street and limbs that were torn away or angled wrong. The way her ears rang. The pull, as if magnetic, to cling close to walls and others, to not be the one caught out in the open. “We walked for a mile, I think, before I remembered my camera. In my purse. Loaded and ready.”
Their food arrives, and she moves aside her plate and tells him more, only sipping her beer until he reaches across the table and pushes the plate back to her. “Eat. I can’t return you tipsy.”
So she does. And then tells him about the night the soldiers came, how at first it had not made sense but that once
