Death Before Facebook

fair. I can’t do anything right. I get the message, okay?”
    “You came all this way and you won’t even talk to me?”
    “It looks to me like you’re the one who won’t talk.”
    “Steve, I reversed things. I thought about what would happen if I got a great business opportunity in another town.”
    “I know what would happen. You’d take it if you wanted it. Just like that. I’d be the last person you’d consult about it.”
    “Well, I realized that.”
    “So did I, and I just don’t think I want to be with a person like that.”
    “Wait a minute! This is theoretical—you’re the one who did it.”
    “I tried to talk to you about it. You weren’t interested.”
    “I
couldn’t
talk about it. I thought you were breaking up with me.”
    They’d reached the airport. She moved as close as she could get to the curb. He turned to her. “Look. We just weren’t a good match, that’s all.”
    His eyes were dark, fierce with anger. Hers were swimming. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to let it go—I was trying to protect myself. But I realize now I couldn’t because it’s too late.”
    “You did okay. You got another man.”
    “What?” For a moment she had no idea what he meant. “No, I didn’t. That was a smoke screen.”
    A car behind them honked. She glanced around. They were blocking a long line of traffic. Steve said, “I’ve got to go.”
    And he left.

CHAPTER THIRTY
     
    ABOUT A WEEK later, Kit called. “You know how I said something good had to come out of all this?”
    “Did you?” Skip had barely slept since the last time they saw each other. Dee-Dee had made something special for her every night and she had pushed it around her plate to please him. Kenny had given her a model he’d made, and Sheila, who listened only to rap, had bought her a tape by the Boucrees. She remained inconsolable.
    Why, she wasn’t sure.
    Because of Steve, partly.
    Because of Darryl, a little, though she had seen him—one night he’d come for dinner at the Big House.
    Because she had lost it so badly up on that roof—had come face-to-face with evil and its name was Skip.
    Because, Cindy Lou insisted, she had come close to death.
    That was a lot of things to make you miserable. And there was one more—anger at herself for losing Steve. It was her fault, she had accepted that. Cindy Lou had called it.
    The fact that she’d let it happen was killing her.
    Then there was the case. It had had a very successful conclusion. No one doubted Cole would be convicted and everyone thought Skip a hero. Television hadn’t gotten there in time, but an amateur photographer on another roof had taken a series of pictures of Skip and Cole. Two had run in the
Times-Picayune
—one of Skip with the gun to her head, another of her bending Cole over the railing.
    A peculiar thing had come out of that—her father, who hadn’t spoken to her in a year or more, had called to congratulate her.
    But still. The bottom line was that people had been killed, and one was someone Skip had gotten to know.
    Rationally, she knew she couldn’t have prevented Lenore’s death, but the horror of it, the senselessness, wouldn’t leave her.
    Kit said, “You don’t sound so good.”
    “I guess I’m tired.”
    “Maybe I should call back later.”
    “No, talk to me. If you have good news, I want to hear it.”
    “Well, it’s good news for me. Butsy feels he can’t take care of Caitlin, and he’s agreed to let me adopt her.”
    “Kit, that’s wonderful. I think you’ll be a terrific mom.”
    “I do too, to tell you the truth. I’ll tell you why I’m calling. We’re having a ritual to say good-bye to Lenore and to celebrate my getting Caitlin—I know it sounds weird, but to us they’re part of the same thing. We’d like you to join us.”
    “I don’t think—”
    “Neetsie will be there. She’d especially like to see you.”
    “I’ll probably have to testify at the trial, and Neetsie might be a witness as well—”
    “If you both turned up at Trinity on the same Sunday, would there be something wrong with that?”
    “No, but this isn’t Trinity.”
    “If the First Amendment means anything, it’s no different.” Her voice softened. “We’d love to have you, Skip. We all went through this together—you were sort of our guide through it all—”
    “Me!” She felt like nobody’s guide.
    “We all appreciated the way you helped us through it.”
    She said she’d think about it and hung