Page 119 of At the Heart of It
“Why the hell am I supposed to pick?” he demanded. “Both are pretty shitty.”
Jossy rolled her eyes and stroked a hand down Marilyn’s back. The cat gave a chirp that sounded like a snort of disgust.
“Have you ever seen reality TV?” Jossy demanded. “Because this is how it works. They’re always trying to blindside someone to get the big reveal. To get the ratings.”
“What, you’re an expert in reality television now?”
Jossy grabbed a balled-up napkin off the couch and threw it at him. “I’ve watched every episode of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette for God knows how many seasons. I think I have an idea how these stupid shows are supposed to work.”
“Is this where you rub it in?” he said. “Where you tell me I should have been watching with you all along so I wouldn’t be such a clueless twit?”
“Yes, that’s my point exactly.” Jossy’s voice oozed with sarcasm. “I’m here to tell you that you would have been a lot smarter if you’d spent the last several decades watching strangers get naked and use questionable grammar on national television.”
Jonah grunted and set down the beer can. He grabbed a handful of pretzels from the bowl on the table before remembering they’d been there since Tuesday. He looked down at them, not surprised to see someone had licked the salt off all of them.
He looked up at Marilyn, who closed her eyes and telegraphed her disgust. What are you going to do about it?
Jossy sighed, seeming to develop a little sympathy at last. “Let me ask you something, Jonah. Why did you decide to do the show?”
He scowled at the pretzels and didn’t look up. “For the money.”
“Right, I gathered that. But you got decent money off your book deal with Viv. And I know the bookstore isn’t killing it, but you do okay, right?”
“I do fine.”
“So why did you need more money?”
He thought about not answering her. About coming up with some bullshit story about fleshing out his artistic horizons or redeeming himself in the wake of the book.
But after a month filled with dishonesty, he probably owed her more than that. He took a deep breath and met his sister’s eyes.
“To help you out,” he said. “To make repairs at the shelter and maybe even buy you a computer-controlled knee. I thought if you had that, you could take up cycling again. Maybe not competitively, but if you could just ride again?—”
“You might not feel guilty anymore?” Jossy shook her head, then reached out and rested a hand on his knee. “I thought it was something like that.”
He sighed. “Look, Joss. You loved cycling so much, and it was just taken from you.” I took it from you, he thought but didn’t say. “There’s no way to ride with the prosthetic you have now, and insurance will never pay for a computer-controlled one. I thought I could?—”
“You thought you could sneak around behind my back and pull puppet strings without telling me?”
Jonah swallowed. “You’re pissed.”
“I’m not pissed. I’m trying to make you see you’re being kind of a hypocrite here.”
“I don’t see the connection.”
Jossy sighed again, and Jonah could tell she was on the brink of throwing something besides a napkin.
“I’d call you a dumbass right now, but you’re clearly sensitive about it. So I’m not going to.”
“Your restraint is admirable.”
Jossy shook her head and stared at him. “You think it’s okay for you to sneak around behind my back because it’s well intentioned. Maybe you’ve convinced yourself it’s okay because it’s for my own benefit, or maybe you even have the self-awareness to realize you’re doing it to ease your own guilt. It doesn’t matter, actually. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re making decisions that affect my life without telling me about it.”
He dropped the pretzels back in the bowl and frowned down at them. “It’s not the same thing at all.”
“It is the same thing,” she said. “You love me, and Kate loves that damn show. Not just as a television program, but as a way of helping people. As a way of spreading a message that’s had meaning for her.”
He looked up at his sister. “You’re not really comparing my love for my sister to a producer’s love for her television show?”
