Page 22 of Hello, Summer
“You’re saying you’ve got regrets?”
The congressman gave him a long, sorrowful look. “You don’t even know.”
“Everybody’s got shit in their past,” Buddy said, shrugging.
“Not like this,” Symmes said. He raised the mug to his mouth to drink, but his hands shook badly and coffee sloshed onto the countertop.He plucked a napkin from a metal dispenser on the counter and mopped up the spill. “I did things. In my personal life, my professional life. I hurt people.” He looked directly at Buddy. “People died. Because of things I did. Or didn’t do.”
“You’re saying you killed people?”
“Indirectly.”
“Any way you can make things right? Like they tell you in AA? What’s it called? Making amends?”
“I’m trying,” Robinette said. “But it’s not that easy. My own family…” He let the sentence trail off and then die. He shrugged. “I know it’s probably too late, but I have to try, don’t I?”
Buddy gave that some thought. “I think once you’ve come to terms with what you’ve done, you have to figure out how to forgive yourself. And that’s easier said than done.”
Symmes glanced down at his watch. “I’d better go. If Vanessa wakes up and finds me gone again, there’ll be hell to pay. She doesn’t think I should be driving with my, uh, condition. She worries, you know?”
He stood, cleared his throat, and the waitress rushed over. “Anything else?”
“No, thanks.” He put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter between the two coffee cups. “That should take care of things for my friend and me.”
He clapped Buddy on the shoulder. “I’ve enjoyed our talk tonight, Buddy. But that’s not your real name, right?”
Buddy’s face froze, and his gut pinged. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Deejays always have made-up names, right? Like Wolfman Jack? I mean, who’s really named Buddy Bright? I was just wondering what your real name is. No offense.”
“Off the record?”
Robinette nodded.
“It’s Richard,” he said. “Take care of yourself, okay?”
Buddy had been back to the Waffle House half a dozen times since that night, but he hadn’t run into Robinette again. Until tonight. The Escalade was speeding and weaving back and forth, crossing the centerline of the two-lane road.
Buddy hung back, wondering if the old man was drunk or sick or both. He glanced down at his cell phone. Should he call somebody, let them know an impaired driver was on the road? What if somebody had done that for him three decades earlier? No, it was no good wondering about that stuff. The past was the past. And anyway, he’d learned the hard way that you can’t really save people from themselves.
9
“We’ll take your car,” Skelly announced when they were in the parking lot. “I’ll get somebody at the store to ride me out here in the morning to pick up my truck.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
She smiled. “I don’t care what Danielle thinks. You’re a good guy, Sean Kelly.”
He started the car, they turned onto the county road, and she leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes.
“What about you?” he said suddenly. “Still unattached?”
Conley sighed heavily. “I was actually living with a guy. Another reporter at the paper. Dumb move on my part, getting involved with a colleague.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I was supposed to be moving to D.C. this week. He thought I cared more about my career than I did about our relationship.”
