Chapter 22: Thirty-One Thousand Four Hundred Eighty

I picked the restaurant myself, a bright patio place on a Sunday, with one long table under string lights.

I invited the nine friends from the brunch, Megan, Caleb and my boss, who said she would come for the pastry.

I did not invite Jared.

At eleven, the friends began arriving in twos and threes, and they all looked guilty.

The woman who had Venmo'd me first came in with a bag of fruit.

"I should have said something sooner," she told me. "At the party. About the scores."

"Thank you for saying it now."

Another friend, a man who had laughed on the couch, stood by the host stand turning his hat in his hands.

"I laughed," he said. "That night. At the awards. I laughed when she said zero."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know that too."

Nobody sat down until I did.

At eleven thirty, Joss came through the gate.

She wore a gray sweater and flat shoes and carried one cream envelope.

She'd cut her hair to her chin since Thursday.

Her lawyer was not with her.

Every head at the table turned, and the patio went quiet except for the espresso machine.

Joss stopped at the end of the table.

She looked at each of the faces, one at a time, the way she used to read the numbers off her TV.

Then she looked at me.

"You wanted this in front of them," she said.

"I did."

"Fine."

She opened the envelope and took out a cashier's check.

Her hand wasn't steady.

"Read it out loud," I said.

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