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so I can describe them for the revised piece. Every shell in this room has been photographed from multiple angles. Every shell, especially Mr. Wilde’s. My job is to crawl inside and shine a light on the shrinking torus deep within that pretty exterior. That’s the story I aim to tell.
    “Okay, fire away,” Wilde says. He smiles and raises his glass in salute before taking another sip. And then, almost as if reading my mind, he adds: “Do your worst.”

6
    “I’d like to start with your great-grandfather, if I may.” I arrange myself on a sofa that probably cost as much as my car. Ness gets comfortable in an old leather reading chair, his bare feet propped up on a matching ottoman. “You must’ve read the piece I wrote on him—”
    “I did.”
    “I presume you asked me here to set the record straight. So tell me what I got wrong. I’d love to hear your version of events.”
    Wilde swirls his wine glass, and I hold my notepad and pen patiently. The pen and pad are more than just props to remind him of our roles; they’re for jotting down setting and non-verbal cues. It’s often not what people say or how they say it, but how they visibly react to questions. The nervous tics and wide eyes that recorders miss.
    “I didn’t know my great-grandfather very well,” Wilde says. “I’ve read books about him. I can tell you what his biographers thought.”
    “So what makes you think I was unfair with my piece?”
    “I don’t think you were unfair. But you were about to be.”
    “With my next piece?” I take a sip of my wine, partly because I want to hide my face. The way Wilde is staring at me, it’s as though my thoughts are written across my cheeks.
    “I suspect your next piece was going to be about my grandfather, judging by the little cliffhanger at the end—”
    “That was a teaser,” I say, setting down the wine. “A cliffhanger would’ve meant leaving the story about your great-grandfather in suspense.”
    “I see. Well, if you’re going to write about my grandfather next, I’d rather you didn’t.”
    I laugh. I didn’t expect him to come straight out and grovel, but that seems to be his plan. “Is that so?”
    “That’s so. You’d only get everything wrong. Like everyone else has.”
    “And you’d like to set me straight? Okay. Tell me about your grandfather. What does everyone get wrong?”
    He takes another sip of his wine—closes his eyes while he does so. I can’t tell if he’s composing his thoughts or savoring the vintage.
    “They get everything wrong.” He opens his eyes, and I find myself gazing down at my notes. The intensity of the man … it’s like looking into the noonday sun.
    “So tell me about him,” I say, as I write something just to write something.
    “I don’t remember a whole lot. I was eight when he died. The men in my family have always waited too long before having kids—”
    “Except you,” I point out.
    Ness flinches. It’s the first time I’ve seen him react to something I’ve said. But then he smiles. “I’d much rather you write your next piece about me or my father. Just leave my grandfather out of whatever it is you think you’re doing.”
    I’ve hit a nerve. I make a note about Ness’s daughter. This is a button I can press. Dark truths are lured out by anger and sadness. And it’s cheaper and swifter to cause the former.
    “If you don’t know much about your grandfather, why do you object to me writing about him?” I ask.
    “I said I don’t remember much about him, not that I don’t know much about him.”
    “Fine. Tell me what you know. Make me believe he was a good man and not someone who got rich while this world went to shit.”
    Wilde turns away from this accusation, almost like I’ve slapped him. It feels like I’ve slapped him. Like I’ve said in a sentence what my series of pieces is all about. He stares for some time at the horizon, that gray line where the sea kisses the sky.
    “After my grandmother died, my