She thought about those pills all the time. She was thinking about them even now as she pulled on her jeans and her boots, her long-sleeve tee-shirt, and fleece, putting the phone on speaker and setting it down on the desk. Those pills that dulled her fears and her anxieties, that numbed her anger at Wolf and at herself, that quieted all the million shitty things she had to say about herself. Those pills, and the white sheet it draped over her ragged thoughts. If she had them, if she popped two in her mouth right now, in an hour she’d be sleeping or at least lying down, knowing that there was nothing she could do for Abbey, wherever she was. But she didn’t have those pills. All she had was this vibrating feeling that wouldn’t be quieted.
“What are they, Blake?”
“If I tell you, do you promise not to do anything reckless?”
She thought about it. They were too close, their friendship too strong for her to lie. “No,” she said.
He told her anyway.
*
The first time Wolf did it, it was a big nothing. Honestly, it was little more than an embellishment. Everybody did that; it was part of being a storyteller, wasn’t it? Your interviewee was somewhat less articulate than you might have hoped. You rearrange sentences so that they come closer to what the moron actually meant, so that the words on the page have more impact. It wasn’t lying, not really.
It was a piece about New Orleans after Katrina, how the city was struggling back to its feet. The article he wrote wasn’t even for a major publication, just an online travel blog called The Road Less Traveled. Wolf liked writing for them because they were light editors. They basically proofed his pieces and posted them. They paid peanuts, but the trips were always covered—air and ground transportation, and decent lodging—and they weren’t looking for the kind of fluff that trade magazines wanted. Sure, those trade assignments were plum, all expenses paid trips to spas and resorts, guided excursions, luxury treatments. It was unspoken, but it was expected that the articles written after such star treatment be complimentary. Otherwise, you no longer got invited on press trips. But there wasn’t much negative to say about five-star luxury, was there? The scallops were a little chewy? The massage therapist didn’t use enough oil?
What Wolf liked about the smaller publication was that they let you do your own thing. The Road Less Traveled let him wander and find the article he wanted to write about a certain place. They sent him down to Jazz Fest a few years after Katrina. Attendance was back up, and though the city was still struggling, the music scene was making a healthy recovery. He talked to artists, music lovers, and bar owners, everyone echoing the same sentiment, that New Orleans was coming back, and that the music scene was alive and kicking. It’s just that no one really said that exactly. So he just fudged something an old trombone player said. Most of the people who Wolf talked to had been drinking; hell, he’d been drinking. So what if the old guy didn’t say exactly what Wolf wrote?
The only person who picked up on it was Merri.
“He really said this?” she asked when she was editing the piece. She read all his work, and he didn’t feel good about anything until she liked it.
“Who said what?” he asked, even though he knew exactly what she was talking about. Merri had an eagle eye. She missed nothing.
“This quote: ‘It’s been hard, no one’s denying that. But New Orleans is back, better than before. You can’t crush the soul of a place like this.’ ”
“Why?” asked Wolf.
“It’s just such a perfect quote, such a great way to end a story.”
“Sometimes you just get lucky.”
The guy had said something like that. But it had been somewhat less eloquent. What did it matter if you made people sound better than they actually did? No one ever complained about that.
Then, over the years, it just started to become a habit. You kind of knew what people were going to say, didn’t you? After you’d been to enough places and talked to enough people and seen enough things, you had an idea of what you were going to find before you ever got where you were going. Nearly twenty years as a travel writer, and real surprises came few and far between. Except he was surprised when he finally got caught.
*
After he texted Merri, Wolf woke up his mother and told her that he had to go help his wife. She agreed completely and even seemed relieved to hear it.
Then Wolf pushed into Jackson’s room and found him awake. As ever, the kid’s room was weirdly neat. Jackson kept all his books organized by size on the shelves. He’d laid out his own clothes for the next day. Wolf didn’t even bother asking whether or not he did his homework. He was a perfect student.
“You’re going up there?” said Jackson when Wolf sat on his bed.
“I have to, buddy,” he said. “Your mom shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”
“Can I come?”
“Maybe on the weekend, okay?” said Wolf. “But what I need you to do is to stay with your grandparents and go to school. We can talk every afternoon and you can call when you need me.”
Jackson was such a trouper. Wolf remembered being his age; he’d never been half as smart or kind or mature as his son. He still wasn’t.