“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 grandfather lived alone in a shack on a spit of beach. He wasn’t anything like his father or my father. Or me, for that matter. I know what you’re going to write, because it’s the history everyone has written. With his vast wealth, my grandfather bought up near-coastal land, what he knew would become prime beachfront property once the sea levels crept up, and then he kept that land for himself. He blocked it off from the world—”
“And none of that is true?”
Wilde shakes his head. “It’s … more complicated than that. My grandfather, he … wasn’t a huge fan of people. Well, it’s not that he didn’t like people, I think he just enjoyed the quiet. Which is why I don’t want to see your story, don’t want people talking about him. He wouldn’t approve. And you can do your series without involving him. I’ll tell you whatever you want about me and you can run that instead.”
I make a note here to dig even deeper into Ness’s grandfather. Telling me not to look into something is the wrong play if that’s what he really wants. Unless Ness knows this and is sending me down a blind alley.
“What about your father, then? He didn’t seem to mind the limelight.”
Wilde laughs, and I glance up from my notebook in time to see him with his head tilted back, white teeth flashing, wrinkles around his eyes. It’s a dangerous laugh. I tell myself it’s another prop, not to believe it.
“My father was the exact opposite,” Ness says. “He hated people, but he loved taking their money. And he was good at it. I think it skips a generation, that drive. My old man took after his grandfather. As a kid, he climbed over oil rigs like they were his private jungle gyms. Didn’t spend much time with his own father. The oil company was his life, his true family. And he took the company to another level, daring other industry leaders to catch up, taunting them, showing them where to drill, correcting their mistakes in public—”
“He wasn’t scared of the competition?”
“No. My father knew he was the smartest man in any room.”
“What about women?”
Wilde shrugs, seems confused. “My dad only had eyes for my mother.”
“No, I mean … you said smartest man in any room. What about women?”
“I misspoke,” Wilde says. “Sorry. It sounded sexist, didn’t it?”
I don’t answer, just let the accusation hang. “It sounds like resentment of absent fathers runs in the family. Boys raised by their grandfathers. Is that why you’re protecting your grandfather? You say you don’t remember much, but maybe he was there for you in those first years in a way your father wasn’t. Showered you with gifts, or let you—”