All the more reason to get the answers he’d come for.

By the time he reached Athens it was too late to do anything but eat, so he checked into his hotel and went out for barbeque, marking up a map of the locations he needed to visit as he sat waiting for his ribs and beer. He was surrounded by blond young women dressed in red UGA shirts. They had musical, inebriated voices and were celebrating some plainly nonacademic triumph together, and he thought how unlike these admittedly pretty young people his own wife was, and how fortunate he felt to be married to Anna, even if Anna was plainly distressed about the choices he’d been making and upset with him in general. He thought of how, each morning after his wife left for work, he found a nest of her long gray hairs coiled in the drain of the shower, the extraction of which gave him a powerful, if admittedly odd, satisfaction. He thought of how their home was warm, colorful, and comfortable—not one facet of which was a thing he’d been able to achieve on his own—and how the refrigerator and freezer were full of her delicious food: homemade soups and stews and even bread. He thought of the cat, Whidbey, and the particular satisfaction of cohabiting with an animal (his first actual pet since a woefully short-lived hamster when he was a boy), and the ways in which the animal occasionally deigned to express gratitude for his extremely pleasant life. He thought of the gradual addition of new and agreeable people to their life as a couple—some from the world of writers (whom he could enjoy as people now that he had no reason to envy them) and some from the new media spheres Anna was beginning to move in. All of it underscored the powerful sense that he had embarked upon the best period of his life.

Now, sipping his beer and eating his barbecued ribs as the sorority girls yelped at the next table, he marveled at the chance of it all: that late addition to his crammed book tour, which Otis (he actually had to try to remember the name of his tour liaison!) had accepted on his behalf, the irritating, borderline insulting on-air interview, the utterly spontaneous invitation to have coffee, and above all the unanticipated bravery of someone willing to upend her life and join his, leaving so much behind. And here he was, less than a year later, married to this wise and lovely woman, with a new life and a new novel that carried not the slightest taint of compromise in its conception, looking ahead to every variety of fulfillment.

If only he could put Evan Parker and his appalling family behind him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Poor Rose

In the morning he walked to the UGA campus and found his way to the registrar’s office, where he requested the records of a student named Rose Parker, hometown: West Rutland, Vermont. He had a story prepared—estranged niece, dying grandparent—but nobody asked him for anything, including identification. On the other hand, he was only offered the information allowed under something called the Buckley Amendment, and if that seemed sparse compared to all of the questions Jake had it also represented a bouquet of wonderfully concrete facts. First, that Rose Parker had enrolled at the University of Georgia at Athens in September of 2012 without a declared major. Second, that she’d requested and received a waiver for the requirement that freshmen live in an on-campus dormitory (in a welcome bonus, the off-campus address provided to the university matched the one from his previous internet search). Third, that only one year later, in the fall of 2013, there was no longer a Rose Parker among the 37,000 enrolled students at the university. Needless to say, the registrar had no forwarding address or current contact information of any kind, and if Rose’s academic records had ever been sent to another institution of higher education in support of a transfer application, that information did not fall within the parameters of what he was permitted to know.

He walked out into the June morning and took a seat on one of the wooden benches in front of the Holmes-Hunter Academic Building. It was both marvelous and somehow disturbing to imagine this person walking along the collegiate pathways, perhaps sitting on this very bench in front of the distinctly plantation-esque building he’d just exited. Could she still be here in Athens? It was certainly possible, but Jake suspected she was long gone to some other town in some other state, doing who knew what else as she kept up an obsessive campaign against him and his work.

Jake found the offices of Arthur Pickens, Esquire, on College Avenue and took an outdoor table at a café a few storefronts up the street to gather his thoughts. He was looking over some of the distinctly unsavory information about Pickens gathered over the days since his visit to that other Esquire in Rutland, Vermont, when he saw an obviously irate father ushering his college-aged son, clad in the now familiar UGA red attire, into the attorney’s office. The pair stayed inside for a long time, and when they finally emerged, Jake got up from his table and entered by the same door, finding himself at the foot of a steep staircase. On the second floor, the office’s glass door was unlocked, and inside, a florid-faced man was seated at a massive mahogany desk. Behind him: shelves of law books, so pristine they looked as if they’d never been opened. That wasn’t inconsistent with what he’d learned about Arthur Pickens, Esquire.

The man was frowning. Jake, also, was frowning. Then he remembered that he had the first line.

“Mr. Pickens?”

“I am. And you are?”

“Jacob Bonner.”

Jake crossed the room with his hand extended. He was going for southern genteel, the Yankee approximation. “Sorry not to call first. If you’re busy I’d be happy to come back.”

Pickens, however, remained seated. He did not extend his own hand. He seemed to be giving Jake more disapproval than even an unexpected walk-in deserved.

“I don’t believe that will be necessary, Mr. Bonner. I won’t be able to help you, even if you come back another time.”

The two of them stared at each other. Jake let his hand drop. Finally, he managed: “I’m sorry?”

“I’m sorry you’re sorry. But attorney-client privilege makes it impossible for me to answer your questions.”

“Are you saying you already know what I’ve come to talk to you about?”

“I am not at liberty to answer that,” Pickens said.

“And, just to be clear, you also know which of your clients my questions pertain to.”

“Again, I won’t be answering.”

Jake, for all of his anticipation, and despite, in particular, the hour he’d just spent waiting at the café up the street, had not considered this particular scenario. As a result, he was floored.

“So I respectfully invite you to leave, Mr. Bonner,” Pickens added. He also got to his feet.

There were, apparently, very long legs underneath that big desk, and they unfolded as the attorney rose. At his considerable height he looked every inch the flower of southern manhood, from that athletic frame to the red face and swept-back hair, a mite too uniformly brown to be entirely natural. He stood, leaning forward, arms braced on his desk, wearing an oddly not-unfriendly smile but clearly expecting Jake to go without further comment.

Instead, Jake crossed the room and took one of the chairs on the other side of the desk.

“I’ve decided to hire an attorney,” he said. “I’m being harassed and threatened, and I would like to file suit for defamation.”

Pickens frowned. Perhaps what he’d been told hadn’t included the parts about harassment, threats, and defamation.

“I have reason to believe the harassment originated here in Athens, and I need a local attorney to act on my behalf.”

“I’d be happy to refer you to somebody else. I know some excellent attorneys here in Athens.”

“But you’re an excellent attorney, Mr. Pickens. I mean, you certainly appear to be, if you don’t look too closely.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pickens said sharply.

“Well, you obviously know who I am. I assume that means you also know I’m a writer. Writers research. And of course I’ve researched you.”

Pickens nodded. “Happy to hear it. My online ratings are excellent.”

“Absolutely correct!” Jake said. “Duke University undergrad. Vanderbilt Law. Really good stuff. I mean, there was that cheating thing at Duke, but it was your whole frat. Doesn’t seem fair to single you out. And then you did have that one incident with your client’s daughter. And your own DUIs, of course. But who doesn’t have DUIs, right? Also, I’m sure the Clarke County cops were out to get a successful defense attorney like you. Still, that was a close shave with the Georgia bar.”

Pickens sat down. He was so livid, his face had slid into an even deeper shade of red.

“Anyway, I think most people just stop with Facebook or Yelp when they’re looking for a lawyer. You’re probably okay.”

“Now who’s harassing and threatening?” he said. “I’ve already asked you to leave.”