Set Free (20 page)

The days and weeks that followed the Katie Edwards interview were unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Back when
In The Middle
first hit bestseller lists and movie screens, I was catapulted into a rarified stratosphere of literary stardom. Overnight, I was on everyone’s nightstand, e-Reader, and favorite talk show. The world knew who I was. Of course there were critics, mostly contrarians, who claimed to hate the book. But no one hated
me
. They did now.

Writers—especially writers who’ve been fortunate enough to experience even a taste of success—can find it difficult to grasp that not everyone is infatuated by every word they write. Going a step further is even harder. To realize that people hate you as a person—so much so that they call for boycotts of bookstores that sell your books, demonize you on social media, and egg your house—is about as devastating as it gets. It’s like having a statue erected in your honor, then pulled down, pulverized, and pissed on, all to the ravaging cheers of rejoicing detractors.

Jenn had an escape route all worked out. Whenever she went to work, she handily avoided media scrutiny by moving directly from our house, to her car in the garage, to the garage at work, to her office—all without having to step one foot outdoors. I, on the other hand, was a prisoner inside my own home.

On day three, I shut down my Twitter and Facebook accounts. On day four I stopped reading newspapers, watching TV, or listening to the radio. I only turned on my phone to make outgoing calls. Anything else was simply too damaging to my psyche. I was being painted a monster and—maybe worst of all—I wasn’t entirely convinced the description was inaccurate. I’d done something bad, inexcusable even. To me, my actions had been unconscious, unplanned, non-self-serving, delusional, foolish, perhaps bordering on insane. But in the mind of the public, what I’d done was evil, calculated, and narcissistic.

I needed to re-focus, to find a way to think about or do something else—anything else—or risk combustion. I concluded the best thing was to retreat to my comfort zone: writing.

If you’re reading this and haven’t spent the last few months living on a different planet, you already know how it all turned out. You know how my decision changed everything. How it rocked the world—certainly mine. How by saving one life, it ended another.

What I chose to do next might not have been the healthiest thing to do. But from the outset, it felt damn good. And the feeling only got better the farther along I went.

I think of myself as a good man. A responsible adult. A person who lives his life by a defined set of moral and ethical codes. I cannot—even for a second—recommend, celebrate, or defend what I did to Katie Edwards. But as a father, husband, and someone who values justice and rule-of-law by a fair, policed system of reward and punishment, I admit this one thing: revenge tastes good.

In the beginning, the best thing about my plan was that it got me out of Dodge. The storied rise and fall of Jaspar Wills was sensational and scandalous, but not quite big enough news to rationalize reporters chasing me beyond city limits. Which was why, after a pleasurable night of tender lovemaking with my wife—who wholeheartedly supported me, if not my purpose—I found myself on a Greyhound bus, fisherman’s hat lowered over sunglasses, with a ten-day-old beard, rumbling cross country to Lake County, Indiana.

I hadn’t bothered to contact my agent or publisher about the idea. They were busy enough, pulling books from shelves, battling lawsuits and demands for refunds on previous sales of
Set Free
. Our relationship, if not yet adversarial, had grown awkward to say the least. With absolutely no proof or even mild indication there was anything to expose, to tell them I wanted to write an exposé on the woman who, in one fell swoop, had taken my life, shit-kicked it, and ripped it to shreds on national TV, seemed foolhardy and pointless. Besides, I was going to do it with or without their support.

With no rumors to investigate, mysteries to debunk, theories to flesh out, and nothing but gut instinct propelling me, the only reasonable course of action was to start at the beginning. I was on my way to Katie Edwards’ hometown of Hobart, Indiana. The strategy was to begin there and dig my way back to Boston, barehanded, nails cracked and bleeding from the effort if necessary, until I found something—anything—to use to my advantage. I’d gotten a peek behind Katie’s bright and sparkly exterior, where lay menacing, dark shadow. I was going to prove to the world that the slick reporter with the upmarket-salon hair and chic designer suits—a woman they’d come to trust—was actually someone quite different.

My suppositions were weak, my purpose bordering on absurd. No agent, publisher, or editor would have a single sane reason to support my mission. So why undertake it? I knew what I was doing was irrational and most likely futile. But it fed me, fueled me, kept me alive. It kept me from contemplating worse alternatives for how to get away from a life that lay splattered on the ground around me.

Although I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, if at the end of this road I found nothing to write about, nothing to justify my vendetta against Katie Edwards, then at the very least time would have passed. I would have gotten through the first days, weeks, months of what had become the next worst part of my ruined life. I’d have survived a little longer. Maybe by then I could think of something better to do. Because right now, there was nothing—
nothing
—I could think of that I wanted to do more than this.

And sometimes, wishes actually come true.

It was like striking gold in a potato patch. I’d dug down expecting clods of dirt, maybe a worm or two, some spuds. Instead I hit upon a gleaming, glittering nugget.

“She was an ugly duckling, turned swan, turned ugly duckling,” Nancy McCraig philosophized as we sat on her creaky back porch, overlooking a yard of well-tended flower beds.

The small-town principal had the look of a good teacher at the end of a long, tough school year. The haggardness, earned from ten months of worry, devotion to students, scraps with parents, hard-won battles and demoralizing losses, was just beginning to smooth out beneath a layer of fresh summer tan. After a visit to Hobart Town Hall where I’d learned that any remnants of the Edwards family had long ago disappeared from town, I turned to Katie’s high school for information. It didn’t take long to track down McCraig. It took even less to bring a frown to her face. All I had to do was mention Katie Edwards’ name.

“How do you mean?” I responded to her surprisingly maligning statement.

She chuckled. “I’m sorry. I know it sounds dramatic. I shouldn’t be telling tales out of school, literally. But you caught me at a good time, Mr. Wills. School’s out, it’s a sunny day, I’ve got my cats, a jug of iced tea, and a handsome, world-famous author in my backyard. I’ll tell you anything!”

I gave her a TV-ready smile. “Call me Jaspar,” I buttered the other side of my bread. “I’m sure you watch the news, so you know I’m not so much famous anymore as infamous.”

Her laugh petered out. “I suppose that’s true. But don’t they say in your business: any publicity is good publicity?”

I picked up the laughter. “I suppose so. But from where I’m sitting today, I don’t know if I quite agree with the adage.”

“I know who Katie’s become,” McCraig admitted. “Everyone in town does. We’ve watched her career with…interest.” She sipped her drink slowly, taking time to think about what to say next. “And I know who she is to you. Everybody does. That last interview? Ooo-eee, that was a doozy, wasn’t it? I hear she’s planning to write a book about all that business now—about you mostly.”

“Is she?” I’d heard the news.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re doing the same in reverse.”

“I know it doesn’t sound…”

She stopped me short with a ‘don’t say another word’ kind of gesture. “You’ve come to the right place, Mr. Wills…Jaspar. I don’t know how long you’ve been here or who you’ve all talked to, but I can tell you right now, nobody in this town is going to take her side over yours. Not after what she did to Hobart.”

One by one, the hairs on the back of my neck began to stand up.

“You’re looking for dirt, isn’t that right?”

God, I hate that term. But—petty and cheap as it was—it was also entirely accurate.

“You’re hoping to find something shady in her past, something you can use against her. You don’t have to admit or deny it, sugar. But I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. Why else would you be here, in her hometown? Especially now.”

The best I could do was a nudge of my chin.

“What she did to you, Jaspar,” she said, eyes burning into mine, “well, let me tell you, it’s not the first time.”

If my ears could have exploded into flames and shot out fireworks, this would have been the moment. Was this woman saying what I thought she was saying? It’s what, in my wildest dreams, I’d hoped to hear. But expected? No way. “What do you mean, it’s not the first time? Are you telling me she did the same thing to someone else? Who else did she…”
How to describe it?
“…lethally embarrass?”

McCraig nodded her appreciation of the term, her worn face elegiac. “Take your pick. Katie Edwards…she pretty much screwed every single person in Hobart. That girl destroyed this town. So believe me when I tell you, Jaspar, you are among friends here.”

“Katie was born here. Everyone in Hobart knew her and her family. They were nothing special. Her dad, Vern, was an accountant. He had a small office downtown; he did pretty much everyone’s taxes. Liz, Katie’s mom, was a nice woman, quiet, never saw her out too much.” Nancy McCraig tittered. “I heard she started the first Weight Watchers club in town. She never lost any weight, almost no one did because of the snacks she’d serve, and coffee with cream. But she just kept having the damn meetings anyway.

“Katie was their only child. About what I said earlier, funny thing is, I don’t think anyone thought of her as an ugly duckling, until the swan appeared. I mean, she wasn’t an overly pretty little girl, but certainly not what you would call ugly. She was quiet like her mom. Skinny as a rail though, smart, and a bit of a loner. I don’t think I ever saw her with any other girls, or really anyone, except her parents. She wasn’t disliked or bullied or anything like that, but she never seemed to quite fit in. More than anything, she was ignored. The other kids—most people actually—just didn’t really notice her.

“It was in her grade ten year that she took over the school newspaper.” McCraig chuckled. “I suppose ‘newspaper’ is a bit of an exaggeration. It was really nothing more than a photocopied one-sheet that someone sent around whenever there was a bake sale or school dance. But Katie liked to write. She wasn’t part of any extracurricular groups so she had the time. I think it was Helen—her homeroom teacher that year—who encouraged her. It was the best thing to ever happen to that girl. And to the newspaper. Within three months, she turned that bird-cage liner into something that was actually interesting to read.”

This didn’t surprise me. “How did she do it?” I asked.

“First off, she got rid of the bake sale and recital announcements. She redesigned it so it looked more like a graphic novel than a cheap flyer. It was flashy, modern, young. She started writing short pieces that were aimed more at students instead of teachers and parents. She was smart about it. She knew exactly where the line was, where she could appeal to kids without pissing off the adults. It was, frankly, a shock to most of us teachers. This kid who we barely noticed not only had book smarts, but a savvy awareness of youth culture, loads of creative talent, and a darn sharp sense of humor.”

“So what happened? It sounds to me as if everything was turning out okay for her.”

“Well, I can only guess at this,” McCraig said with a thoughtful look. “But after all the years I’ve been doing this, I’m pretty good at reading kids. Deep down, I think Katie thought that if her paper was popular, so would she be. Of course, that never happened. The students liked what she was putting out there, but they were too busy with their own teenage shenanigans and petty dramas to care about who was behind it. Katie pretended it didn’t bother her, that she didn’t want a bunch of girlfriends to hang out with, or a boyfriend to take her out on weekends. She was all about that paper. ‘Who has time for friends?’ was her attitude. The paper got bigger and more popular, and she got busier and lonelier.

“It was the summer between her grade eleven and twelve years when the transformation happened. It happens to every girl, every kid actually. But the change in Katie seemed more abrupt and dramatic. She was tall and gangly and physically awkward before, but come the fall of her final year, everything was exactly where it needed to be. Breasts, waist, hips, hair—all of it was working.”

“And people took notice,” I made the easy deduction.

McCraig refilled our iced tea. “Uh-huh. Everyone either wanted to be her friend or get in her pants.”

“And did they?” I cringed as I asked the predictable follow-up question, not sure I wanted the answer. Is this what I’d really come all this way for? A story about how the toast of Boston’s airwaves had once been a small town Lolita. Nothing about that appealed to me.

McCraig carefully considered her reply before continuing. “Well, sort of. It would have been a heady experience for anyone. But Katie was smarter than that. She didn’t go overboard. I think she did her time with the bimbo Barbies and dumbbell dickheads…” She stopped there and nearly choked on a chortle. “Oh dear! Sorry about that. Believe me, I love those kids, all of them. Thoughts like that
never
cross my mind when I’m at school. But here, at home on a summer day...”

“Don’t worry about it,” I quickly assured her with a smile. “I understand. That was just between you and me.”

“Thank you.” She fanned a hand across her face. “I’ll admit to you though, Jaspar, if I was her, oooooh, boy, I would have dropped that paper like a hot potato! I’d have accepted every one of those invitations to go shopping and join clubs and make out at the movie theater. But Katie was judicious about what she did and with whom. Aside from class, I rarely saw her. She never loitered in the hallways or outdoors like other students. She mostly hung out in the closet-sized office we let her use. That’s when it must have started.”

“When what started?”

The principal shifted in her seat, an uncomfortable look clouding her face. “Turns out, a few weeks of basting did not a juicy turkey make of our little Miss Edwards. All those kids who were suddenly being nice to her or trying to feel her up? Well, she played their game, but not because it felt good. No sirree. She was using those kids.”

I didn’t get it. “Using them how?”

“That’s just it. None of us knew it was happening. Until we all found out at the same time. On the last day of classes. And then: KABOOM!”