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on television was insufficient preparation for seeing him in person. But he recovered quickly.

He’d gone to his first yoga class last night and, surprisingly, liked it. More surprising, he was able to stop stressing about

cutbacks, his new twin boys, and his father-in-law, if only for an hour.

“Did we lose that third light?” Hannah asked the man. “We need that reverse spotlight situation to be dimmer than it was earlier. Actually, I want to take a look.”

After she followed the man out, Jin Mi began to go over cultural and political touchpoints with John but was quickly interrupted

by William.

“Jin Mi,” he said, gazing at his mobile, “Hannah wants to see you for a second.”

Jin Mi was up in a flash. “President Barr,” she reminded John as she hurried toward the door. “You have to at least remember

the US president!”

“You found something?” John asked after she’d gone. All morning, he and William had been googling every iteration of house apartment fire dead John with the years 2008 through to the present and had so far come up with nothing.

“Hannah told me about our new arrangement.” William’s foreseeable future would include living at the hotel and coming to John’s

room every morning to assist him with whatever he needed. “Was it your idea or hers?”

“She insisted.”

William looked like someone who’d just gotten sacked, but it wasn’t John’s business how Hannah ran her ship.

In moments they were weaving through fluorescent-lit hallways and into the very dark, cavernous Studio A, stepping over thick

black cables as people buzzed about. When John reached the sofa, a short, dark-skinned man jumped onto the dais and strode

over. Lee Kingston, comedian turned political-cultural-talk-show host. They’d taken the risk of doing the show because Lee

Kingston had the nation—and much of the world—enthralled by his candor and blunt questioning. If you can get him to love you , Hannah had said, they will love you, too.

There was something unreadable in his expression, a mixture of awe and fear and pain. But then the man blinked and there was

only the thousand-watt grin. “So good to have you here, brotha.” He thrust forward his hand.

John stared at it.

“So sorry!” William threw himself between the men. “John doesn’t shake hands—doesn’t invade anyone’s space. It’s a spirit

thing.”

Something Hannah invented after John insisted upon not letting everyone in the world know that it hurt him to cross planes.

It’s none of their business , he’d said grumpily, not wanting to spell out that it would make him feel vulnerable. But she must have understood, because

she replied, It’s fine. My father refused to wear glasses outside of the house. But we have to explain why they aren’t supposed to touch

you without making you look like an asshole or making you sound radioactive.

“Good to be here, Mr. Kingston,” said John.

“Call me Lee.”

He stands onstage in a run-down Georgetown bar. The sparse audience looks bored but he pulls at his worn polo and stares down

at his scuffed Timberland boots and convinces himself he can do this. He can make them laugh. Plus the girl from class is

here, the one with the braids and the quiet smile. Someone throws a wadded napkin onto the stage. Boos. Back at his dormitory,

he leaves the shower and glances at the steamed mirror. He feels like an idiot for checking, but always, he checks.

Lee leaned in, arms crossed as if to hold himself. “A buddy of mine passed away just after high school. We had this thing

where we swore we’d try to make contact, stuff like ‘when you see six one seven, that’s me.’ Six one seven’s the area code

where we grew up. You know, popping up on a receipt, written on a dusty car, steamy mirror, whatever. If something ever happened,

we’d find a way.” His voice was confessional, his dark eyes shining with hope. “Is he out there? Or is he... gone?”

“I don’t know.”

Lee took a step back. He swallowed hard and straightened. He didn’t seem the least bit bothered as he walked to his oversized

desk. When he sat, he looked to John and smiled, all uncertainty washed from his face.

The balding yogi in the headset walked over with a cloth. “Smudges,” he said as he whisked it across the surface of Lee’s desk. He glanced up at Lee. “You’ve got... there’s...”

Lee stared back at him blankly.

“Something... white. Just...” He brushed at his own nostril.

Lee’s eyes widened with understanding and he swiped his finger under his nose.

The bald man knocked a shaky hand against Lee’s The Lee Kingston Show –branded mug and spilled water onto the desk. “Shoot. Sorry, sir,” he said as he hastily cleaned up the mess.

Lee waved him away and grinned. “It’s fine, man.” His makeup artist crossed the dais to provide last-minute powder, followed

by the show’s producer. When she leaned in and asked Lee if everything was all right, he whispered, “Yes, once you fire that

idiot, Mr. Fucking Clean.”

“Sam?”

“I don’t know what the hell his name is. And Clarisse, too.”

“Clarisse? What happened?”

Lee glanced at John. His voice remained low but not so low that John could not make it out. “I was in that makeup chair for

forty-five goddamned minutes with shit under my nose and that bitch just let me walk out here. Just make sure the motherfuckers

aren’t here tomorrow.”

Lee’s white teeth glistened under the studio lights; his eyes crinkled as he grinned. If one were only watching and couldn’t

hear, one might mistake the conversation for being genial.

“Um. OK,” the producer said. “Sure. OK.” She paused. “But Clarisse... are you sure? She’s—” The producer leaned in and

whispered something about dinner tonight.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” Lee straightened his tie. “And get her shit out of the house, too.”

The producer paled. “OK.”

Lee looked at John and winked. “O-fucking-K.”

6

The interview began innocuously enough: Lee thanking John for choosing The Lee Kingston Show as his First Interview Ever, chit-chat tidbits.

And then things took a turn.

“This whole thing,” Lee said with a wave of his hand as he leaned back into his chair, “it’s a little ridiculous, right? I

mean, let’s be honest. You don’t think it’s convenient, your timing?”

Smile. No one will know what you’re thinking and you’ll look like a good sport, and the audience will follow.

“I don’t follow.”

I am not a smiler , John had told her. You want me to sit there and grin about nothing like an idiot? I won’t do it.

“I think you do.” Lee’s tone was testy.

John smiled.

“Come on, man,” said Lee. “At this point, everything’s politicized. You can shit in the street and there’s gonna be Democrats

crying pollution and Republicans talking job creation. And a Black man—a tall, dark-as-night Black man come back from the

dead? You tellin’ me no one has approached you? Come on, man.”

“They have not. But it’s early days, right?”

Lee smirked and glanced at the audience. “Well, can you even name the current president of the United States?”

John opened his mouth. It was right there. At least, it had been. He looked to William, who was chewing the knuckle of an

index finger and looking in danger of hyperventilating. Jin Mi wasn’t faring much better. But Hannah pursed her lips and gave

a small shrug.

“I’ve been here barely a week,” John said. “I’ve been a bit busy trying to figure out how not to fall through my seat.”

The studio audience laughed, but Lee wasn’t giving up easily. “All right, man, that’s fair. But people are gonna want to know

where you stand on things. It matters to a lot of people—probably more than it should. You do realize this?”

John had practiced for this line of questioning with Hannah and co.

, but the responses sounded canned and were hardly inspiring.

Whatever he said next would determine how the rest of the interview went, which would determine how he went over in the rest of the media, which would determine the way the entire world viewed him.

Getting what he needed more than anything, leaving all this behind so that things could be as they were with him in his Grey House.

.. such a thing would require their love.

His response should be as close to the truth as possible.

“All I want to do,” said John, “is find my place.”

Silence descended over the studio, and for a moment, Lee looked surprised.

John hadn’t needed to say that the place he needed to find was not in this realm. He had an instinct that everyone would be

much more sympathetic to a perceived desire to remain here in this world, with the lot of them, because surely what could

be better than that? Narcissists.

He, in Ruben’s words, rolled up his proverbial sleeves. “We’re all looking for something, and we’re trying to understand ourselves,

who we are, isn’t that right?”

“I guess, John. I don’t know.”

“But you do know,” John pressed.

Lee’s eyes flinched but he threw on that made-for-TV grin. “I’m an atheist. Everybody knows that. I mean, there’s obviously

something at work—you’re Exhibit A—but in general... look, if people have to force delusions about some grand design on themselves

to feel better, what can I say?”

“I don’t—”

“You said you want to find your place,” Lee said forcefully.

John had made a misstep, though he’d never professed to knowing how to make friends. Yet what he was prepared to say was not

wrong. Probably Hannah wouldn’t like it, since they hadn’t discussed it beforehand, but this was John’s first interview, and

one of the most important he’d have at all. He wasn’t going to squander the opportunity.

“Finding my place,” John began, “begins with finding my family...”

7

“ Stay fucking tuned ?” Hannah said as they pulled from the studio lot and onto the street. “I told you we’d get to that part of the plan later.

Once I have time to put it in place. How the hell are you going to get everyone in the world to help you find your place or