Prologue
 
Don’t pick up don’t pick up don’t pick up.

Two rings, three rings. Only one more and the office voicemail kicks in, and he’s off the hook. He has his message already rehearsed.

He hears the click of the receiver being retrieved, silently curses to himself. He thinks about hanging up, but Caller ID makes that impossible.

Fuck.

“Where are you?” she says. No hello. Not that he can blame her. Half of her job is spent trying to figure out where he is at any given moment.

“I finally got the break I was looking for on the Miss America story,” he replies with as much gravitas as he can muster. “I shook out an address.”

She sighs, the way every managing editor he’s ever worked with has sighed. The job of a managing editor is to enforce deadlines and discipline, and he is abjectly terrible with both. But he is talented, the most talented writer at Philadelphia magazine, and his boss knows it and he knows it and even stern managing editor Emily Lawrence knows it, so he is cut more slack than everyone else. Which has only ensured that he is hated by everyone else.

“You knew that the monthly staff meeting was this morning at eleven,” Emily says, the ice creeping into his ear. “Everyone needs to bring two ideas for the Shore Guide. You already missed the Best Things for Kids meeting last month.”

He exhales wearily. “Em, we both know I suck at the service stuff, which is why I don’t write it. So why would anyone want my ideas? This is a great story ​—”

“That’s always your excuse for not pulling your weight. ‘This is a great story.’ ”

“And they always are.”

“Hold on. He just walked by. I’m transferring you. And don’t dare hang up. He knows you’re on the line. Good luck.”

She says these last two words with enough sarcasm to fuel a late-night television monologue. Not that he blames her. He is aware that he makes her life more difficult. But he also knows he makes the magazine better, and in the end that is the only thing that should matter, especially in an age where print is dying quicker than a carnival goldfish. He wonders if this is how it felt to be working for a company that produced vinyl records in the 1980s. Or to have been a blacksmith, and then watched Henry Ford putter by in his Model T.

Fletcher clicks on. “Where are you?”

“On my way to Gladwyne. I finally tracked down an address for Betty Welch. Turns out she’s been here for the past few years, hiding in plain sight. I told you my source said she was local again. Her husband died about five years ago, and she moved here from Colorado to be closer to her son and grandkids.”

“For a guy who has written pieces uncovering payoffs in the judicial system and a toxic waste dump in the middle of Bucks County, you seem oddly fixated on an old Miss America. I hope this story is going to prove to be worth all of the energy you’re putting into it.”

“Not a doubt. Look, she’s never talked about what happened. Ever. She’s been dodging the press for decades ​— ​she even stopped using her first name. She’s gone by Jane since it all happened. She’s in her mid-eighties now. If ever she was going to say, ‘Oh, what the hell,’ it’s going to be now, when she’s near the end of her own road. It’s a fascinating tale and she’s never told it. This could be like the Philly version of having gotten Jackie Kennedy to tell the whole story of what it was like in Dealey Plaza.”

Fletcher snorts. “Gee, I’m glad you’re not overselling this.”

“Look, Fletch, will you just trust me on this? I know everyone thinks I am a total pain in the ass ​—”

“You are a total pain in the ass.”

“Yes, but I am a pain in the ass who delivers. Trust me here. My instincts are good. We know she has an amazing story to share. It’s just a matter of getting her to open up and actually share it.”

A deep sigh on the other end of the line. Sometimes Bron pictures the entire staff sighing in unison when his name comes up, one gigantic, weary whiffle. The same one he has heard from his parents, his grammar school teachers, every one of his girlfriends. The wordless expression of What are we going to do about Bronwyn?

“Well, you’re halfway there, so okay, fine, go see if she’ll talk,” Fletcher says. “But when you get back into the office, we are having a serious sit-down about your lax attitude about staff meetings, idea generation, writing for the Web, everything. Whether you like it or not, you are part of a team here, Bron. It’s time you start acting like it. You are not irreplaceable. Are you hearing me?”

“Loud and clear,” Bron replies. “Talk later.” Team my ass, he thinks, shaking his head as he continues up the Schuykill Expressway. What you need me to do is to get great stories. And that is exactly what I am going to do.
 

The center-hall Colonial is Main Line standard issue, white with pine-green trim, matching shutters, side garage, and a nicely manicured lawn sloping down to the street to a ye olde black lamppost. Bron checks the address again, flips his notebook closed. He grabs a ballpoint pen from the cup holder and steps out of the car. The road curves up from Route 23, transforming from busy highway to bucolic street in mere seconds. Bron wonders how many doughnuts have been consumed on this block by cops sitting in their sedans, speed-trapping driver after driver making the exit at 60 only to suddenly find themselves in a 25 with almost no warning. But what the hell ​— ​someone has to pay for the fancy public schools.

In journalism circles, it’s called “doorstepping.” You eschew calling someone because you know they won’t talk, or you leave five hundred messages and then figure you have nothing left to lose, so you just show up on their doorstep. The power of the element of surprise. Bron has done it before, of course. But in those cases it was someone who was running from the law, or at least ethics charges. Here was someone who had been running from her past for decades.

Bron pulls at the lapels of his wrinkled tan corduroy blazer with the elbow patches ​— ​he wears it when he wants to look writerly ​— ​and strolls across the street. Instinctively he tries to tamp down his hair, a pouf of competing angles that is always messy despite the amounts of goo he glops on to tame it. No matter. He’s confident. He’s good with old women. Actually, he’s good with all women. Another reason his coworkers hate him.

He squares his shoulders, rings the bell.

Minutes pass, and he is about to ring it again when it opens. And, like the song, there she is. It has been more than sixty years since anyone has taken a picture of her for public consumption, but Bron knows it’s her. The hair is shocking white and Barbara Bush–like, but the eyes are a dead giveaway. Exactly the same, hazel and piercing. She wears a knit top, navy slacks, and sensible flats, the uniform of the retired affluent housewife.

“Mrs. Proctor?”

The eyes narrow. “What do you want?”

He bends over, places a hand on his chest, his wan demonstration of warmth and sincerity. “My name is Bronwyn McCall. I’m a writer at Philadelphia magazine. I wanted to know if I could ask you a few questions about your time as Miss America.”

She stiffens visibly. “There is no Miss America here.”

“I understand. Mrs. Proctor, please. I know you haven’t spoken to the press in a long time, but if I could just ​—”

She begins to close the door. “You’re mistaken. Now please go. And don’t come back.” He goes to say something, but it’s too late. The door shuts. He hears the thud of the deadbolt, the sound of her eighty-six-year-old footsteps slowly retreating. There is a television on somewhere in the house. He hears frenzied bidding on The Price Is Right.

He stands still for a moment, weighing his options, none of them good. He’d known this was likely. He recalled the story of another reporter, maybe twenty years ago, who’d tracked her down when she was still living in Boulder and who had been given the exact same response: There’s no Miss America here.

The thought of going back to Fletch empty-handed turns on a spigot of dread. He’ll be lucky not to have to write the whole damned Shore Guide by himself. But he’ll figure it out. He always does. One way or another, he’s going to get the story of Betty Jane Welch.

He walks slowly down the driveway, plotting his next move, spins around to take one last look at the house. What is she doing now? Is she calling someone, nervous that a news van will pull up next? Is she peering from behind the curtains, making sure he’s going?

What is it like to spend your whole life denying the one thing that defined it?

These are the questions running through his mind as he backs off of the curb into the street, still studying the house. He never sees the car rounding the corner from Route 23 until just before it hits him.