10: The Interview

January reflects on expertise and doubts her shift from feel-good fiction to a darker novel mirroring her father’s affair. She spends three days writing in fits, cleaning out the impersonal upstairs rooms, and listing furniture. Glimpses of Gus distract her until they silently joke through their facing windows, then prepare for their first research outing.

Gus vetoes January’s dress, choosing casual clothes, and drives her north at sunset. He explains they’re interviewing a woman whose sister joined a suicide cult, framing the lesson as “character and detail.” He outlines his cult novel ideas—journalist infiltrates, rises in ranks, possibly murders his former sweetheart—while January deflects questions about her own book.

They reach a rural bar, the By-Water, and meet Grace, a truck driver whose twin, Hope, died in the New Eden compound. January reassures Grace she can share only what she wants. Grace recalls Hope’s snorting laugh and admits she noticed nothing wrong because Hope seemed better—clean from heroin and radiant—before dying from internal bleeding due to “punishments” as the FBI closed in.

Driving home in silence, January wrestles with her father’s betrayal and the weight of Grace’s loss, questioning how Gus endures such darkness. At a deserted gas station, she challenges him to share why this matters to him. Tension flares as they stand close; they trade for one truth each. January admits she moved because her father died and left the beach house.

Gus leans in as if to confide and, after a charged moment, reveals he lied earlier—he has read January’s books—then abruptly seats her and drives off, leaving January stunned by the mix of intimacy, rivalry, and unresolved grief their research night has stirred.