Passing my desk, Lane Porter noticed the intern, the pages intermixed.

“Can I help with something, Whitney?”

4.

Lane didn’t waste time. On a corkboard he pinned each page of the report, numbered and highlighted into constitutive claims. Each claim referenced evidence in the appendix, and we set about cross-checking them, one by one. The challenge wasn’t just that there were hundreds of claims, it was that each one derived from dozens of interconnected data points. Viewed individually, one point might not seem to substantiate the claim, but when properly contextualized, you could see how it fit snugly into the report’s conclusions.

Afternoon slipped into evening and the staff started going home. Lane and I kept at it. Thus far the report was holding up. It wasn’t easy to pass fact-check at the Bystander, and I found myself quietly rooting for Dr. Kriss.

“How sweet it is,” said Lane, admiring row upon row of checked claims.

“What about this?” I asked, indicating a point in the appendix. “This was 0-600, but now it’s 0-4.”

“You’ve missed a transition.” He underlined a phrase in my copy of the report. “It’s moved onto a totally different data set here. See?”

“Right.”

My eyes didn’t seem to be fixing on the numbers anymore. Apparently sensing my fatigue, Lane suggested we call it a night.

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

When I began filing things into my bag, he said, “You must be hungry.”

I wished Lane understood who he was dealing with, but given we’d only made it partway through the fact-check and would be working together all week, I said, “I could eat.”

“I know a place.”

—

On the street, he hailed a cab. It had rained, and the asphalt bloomed with red brake lights, everything smelling of soaked garbage. I was tired and distracted and would’ve been fine with something from the Donut Shop, but Lane had plans.

The taxi dropped us at a tapas bar on the Lower East Side. There was a lineup out the door, but Lane cut to the front. It seemed he’d made a reservation. When? The hostess seated us at a small table strewn with plastic grapes. We flickered in candlelight.

Before we’d opened the menus, Lane ordered a jug of sangria and half an octopus.

“Trust me,” he said, “everything here is super-fresh. Did you see the piece in the Times?”

“No.”

I vaguely remembered what had been here before, a total dump a woman from Artforum took me to before she stopped returning my calls. I could map my memory of the place onto the contours of the tapas bar, and wondered if the same thing would happen to the Donut Shop.

“I think this place used to be a dive,” I said.

“The Times says they’re reclaiming this whole area.”

“Who’s they?”

He thought for a second then said, “I don’t know, sorry.”