Alan paused and looked at the two-story single-family house. It wasn't the first time in thirteen years that he looked at his family home. He still lived in California. He came here at the most extraordinary moments of his life. He showed me the house once, right before our wedding, through the car window.
"It's here," he said, without even slowing down. He rarely stopped in front of him.
And if he does, he has never got out of the car before. He never stepped on the sidewalk at the end of the driveway and gave the house that look. I had no doubts that a long time had passed since he last stood on his doorstep. But now it seemed to be set in place, as if he could not take a single step. Until I wanted to take him by the arm and accompany him to the door. The driveway was no more than ten meters long,
but it led half a century into the past. I suspected that for Alan it was like seeing through glasses with upside down lenses that you could walk all day without getting to your near destination.
But I stayed where I was, across the street, that is, staring at his stooped back and his black hair cut short. I was given a clear order. Meanwhile, Alan stood as if waiting for permission to come closer. And he lived to see it.
- Are you okay, Mr. Stiles? Please go ahead. Just not too fast. As if reluctantly ... Well, you know, as if you were here for the first time since you were eighteen.
Alan glanced over his shoulder at the man in jeans and sandals, with a ponytail drawn through the hole in the baseball cap that belonged to the three co-producers.
"Because it's the first time," he muttered shyly.
"Yes, sure, just don't look at me," the other replied angrily. 'Look at the house and walk slowly up the driveway, as if you were remembering the day thirteen years ago when it happened. Okay?
Alan glanced at me and grimaced, and I replied across the street with a tight smirk meant to ask, "What do you say?"
As instructed, he started up the drive very slowly. I wondered if, if the camera had not been turned on, he would have been walking so slowly, with the same hesitation or even fear. It could be. But now his behavior seemed artificial to me, forced.
But as he stepped onto the porch and held out his hand to the doorknob, I saw a distinct tremor in my fingers. And it was genuine. Which probably meant that the camera wouldn't pick it up. His hand tightened on the knob, turned it, and was about to open the door when the man with the ponytail called out:
- Fine! Perfectly! Please wait! Then he turned to the cameraman:
-Okay, bring the stuff inside.
We'll shoot from there as it enters.
- This is supposed to be some fucking joke ?! - I asked loud enough for the whole team to hear it, including Paul Martin, the one with mirror-shine teeth, wearing a white shirt and black pants, appearing in front of the camera as the host and narrator from behind the set.
And it was he who came to me.
"Mrs. Kate Stiles," he began softly, grabbing me gently by the shoulders with both hands, or rather lower, which I already knew as his trademark. - All right?
- How can you treat him that way? - I asked. "My husband has a hard time finding the courage to go near this house for the first time since his entire family disappeared without a trace, and you're just doing your own cut?"
"Kate ..." he hissed, as if this display of familiarity was an insult to him. - Because I can call you by name, right?
I did not answer.
"Well, Kate, I'm sorry we have to put the camera in a different place to catch Alan's expression when he comes in after such a long pause, but we want it to come naturally. We are not talking about a mock reaction. I thought we both care about it as much. I liked it. That a TV news reporter and an entertainment show star who, in the intervals between recalling unusual and unexplained mysteries from years ago, chased models and stars of local music scenes stopped while driving
drunk or punished with a ticket for driving with a small child unfastened in a special seat, now appealed to my sense of authenticity.
"Sure," I muttered discouraged, remembering my overriding goal, namely the hope that, after so many years, appearing in a television report might help to explain the mystery that haunts Alan.
- Of course.
Paul blinded me with a flash of perfectly smooth teeth and walked briskly across the street, his boots tapping loudly on the pavement. I've tried hard to stay out of the way from the moment Alan and I got here. I got a day off at school. Director and longtime friend Bob Cane knew very well how important it was for Alan to participate in this program, so he found a replacement for my English and creative writing classes. My husband also got a day off from Will, the owner of the drone company he worked for. On the way, we dropped off Maddie, our eight-year-old daughter, at school. She, too, was intrigued by the film crew's preparation for a reportage, but her invitation to the set was by no means within the scope of her father's personal tragedy. The people now living in this house - a retired couple who moved here from New Jersey ten years ago to be closer to Yosemite National Park, from where they set off on their favorite hikes - were given airline tickets to Paris from the producers of the reportage for permission to use them home. The technicians then proceeded to remove their personal belongings, mainly removing framed photographs from the walls, to make the interior look at least a little like when Alan lived here.