He fell back against the headrest. “Paul. Can you do something for me?”
“Anything, buddy. You know that. I’d do anything for you. I mean… within reason. You know, obviously I wouldn’t eat garbage off a sidewalk, or sleep with a man… well, I mean, if it meant your life or something… you know, depending on how much shit. And I guess what the dude looked like.”
“I need you to follow me.”
“Follow you.”
“Right.”
“Follow you?”
“Yes.”
Guterak scratched his head. “You mean… like keep track of what you’re talking about? That kind of follow?”
“No. I want you to physically tail me. Follow me around and see where I go. What I do. Keep track of it. Don’t let me see you.”
“You don’t want to see me.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to know you’re doing it. And then write down everything I do and tell me about it afterward. Make up a report.”
“Who do I give the report to?”
“Me.”
“And why am I doing this?”
“So I can figure out what I’m doing.”
“Uh-huh. You want me to follow you so you can figure out what you’re doing.”
“Yeah. I need to see if I’m hallucinating or if I’m really involved in something… something bad.”
“Oh,” Paul said. “Okay then.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Of course I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll use my black helicopter. I’ll shove one of them fuggin’ GPS transmitters in your ass, put a wire in your teeth. Get one of them Air Force drones to track you. Or… remember that movie where they shrunk those guys and put ’em in the president’s body? I’ll do that.” Guterak shook his head and laughed as he steered the car through traffic. “You fuggin’ kill me, man.” He looked over at Remy and shook his head. “You know, you get funnier every day.”
“WAIT. WAIT.” A stout woman wearing jeans and a bulging fanny pack came into April’s living room. “Look, that was great, but we didn’t quite get it. Do you think you could repeat that exchange?” Remy was sitting on the couch with April, across from a young man sitting on a chair in front of them, leaning across his knees as if he were breaking something to them. The young man had olive skin and thick eyebrows that ended just inches from his bushy hairline. But it was in this boy’s eyes that Remy saw April and especially March and old Mr. Selios, eyes that made him realize right away that he was staring at Gus – April’s brother Augustus Selios.
Behind Gus, a man with a television camera on his shoulder and a utility belt around his waist was scurrying to change positions as the woman with the fanny pack moved the power cords and a bundle of audio equipment. The lights in the room were blinding.
“We need to get this again in a two-shot,” said the fanny-pack woman cheerily. She and the cameraman both wore windbreakers reading From the Ashes. “That was amazing, Gus. Really powerful.”
Gus smiled in spite of himself and then worked to clear his face.
“Okay,” said the producer in the fanny pack. “When I say go, I want you two to repeat what you just said. Just like you did it before. Natural.”
“Sure, Tina,” said Gus. Remy searched Gus’s face for connections to April, but they seemed to have less in common the longer you looked at their faces. Behind him the cameraman moved into position in the dining room.
“Mike pack,” said the cameraman, and Tina the producer adjusted the microphone pack strapped to the back of Gus’s belt so that it wouldn’t be visible in the shot. “I wish we could use a boom.”
“Well, we can’t use a goddamn boom,” the producer snapped, and then smiled, and asked, “Ready?” She pointed to Gus, who nodded and took April’s hands in his.
“Look, Sis.” Gus stared into her eyes. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, then. Afterward, I mean. I just… couldn’t face it. I guess I was…” He stared out the window, and took a practiced pause. “…angry. Angry at myself for not being here.”
April glanced at the camera through the corner of her eye and then looked at Tina the producer. “Don’t look at me,” she said in a stage whisper.
“What am I supposed to say?” April asked.
“Say something like, ‘That’s okay, nothing you could’ve done would’ve brought March and Derek back, anyway,’” Tina said helpfully.
“I don’t think I can say that,” April said. She looked at Remy, who tried to look supportive, even though he felt like he’d been banished to the farthest corner of the room.
Tina the producer and her cameraman huddled for a moment near him but Remy could only make out a few words: first unit and truck and boom and editing bay.
Then Tina turned and smiled. “You know what? Okay. That’s okay,” she said. “Pete says we have the audio and we can cut away. No… we’re good. Why don’t you just do your goodbyes and we’ll take care of it in editing.” She chewed a thumbnail and shrugged to the cameraman as if that were all she could do.
April and Gus stood awkwardly, like actors in a scene that’s just broken. Gus drank water from a plastic bottle and rolled his shoulders while April looked around the room, as if looking for some place to hide. Tina grabbed April’s arm. “Look, April, I totally get your discomfort. Totally. And I respect it. In fact, I don’t want you to do anything that makes you feel phony. That would be creepy. Do you know why we call it ‘reality’? Do you? Because it’s best when it’s… real. The realer the better. That’s what our show is about. Taking these stories of tragedy and letting people inside.”
April looked at Remy again.
“So… you just forget we’re here. Just say goodbye… to your brother,” Tina said. “Just say goodbye, whatever you feel like saying… that you love him, whatever… that it’s just the two of you now, you know… talk about your grief… and pretend we aren’t here.”
“It’s kind of hard,” April said.
“Sure. I understand. Just try to be as natural as possible. You know, give him a hug. Cry if you want to. The most important thing is that you act as if we’re not here. Just do exactly what a normal person would normally do… when seeing your last living sibling for the first time since your sister… died such a horrible, unbearable death. This is reality; what we want is real emotions.”
Gus shifted his weight and looked around the apartment. “Maybe we could just, like, hug at the door… and I could say something like-” His face melted in sorrow. “You look so much like her.” When he was done his face returned to normal.
“Yeah, that’s good.” Tina pulled a piece of thumbnail off her tongue and stared at it. “Or… I have an idea.” She walked to the window and looked down. “Pete.” The cameraman came over, holding the camera by its handle like a suitcase, as Tina pointed out the window to the street below and they spoke in hushed voices. Pete shrugged as if it would be okay.
“Listen,” she said. “Let’s do this downstairs. We’ll shoot it two ways. First, I want you two to go down there and say goodbye and we’ll shoot it from up here. You can have some privacy right there on the sidewalk below us. We’ll get audio from the mike packs and you two just… be yourselves. Just make sure you stand just to the right of the stoop down there. You know… just talk for a second and then hug… maybe grab her head, Gus, like you’re consoling and convincing at the same time. And then, Gus, you walk away. Don’t look back. Then we’ll come down and get it again close in a two-shot. Okay? Everyone ready?”
April looked once more at Remy but he didn’t know what to say, and finally she and Gus walked out the apartment door and started for the stairs. Remy was left with Pete the cameraman, who seemed infinitely bored, and who began setting up by the window while Tina the producer looked him over. “Your girlfriend seems a little uncomfortable.”