A Winter’s Tale by Carrie Elks (32)

‘This is good. Really good.’ Her supervisor paused the video and turned around in his swivel chair to look at her. ‘The edits made a huge difference – did you document what you did in the project report?’

Kitty lifted the file that was sitting on her lap. ‘It’s all in here.’ It had been drummed into them from the beginning that the report was as important as the reel itself. They had to journal every part of the process – from turning the idea into a script, to finalising the finished product. ‘I finished writing it all up on Friday,’ she told him. ‘It’s ready to go now.’

‘You didn’t take much of a break over the holidays,’ he pointed out. ‘Did you stay in LA?’

‘For some of the time,’ she said, not wanting to get into things with him. She’d played the past weeks over in her head again and again. It was as familiar to her as her showreel. Scenes of her running in the snow to Adam’s house, of her reading the script with his name on. Sometimes, when she was feeling particularly down, she’d try to change the ending. Imaginary Kitty would tell imaginary Adam about Everett’s plans straight away. But after that, there was always a blankness. She had no idea how that would have turned out.

‘Did you hear back from any of your interviews?’ he asked her, looking up from the desk. ‘You had that one at Klein Productions, right?’

Damn, she’d forgotten she’d told him about that. Every time she heard that name, it made her heart pound like a bass drum. ‘Yeah, that’s a no go,’ she said. ‘I heard back last week.’

It wasn’t a lie, she told herself.

‘Damn.’ He shook his head then gave a sigh. ‘I was sure you’d get an internship by now. You’re one of my best students. Maybe we should take a look at your resumé again, make sure it’s hitting the right buttons. Or should we work on your interview technique? What are your thoughts?’

Kitty licked her dry lips. It all felt like too little too late, but what other choice did she have? She’d tried the sitting-in-her-apartment-crying option, and look how that worked out for her.

‘That would be good.’ She nodded. ‘But just in case, I’m thinking of applying to some production companies in London,’ she told him. ‘I might have more luck over there.’

He frowned. ‘I thought you wanted to stay in LA? I remember when you first arrived you were so excited to be in Hollywood. What’s changed?’

There was a noise from outside the door as a group of students walked past, talking loudly about something. Her supervisor checked his watch for the time.

‘I’m just trying to be realistic,’ Kitty said. ‘Maybe I’m not meant to work over here. Maybe my skills are better served in London.’

‘No, that’s not true. You’re trying to settle, and that sucks. Don’t stop dreaming, Kitty, and don’t give up. This isn’t over until you decide it is.’

The problem was, she’d already made her decision.

‘Just sit on it for a while,’ he suggested. ‘There are a couple of people I want to talk to before you give up completely. I think you could do really well over here.’ He checked his watch again, muttering under his breath. ‘Damn, we need to get to the lecture theatre. I’m supposed to introduce our guest speaker.’ He got up from his chair, closing his laptop and sliding it in his desk drawer. ‘We’ll talk about this later, OK?’

‘Sure.’

The lecture theatre was almost full by the time she arrived – surprising for the first week back at school. She said hello to a few people as she walked up the stairs, heading for her preferred seat at the back of the room, sliding into a chair next to a small brunette she knew from a post-production class she’d taken earlier in the year. She’d barely pulled her notepad out and put it on the desk when the lights above them dimmed, leaving the only illumination on the podium at the front of the room.

‘Happy New Year, everybody, and thanks for arriving so promptly.’

Kitty couldn’t help smiling at the irony of her supervisor’s words.

‘Today we’ve a small change in our lecture schedule. Rather than the advertised lecture on changes to the distribution network, we’re going to be discussing documentary production, and how to find the truth in lies.’

Oh great, just what she needed. School was supposed to be the one place she could come and not think about Adam – and now they were going to be discussing his niche subject. Well played, UCLA.

‘And though our guest speaker needs no introduction, I’m going to give him one anyway. He’s an alumnus of this film school, and since graduation has gone on to make reflective and insightful documentaries showing the human side of issues such as domestic terrorism, the modern slave trade, and more recently, drug trafficking. His documentaries have twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and in 2013 he won the Critics Choice Award for the documentary Truth in Lies – Looking for the Real Michael Davies. So please join with me to give a big welcome to Adam Klein.’

She was frozen to her chair as she watched him appear on the podium, his gait strong and easy as he walked up and shook hands with her supervisor. Even from this distance he looked so different than she remembered. Instead of the jeans and checked shirt she was used to seeing him in, he was wearing tailored trousers and a white cotton shirt, open at the neck to reveal his freshly shaven skin. The beard had gone completely, so had the messy, overgrown hair, and for a moment she found herself bereft at their absence.

It felt as though somebody had taken her Adam away, and replaced him with a doppelganger.

But then he began to speak.

‘Good morning, everybody. I’m going to keep this as short as I can, so I don’t send any of you back to sleep.’ Laughter erupted around the theatre. ‘I’m really pleased to be here today to be able to share a little about the documentary-making process, and to give you a few ideas of why I believe it’s the truest, purest form of the film-making arts.’

He took a breath and pressed a clicker to bring the screen above him to life. ‘Errol Morris – a friend of mine – once said that what interested him about documentary was the fact that at the onset we never know how the story ends. That’s what makes it different to filming a scripted story. But for me it isn’t the ending that matters, it’s the process, it’s finding the truth piece by piece, by pulling back the layers until the facts are finally exposed.’

The room around her was quiet, save for the soft breaths of a couple of hundred students. They stared raptly as Adam continued.

‘The real focus of any documentary I make is the search for humanity. Not just in those who are affected, but by those who do the affecting, too. The one thing I’ve learned from my years in the medium is that criminals are humans, too. And they’re fascinating, because they started out the same as you and me. They were born as little screaming, eating, shitting humans, who like the rest of us at that point in their lives, didn’t understand right from wrong.’

His eyes scanned the crowd. Though Kitty couldn’t see them, she could picture them in her memories. Deep and warm as melted chocolate. The sort of eyes she could drown in.

‘It’s easy to paint anybody as purely evil, but it’s harder to look beyond that shell they’ve become to what made them that way. To say that maybe we, as a society, have a role to play in creating the beast that lives inside us all.’ He scanned the audience again. Was he looking for her? What was he doing here? Her whole body felt as though it was buzzing, a few seconds away from detonation. Her pen was shaking in her hand.

‘Anyway, enough of this talking. Let me show you a few clips to try and demonstrate what I’m trying to say.’ He turned to the big screen behind him, clicking the remote in his hand to start up the stream of video.

For the next twenty-five minutes, Adam showed them clip after clip, talking through the background to the story, and the interviewee, showing how he delved deeper into their psyche to try to find reasons for their actions. It was mesmerising watching him on screen, but not as mesmerising as it was having him so close to her. He was less than fifty feet away, so close she could almost smell his warm, pine scent. She could almost feel the way he used to touch her, his hands strong yet soft, his eyes warm as she responded to him.

But why was he here?

He had to know she would be at this lecture. He knew she was a film student at UCLA, after all, what were the chances that this was a coincidence? And yet he was talking in front of all these students as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Laid-back, sure of himself, and as confident as hell.

The complete opposite of the way Kitty felt. She was so confused – trying to classify the emotions as they rushed through her veins, and failing miserably. Did he still hate her? Had he travelled all this way to make her pay for what she’d done to him? He didn’t look angry though, he looked completely calm.

The minutes felt as though they stretched halfway into the next day, each second so thinly pulled it seemed to resonate throughout the room. Adam continued to talk, to point out the parts of his documentaries he was most proud of, and she couldn’t help but find herself entranced by him.

Not that she was the only one. The girl next to her was practically drooling. Damn her.

Finally they made it to the question and answer part of the lecture. By this point Kitty wasn’t sure if she was pleased it was almost over or not. Because what came next? Would he seek her out, ask to speak to her? Or – horror of horrors – would he leave without even acknowledging her existence?

A student in the front row asked the first question, nervously running his hands through his hair as he spoke into the microphone. ‘Ah, in your talk you said something about needing to understand the beast in all of us to make documentaries. What did you mean by that?’

Adam smiled, leaning into the lectern at the front of the podium. ‘I guess I meant that making documentaries has a lot in common with psychotherapy. And if you all stay in LA for much longer, you’ll probably all discover that.’

Cue the laughter.

‘For those of you lucky enough to avoid psychotherapy so far, I’ll try to explain it. A lot of therapy is about accepting the good and bad in all of us. In understanding that nobody is a hero or a villain, but a mixture of both. What rises to the surface at any given time can depend on a variety of things – the circumstances surrounding us, our upbringing, how we react to certain triggers and stimuli. When I make a documentary I don’t want you all to go away thinking what a bad man that guy was. I want you to go away wondering if you’d have done the same thing in his situation, if it’s possible that this person who has caused death and destruction isn’t that different to you and me.’

Finally his eyes stopped on her. She felt their warmth before she even caught his gaze, her cheeks pinking up at his scrutiny. She stared back at him, her face expressionless, waiting for him to respond.

But then somebody asked a question and the moment was broken. Adam answered them all easily, his smile casual as he talked about his experiences and the knowledge he’d gained from them. She could tell from the quiet appreciation of her fellow students that they were impressed by him.

God knew, she was, too. She’d been impressed enough when he’d been Adam, the bearded guy who lived in the cabin by the lake. But now he was Adam Klein, the award-winning documentary maker, he took her breath away.

After a few more minutes of questions, the lecture finally came to an end, and the room was filled with the sound of students standing and gathering their things, and the music of their conversation. Kitty stayed in her seat for a moment, watching as the others filed out down the stairs and to the exit. She wondered if she should join them, maybe hide in the crowd. Would he even be looking for her?

Closing her eyes for a moment, she took in a deep lungful of air, trying to steel herself for what happened next. Then she opened them and slid her pen and notepad into her bag, slinging it on her shoulder as she stood to join the end of the line.

The progress was slow, as people stopped to talk to Adam, causing a back-up in those trying to leave the theatre. Finally she made it to the bottom step, and she was less than ten feet away from him, though those ten feet were filled with students trying to catch a moment with him.

It took him a moment to notice her. He was talking to a blonde girl who kept flipping her hair over her shoulder in a way that made Kitty want to cut it all off.

But then he lifted his gaze to hers, and everybody around them was forgotten. The noise surrounding her was drowned out by the sound of her pulse, drumming in her ears. He stared at her without embarrassment, his gaze softening. Her lips parted so she could take in a breathful of air, and his eyes lowered to look at her mouth.

Was he remembering the way he’d kissed her? His lips soft yet demanding, his hand cupping the side of her face? She ached to feel him touching her again.

She only realised she’d stopped moving when somebody jostled into her from behind, trying to push their way past to the exit. The movement launched her forward, until she was closer still to Adam, the two of them only separated by a few stragglers now.

She glanced around her, wondering what she should do next. Wait until they’d all left? Or go quietly, in case he really didn’t want to see her again? But then he was walking towards her, and her feet were glued to the ground, impossible to move even if she wanted to. But she didn’t. The last thing she wanted to do was run away from him, not when he’d been on her mind every day since the moment she’d left Mountain’s Reach.

‘Hi.’ He stopped a few feet short of her, as if to give her space. A couple of students were staring at them with interest.

‘Hi.’ She attempted a smile. ‘You shaved off your beard.’ She had to clench her hands into fists to stop herself from reaching out and touching his cheek. She wondered how different it would feel, to have soft smooth skin brushing against her palm, rather than the rough hair she was so used to.

As if he could read her mind, he reached up to touch his own cheek. ‘Yeah, I figured it was time to cut the barriers away and face the real world.’

‘It suits you.’ She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. ‘Though I kind of miss the rough look.’

‘Do you two know each other?’ Her supervisor joined them, oblivious to the heat flowing between their eyes. ‘Adam, this is the student I was telling you about, the one who’s still looking for an internship.’

Adam nodded, still looking at her. She didn’t want him to stop. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Maybe the two of us can discuss it over coffee?’ he suggested to Kitty. She nodded, her eyes wide, still not able to form any useful words on her tongue.

‘I can’t join you, I’m afraid,’ her supervisor told them. ‘I have another lesson in a moment. But if you need any references, I’d happily supply one.’

Adam nodded, finally pulling his gaze from Kitty’s. ‘I’ll let you know.’ Then he turned back to her. ‘Are you free now?’ he asked her. ‘Shall we grab a drink in the library café?’

‘Sounds good.’ Her voice, when it finally came out, was as rough as sandpaper. Holding her bag closely against her chest, her fingers holding tightly onto the leather, she followed him out of the lecture theatre.