They pulled into the turning lane and lined up to go through the gate. Stabler Studios didn’t look like much from the outside, certainly nothing to be afraid of. It didn’t have a grand entrance like the Paramount double arches. There were no statuesque palm trees in front, just a concrete wall with a wooden railing along the top, high enough to block prying eyes.

“They’ll forget all about us out here,” Ted had told Phoebe over twenty years ago when he’d signed the lease on an old aerospace factory in Sylmar where they shot the interiors for The Starfighter 2. He’d said this like it was a good thing. As if Sylmar were Guam or Siberia or one of those Outer Ring planets where the Starfighter met his match and not some quiet corner of the Valley. As if anyone were ever going to forget Ted, the man everyone was calling the next Spielberg back then. Jerry Silver had offered him a place to hang his shingle on the Silvertown lot, but Ted had turned him down, because he didn’t want to be in Burbank or Glendale like the other guys. That was Ted, always the contrarian, especially when it resulted in certain efficiencies like a shorter commute from the house in Van Nuys and fewer visits from guys like Jerry. Phoebe had been drawn to Ted’s obstinate streak at first, buoyed by his certainty that there was more than one way to do things. But here she was in Burbank after all, because after she left town, Ted gave up the lease in Sylmar and built his empire next to the others anyway.

Phoebe showed her ticket at the gate, and they drove onto the campus. Stabler Studios was only a stone’s throw from Disney and Warner Brothers, but it had none of the patina of Old Hollywood. The place looked like an industrial park, more or less—a warren of low-slung buildings and hangars, all painted a modern gray with reclaimed wood trim and doors.

Authentique, Phoebe could hear Malcolm say. That was his word for the sudden lust for barn doors, shiplap, and garden walls they’d grown resigned to spotting everywhere. On their last anniversary, they’d gone to a bar they’d frequented in the early days of their relationship, a yeasty, sticky dive in Berkeley that had since been renovated and rebranded with tragic results. Malcolm came back from the bathroom, site of one of their first heavy makeouts, shaking his head.

“That bad?” Phoebe asked.

“Damn, Home Depot,” he said. “Get your foot off my neck.”

They never knew where they would see the authentique look next. A café, a gas station, a movie studio.