Steeply and Poutrincourt in the bleachers

The Incandenzas seen as the object of an outside investigation. Steeply's cover story frames them exactly as the surrounding narrative does — "an American family exceptional in several respects" — while Poutrincourt reports that Tavis is "how you say quantified," which Steeply rewrites through a run of guesses toward "Quandary." And the sighting's real content is the texture of Tavis's evasion: "the kind of frenzied over-cooperation that's a technical interviewer's worst nightmare," a two-hour monologue that did to Steeply's brain "what a flashbulb does to your eyes," so that any denial of access was "slipped in after he'd worn Steeply down." The family defends its secrets not by refusing the investigator but by burying her in cooperation — over-disclosure as the most effective concealment.