The Bridge Trilogy Part 108

But Dirty Is G.o.d was just Mexican food and j.a.panese music, a

pretty straightforward proposition. Tessa got the huevos rancheros and

- - Chevette got a chicken quesadilla. They both had a Corona, and Tessa parked the camera platform up near the tented plastic ceiling. n.o.body

noticed it up there apparently, so Tessa could do doc.u.mentary while she ate.

Tessa ate a lot. She said it was her metabolism: one of those people who never gains any weight regardless of how much she ate, but she needed to do it to keep her energy up. Tessa put away her huevos before Chevette was halfway through her quesadilla. She drained her gla.s.s

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bottle of Corona and started fiddling with the wedge of lime, squeezing it, working it into the neck.

"Carson," Tessa said. "You worried about him?"

"What about him?"

"He's an abusive ex, is what about him. That was his car back in Malibu, wasn't it?"

"I think so," Chevette said.

"You think so? You aren't sure?"

"Look," Chevette said, "it was early in the morning. It was all pretty strange. It wasn't my idea

to come up here, you know? It was your idea. You want to make your movie."

The lime popped down into the empty Corona bottle, and Tessa looked at it as though she'd just lost a private wager. "You know what I like about you? I mean one of the things I like about you?"

"What?" Chevette asked.

"You aren't middle cla.s.s. You just aren't. You move in with this guy, he starts. .h.i.tting you, what

do you do?"

"Move out."

"That's right. You move out. You don't take a meeting with your lawyers."

"I don't have any lawyers," Chevette said.

"I know. That's what I mean."

"I don't like lawyers," Chevette said.

"Of course you don't. And you don't have any reflex to litigation."

"Litigation?"

"He beat you up. He's got eight hundred square feet of strata-t.i.tle loft. He's got a job. He beats

you up, you don't automatically order a surgical strike; you're not middle cla.s.s."

"I just don't want anything to do with him."

"That's what I mean. You're from Oregon, right?"

"More or less," Chevette said.

"You ever think of acting?" Tessa inverted the bottle. The squashed lime wedge fell down into the

neck. A few drops of beer fell on the scratched black plastic of the table. Tessa inserted the

little finger of her right hand and tried to snag the lime wedge.

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"No."

"Camera loves you. You've got a body makes boys chew carpet." 'Get off Chevette said

Why do you think they were putting those party shots of you up on the website back in Malibu?"

'Because they were drunk Chevette said Because they don t have anything better to do Because they

re media students

Tessa hooked the lime wedge what was left of it out of the bottle "Right on all three she said but the main reasons your looks Behind Tessa on one of Dirty Is G.o.ds recycled wall screens a very beautiful j.a.panese girl had

appeared Look at her Chevette said "That s looks, right~ Tessa looked over her shoulder That s Rei Toei she said 'So she s beautiful She is "Chevette," Tessa said, "she doesn't exist. There's no live girl there at all. She's code.

Software."

No way Chevette said 'You didn t know that~

'But she s based on somebody right~ Some kind of motion capture deal 'n.o.body Tessa said Nothing Shes the real deal Hundred

* - - percent unreal."

- - -"Then that's what people want," Chevette said, watching Rei Toei

-- ~-swan through some kind of retro Asian nightclub, "not ex bicycle messengers from San Francisco."

No Tessa said you ye got it exactly backwards People don t know what they want, not before they see it. Every object of desire is a found object. Traditionally, anyway."

Chevette looked at Tessa across the two empty Corona bottles. "What are you getting at, Tessa?"

'The doc.u.mentary It has to be about you."

"Forget it."

"No. I've got vision thing working big-time on this. I need you for the focus. I need narrative traction. I need Chevette Washington."

Chevette was actually starting to feel a little scared. It made her

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angry. "Don't you have a grant to do this one particular project you've been talking about? These innersitual things-"

"Look," Tessa said, "if that's a problem, and I'm not saying it is, it's my problem. And it's not a problem, it's an opportunity. It's a shot. My shot."

"Tessa, there is no way you are going to get me to act in your movie. None. You understand?'