This Location of Unknown Possibilities (10 page)

Avoiding eye contact and collegial waves, Marta had left the conference and strode quickly across campus to the hotel room. After changing clothes and assessing the result—not for the first time—she stood at the forlorn smoker's refuge adjacent to the lobby and hailed a cab:
“Downtown, please.”

She'd pre-selected
3
Squares, a Zagat-rated café built far from the conference site, calculating that its trendiness would attract a stranger who would nonetheless be a semi-familiar type. Factoring in this and that, Marta accepted early on that the conventional urban verboten zones of literature and film—from the decrepit back alleyway opium den doors Dorian Gray opens to the dive taverns bikers, dealers, and prostitutes frequent in
Angel
—embodied such foreign values that acclimating to the setting was impossible, never mind excelling in risqué conversations. She'd been moulded by years within an academic environment and did not expect to hold her own in a conversation with a quasi-alien—a sailor, a drug-addled bundle of tics, or a thug who rode a Harley Davidson. Really, what could they talk about?

At the café—disappointingly unpopulated for a Friday evening—Marta had nursed tea and tough-crust apple pie. Interacting with the near-monosyllables of the grandmother-aged server with tired eyes—“What'll it be?” and “That all?” from behind the diner's long counter—required no acting. Marta hadn't the slightest chance to answer “Sadie” to someone's warm, ordinary probing question. Nor had “Where you from, honey?” wafted her way.

No mishap snagged her, and for that she'd been thankful. But admittedly no extraordinary outcome transpired, either—the itch still nowhere close to scratched. Marta had felt accomplished because she'd been prepared for something and had actually left the conference and shown up—as Sadie—at this location of unknown possibilities. Drink and food only, yes, but she could not deny a readiness for another script. The exact nature—unrevealed and impenetrable—continued to tantalize, even as predictions of public humiliation and bodily harm crowded over the seductive image of this improvised persona.

Next time
floated up, as alluring as ectoplasm.

5
.

T
he phone rang. “Marta? Lora here,” the voice said. “You all settled in?”

“Yes, I arrived not long ago at all.”

“Good. Jake and I flew up earlier in the week, corralling crew, putting out fires, blah blah. Business as usual, in other words. I've still got a shitload of calls to get through tonight so grab a pen, okay?”

“I'm ready.”

“We've set up a satellite—well, more like a broom closet in a trailer—for the production office on set, but the other one, the official HQ, is at a store front we had to rent for the month, right on the main drag. Between the Star-Lite—sorry about that, this backwater isn't exactly overflowing with four-star accommodations, you know, my place isn't the goddamned Ritz by a mile—anyway, between your room and the other sites, you'll have plenty of space to work from.” Lora explained the route and gave Marta the address.

“We'll give you
le grand tour
in the morning. You need to be updated on things. And if you're unclear about anything, we can sort it out then.”

“Terrific.”

“It doesn't look like there's going to be much to do in this town except watch fruit ripen, but we'll be in and out before you know it. See you in the morning!”

“Good night, Lora.”

Stretching out on the bed Marta returned to
Angel
. Driving could wait until she settled. Jake had mentioned that the script would go through a series of edits before she encountered it again, so re-reading the outmoded version seemed fruitless. Although Marta understood that her role did not pertain to the script per se, she thought mentioning at least a few of the key problems of conception couldn't hurt. She'd wait until the morning to pore over the latest printout. Grisly scenes before
Angel
's bittersweet ending would be good company instead.

IN THE MIDST OF THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE

1.

R
apid-fire knocks interrupted Marta's fraught minute of indecision.

She'd placed two outfits on the bed and stood back weighing options. Khaki walking shorts and a loose T-shirt would be comfortable, without a doubt. She kept out of the sun religiously and foresaw crew eyes sweeping down to her pallid legs, all the more outstanding and eccentric in this caramel-skinned Holidayland of bikinis, where the fact of a melanoma lesion was transmuted into a quaint myth like a unicorn or leprechaun—
Of course I've heard of it, but I've never seen one in reality
. Denim provided cover, true, but stiff twice-laundered fabric? A hothouse. Marta never wore denim, firm in the belief that its currency and approachable casualness did not jive well with a professional demeanor. To her the match looked like a nun in a halter-top: transvestic and unconvincing, a misguided leopard failing at changing its spots. Nevertheless, she bought a discounted pair at Banana Republic along with a gauzy unbleached peasant blouse a week before leaving the city,
when in Rome
chiming insistently. Even the aged studio guard wore jeans, Marta recalled.

Tightly fastening the robe, she crossed to the door and released the chain. A harsh white field of sunlit gravel reminded her to buy sunglasses, the only pair she owned stuck at home in a drawer; sepia lenses would return the glaring, faintly hostile landscape to the palatable bucolic hue of postcards.

“Hi, I'm Chaz,” the stranger said. “Lora's assistant. We didn't shake hands back in the city, but I noticed when you came to the studio. It was cute, you looked pretty bowled over.” Swarthy with freckles the man presented a solid figure, a few Big Macs short of husky. The abundant thicket of black curly hair was damp and pasted to his temples. An oblong face, not recently shaved, glistened, the profuse sweat like a film of petroleum jelly; a razor gash still healed at the point on a bull neck where the beard petered out.

Marta imagined he'd be huffing and spent halfway up a short flight of stairs.
At this rate, he's going to be on diabetes medication well before forty
, she thought. The man's shirt and trousers—yards of black denim—would be no help.

“Hi, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Marta.” She held out her hand. “I gather you're here to deliver a message?” Holding the door ajar, the heat rushed in. Marta shielded her eyes, thinking of dust bowl migrations and frenzied locusts in ominous cloud formation.
The man's hand felt warm and moist but not unpleasant.

“Well, no. My car died, or something. I'm not very mechanical. Anyway, I'm wondering if you could give me a ride to the production office. I called Lora already and she told me you're due there at nine bells.” Chaz mopped his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Oh, I see.” Marta evaluated the uncreased span between Chaz's brow and hair line as a shade disproportionate.

“If it's a hassle, I can hitch. I don't think this town has taxis. I dunno. The heat's kind of much already, though. I can already feel the sweat streaming into my butt crack. I'll probably get a rash.” He checked the time. “Sorry, that's probably more information than you'd want from a stranger at the door at
8
:
35
in the morning. At least I'm not holding
Watchtower
magazines and warning you about next month's apocalypse. Beware sinner,” he waved with mock-prophet enthusiasm, “preparest thy soul.”

The burly man's performer reservoir took Marta aback. Chaz seemed to be a natural, though lampshade-comic rather than
Hamlet
-soliloquy. When she summoned the actor's mask in a classroom, she knew the cost of the short-term loan.

Chaz shifted his weight from one foot to the next. “Man oh man, I can feel the ground through my flip flops. It's like Mauna Loa. And I thought my room was hot.”

Animated and chatty—a huge percolating dose of caffeine—Chaz disconcerted Marta. Marta viewed morning as solitary and low-key. Were she to meditate, the inspiring stillness following sunrise would be optimal. Her school year routine included a brisk walk around the neighbourhood, followed by yogurt-topped oatmeal. She reserved weekend mornings for a newspaper and a few magazines. During the workweek she prepared a pot of Earl Grey and hastily read a chapter from a canonical writer, a self-imposed assignment. Smitten years ago with the idea of cultural literacy, she'd compiled a lengthy list of key texts with which she managed—some consciously, others not—to have no lasting contact. Aristotle through Zola, the thousands of pages would take years to complete. On occasion a bright student made reference to specific lines of
Paradise Lost
or “The Miller's Tale,” and Marta regretted relying on the therapist's classic turnaround—“What do
you
think?”—and the extended bluff: “Would you say there's sufficient evidence from the text to support that interpretation?” That strategy never failed. The alphabetical list served to remedy that professional eyesore as well.

Marta waited silently until the man stopped performing. “It's not a problem, the ride I mean,” she said.

“That's great, sergeant.” Chaz smiled and saluted. “Hey, do you have A/C? In there, I mean?”

“Just a fan. When I arrived in the early evening the drapes were closed, so it wasn't too bad. Perhaps units around back are equipped with it.”

“It'd probably cost extra, and there's no way the production's gonna swing for that. For me, anyway. For you, maybe.” Marta wondered if he wanted an invitation inside.

They paused. Birds chirped and tourist vehicles, weighted down and sluggish, passed by on the
97
. In the lot a tumbleweed—skeletal, improbable—bounced by; Marta tracked the soundless ball's wind-borne ramble.

Chaz clapped twice. “Okay, anyway, I've got to change my footwear. Lora will kill me if she sees me in these—‘Safety first,' that's her motto. I'll let you get ready and be back in five. Um, there's a coffee maker in my room. Can I get you a cup?”

Marta had already brewed tea. “Sure, that would be grand. I'll be ready when you return.”

She opted against shorts, but folded them inside the tote.

2
.

C
ar doors locked and safety belts secured, Marta switched off the murmuring radio announcer. Though she'd referred to the map several times, she placed it in the bag atop shorts, the script, and a copy of
Imperial(ist) Empress
. While the route from the Star-Lite ran directly, summer raised the possibility of road work and a detour. Marta studied the morning's vista before signaling left.
The highway was a corridor, a narrow band between dense, sprinkler-soaked orchards. On elevated plateaus in the valley: lush vineyards unfurling like bolts of luxurious dense cloth. Still higher, indigenousness—lifeless Martian rock, scrubby sage, meagre grass patches, indistinct growths of bush, long stretches of inhospitableness, an unmerciful landscape that could make anyone fall on their knees in gratitude for petroleum products, air conditioning, and shopping mall food courts.

Chaz turned on the radio and stabbed the scan button for stations.

Marta had read facts and figures about road etiquette and expected to drive without the distractions of noise. Without looking at Chaz, she reached for the dial and rotated the volume dial slowly until the speakers fell silent.

“It's just as well. That station is such complete bullshit. ‘The greatest hits of all time.' Yeah, right, I happen to know that ‘Silver Threads Among the Gold' was huge in the
1870
s, and they've never played it, not once. And what about ‘Greensleeves'? That was a monster hit, it rocked out for decades in the
1600
s.”

Marta smiled, amused even though she believed he'd practiced those lines before.

“Ten and two position on the wheel, eh? You're really intent,” Chaz said. He'd adjusted the seat and sprawled. “Not a speed demon, I see.”

“I rarely drive.” Marta had deduced that the passenger would be a fidget by the time he'd opened the glove compartment.

“We're actually going slightly below the limit.”

“Oh, really?” Marta said, thinking,
Typical,
probably expects me to offer him the wheel
. “Actually”—two heartbeats—“it is significantly faster than walking. Isn't it?”

“Okay, gotcha. No one appreciates a back seat driver. I'll shut up.”

Marta guaged the growing volume of traffic ahead.

“This car is pretty new, eh? Mine's a heap.”

“It's a rental. I think agencies always have recent models.” Marta could not bear to talk about cars. It was a dead-end topic—filler for family visits, elevator rides—and as inane as Christmas plans or the weather. “Have you been working in the film industry for long?”

“Nope. I'm an office PA.”

Marta frowned at the inadequacy of the answer.

“Oh, it's just that . . .” Chaz stopped. “Well, just between you and me, if you meet someone on set and he's been a PA for longer than a year, it means he hasn't been working full-time or else he's a completely incompetent tool. Pardon my French. I'm competent.”

“And therefore you're new. I understand now.” Vested road crews and heavily loaded vacationing families reduced traffic velocity.

“Want this now?” Chaz held up a stainless steel coffee mug.

Marta shook her head and focused on the vehicle flow.

“Okay. Well, being a PA is a probationary period, a rite of passage,” he said. “After the time's up, you expect, and you're expected, to rise in the ranks. Picking up cigarette butts and guarding parking lots and equipment is shit-work, anybody can see that, especially during the six or so months when the clouds are pissing and you're stuck outside. Or in my case: going on coffee runs for the muckety-mucks and getting chewed out when the soy latte doesn't have three shots or whatever.”

“Oh, I didn't know.
You've made a career change, then? I've always admired people who just make the leap one day, walking away and never looking back. My profession has a painted-into-the-corner quality to it.” The words sounded unconvincing to her ears. “I don't know what else I could do. Under- and overqualified simultaneously.”

“You're doing this.”

“True.” She saw no need to correct the assumption.

“My story isn't quite like that. It's crappier. It's like a movie,
The Incredible Bulk
.” Chaz spread out his hands with a magician's flourish. “Picture this: I was a bloated-with-mac-and-cheese grad student in Biochem and after my cap and gown moment—that outfit was for my parents, I didn't give two shits about it—I got hired by a lab working on a hush hush Next Big Thing project. It was the beginning of a promising career and then my world went topsy-turvy.” He bit a knuckle in mirthful imitation of silent film anguish.

“Oh my.”

“I know, sounds dramatic eh? It wasn't that bad. I was working on DIDIs for Vedmedica Animal Science, a high-tech place just outside of Seattle,” he said. “You know, Discrete Interval Dormancy Inducers.”

Marta, watchful of the dirty elephantine RV—and its execrable bumper sticker: “How's My Driving? Dial
1
-
800
-EAT-SHIT”—wobbling drunkenly in the lane ahead, tapped a beat, a signal for Chaz to continue.

“It's a would-be new class of veterinary drugs, a potential profit bonanza, as mammoth as SSRIs. Since you're blank-faced about it, that's because R and D got snagged by ‘isolated anomalies'”—the accent of the quotation vaguely Nordic—“DIDIs haven't made it to the market, in other words. Yet. Research is a toss of the dice. Pharmaceutical companies are the first to say so, especially at quarterly earnings meetings. But every so often there's a Viagra or Prozac and everyone's pockets Scrooge McDuck with cash.”

Marta believed that doctors over-prescribed anti-depressants and conned people into accepting chemical imbalances as the cause of unhappiness—when evidence pointed to miserable marriages, unfulfilling jobs, past traumas, and overall lack of purpose as the culprits. She thought it abundantly self-evident that Valium had not been prescribed to legions of suburban housewives because they all suffered from malfunctioning brains in need of molecular fine-tuning.

“Anyway,” Chaz said.
“The plan was to design DIDIs to cause short-term hibernation. So when Jane and Joe Audi go away for a weekend at Whistler or Vegas, they slip Ginger and Sheba a pill that'll knock them out for forty-eight hours, give or take. Suspended animation, kind of, but just lasting seventy-two hours, max. The pets wake up groggy and in need of food and water, but that's the only shortcoming. Sure, the drug has professional applications, but mostly it's designed for the recreational-slash-consumer market. And that's a colossal market, just massive. Money in the bank. Do you know how many billions people already spend on their pets?”