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opponent.
Jesse wanted to shed a tear but felt too exhausted to do so.
    Surrounded by vehicles, he wanted one thing: to
disappear.
     
     
    CHAPTER 8

     
    As Jesse had expected upon arrival, Los Angeles
shared little in common with his Midwestern hometown. But one
similarity between the two struck Jesse as eerie: L.A. traffic on
Sunday mornings seemed sparse. And at nine o’clock, this Sunday
morning in mid March followed suit.
    He lived in the second-largest metropolitan area in
the country. Could it be this simple for millions of people to
hide? Once Friday hit, many industry executives, he knew,
escaped to homes elsewhere—some to outlying areas in California,
others as far as Nevada. Less wealthy individuals must hole up in
bed or in their own vicinities as he himself did, Jesse figured.
But come Monday, lives would converge in a mix of destiny and
pollution once again.
    “What possessed you to go to the beach today?” Jada
asked while she chewed on a stick of gum.
    “Seemed like a good time to think for a change. When
was the last time we went there to relax?”
    Therein lay another anomaly: How many people, like
Jesse, dreamed of living minutes from the ocean? Jesse had lived
near one for years, yet he could count on one hand his number of
annual visits to that ocean and have three fingers to spare.
    Jada popped in a CD and reclined on the passenger
side. Soon the car filled with the eclectic sounds of Joy Wilson,
an indie artist whose music Barry Richert had featured in his last
film. From the driver’s seat, Jesse studied the lanes around him on
Interstate 405, where he could picture tinny blue ghosts in a drag
race through eons among unsuspecting humans. And in this city,
Jesse doubted anyone would care.
    He cocked his head and asked, “Have you ever thought
about how shallow this whole scene is?”
    “What scene? The 405?”
    “No, the industry. All the promises made, promises
broken. The notion that it’s acceptable to be full of shit. It’s
even anticipated ahead of time.”
    Jada chuckled. “That’s the club we joined. It’s the
way the game is played. What’s wrong with that?”
    “But isn’t there a point when someone reaches the end
of their rope? I mean, not everyone succeeds here—most people
don’t. Where do they go? Where do they end up?”
    “I don’t know,” Jada sighed. “Jesse, I don’t give a
fuck.”
    “They must go somewhere.”
    “Maybe they sell chiseled art under those little pup
tents at Venice Beach.”
    “I’m serious.”
    As Jesse veered onto Interstate 10, Jada turned down
the stereo’s volume and pivoted toward him.
    “You know what your problem is? You’re too damn
honest. Always have been.”
    “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
    “It’s not a bad quality. Look at your upbringing in
Ohio: You’re a white-bread boy from Bob Evansville. Hollywood
doesn’t come natural to you.” She shrugged her shoulders, no big
deal. “I grew up around bullshit. All those beauty pageants. And
Reno? Tsk.”
    Jesse glanced in Jada’s direction but said
nothing.
    “I’ll admit I got lucky working for Barry,” Jada
continued. “But hey, you’ve stayed afloat this long; just stay
afloat longer than anyone else.”
    After he turned left off of Santa Monica Boulevard,
Jesse made his way down Ocean Avenue. As he drove parallel to the
beach, mere feet between the road and the sand, he noticed a
familiar sheet of horizon that peeked through trees and small
buildings. Something about the view spoke of freedom to Jesse, a
sense of pleasant foreboding: Here at eye level sat a massive
stretch of sky, of infinite blue azure, like a giant come to earth.
It fostered within Jesse a feeling of weightlessness, a horizontal
vertigo. The universe was within his grasp.
    Jesse turned onto Colorado Avenue and into the public
parking lot.
    * * *
    With the temperature in the upper seventies, a tad
aggressive for this time of year, they found the beach
crowded—which, of course, Jada