Five minutes later they were on the freeway. After a burger stop at Teresa’s favorite lunch joint, the Pantry in downtown LA, they headed back to the west side.
Schamberg Productions was located in Mar Vista, in a renovated low-rise factory complex that once upon a time housed half a dozen manufacturers of assorted mechanical tools, toys, and trinkets, now made in China for far less. The renovation had turned the site into a low-budget architectural showcase, all cheap clever materials and crazy angles, bright colors and twisted finishes, deconstructed modernism at its computer-aided best. The compound was, as Teresa put it, “infested” with film and television production companies. She maneuvered the orange bug amongst the buildings and parked outside one. A loading dock reached via a hot pink metal stair provided access. They went in, sat for thirty seconds in a waiting room furnished with chairs made of layered cardboard, then got ushered in by a Schamberg minion who appeared to have waltzed off the pages of Playboy. Another pair of perfect breasts led the way.
The meeting took place around a conference table in Bobby’s office. In attendance with Teresa, Lucy, Bobby, Judy, and Henrietta were a couple of executive producers, two handsome boys with expensive bad haircuts called Billie North and Sam Kane, both chronologically under thirty and mentally under 20. They wore unmatched but exactly similar outfits: precisely distressed two hundred dollar jeans and t-shirts with retro commercial logos. They were dismissive of everybody except Bobby, who wrote the checks, and the director, a woman or forty or so named Leslie Williams who showed up five minutes after Teresa and Lucy. Leslie had short black hair and dark eyes. She had directed several successful segments on two of the most popular reality shows in the last five years, so her rep was immaculate. Lucy took to her immediately, possibly because she seemed to have a normal female body with a few normal years showing on it, and on her face, weathered from shooting outdoors in tropical climates. She would be directing the Sayulita sequence, one that Bobby said he hoped would run for the first two weeks, or otherwise serve as a two hour Reality Movie of the Week pilot, which he figured to make a major splash in the fall sweeps—although the boy EPs both urged a late summer debut, when everything else on TV was dead in the water. Unable to chime in as they were not in attendance at the meeting were two other producers, Sophie Greenberg and her partner, a Mexican-American money man named Ruben Dario. Sophie was on the road with a location scout, searching out a mountain for the snowboarding segment. Dario, who owned a substantial piece of Schamberg Productions as well as a realty business and several houses in Sayulita, had already taken a crew and headed down to set up the surfing contest. Judy Leggett had used her surfing connections to hire a wave-tracker plugged into the Pacific storm grid, and she reported that all signs pointed to a major west swell banging into Sayulita by the end of the week.
Finally at a certain point nearly an hour into the meeting, when all the egos had been properly massaged, Teresa said, “Hey, Bobby this is all very nice and I’m really glad we’re heading down for the shoot and the waves are coming, but—” She looked at Lucy. “Well, you’ve hired me and this other hot shot writer, Ms. Lucy Ripken here, and we are heading down there to ‘write’ exactly what? I guess we should somehow know this by now, possibly by some sort of osmosis, but—” she shrugged.
A silence fell on the room as all eyes turned to He Who Signs The Checks, Bobby. He looked to the director. “Leslie?” She smiled at Teresa and Lucy, completely relaxed.
“Hey, not to worry,” she said. “Last time I did one of these, the writers—I guess that’s what you called them—pretty much just put people in a room, or on a beach, or around a campfire, this would be after they spent some time with them so they kind of knew where they were coming from. And they said, OK, you’re the schemer, you’re the ditzy dame, you’re the gentle but profound soul, you’re the macho mama, you’re the dynamic babe, and so on. They’d write a few starter lines of dialogue for different scenes, suggest possibilities for conflict and narrative, tell them just be yourself only more so, and then get out of the way. Since they’re all young and hungry one way or another, theoretically the potential twenty-five or a hundred grand and the possibility of major air time will stimulate their cute little asses into doing some dramatic stuff, right? Plus the surfing contest is for real, we got a couple of hotshot surfers to be judges. We’ll take the top finishers from there, round up more contestants, and move on to what’s next, right, Bobby?”
“That’s right,” Bobby said. “So any problem with that?”
Lucy and Teresa exchanged glances. “Nope,” Teresa said. “Piece of cake. Right, Luce?”
“Can of corn, Ter,” Lucy said, thinking, hundreds of thousands of dollars are riding on this? “So we have Henrietta here, and Moki Sue and Sandra Darwin already down there, and my young friend Marcia Hobgood coming down with us mañana. That makes four. Who else is going to compete in this segment? Do you have any, you know, pictures, profiles of the contestants, anything like that?”
“We’ve lined up a couple of competitive surfers from LA and San Diego, and several Mexican womens’ surfing champions to make the locals happy and to keep it—culturally diverse. And of course we have to round up a couple of—ringers, I guess you’d call them,” Judy said. “Women who are surfers—well, look like surfers, anyways—but they’ve got, you know, the look.”
“Yeah right,” said Teresa. “That would be the ‘enhanced’ look?”
“It’s the 21st century, Teresa. People can look the way the want to, and people on TV, especially, have to look a certain way,” Judy said, crossing her arms beneath her own shaped-to-perfection, well-displayed breasts.
“She’s absolutely right,” Bobby said. “You shoot TV with babes on a beach, you gotta throw in some well-filled sexy bathing suits,” Bobby said. “That’s du rigor.”
“So you have maybe ten or twelve women to compete, a tropical location, a crew, and a plan. Sounds doable.” Lucy got up. “Well, I’ve got to get back to my hacienda and get organized. I just arrived from New York yesterday, and I am scattered as hell.” Teresa stood. “So I guess I’ll see you all down in Sayulita.”
“Cool,” said Bobby. “Yeah, we’re going down tonight so we’ll have you all set up at the Villa Roma. Got a suite for the three of you. You two and the Hobgood babe.”
“A suite?” Terry said. “You mean we don’t get private rooms?”
“There weren’t enough available,” Bobby said, “But don’t worry. Sandra says the Villa suites are fine.”
“I’ll be all over the internet tonight to make sure,” Teresa said. “And if they’re not you have a problem. In fact you have three.” With that she waltzed out, Lucy right behind her. They waited until they got outside. Then Teresa said, “God, no wonder I never did this Hollywood shuffle before.”
“Hey, it wasn’t so bad, Ter,” Lucy said.
“You’re right. Just jerks jerking off. And I like the director. Seems like a no bullshit gal. But the main thing is we’re off to Mexico tomorrow and they’re paying us.”
“A lot of money.”
“Yes,” said Terry. They got in the car and headed out of the complex. “I’m making more money this year than I have in the last five put together. All because of this ridiculous TV show.”
“Likewise,” Lucy said. “Sayulita here we come.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SURF AND TURF IN SAYULITA
With luggage in hand and a pair of surfboards in silver bags racked on the roof, Lucy, Teresa, and Marcia shared a cab to the airport early the next morning. They did the airport shuffle, boarded, and eventually took off. Marcia promptly passed out with her head glued to the window, leaving Teresa and Lucy to contemplate their young companion. “She looks a little wasted,” Terry said quietly.
“I know,” Lucy answered. “When I went to get her she was still unconscious. As was her sister. As were the two dudes with them.” She stopped. “It took me five minutes to shake her awake, and the boyfriend or whoever he wa
s did not appear to be a happy little surf-puppy.”
“What do you mean?” Teresa said.
“There was some strange-looking paraphernalia on the stove and table,” Lucy said. “I don’t know the drug of choice these days but this looked like some demented child’s chemistry set.”
“Speed, I’ll bet,” said Teresa. “A lot of people are into it because its cheap and easy to make, and they say the rush is better than cocaine and lasts for days.” She looked grimly amused. “And best of all it destroys your brain faster than any other drug.”
“Jesus,” Lucy said. “What I have gotten us into? And my poor dog, for that matter. Marcia’s sister said she’d take care of him while I’m gone.”
“He’ll be OK. They wouldn’t have been passed out if they were on a speed binge. Plus if they’re surfing every day they can’t be doing it that much. Your body just can’t take it. In any case, as far as our pal here goes, if speed’s her demon of choice she probably won’t be able to get any down there. The whole concept of speed is completely anti-Mexican. She’ll have to dry out.”
“Hope you’re right,” Lucy said. She sighed. “At least I didn’t see any syringes.”
“Yeah. It’s not like we’re going to have time to babysit a fucked-up 23 year-old with a drug issue. We got TV to write, right?”
“Right,” said Lucy, happy to change the subject. “So that meeting was all well and good but do you really know what we’re going to do?”
“You’ve seen reality TV, right, Lucy?” She looked at her. Lucy looked back solemnly, then burst out laughing.
“Actually I did watch Survivor once,” she said. “And I saw American Idol when I was at my friend’s house one time.”
“That’s it?” Teresa asked, grinning. “Well, that means you’ve watched about two hours more reality TV than I have, Lucy. Bobby never even thought to ask, so intent was he on hiring me—us—but the truth is, I don’t even have a television.”
“I’d say that if we weren’t such literary geniuses we’d be in deep shit, Ter,” Lucy said. “But knowing that we are, in fact, obscure but authentic literary geniuses, we will simply create a masterwork of televisable reality. Out there amidst las olas altas.”
“No doubt, Chiquita,” Teresa answered. “Or get fired and go home.” Marcia stirred. “The dead live again,” Teresa exclaimed. “Stand back.” The girl shuddered, then went back to slack-jawed sleep. Now that she had a chance for an extended, upclose look at Marcia, Lucy didn’t like what she saw. A sallow sickliness suffused her skin. Her eyes wore raccoon rings. She looked worn way beyond 23 years.
But on the other hand the girl was smart, sexy-cute and a hot surfer. Lucy knew her own enthusiasm had gotten her into this situation. She’d fallen for Marcia’s sense of style, in her flash car, on the beach, in the waves.
Lucy shook her worries off. “So tell me everything else you can think of about what we’re going to do with the show, Ter,” Lucy said.
“Well, to begin with, I think we gotta get some serious conflict going ASAP,” Terry said, whipping out a notebook. “Let’s take a meeting, Lucita.” They spent a couple of hours scheming X Dames plotlines involving shark attacks, Mexican-flavored beach parties leading to tequila-drunken catfights, collisions in the waves, international romantic intrigues, offshore diving adventures gone wrong, weird encounters with enchiladas, and other potential narrative thrills. Though it was tempting, they entertained and then dropped the idea of having Marcia’s apparent drug problems enter into the story. By the time they were closing in on Vallarta they had several pages of dramatically-enhanced reality mapped out around the surfing contest. And then with a swoop over the Bay of Banderas and a semi-circular maneuver to approach from above the mountains to the east, they landed with a single bounce—just enough to shake Marcia awake—followed by a smooth glide down the runway.
Twenty minutes later they found Sandra Darwin, a six-foot two-inch Amazon of a surfer girl, waiting amidst the gang of sign-waving hotel limo drivers and timeshare hustlers and other airport scammers outside customs. Sandra held a sign with Teresa’s name on it. Upon seeing her Lucy named her the Girl from Ipalita, cousin to the girl from Ipanema, for she was definitely tall and tan and young and lovely, except that at 27 years old Sandra Darwin was way too cut to be an entirely convincing bikini beach babe from Brazil or anywhere else. She wore shorts and a tank top and flip-flops, and had hard, ropy arms and legs. Though her blond-banged, blue-eyed face was pretty enough, she didn’t sport much in the way of curves, real or fake, in the usual places. What she sported was sinew and muscle. She looked like she could kick ass. “Hey girls,” she’d said when they approached, dragging boards and suitcases. “Who’s the surfer?”
“Me,” said a groggy Marcia. “I’m—”
“I’m gonna whip your booty in the contest, honey,” Sandra said, and then laughed. “Just kidding, kid.”
“Hey Sandra, how are you?” Terry said.
“You’re Teresa?” she asked.
“Yeah. Call me Terry. Or just Ter. Nice to meet in person at last, after all the email. And this is Lucy, and Marcia Hobgood, your competition.”
“Hey,” said Lucy. “How’s it going?”
“You’re the hotshot windsurfer, right?” said Sandra. “Did the Precolombian fake book?”
“Yes, that’s me. I get around out there,” Lucy said. “But I’m not—”
“I liked that book. Read it in a night. Let’s blow this joint,” Sandra said. “I hate airports.” She was an abrupt one, or maybe just a non-bullshitter. Nothing wrong with that, Lucy decided as they followed her out to a tank-sized white SUV, strapped the boards on the roof rack, and threw everything else in the back. They soon found themselves headed north on the coastal road.
“Beer and sodas in the cooler there. Help yourselves,” Sandra said a moment later into the rearview. Lucy handed Terry a ginger ale and had one herself.
Marcia cracked a Tecate, took a half-can swig, and said, “Aaah. I needed that.”
“I guess you did,” said Lucy, giving her a look. She gazed back inscrutably, her eyes circled by darkness, until Lucy looked away. “Hey Sandra, how long’s the ride?”
“Half an hour unless we get stuck behind a slow truck. The road gets pretty skinny and curvy once you get past the Punta Mita turn-off.” With mountains rising beyond a hazy valley to the east, and the Pacific to the west, they drove north through a landscape of scattered development, a classic colonized Mexican mingling of raggedy-ass little towns and ramshackle roadside retail buildings and oversized bi-lingual billboards touting everything from Kahlua to Hummers, interspersed with new golf courses, condo developments, hulking overscale hotels and timeshares along the shoreline to the west, and herds of horn-honking cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles jockeying for position in the four-lane road. For fifteen minutes Sandra pointed out the sights and named the towns and turn-offs—Nuevo Vallarta, Mezcal, Bucerias, La Cruz de Huanacatle, Punta Mita—as they cruised along, paralleling the windy blue seas of Banderas Bay. Then they went through a checkpoint manned by a uniformed squad of what appeared to be sullen teenagers hefting submachine guns— Federales, Sandra said—and followed the light flow of traffic as two lanes on each side shrank to one and the road snaked into jungle-covered, hilly terrain.
Fifteen twisty minutes later they hit a flat, open stretch, where Sandra whipped a left turn onto a newly-paved road. “They just did this road,” she said. “Used to be a potholed mess, back in the good old days,” she sighed. “But now—”
“What?” Teresa said.
“You’ve never been here, right? None of you?”
“I only go to New York,” Terry said. “This is my first time out of the USA.”
“I was in Mazatlan once,” Lucy said. “In college. Drunk for a week. And I’ve tripped through the Yucatan a few times, but that’s another world over there.”
“I went to Ensenada last year with some friends,” Marcia said. “We partied, and surfed, and p
artied and surfed some more, and then went home. It was cool.”
“Well, Sayulita was really cool,” Sandra said, as they turned right off new asphalt onto a dusty, semi-paved road, and slowed to dodge several potholes. “It used to be the perfect little Mexican beach town, but unfortunately it’s just too damn close to the PV aeropuerto. Which means that in the last two or three years it has gotten overrun with gringos of a different persuasion than the surfers, artists, and nomadic hippies that have always come here. Now there’s a bunch of old fart Republican types building houses on the hills and—don’t get me wrong, there have always been a lot of Americans down here, and Canadians, and even some Euros, because it is a really cool town, with a nice beach, good fishing, and a fun surfing wave. But now the development is happening way too fast, and the fun and funky vibe is less fun and funky it seems like every year.”
“Money does that,” said Lucy.
“Everywhere and always,” said Teresa.
“Yeah, I know,” Sandra said. “But I came down here seven years ago to surf and hang out, and then I got the Mexican branch of the Wave Divas off the ground and I never thought about buying property, even though it was still pretty cheap four or five years back. And now all of a sudden everything is for sale, but without serious hustling and hassling buying anything is practically impossible. That’s why I gotta kick your booty in the contest, Marcia,” she said, and laughed mirthlessly. “I could use that X Dames dough. So if you turn here,” she said as she slowed and pointed to the right, “and go down there to the end of that dirt road and turn right on the beach road, you’re headed into the north end, where the rich gringos are building their trophy haciendas on the hilltops. Downtown’s across the bridge just ahead. Along here you’ve got your roasted chicken stand, your paint store, your hardware store, hair salon, glass art gallery—” They approached the bridge, and eased over. The river was a brown trickle flanked by mud banks. Beyond the downtown ahead they could see dozens of white Mediterranean-style houses scattered across the hillsides; between the established houses, half-built projects occupied much of the open land. “The river’s kind of scuzzy—a lot of sewage still goes in untreated, unfortunately, but the Mexicans have always done it that way, and when there were only a few hundred of them it didn’t hardly matter. Now there’s a few thousand Mexicans and gringos, and their shit stinks.
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