A Scene From “The Big Screen Girl”

*

“Oh-oh,” I said. “The cool people are here. Pretend we weren’t talking about cinematography.”

Nancy and Brian walked up. Everyone was kind of grinning and Brian asked, “What were you guys just talking about?”

I shrugged. “Nothing. You know. Show business stuff. I was talking about sex. James was talking about drugs. Sam was talking about rock and roll. Suzy was talking about money. What else is there?”

I leaned toward Nancy and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s been a long time. Did you miss me? Do you still love me?”

Nancy put on one of those long-suffering faces all women get good at. At least all the women I know get good at those faces. She said, “Yes, I missed you. Yes, I still love you.”

Brian pointed from Nancy to me, then asked her, “Didn’t you two have breakfast this morning?”

“Yes,” Nancy said. “But that was like three hours ago. For Mark that’s a long time.”

“Hey, three hours is like two made-for-TV movies,” I said. “Just think of all the changes you go through watching one made-for-TV movie.”

“I don’t go through any changes watching a made-for-TV movie,” Suzy said. “I’m a big screen girl. TV doesn’t move me at all. Only real cinema gets me going.”

“What about YouTube?” I asked. “Isn’t that where everything is happening these days? Doesn’t watching clips on your computer make you laugh, make you cry, make you think?”

Suzy said, “What am I, Miley Cyrus? That computer crap is for school kids and the kind of clueless people who used to think disco was cool.”

Brian asked, “You didn’t worry about lonelygirl15 and the trait positive girls?”

“The only reason I even know what that is comes from listening to other people talk about it,” Suzy said. “I’ve never clicked on any of it.”

“Of course,” I said, “if this were a made-for-TV movie right now—or something on the internet—you would have just marked yourself as The Girl Something Happens To.”

“Oh, I’m so scared,” Suzy said.

“You’re just making things worse!” I said.

*

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(Someday I might continue this. Or I might not.
This is a scene from a kind of urban version
of the “Blair Witch Project” I’d someday
like to film. “Cloverfield” was
a shaky cam urban movie, but it was
a monster film. I think
the “Blair Witch Project”
was so powerful because it was
a modern horror film. I’d like to do
a shaky cam urban horror film.)



Mathilda And Nicole