“I am woman, hear me roar,” Jenn said.
“I suspect Molly would be Molly with or without feminism,” Jesse said.
Jenn nodded.
“I like her,” Jenn said.
“I like her, too,” Jesse said.
“What do you suppose the protesters really want in all of this?” Jenn said.
“We on the record here, Jenn?”
“I’d like to be,” Jenn said.
Jesse nodded.
“No comment,” he said.
Jenn leaned back a little in her chair and looked at Jesse with her head tilted to the side. Her summer dress had slid up to mid-thigh. Her legs were tan. Jesse felt the feeling. He had felt the feeling for such a long time now that it was nearly routine. Sometimes he thought it was the only feeling he had.
“Okay, then,” Jenn said. “Off the record.”
“First, a question for you,” Jesse said. “How’d you happen to be there.”
“It’s news,” Jenn said with a smile. “A lawyer named Blake called us up and informed us of that.”
Jesse shook his head.
“They actually think if they get coverage,” Jenn said, “they’ll get sympathy.”
Jesse nodded.
“Maybe a little out of touch,” Jesse said. “They probably have a couple of problems with the Crowne estate project. Neither of which, as you may have observed, is traffic.”
“Hell,” Jenn said. “Our van took up as much space as your bus.”
“It did,” Jesse said. “One of their problems is they fear a decrease in the value of real estate around the school. And if everybody is like them, the real estate next to a school for disadvantaged children will be harder to sell. And they think that everybody is like them. Or at least everybody who counts.”
“They do seem insular,” Jenn said.
“Most people are.”
“What’s their other problem?” Jenn said.
“They don’t want a bunch of low-class wetbacks moving into Paradise.”
“Simple bigotry?” Jenn said.
“It’s almost always that,” Jesse said, “when you wipe away the bullshit.”
“Wow,” Jenn said. “Cynical, cynical, cynical.”
“I like to think of it as profiting from the learning experience,” Jesse said.
“May I use any of this?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was off the
