The Road to Amazing

by Brent Hartinger

  I looked at Vernie, seated in the living room. "Whaddaya say?" I asked her.

  "Oh, you go," she said. She nodded to her Kindle. "I'm right in the middle of a good book."

  I felt guilty that it seemed like Vernie wasn't really fitting in with everyone else. Had I made a mistake by inviting her for the whole weekend?

  "Nah," I said, "I think I'll hang out up here too."

  By now, everyone else had mostly left for the beach, and Vernie said, "Oh, please! You are not staying behind to babysit me."

  "I'm not," I said. "I thought of another idea for a single-location script, and I wanted your opinion."

  Vernie glared at me. "I don't believe you."

  "Well, it's true. Let me get a cup of tea, and I'll tell you all about it."

  I went into the kitchen, but mostly I was stalling for time. I had stayed behind to keep Vernie company, and I didn't have another single-location screenplay idea.

  I returned to the front room with two cups of steeping tea — and absolutely no idea what I was going to say.

  "Well?" Vernie said.

  I smiled stupidly, wishing she'd have forgotten about the dumb screenplay idea and I could deftly try to change the subject.

  But now I was stuck. I had to say something. Still, sometimes the most interesting ideas are the ones that come to you when you're under pressure.

  "It's called The Compound, and it's a comedy," I said. "An old man dies, and his two sons inherit his farm — no, wait, it's a daughter and a son. It's big, but really isolated, way out in the middle of nowhere. The father spells out in his will that they can't sell the farm until they both live there together for a year."

  I said that sometimes the most interesting ideas come to you when you're under pressure. This wasn't one of those times.

  "Go on," Vernie said.

  "Well," I said, stalling again, "the man wants to turn the farm into a commune and he invites all his dippy, free-love friends, but the woman wants to turn it into a right-wing militia, and she invites all her paranoid, gun-crazy friends. And somehow they all have to live together."

  I thought about the words that had come out of my mouth. Obviously, it had been inspired by my experience with Duane and his clothing-optional commune, but I liked the addition of the right-wing militia sister. It wasn't a completely terrible idea.

  Vernie thought about it too. "The Compound, huh? I like what you did with the genders, making the woman the conservative and the man liberal — switching up the stereotypes. It has potential, especially as a comedy. But is that really a single-location script? It seems like it's a single-setting, but there are a lot of different locations. How would that save the producers' any money?"

  She was right, of course: it wasn't really a single-location script. Still, the point had been to distract Vernie, and it did seem to have been successful at that.

  Vernie looked down at her mug of tea, blowing into it, cooling it, dissolving the rising steam. But the second she stopped blowing, the steam reformed.

  "How are you doing?" I said. "Honestly."

  She looked up at me. "What? I'm fine. What do you mean? I'm great."

  Vernie wasn't fine. Something was bugging her, but this was my wedding weekend, and she didn't want to spoil it by bringing up anything heavy.

  "How are you?" she said. "How are you doing with the whole wedding business?" Now she was the one deftly trying to change the subject.

  But I thought about this. What if I told her the truth — that I did have some (very slight!) mixed emotions about the wedding? Maybe that would give her permission to be honest with me.

  "It was strange earlier," I said, "when that whale washed up on the beach, and we thought the wedding might be canceled. I was sad, but mostly because I felt bad for Kevin."

  "Oh?" she said.

  I went on to tell her what I'd told Min: that I wasn't worried about getting married to Kevin, but that I was a little concerned about marriage in general. About how it often seemed to signal the start of when a person's life got boring.

  "That won't happen," Vernie said.

  "But I've heard you yourself say stuff like that," I said. "You told me once that when you lived in Los Angeles, you were always having to choose between going to your kids' soccer games and spending the weekend with Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn."

  This was true. Vernie had told me lots of stories about her life in Hollywood, and how her kids resented her to this day, because she had sometimes chosen her career over them.

  "My marriage was different," she said.

  "Different how?"

  She sipped her tea, and now I wondered if she was stalling for time. "Just different."

  It seemed like Vernie didn't want to talk about it, so I decided to change the subject a bit. "Min says I'm afraid of growing up," I said.

  "Are you?"

  "Probably."

  "Good! You should be. Too many people do grow up and turn boring. There's absolutely no excuse for that at all. But part of me thinks those people couldn't have been all that interesting to begin with. So they got drunk and had a lot of sex on the weekend. Maybe they even got a tattoo! How does that make a person interesting?"

  "What makes a person interesting?" I asked.

  "When they're passionate about the things they love," she said without any hesitation at all. "The more passionate they are, the more interesting they are."

  This answer was so typically Vernie. But the more I thought about it, the more obvious it seemed. It was definitely true for Gunnar, Min, Otto, and also Vernie herself.

  "It's a choice, you know," she said. "Whether or not you become boring? It's not like they appear one day and put you in handcuffs. They don't make you be boring."

  "Really?" I said. "I thought you turned thirty, and they forced you to stay home watching House Hunters."

  "I love House Hunters," Vernie said. "Or at least House Hunters International."

  "I know, me too!" I watched her a second longer. "Come on, tell me what's really going on."

  She sipped her tea again. "Why do you keep thinking there's something going on?"

  "Because I know you. And I have a feeling you don't want to tell me the truth because you think it'll put a damper on my wedding weekend. But the whole point of inviting my friends this weekend was to spend time with them. With you. The real you."

  She stared at me, looking both amused and annoyed.

  "So is that why you told me how you're having misgivings about the wedding?" she said. "To get me to lower my guard?"

  Not misgivings exactly, I thought.

  "And don't think I don't know you were stalling for time earlier," she went on, "and that you came up with that screenplay idea on the fly."

  Vernie was smart, I had to give her that.

  "You got me," I said. "But it's not like you're doing such a bang-up job of hiding your feelings either. Either you have to tell me what's really going on in your life, or you need to start doing a much better job of lying."

  Vernie laughed, long and hearty, and I knew I'd finally broken through the wall.

  "Oh, I wish it was something interesting," she said. "I wish I could say I had cancer or something. Would that make a great plot-reveal? I spend the whole weekend acting like everything's great, how happy I am for you, and then after I leave, you find out I only have six weeks left to live. Or is that a terrible cliché?"

  "A terrible cliché," I said. "And also a terrible joke. I don't want you to have cancer!"

  "Well, I don't. I'm healthy as a horse. No, it's far less interesting. I just feel old and irrelevant. I always feel this way in the fall, but for some reason, it's worse this year than usual."

  "You're not old," I said, really trying to sell it.

  "Are you kidding? I'm ancient. Plus, my kids hate me, I'm sleeping like shit, the studio is still screwing me on royalties, and the latest update on my operating system screwed up all the programs on my computer, including the drivers for my printer. Boy, if this isn't cheer
ful wedding weekend talk. Are you happy yet that you dragged it out of me?"

  "Vernie, I'm sorry."

  She shook her head, almost spilling her tea. "No. I'm just throwing a pity party. Can I get you a party hat?"

  "Please! But would you hate me if I said it isn't that bad? You just finished saying the thing that makes a person interesting is that they're passionate about the things they love. You're the most passionate person I know."

  Vernie smiled, but it was a weak one, especially for her.

  "I know the answer to your problem," I said.

  "Oh?" she said, lifting an eyebrow. "Well, please enlighten."

  "We need to get you laid."

  I sort of said this without thinking, but I immediately regretted it. I mean, Vernie was seventy-four years old.

  But of course she howled. "Oh, you have no idea how right you are!"

  I heard voices out on the porch — Otto and Gunnar back from the beach.

  I pointed at Vernie. "We'll continue this conversation later," I said.

  "No, I think I'll take option number two," she said. "I'm going to start doing a much better job of lying about my true feelings."

  * * *

  Later, after Nate and the others were back from the beach too, we all had lunch — deli salads and cold cuts — and I was starting to think that maybe the weekend had turned a corner. I still didn't know what was going on with Otto, but Vernie had perked up a bit (she probably would have said she was faking it better, but I had a feeling our little conversation had cheered her up).

  Kevin seemed a lot more relaxed too, and I couldn't help feeling a little proud. I had officially cheered up two different people — Kevin and Vernie — in the space of thirty minutes.

  Then Nate looked over at Kevin, took a big bite of his turkey sandwich wrap, and, talking with his mouth full, said, "So how long before you and Russel have kids? You used to yabber about that all the time back in school."

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Everyone fell quiet, even as we kept eating — so quiet you could hear actual swallowing. All of my friends knew exactly how I felt about kids, and now they knew how Kevin felt too, so they could easily deduce that it had to be some kind of issue between us. Min already knew for a fact that it was.

  Kevin reached for the cranberry quinoa salad. "Oh, that was a long time ago," he said to Nate. Then he immediately changed the subject. "My skin is still stinging in the places where the wetsuit didn't cover."

  "I know!" Ruby said. "Me too."

  "Rack off, mate, it wasn't that long ago," Nate said to Kevin. "Just a coupla years. Is it the whole gay thing? You used to tell me that didn't matter."

  I couldn't help but wonder: Are all straight guys this clueless? Even Gunnar wasn't like this.

  "Dude," Ruby said to Nate, "catch a clue."

  Which just goes to show that while lesbians and straight guys might have similar brains, there are still some pretty big differences.

  Nate's eyes danced from Kevin to me, then lingered, like he was finally putting two and two together.

  "More potato salad?" Min said to the table. "It's made with pesto, right?"

  I nodded yes even as everyone shook their heads no to the salad.

  "Don't drink coffee," Nate said at last.

  "What?" Ruby said.

  "Before using a wetsuit. Or anything with caffeine. It shuts down the blood vessels, so it makes you feel colder."

  After that, the conversation finally did move on — to the world's sixty zillionth conversation about whether Apple still deserves their reputation for innovation, I think. I wasn't really listening.

  Later, when we were cleaning up, Kevin leaned in close to me and said, "That really was a long time ago when I told Nate those things. Seriously. I don't think that way now. It's not just you. I don't want kids anymore either."

  I smiled and nodded. "I know. It's fine, really."

  But a few minutes later, Min stepped up to me and said, "Hey, you want to go for a walk?"

  And I hope it doesn't make me sound like a jerk that I said, "Yeah, let's go."

  * * *

  Inevitably, we found ourselves walking down the road to Amazing.

  Min didn't say anything like, "Wow, that was rough back there, how are you doing?" And she didn't look at me all concerned either. Which was great, because it really wasn't a big deal. On the other hand, I knew that if I wanted to talk about it, she was more than willing to listen.

  Instead, I said, "Are you mad at Gunnar?"

  "For moving that orca?" she asked.

  I nodded.

  "Well," she said, "he committed a felony. But this is your wedding, and I believe him when he said he moved it farther down the beach. So I guess this is one of those times where you sort of turn the other way and pretend it didn't happen. Like when a friend tells you no one understands her like Taylor Swift."

  I smiled. "How do you think he did it?"

  But Min looked at me with this droll expression, and we both laughed. This was an ongoing joke between the two of us, how pointless it was to even try to understand the conundrum that was Gunnar.

  "Ruby is no dummy either," I said, "is she?" I didn't want to talk about what Nate had said at lunch, but I could at least reference Ruby being smart enough to know what an idiot he was.

  "Did you think she was?" Min said.

  "No, but you know how it is. Everyone talks about emotional intelligence and 'different learning styles,' but who really believes in those things? It's not until you see them in action with people like Gunnar and Ruby."

  "Actually, I think almost everyone else believes in those things. It's just us bookish, verbal types, people like you and me, who are skeptical. Because if there are different ways to be smart, it means we're not special."

  "Well, hey," I said, "don't you think we brainy geeks should get something? We gave the world Game of Thrones, the Internet, and, you know, science. But still people laugh at us. Everyone says, 'We're all geeks now!' but it's so not true. The cool kids still run this world, same as always, and you damn well know it."

  Min laughed.

  "Are you worried about her spending so much time with Nate?" I asked.

  "Ruby? You mean because they might run off together?" When I half-shrugged, Min laughed again, and said, "Oh, God, no! Ruby is the most lesbian lesbian I've ever met. They're just friends."

  I nodded, and we kept walking down the road to Amazing. At this point, I felt pretty great. The wedding was back on track, that thing Nate said really was forgotten, and the air was crisp and clean. Even better, I was looking forward to seeing the ruins of Amazing again. What had happened to those people all those years ago? I was already spinning this fantasy about Min and me figuring it out. Yeah, I knew that people had been investigating this mystery for years, but so what? We'd be like Veronica Mars! Talk about Revenge of the Nerds: two geeky friends are staying on the island for a weekend wedding, and they stumble upon some clue hidden in the ferns, missed by all the investigators before. Or maybe it was simply a question of being smart enough to look at the ruins from a slightly different point of view, and our seeing what should have been obvious to everyone else, but had been missed because of all their stupid preconceptions.

  Yes, this was all a silly fantasy — I wasn't serious about it, and it wasn't like I was going to mention it to Min, especially after she'd teased me earlier, saying the mystery of Amazing was exactly my kind of thing. But somehow it really did excite me.

  We rounded the corner around the hill, and the little cove came into view.

  Min and I weren't alone. A man walked toward us through the trees, up the trail from the water.

  So much for my Veronica Mars fantasies, I thought.

  It wasn't only that. I'd been starting to think of Amazing as a quiet little oasis from the world for Min and me, a place out of time. But that was silly too. It's not like other people didn't have a right to be here.

  Min and I kept walking forward, until we all met at the end
of the road.

  He was older, in his sixties, but displayed Vashon Island's usual mix of contradictions: he was big and burly, but somehow soft and sensitive too. His face was craggy — like he'd spent a lot of his life outside doing something manly, maybe working on a fishing boat — but he had hoop earrings in both ears and a hipster-y man bun. He was wearing flannel and denim with thick boots, all weathered, but a beaded yin/yang symbol hung down from the zipper of his jacket.

  "Howdy!" he said, friendly-goofy.

  "Hello," Min said.

  Then none of us said anything. I wanted to ask what he was doing here, but that felt a little territorial.

  "We're staying at the Amazing Inn," I explained. "I'm getting married. I'm Russel, and this is Min."

  "Well, congratulations to you both!" the man said.

  "No," I said, "I'm not getting married to her." But I didn't tell him who I was getting married to, that it was a man named Kevin. Even after all these years, it felt weird to come out to people I didn't know, especially old people like this guy.

  He nodded like what I'd said made sense. "I'm Walker," he said, giving one of those names where you're not sure if it's the first name or the last.

  "You live here on the island?" Min asked.

  "Sure do. Right over there." He made a gesture, but I couldn't see any houses through the trees.

  "Christie — the woman we're renting from — told us all about this place," I said. I nodded to the ruins. "The town of Amazing? It's a pretty interesting story."

  Walker took it all in, almost inhaling it. "Isn't it?"

  That's when it occurred to me: maybe my little Veronica Mars investigation didn't have to end after all. Amateur detectives interviewed people, didn't they? And who knows? Maybe the people on the island would know secrets that off-islanders didn't.

  "What do you think happened?" I asked.

  "What?" he said.

  "To the people of Amazing."

  He laughed. "Well, that's the big question, isn't it?"