The Road to Amazing (10 page)

Min looked up all the
Vashon Island churches on her phone. "Well, the Catholics are out,
obviously. And the evangelicals, and anything with the word
'gospel' or 'bible' in it. Forget the Methodists and the Mormons.
The
Presbyterians
could go either way, and so could the Lutherans, and I'm not
sure we want to deal with that." She looked up. "Can I just say how
incredibly depressing this is?" She looked back at her phone.
"Wait! The Episcopalians! They're a bunch of raging liberals,
right?"

"I think so," Otto said.

Min did some research on
her phone. "Individual pastors have discretion," she said. "They
can refuse to marry gay couples if they want. Which is, of course,
such a principled position for the church to take, like how when
society decided it was wrong that restaurants were allowed to
refuse service to black people, we all then agreed to let
individual restaurants continue to discriminate. Or, wait,
no, we didn't!
Because
everyone realized
that would be
incredibly bigoted
."

I laughed and realized that even
though Min could be a little sanctimonious, I almost always agreed
with her politics.

"They won't refuse us," I said. "Come
on, it's Vashon Island! The way this island seems so far, they
probably all take a toke on sacramental bong."

* * *

We found the Episcopal church in a
wooded area right along one of the main roads.

"Oh, cool," Otto said, pointing to a
sign. "They have a labyrinth."

"A what?" Nate said.

"It's a kind of circular maze," Min
explained.

We parked in the church lot (empty
except for two other cars). The church itself was modern-ish, made
of dark wood — a big rectangle of a building with a grill-like
front over stained-glass windows. A narrow steeple, another
rectangle, rose up on one side.

Nate and Ruby immediately
made a beeline for the labyrinth, which was located in the grass in
front of the building. Naturally, I'd been expecting some sort of
massive hedge maze, like in
Harry Potter
and the Goblet of Fire
. Instead, it was
just a circular pathway made of gravel cut into the patchy lawn. It
started at the edge of the circle, and you could follow the pathway
around and around until you reached a flower-like thingy in the
very middle. The whole labyrinth wasn't more than twenty-five feet
across.

"I confess to feeling more than a
little disappointed," I said.

"It's supposed to be contemplative,"
Min said. "You walk the labyrinth and ponder the nature of
existence."

"And, see, I was expecting more in the
way of minotaurs and burning goblets."

"Race you?" Nate said to
Ruby.

"Oh, you're
on
, Kangaroo Jack," Ruby
said, and they both sprinted for the start of this little gravel
pathway that was only about eight inches wide. Which meant, of
course, that they immediately ran into each other, and the whole
"race" was the two of them trying to drag each other off the
path.

"What the hell?" Nate said, laughing.
"Have you gone troppo?"

I knew he and Ruby were completely
missing the point of the labyrinth, and Min and I even sort of
shook our heads at each other, but the truth is, I was jealous that
the two of them were so easily able to cut loose and have
fun.

"Help you folks?" came a voice behind
us.

Kevin, Min, Otto, and I all
turned.

It was a middle-aged woman with a
weathered but friendly face. Everything about her was sensible —
her short hair, the shoes, the no-nonsense jersey.

"Oh!" I said. "You're with the church?
You're just who we wanted to see."

"You
dog
!" shrieked Ruby, mid-labyrinth.
"You cheating dog!"

"Bloody hell!" Nate said.

The woman eyed Nate and Ruby, who were
basically destroying the church's contemplative labyrinth with
their frenzied battle royale to the end. I could only hope the
woman wouldn't hold it against us.

She looked at us very
drolly.

Come
on! I wanted to say.
It's a dumb
gravel pathway in some dead grass.

"We're getting married," I said, "but
there was a problem with the location. We need a new venue, but we
don't have much money." I stepped closer to Kevin and took his
hand, to make sure there wasn't any confusion about the fact that
we were a gay couple. I didn't want her to be shocked and appalled
— at her own discretion, of course! — when she realized I wasn't
actually marrying Min.

Seeing us together, her face
brightened like a Christmas tree. She'd completely forgotten about
Nate and Ruby.

"Oh, that's
terrible
!" she said. "Of
course! We'd love to help you. Anything at all, we'll make it
work."

I looked at Min and
grinned. I'd been right about the Vashon Episcopalians being
crazy-eyed liberals. And I could actually
see
Kevin relaxing, the tension
leaving his body like he was unwinding a scarf. I kind of wanted to
kiss him right there, but I didn't want to push the woman past her
point of tolerance.

"The wedding is tomorrow at three," I
said. "We don't have that many guests, only sixty..."

I stopped in mid-word. Something
flickered on the woman's face. Had I said something wrong? Had Nate
and Ruby moved on from the labyrinth to somehow destroying the
church itself? I glanced behind me, but they didn't seem to be
doing any more damage than before.

I turned back to her. "What's wrong?"
I said. I didn't dare look at Kevin.

"
This
weekend?" she said. "I'm so
sorry, I didn't know it was this weekend."

"What's wrong with this weekend?" I
said.

She hemmed and hawed. "It's nothing,
really. I mean, so what if there are bats in the bell tower?
They've been there for months. They're an important part of the
island ecosystem! I don't understand what the big deal is — it's
not like they can get inside the church."

"You
literally
have bats in your belfry?"
Min said.

"Technically, rabid bats.
Or rabid
bat.
There's only been one so far, at least that we know
of."

We all instinctively
glanced up at the tower to the church — and sort of recoiled. Rabid
bats were a
huge
deal. Did this woman really not know that?

"What are they going to do, kill all
the bats on the whole island?" the woman was saying. "Anyway, the
bat removal guys won't be out on the island again until
Monday."

"Is there another church on the island
that you think would help us?" Kevin asked.

"Of course! The Unitarians for sure.
They use the community church."

Kevin and I both froze, unsure how to
react or exactly what to feel.

"There's just one
problem," the woman said. "Since our church is closed, the
Community Church is where we've moved all
our
activities tomorrow
afternoon."

* * *

Kevin was back to looking pretty
gloomy, and I didn't want him taking us all down in his own
car-crash suicide, so I decided to handle the driving from that
point on.

"It's going to be okay," I said.
"We'll find a place. We've got plenty of time."

"Why couldn't we have the wedding on a
beach somewhere?" Nate asked.

"Old people," I said. "We need
bathrooms." Both Kevin and I had elderly relatives coming to the
wedding. "Plus, what if it rains?"

At that, I glanced out the window to
one side. Unfortunately, it did look like it was starting to cloud
up.

But that's when my eyes fell upon a
public park.

"Stop the car!" I said, even though I
was the one driving.

* * *

"A park?" Kevin said. "You want to
have our wedding in a park?"

"Well, it's not my first
choice," I said, "but there
are
bathrooms. And there's a covered area if it
rains." I looked at Kevin and smiled. "Hey, our relationship began
in a picnic shelter, right? The stinky picnic gazebo?"

He sort of nodded while all six of us
took it all in. The picnic shelter was surprisingly large — so big
it might even fit sixty-seven guests. As for the location, it was
right on the water, with a view looking down into a quiet little
bay. It was actually kinda sorta spectacular.

But I didn't want to get my hopes up
again just yet.

We walked deeper into the park,
examining it like furniture in a showroom.

We entered the picnic
shelter.

"Electrical outlets," Ruby said,
pointing. "For, like, the caterer? And I bet we could buy some
simple space heaters at the hardware store."

"We could get some nice decorations
too," Min said.

"What if someone's already using it?"
Kevin said.

"In September?" Nate said.

"Min and I can come here early and
stake it out," Ruby said.

Then Min said, "There's a
problem."

I stepped closer. She was
pointing to a sign that said,
This area is
available for reservation. Parties of fifteen or more
must
register with the
Vashon Parks Department
. And it gave a
phone number and an address.

I tried the phone number, but nobody
was answering.

"It's a Saturday," Kevin said.
"They're probably closed."

"Maybe so," I said, "but let's go stop
by the office just in case."

* * *

The office of the Vashon Parks
Department was in this little office park on the outskirts of the
town of Vashon. It was two stories, only five businesses total —
lawyers and accountants, that type of thing. There were cars in the
parking lot, which I took to be a good sign, but all the blinds
were down, so it didn't look like anything was open.

A woman stepped out of one of the
offices on the second floor, onto a wooden deck. She was locking
up.

"There!" Kevin said. "I bet that's
it!" Sure enough, by this point, I could see the words painted on
the window: Vashon Parks Department.

I slammed on the brakes, parking the
car haphazardly in a stall, and Kevin, Min, Otto, and I ran for the
stairs, meeting the woman halfway down.

"Thank God we caught you!" I said.
Somehow I was out of breath, even though I'd only run about twenty
feet from the car. I guess it was all the excitement of getting
there in time.

She stopped on the stairs, peering
down at us like a cat we'd just woken from its nap.

"We're getting married tomorrow," I
said quickly, "but there's a problem with the place we rented. We
desperately need a new location, so we wanted to reserve the picnic
shelter at Jensen Point."

She kept staring at us. If she was
still a cat, she might have started licking herself — completely
indifferent. Up close, I got a better look at her now. She was
younger than most of the other people we'd met on the island, in
her twenties, and blond and wearing make-up, but somehow drabber
than everyone else. Or maybe it was only the fact that the sun had
clouded over by now.

"Or any park," Kevin said. "Anywhere
at all, really."

She stared at us a second longer,
licking her imaginary paws.

Then she said, "The office is closed.
I just locked up."

We looked at her, then up at the
office again. There couldn't have been more than ten feet between
them. The set of keys that she'd used to lock the door was still
dangling in her hand.

On the other hand, her knuckles were
white, like she was squeezing those keys tightly.

"Well," Min said, "do you think you
could maybe unlock it again for us?"

All four of us smiled
oh-so-sweetly.

"Unfortunately, the office closes at
noon on Saturdays," the woman said.

I couldn't help glancing down at my
phone. It read 12:02 p.m.

She started down the stairs again. We
had no choice but to step to one side to let her pass, not without
being, like, abusive jerks.

"But..." I started to
say.
What about the Vashon Groove?
That's what I almost said, but I couldn't figure
out if it would help or hurt our cause.

She didn't stop, just sauntered for
her car.

"Please!" I said. "We're
desperate!"

She didn't even hesitate. She opened
the door to her car and slid inside. She hadn't unlocked it with a
key or a beeper or anything. I guess that was another part of
living on an island: no one bothered with locks. But at least she
hadn't closed the door yet.