The Road to Amazing (3 page)

You might also be
thinking: "There
has
to be something going on, because Russel is a neurotic nutbag
who always over-thinks things. And now here he is doing the whole
'doth protest too much' thing, saying the opposite of what he
really means."

That's it, isn't it? You
think I'm being an unreliable narrator. You know, when it turns out
the person telling a story is lying? Sometimes they're not
even
aware
they're lying.

Well, you're wrong. There's nothing
I'm not saying, and for the first time in my life, I wasn't being
neurotic. The fact that the chapter opened with a dead end doesn't
mean anything either. It wasn't a metaphor — it wasn't even a dead
end. Remember? It turned out to be the parking lot of the place
that was exactly where we were supposed to be.

This
wedding
was exactly where I was
supposed to be. I really did love Kevin with all my heart, and I
had absolutely no doubts or hesitations about marrying him. Kevin
was a little anxious, true, but I knew he didn't have any doubts
about marrying me either.

Of course now you might
thinking: "If they don't have second thoughts about getting
married, why is this a story? Why should I keep reading?" I told
you earlier that I've been trying to make it as a screenwriter, and
I know all too well that a good story requires conflict and drama.
No conflict means no story. A happy, uneventful wedding is a
boring
wedding, except
maybe to the people involved.

Okay, this is a better point.
Honestly, you should have started with this point and not accused
me of being neurotic.

But this is a different
kind of story. Oh, plenty happens — you don't have to worry about a
lack of drama. But it's also a story where the main character isn't
conflicted (and
isn't
neurotic).

Or maybe I
am
lying. If I really am
a neurotic unreliable narrator, you can't believe anything I
say.

I guess you'll have to keep reading to
find out.

CHAPTER TWO

A half hour or so later, the doorbell
rang, and I went to answer it.

Speaking of friends with quirks, the
first of our guests to arrive were Gunnar and Min, two people who
had known Kevin and me since high school. Min was with her new
girlfriend, Ruby, who I'd never met before.

"You're here!" I said to the three of
them. "Come in, come in!"

They all entered, eyeing the house,
impressed. We didn't hug, because none of us were huggers (which I
appreciated).

Gunnar was the kind of guy who sort of
blended into the background, at least at first. He didn't give a
lot of thought to the way he looked or dressed. For example, he was
the only person I knew who combed his hair with an actual pocket
comb.

But that was only the way
he
looked
. When
it came to who he actually was, he was the least average person I
knew. There are people who operate on their own wavelength, and
then there are people like Gunnar, who reject the radio spectrum
entirely. A couple of years earlier, he'd even invented an iPhone
app that had made him rich.

As he walked inside with his bags,
Gunnar was grinning from ear to ear, totally excited. "Did you know
that this place doesn't have gutters?" he said.

"What?" I said, confused.

"Outside! It has a rain dispersal
system."

This didn't make me any less confused.
"A what?"

"It's a way to get the water off a
roof without using channels and spouts. The rain runs down into
these panels which then sort of flings it out over the yard as
droplets."

This was exactly the kind of thing I
was talking about. This cool house with that amazing view, and
Gunnar notices the gutters?

"I can't wait to see how it works in
the rain!" Gunnar said.

"Well, we're sort of hoping it doesn't
rain this weekend," I said, a little pointedly, "because it's,
like, our wedding?"

"Oh, yeah, right," Gunnar said, but he
still looked totally excited.

As he talked, I
thought:
Don't tell Gunnar anything about
Amazing, Washington.
I could see him
becoming completely obsessed with the mystery of where everyone
went.

"It's perfect," Min was
saying, and she really did mean the house. "And that is an
incredible
view."

Min was sort of the opposite of
Gunnar. She was this small Asian woman who made a huge impression,
right from the beginning. She reminded me of one of those photos
you see of a raccoon taking on a grizzly bear. She was incredibly
smart, but more than anything, she had this air of authority about
her. That was part of the reason why Kevin and I had chosen her to
be the officiant at our wedding on Sunday — that and the fact that
she was one of our closest friends. She'd registered online and
everything, and Kevin and I already had the marriage certificate,
so all we needed was for Min to sign it. We didn't even need to
have an actual ceremony if we didn't want to, although that would
have left us with some pretty annoyed guests on Sunday.

"Thanks," I said to Min.
"So how
are
you?"

"Freaking out about the election, for
one thing. Are people crazy or just stupid? After all this time, is
it really possible that they don't understand what's at
stake?"

"I've already told her," Ruby said to
me, "no politics this weekend."

I smiled. "It's fine. She's among
freaked-out friends."

"Oh!" Min said. "Ruby, this is Russel.
And Kevin! I keep forgetting you guys haven't actually met
yet."

"Nice to meet you, Ruby," Kevin said
from the other side of the room. "Hi, Min. Hi, Gunnar."

"Hi," I said to Ruby, shaking her
hand.

It's probably sexist to describe a
woman as looking like an Amazonian warrior, but that's what I
thought seeing Ruby. It wasn't only that she was tall and athletic
(but she was), or that she had dark skin (Latina?), or that she had
a no-nonsense haircut and wasn't wearing makeup. It was that there
was a fearlessness about her, like she was unconquerable, with also
maybe just the tiniest touch of crazy in her eyes.

This made me smile. When it came to
who Min was dating, I never knew what to expect.

I was getting Gunnar, Min, and Ruby
settled into their rooms when the doorbell rang again, and it
occurred to me that this must be part of living on an island:
things happen in waves, because of the coming and going of the
ferries.

"Nate!" I heard Kevin say. This was
one of Kevin's best friends, his roommate from college. I'd never
met him before either.

"Well," Nate said, "ain't this a
ripper of a place?"

There was something about his voice
that made me stop in the hallway. I knew Nate was Australian (which
is why I'd never met him — after graduation, he'd gone back to
Melbourne for med school), and he definitely had an accent. But he
sounded sexy too, confident and cocky.

Curious, I edged my way down the
hallway to the main room.

I saw Nate before he saw
me.

The voice was no lie. He had dirty
blond hair, great posture, and the perfect amount of tan. He was
also a little rough around the edges, rumpled in all the right
places. There was a carefree, outdoors-y quality about him, like
one of those guys you see climbing rock cliffs in car
commercials.

Nate's eyes found me lingering in the
shadows, and his face broke into a grin.

"Hey, now, there he is," he said. "You
must be the ol' ball and chain!"

I immediately bristled. I'd always
hated that expression — "ball and chain."

But this was Kevin's best friend, so I
plastered a smile onto my face and stepped forward.

"Hey, there, Nate," I said. "It's nice
to finally meet you."

"Likewise! And don't worry, mate, now
that I'm here, we won't be having no run-away groom." At that, he
grabbed Kevin with one hand on his arm and another around the back
of his neck, pretending like he was going to take him
down.

And in a flash, I realized that maybe
Nate wasn't as handsome as I'd thought.

This had happened to me before —
meeting someone, thinking they're hot, and then getting to know
them (and not liking them), and thinking, "How could I ever have
thought this person was hot in the first place?" But it had never
happened this fast.

Kevin laughed and said, "I don't think
you need to worry."

"Oh, yeah," Nate said. "I heard all
the stories!" Then he winked at Kevin, and Kevin blushed and
chuckled, and Nate laughed outright.

I wasn't even going
to
try
to parse
all that.

Min and Ruby stepped into view, with
Gunnar behind them, and we made introductions all
around.

Then Kevin said to Nate, "Let me show
you your room."

I was determined to not let my
annoyance with Nate color the weekend, so I added, "Yeah, and then
we have something very important to do before dinner."

Everyone looked at me like I was being
completely serious.

"
Cocktails!
What did you
think
I meant?" I said,
and everyone laughed.

* * *

After the new arrivals had unpacked,
we gathered for drinks and chips around the kitchen island. The
wedding on Sunday was being catered, but Kevin and I had stopped at
the grocery store earlier that day to get food for the rest of the
weekend. So now we assembled a salad and got the take-and-bake
pizzas ready while we waited for the next ferry, which wasn't due
for another half-hour.

"So what's new," I said to Min and
Gunnar. "Tell me everything."

"Nothing much," Min said.

"Oh, come
on
," Gunnar said,
busting he was so excited. "Tell 'em about your new
job!"

"What new job?" I asked.

"She's working for Elon Musk!" Gunnar
said. Elon Musk was the guy who created PayPal and Tesla. Needless
to say, he was now amazingly rich.

I looked at Min. "Really?" I said.
"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it's nothing," she said.
"It's no big deal."

"It's a
huge
deal!" Gunnar said.
"It's the most expensive, privately-financed space exploration
project in human history!"

"
Space
exploration?" I
said.

Min shrugged it off. "Oh, they're
making noises about a mission to Mars by 2030 — a private-public
partnership. But it's just public relations. It probably won't
happen."

"A
manned
mission to Mars!" Gunnar
said.

"Wait," I said to Min.
"Mars? By
2030
?
What are you doing?"

"She's designing the ship," Ruby
said.

"
What?
" I said. Now it was my head
that was almost exploding, but none of this surprised me in the
least. I've already said how brilliant Min was.

"I'm
helping
to design
part
of the ship," Min
said.

"A ship to
Mars
!" I said. "That's
so cool!"

"It really is," Kevin said,
nodding.

Min let herself grin at last, in an
adorably sheepish way. "It kind of is, isn't it?" She looked at me.
"But tell me what's going on with you."

"Nothing's going on with me," I said.
"My life is incredibly boring right now."

"Except for the fact that you're
getting married Sunday," Min said.

My face burned red. Kevin glared at me
too.

"Oh, yeah," I said, trying
to laugh it off. "Except for
that
. But seriously, tell us about
this mission to Mars."

So she did, and it was exactly as
interesting as you'd think.

At one point while Min was talking, I
turned around and saw that Gunnar was doing something with the
broccoli for the salad. He wasn't chopping it, which was what I'd
asked him to do. No, he had taken the stalks and stuck them into
glasses filled with blue liquid.

"Uh, what is this?" I
asked.

"I'm trying to turn the broccoli
blue," he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the
world.

I stared at him.

"I found some food coloring in the
cabinet," he went on. "I'm seeing if you can do the same thing with
broccoli that you can do with celery. You know, how the plant draws
the color up into its leaves?"