The Road to Amazing

by Brent Hartinger

  Yup, there was a lump in my throat. But I didn't go over to hug her or anything, and it wasn't just because I'm not a hugger. Somehow I didn't want to disturb the moment.

  All I said was, "Thanks, Vernie."

  I looked over at Kevin, but the shadows from the candles were weird, and I couldn't get a good read on his face, whether all these stories had distracted him from worrying about the wedding.

  "I want to get married," Otto said quietly. "One day, I mean."

  Once again everyone stopped rustling in their chairs, listening. I liked this, all our friends together, telling their stories — their real stories, not the bullshit ones we tell to make ourselves and everyone else feel better.

  "I used to think I'd never meet anyone," Otto said. "But recently I met this guy."

  "What?" I said, sitting upright in my seat. "And you're just telling me this now?"

  Everyone laughed, and I was glad I'd read the moment right — that the room needed a little livening up.

  "We only started dating," Otto said. "Like, three weeks ago. We're not even 'dating.' We've met up three times. That's why I didn't say anything."

  "Where did you meet him?" Kevin asked.

  "Well, Zachary Quinto set me up on this blind date," he said.

  The room was quiet, but somehow the silence bulged like a balloon.

  "You got set up on a date by Zachary Quinto?" I said. Before Otto could say anything, I cut him off. "Yeah, yeah, you barely know him!"

  "Actually, I know Zachary Quinto pretty well. We did this charity event together this summer, and we ended up spending almost the whole day together. He's a really nice person."

  "I'm sure he is!" I said.

  "Tell us about this guy," Min said.

  Otto thought for a second. "I didn't want to go on the date. I mean, a blind date? Me? Are you kidding? But Zachary talked me into it."

  "I'm sure he did," I muttered.

  "Anyway, we met at the restaurant, and he seemed really great. He didn't stare at me, or act weird or anything, and I thought, 'Okay, maybe I was wrong, and Zachary Quinto was right.' We got our table and got to talking. And then he proceeded to reveal that he was a raging asshole. Stupid, bitchy, racist — the whole gay trifecta."

  We all laughed.

  "So what happened?" Min said.

  "The waiter overheard our date, what a jerk this guy was," Otto said, "and as I was leaving the restaurant, he gave me his number."

  "Sounds like the plot to a romantic comedy," Vernie said.

  "It does. Anyway, I met him for drinks the next day. It turns out he'd recognized me from my show."

  "Is that bad?" Min asked.

  "Well, there's always a question: does this person want to be with me because I'm on TV? I know how that sounds, but for me, it's a lot like how it used to be. I always used to wonder if guys were going out with me out of pity. Now I wonder if they're going out with me because I'm on TV. Not that I really have time to go out anyway. This is, like, the first time I've gone out with a guy since the show debuted."

  "Well, sure," I said, "because you're too busy going out with Jennifer Lawrence and Zachary Quinto!"

  Otto and everyone laughed, and I was glad, because I was worried I'd finally pushed the joke too far.

  "Right before I left to come up here, Spencer and I — that's his name, Spencer — were hanging out, sitting on his couch watching TV, and a bee flew by inside the house. We sat upright, panicking a little, both of us scared about getting stung. We knew we needed to get rid of it, but then we both said at exactly the same time, 'But don't kill it!' And we looked at each other, and there was this moment, you know? This connection. I thought, 'This is the kind of gentle, open-hearted guy I could spend my whole life with. He's exactly the opposite of that asshole Zachary Quinto set me up with.' Oh, and by the way? Zachary Quinto apologized for setting me up with that other guy. He was a friend of a friend, but he didn't know him as well as he thought he did."

  "That's so sweet," I said. "Bonding over bees."

  "Honey bee or wasp?" Ruby asked.

  "Bumblebee, actually," Otto said. "But it would have been the same even if it had been a wasp. Circle of life and all that."

  "Oh, the world always needs bees," I said. I knew Gunnar was crazy for bees, so I looked around the room for him. "Isn't that right, Gunnar?"

  No one said anything.

  "Gunnar?" I said, still searching.

  He wasn't there.

  "Where's Gunnar?" I asked the group.

  "Must be in the bathroom," Kevin said.

  I didn't remember Gunnar leaving the room. I thought back: when was the last time he'd said anything? I remembered him saying that it wasn't just him who had planned the bachelor party, that everyone had helped. Had he snuck out after that?

  Knowing Gunnar, he was probably out collecting slugs.

  After a few seconds of silence, Nate said, "This is quite a chinwag. Not like any buck's night I've ever been to."

  "I don't know what any of that means," Kevin said. "And keep in mind that I lived with you for three years."

  Nate laughed. "A chinwag is a conversation. And a buck's night is what we call a bachelor party Down Under."

  "You do that on purpose, don't you?" Kevin said. "All that slang? You think you're being charming."

  Nate preened for the camera. "But admit it — it works." He was quiet for another second, then he said, "I got my heart broken, right before I came here."

  Nate had a story to tell too? This surprised me a bit.

  "Mia?" Kevin said, and Nate nodded.

  "Well," Nate said, "I guess I should tell the whole story. I actually met her at the pool, swimming laps. And there's something about meeting someone in your budgie smuggler." He looked at Kevin. "My Speedo. Happy?"

  "Somewhat," Kevin said.

  "It doesn't leave a lot to the imagination," Nate said, "which I guess you guys already know."

  "I'll say," Vernie muttered, and everyone laughed.

  "Anyway, it was interesting, seeing her in her swim suit," Nate said, "and having her see me, knowing how we look almost naked, but not knowing anything else about each other. I didn't even know if she was single, or straight, but one day I took a chance and asked her out. And she said yes. We met at the restaurant, and at first we didn't even recognize each other in clothes and with dry hair. We stood in a crowded lobby together for at least two minutes before we realized who we were. It was almost like we'd been expecting each other to show up for the date in our swim suits."

  Not the worst idea I've ever heard, I thought.

  "We talked for hours," Nate said, "and I thought it went great. So I ask her out on a second date, and once again she says yes. Then I keep asking, and she keeps saying yes until finally we are definitely 'dating.' Then one night I say, 'I love you.' And she immediately says, 'I love you too.' So I think we're in love, and for six months, we do all the things people do when they're in love. Then I ask her, 'Do you want to move in with me?' And she says, 'Yeah.' So she does. And I'm thinking everything is great.

  "Then one day she comes to me and says, 'I'm not happy. I think we should take a breather.' And I ask her, 'Do you still love me?' And she says, 'I'm not sure, that's what I need to find out.' I was completely gutted, exactly like a fish. But a couple of days later, I ask her, 'Did you ever love me?' and she says, 'Of course I did.' That's when I looked back on our relationship, and I realized that at every point where someone asked a question, I was the one doing the asking, and she was the one saying yes. So I don't think she ever did — love me, I mean.

  "At first I felt pretty stupid about that, that I hadn't seen it. And I was mad at her too, for not being honest. But then I realized that it wasn't necessarily us, it was the whole system that was screwed up. The guy is supposed to ask the girl out. If she does it, some people think there's something wrong. And he's supposed to be the first person to say 'I love you,' and all the rest. That's what's so screwed up about the whole thing. How could I have kn
own? It was all perfectly normal, but it means people aren't honest about what they want, about what they really feel. If it hadn't been for that stupid script in our heads, maybe I would have sensed her hesitation, or maybe she would have been more honest with me."

  He fell silent, and once again no one said anything.

  There was a "poor little rich kid" quality to Nate's story, but it was still kind of touching. Then there was the actual touching that Nate had done during his striptease, all in the name of our bachelor party. Taken all together, I was starting to think that maybe I'd misjudged him — that he was a pretty decent guy after all.

  I turned to Kevin, who looked like he was about to say something to the group, to reveal his great truth. I was glad, because I was still curious what he was thinking, if I'd distracted him from being worried about the wedding tomorrow.

  Suddenly the lights flickered and came back on.

  "Whoa," Ruby said, surprised.

  It was definitely disorienting, like someone unexpectedly yanking a blanket off your head. It also felt awkward after the intimacy of the last few minutes, seeing everyone in the clear light again.

  People shifted in their seats, and Nate stood up to stretch. The vibe of the evening was changing yet again.

  A second later, Gunnar rejoined the group.

  "Gunnar!" I said. "Where were you? Look, the power's back on."

  "Not the power," he said. "That's still out. This is the generator."

  "The house has a generator?" I didn't remember Christie saying anything about this either. Clearly, that house walk-through we'd done with her had been for shit.

  Gunnar nodded.

  "How did you know?" I asked.

  "I didn't," he said. "But I looked around and I found one outside. There's plenty of propane too. We're good for the whole weekend."

  "But how did you know how to—? No, wait, never mind." This was Gunnar, after all.

  Gunnar looked over at Kevin. "I figured you'd want power for the wedding, right?" he said. "Even if the power comes back on, I didn't want you guys worrying about it."

  Kevin stared at him, and even now I couldn't quite tell what he was thinking.

  "Besides," Gunnar went on, "I told you before. It's my wedding gift to you. I'm making sure nothing gets in the way of your wedding."

  "Thanks, Gunnar," Kevin said, nodding deeply.

  "Yeah, thanks," I said, feeling stupid about the mean-ish things I'd been thinking about him before.

  After that, everyone wandered back to the kitchen for more food and drinks, and I happened to notice the dry-erase boards sitting on the floor, including the one Kevin had been using.

  I couldn't resist flipping it over to see what he'd written about what he thought we were going to be like in fifty years.

  Of course it was blank. But for the life of me, I couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad one.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When I joined Kevin in the master bedroom that night, he was staring out the picture window, into the big black void of darkness. He was only wearing his t-shirt and boxer briefs — already ready for bed.

  "Hey, there," I said. "How are you doing?"

  "Fine," he said quietly.

  I walked closer, but stopped behind him, before I was standing right next to him.

  "That was pretty amazing tonight, wasn't it?" I said. "I mean, all those stories people told?"

  I saw the back of his head nod.

  "I didn't know any of that," I said, "about Vernie or Otto. And Ruby? How fantastic was that?"

  This time he didn't nod.

  That's when I knew: Kevin was still freaked out about the wedding, about everything that had gone wrong this weekend.

  I stepped up next to him at the window. It was kind of pointless, because you still couldn't see anything at all, not even the distant lights across the bay. It was just a big black rectangle that showed the vague reflections of the room in the glass — and the mirror images of Kevin and me. But I could tell that it was still raining outside, at least a little, with droplets gently tapping against the glass.

  "It's going to be okay," I said.

  He didn't say anything, but I saw his face darken in the window's reflection.

  I reached out to touch him.

  He pulled away ever so slightly. "How can you say that? Everything that could possibly go wrong this weekend has gone wrong. A power outage? Rabid bats? A dead killer whale? Seriously?"

  "Everything that could possibly go wrong has not gone wrong," I said. "And didn't you hear Min? It wasn't a killer whale, it was an orca."

  He faced me, not quite angry, but weirdly alert. "How can you say that?" he said again, completely ignoring my orca joke. "Everything has gone wrong."

  "There haven't been any locusts," I said. "Or frogs. Or...huh. I can't think of any of the other ten plagues of Egypt. I can only think of two plagues? Really? How depressing is that?"

  I wasn't sure if more humor was the right tact to take here, but I'd tried talking through his anxieties with him before, and I'd also tried distracting him. None of that had seemed to work, so I didn't know what else to do.

  "Okay, you're right, I was wrong," Kevin said sarcastically. "It's not everything that could possibly go wrong. We haven't experienced the ten plagues of Egypt."

  "Yeah, but now I'm curious. What are they?" I started looking them up on my phone.

  "Lice," Kevin said quietly.

  I looked up at him.

  "That's one of the ten plagues," he said.

  I smiled, even as I started reading my phone. "Oh! You're right, that is one. And water into blood — duh, that one's right in the movie. Then frogs, which I said. And wild animals, possibly flies. Can you believe it says that — 'Wild animals, possibly flies'? They don't even know? Then diseased livestock, boils, thunderstorms of hail and fire, locusts, and death of the firstborn. Boils? Wow. I mean, technically death of the firstborn is worse, but who wants boils?"

  Kevin sulked a bit, then he said, "What about the rabid bat? That could qualify as a wild animal. Or maybe it's closer to diseased livestock — it could go either way."

  "Look, I'll grant you wild animals and diseased livestock," I said. "That's still only two plagues — two out of ten. You said 'everything' that could go wrong has gone wrong, but clearly you were wrong. So admit you overreacted."

  Something flashed in the blackness of the window next to us — lightning out across the water, so bright that we couldn't miss it. But it happened so quickly that by the time we both turned to look at it, the sky had darkened again, and the window was exactly as black as before. A second later, thunder rumbled.

  "There!" Kevin said. "Did you hear that?"

  "The thunder?"

  "Yes! That's three! We're now up to three of the ten plagues of Egypt!"

  "What?" I said, confused.

  "You literally just listed thunder as one of the ten plagues! Thirty seconds later, it starts to thunder. And you're seriously trying to tell me we're not cursed? What's next, attacking mummies?"

  "Just to be clear," I said, "Wikipedia said thunderstorms of hail and fire."

  "Well, maybe that's what it was!" He pursed his lips in an exaggerated kind of way.

  I smiled, because now we were both in on the joke. In other words, I'd been right to use humor with Kevin. It made me happy, and a little proud, knowing that I'd finally found the right thing to say to make him feel better. (Also, and I definitely wasn't going to mention this to Kevin again, it really was nice to have him be the neurotic one for a change, not me.)

  I turned to him and held him, and he immediately held me back, burying his face in my neck, almost even whimpering a little. He was warm, and a little damp, and his hair was wet — it smelled like his Brut shampoo. He must have taken a shower right before I got there.

  "Kevin."

  "What?" he said, his voice muffled by the collar of my shirt.

  "Everything's going to be okay. Yes, you're right, a few things have gone
wrong. But everything that happened, we fixed it — Gunnar fixed it. If anything else goes wrong, we'll fix that too."

  He nodded. "I know. It's just..."

  "What?"

  He pulled back and turned around, even as I kept holding him in my arms from behind. It felt a little bit like one of those paintings you see of the Madonna and the dying Jesus (but in a good way).

  He didn't say anything.

  "Come on," I said.

  "I don't know," he said. "It's what I was saying last night. I want people to take our wedding seriously, because I want people to take our marriage seriously. But who's going to take it seriously if everything's all screwed up?"

  "Yeah, but I think maybe that was wrong."

  Kevin tilted his head back toward me.

  "Seriously," I said, "isn't that what everyone finds so annoying about weddings? That they have to be 'perfect'? But there's no such thing as perfect, so everyone ends up getting all bent out of shape over stupid little things."

  Kevin stiffened a little in my arms. "You think I'm being stupid?"

  Okay, so maybe I didn't always say the right thing to make Kevin feel better.

  "No, sorry," I said, "bad choice of words. But I think we were wrong about weddings. We were talking about how the point is for the couple to show their friends and family how much they love each other. But I'm wondering if maybe we didn't have it backward. I'm wondering if a wedding isn't more about the friends and family being able to say to the couple: we love you and we support you. That's why weddings are important."

  Mostly, I was pulling this out of my ass, trying to calm Kevin down. But the more I talked, the more I realized I was onto something.