The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life

by Tara Altebrando

  “The sign says it’s a fifteen-minute walk,” he said.

  “Round trip or one way?” I asked, then read it for myself: “Fifteen minute walk; Pleasant but steep.” A line below said, “More challenging walk to Skytop via the Crevice, 100 yards to your right.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Patrick said, and moved toward the path.

  “We don’t have time,” I said.

  “I’ll go alone,” Patrick insisted. “If I hustle, it won’t take me fifteen. Then I’ll meet you by the docks. And in the meantime you figure out the clue. We don’t lose time if we divide and conquer.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling relief that Patrick was still thinking clearly about the hunt, even if he wasn’t thinking clearly about me. “You have your phone to take the picture?”

  “Yes, Mary,” he said, sort of annoyed-sounding. “I have my phone. But wait. Give me yours.”

  “Why?”

  “The word jumble. It’s only on your phone.”

  “Oh, right!” I said, and handed him my phone and only then thought of the texts to Winter. But Patrick wasn’t the sort to poke around somebody else’s phone. Was he?

  Anyway, it was too late.

  He had already taken off up the Skytop Road toward the tower atop the hill.

  “I guess we need to go into the hotel,” I said, turning to Dez and Winter. “Maybe just ask someone?”

  “I hate asking people things,” Dez said.

  “Well, I think we’re probably the only idiots who drove all this way for a dopey one-point clue,” Winter said. “So let’s just do it. We can’t leave without asking because then the whole thing might be a waste of time.”

  “That’s the spirit,” I said, annoyed. What was up with Winter acting pissed? She knew I liked him, so she shouldn’t have gone and liked him, too.

  “What?” she said. “Sorry. I just mean, it might be a big waste of time so let’s hurry. That’s all.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I wasn’t saying we shouldn’t hurry.”

  So we went back across the wooden bridge and down what felt like hundreds of steps, then up the long paved path to the resort, which loomed large in front of us like a mountain in its own right.

  There was a woman working there and I asked her whether there was a clipper ship connected to the resort or to its history. She thought for a second and said, “Not that I’m aware of.” Then right as I was about to say, “Okay, thanks anyway,” she said, “But there’s a painting in the conservatory of an old ship, if you want to go look.”

  “Could we?” I felt a seed of excitement that we were on the right path.

  “Of course.” Then she gave us directions.

  So we headed down a long hall and up a staircase and then down another one and through a lobby, then followed signs to the conservatory and found the painting. The placard below said only, THE FLYING CLOUD CLIPPER.

  I reached for my phone then remembered, and felt naked for a second. “Google it,” I said to Dez, who took out his phone. I watched over his shoulder as he typed in “Flying Cloud Clipper” and found it on Wikipedia.

  I read highlights aloud: “Set a record for the sail from New York to San Francisco, with a female navigator. Captained by her husband. Known as an extreme clipper because of its speed.” I looked up. “So this is the answer. Flying Cloud.”

  “But what does it mean?” Winter asked, but I could barely look at her.

  “Nothing’s clicking,” Dez said.

  I looked at the clue again. “It says the name of the ship is the point not to skip.” I looked up. “I think we just need the name and it’ll mean something later.”

  “You’re sure?” Dez asked.

  “I’m pretty sure,” I said. It was the only thing that made sense, so I said, “To the docks!”

  There was no sign of Patrick on the path leading down from the Skytop tower so we all sat down on the dock even though the very act of it, sitting, felt wrong. It also felt, well, good. Because the air felt different at Mohonk—liberating, somehow, like a blank slate. While it was possible we’d run into classmates here, it seemed unlikely, and that made me happy.

  Dez lay back on the wobbly boards that stretched out into the lake and said, “You guys can just pick me up here later. Cool?”

  “I wish I could live here,” I said, lying down, too, and letting my bones adjust to the planks beneath me. I tried to imagine I was on a more comfortable lounger, perhaps with a glass of wine—and Carson—next to me.

  Because he could still like me.

  Right?

  He had to!

  “You’d get bored living here,” Dez said, but he didn’t sound convinced. I held up Dez’s phone and snapped a photo of him and his clothes, which had a shimmer to them that was so right with the lake glistening right beside it, and the glow of Winter’s hair was like something out of a movie about angels, a movie Winter would actually want to play herself in, all soft and striking and lovely. I changed the mood of the scene entirely when I said, “So what’s going on with you and Carson that’s so complicated?”

  “That’s my cue,” Dez said, but as he went to get up, Patrick appeared on the dock and I knew that the conversation would go no further. Patrick just wasn’t the sort of guy who tolerated much in the way of gossip or drama and we all knew it. Dez lay back down and I started tracking a thick orange koi that was swimming in the lake and taking occasional nibbles on a lily pad floating near the dock.

  “Mission accomplished,” Patrick said, and I asked, “Did you send it to the Yeti?”

  “I did,” he said wearily as he lay down.

  He handed me my phone and said, “Winston Churchill.”

  The word jumble was still on the screen and I worked it out in my head and yes, he was right. I sent a text to the Yeti that said: WINSTON CHURCHILL and the text came back: GOOD JOB.

  While I waited for more, maybe another clue, I snapped another photo of my friends—Sit by the dock of a bay. Or lake—to send to the Yeti and suddenly Patrick’s suspenders didn’t seem so bad and I only wished I could somehow be in the picture, too.

  “Google them together and see what happens,” Patrick said.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Godzilla and Winston Churchill.”

  “On it,” Dez said. “But for the record, I am Binging, not Googling.”

  “Whatever, man,” Patrick said.

  Dez studied his phone for a minute and said, “It turns up some movie called Godzilla Vs. Biollante. The plot has something about Nazis plotting to kidnap Churchill.”

  “Fascinating,” Patrick said. Then he said, “What about your clue? The maze?”

  I said, “We got the name of the ship—the Flying Cloud—and that sounds like all we need for now. Right?”

  “What do I know?” he said, shrugging while lying down.

  “Well, can you read the clue again and tell me if you agree that all we need is the name of the ship?” I held it out to him but his eyes were closed.

  “Patrick,” I said, waving the piece of paper in front of him.

  “What?” he said.

  “Read it,” I said.

  He took it and said, “Yes, I agree, Mary. It sounds like we just need the name of the ship.” He handed it back and I caught Winter’s eyes and saw something flash there, something like sympathy, or an apology. I wasn’t interested in either.

  My phone buzzed and it was a text from Carson:

  HEARD BARBONE MISSED THE RINGING THE BELL POINTS BY LIKE TWO MINUTES. HE IS GOING DOWN!

  “Barbone missed the bell points by like two minutes,” I reported to my team.

  “How’d you find that out?” Dez asked, and I said, “Carson just texted me,” and I felt strangely proud of that.

  “Awesome,” Dez said, without much energy, and I just let the update soak in. Then another text came, this one from the Yeti and it said: BIG POINTS ON THE LINE OVER AT ASTROBOWL. STRIKE OUT IN THE NEXT HALF HOUR AND YOU GET TEN POINTS FOR EVERY PIN.

&nbs
p; “Aw, crap,” I said. There were more texts we’d gotten throughout the time we’d been at Mohonk. Ten points here. Five points there. Most of them not big enough to warrant a second look or a moment’s regret.

  “Well, we knew the risks,” Dez said.

  We sat there without talking and I just listened to the wind in the trees and the far-off laughter of actual Mohonk guests, and the sounds of boat motors and birds—wondering whether any of the birds from The Pines had followed us here, whether Patrick was right that there was something menacing about them. I couldn’t be sure anymore. We probably sat there for longer than we should have, but I didn’t want this moment to end—even with all the weirdness. That extreme blue was gone from the sky. It was softer now, like a blue fleece baby blanket, and the softness of it felt right.

  “What if you Google Godzilla, Winston Churchill, and the Flying Cloud all together?” Winter asked.

  I didn’t think the game clues had anything to do with the Mohonk clue but I Googled them all together anyway, careful to put Winston Churchill and Flying Cloud in quotes, and then I scanned the results.

  • IMDb: TV Listings

  www.imdb.com/tvgrid/2011-04-16/0115

  Godzilla remake; monkey supervillain; Huggytime Bears;….. The team checks out a rare REO Flying Cloud hot rod from the 1930s;…A letter signed by Winston Churchill; Holy Relic; gas-fueled remote-controlled toy Hummer….

  • Cacha Style: Here’s what I had to fix on my

  cachastyle.blogspot.com/2011/…/here-what-i-had-to-fix-on-my.htm…—Cached

  Jul 5, 2011—THE MONEY IS FLYING AROUND THE · reo flying cloud….. Last edited by Godzilla!; 21-09-2010 at 05:34 PM……. Nice body,…myself and my friends use BMWs · Na parkingu było fajne miejsce · Winston Churchill’s Daimler…

  • Flying Model | POPULAR GIFTS BY AGE

  www.populargiftsbyage.info/flying-model/—Cached

  Flying Cloud 50″ Museum Model Sailing Ship Replica $699.99……Winston Churchill used one as his own transport aircraft……The monster spewing flames in Godzilla, the flying bicycle in E.T., the rampaging dinosaurs in Jurassic…

  “Not sure it’s turning up anything useful,” I said. “It all seems sort of random. But wait, somebody Google ‘REO Flying Cloud hot rod’ while I keep looking.”

  “On it,” Dez said. Then a moment later, “It’s just an old car.”

  “Wait,” Patrick said. “On the list. Doesn’t it ask for the Yeti’s favorite band? Maybe it’s REO Speedwagon?”

  “Hold on,” I said, having scrolled farther down and found another phrase worth following up on and then Googling “flying cloud thunderclap eruptor,” which turned out to be an old cannon. I shared this tidbit with the group and then we fell into silence.

  Nothing was clicking.

  Patrick said, “It says ‘stick your neck out for clues’ so that probably means that the Hangman game gives a clue to the Yeti’s favorite band. So just send in REO Speedwagon.”

  “I just don’t think it’s right,” I said. “It doesn’t feel neat enough.”

  “Just send it,” Winter said. “It’s only a ten point deduction if we’re wrong.”

  “Fine,” I said, then sent the text.

  SORRY, the Yeti wrote back. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME.

  “Told you,” I said to my team. “That’s not it.”

  “We should go,” Patrick said, lifting his torso up and resting back on his elbows.

  He was right.

  It was time to get back to the business of the hunt for real. We’d spent almost an hour at Mohonk—a big risk, considering we were walking away with only 101 points, which brought our total to 994—so the Flying Cloud clue had better pay off.

  I checked my phone but there was still no response to our having solved the Winston Churchill jumble, then we all stood up and, from the way we did, bodies all slow and tight, you would have thought we were zombies climbing out of our graves.

  “I’m sleepy,” Winter said, and I said, “You’ll get over it.”

  “We need some fast points,” Patrick said, and he and Dez started brainstorming on the way to the car while I tugged on Winter’s arm so that she’d lag behind.

  “So?” I said.

  “So I like him,” she said, and she shrugged a shoulder

  I was about to say, “But you know I like him,” but instead I said this: “He has a girlfriend.”

  “I know,” she said, “and I feel bad about that, but he doesn’t even like her like that anymore.”

  I said, “Well, he should tell her that!”

  “He will,” Winter said, and she looked so sure of it, so cocky, that I hated her for a minute.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, trying on righteous indignation for size. “Jill’s our friend.”

  “I bet if he were breaking up with her for you, you’d feel differently,” she said.

  My face burned and I walked faster, to outpace her, as if that would prove anything, and everything around me seemed shaky, the way things are when the heat is bouncing off the ground beneath your feet on a hot day. Then I got back into the car, where I sat and fumed and tried to read the list. Winter followed a minute later but we didn’t make eye contact in the backseat.

  “I think we need to hit the ninety-nine-cent store,” Patrick said, oblivious. “The rest of the weird kitchen stuff. Maybe the maple syrup. There must be more.”

  “Sold!” said Dez, with a worried look in the direction of me and Winter. “Or at least let’s head that way until we think of something better.”

  We didn’t think of anything better—though we did argue about the best place to get a 12-pack of Bounty, and whether or not chocolate chip banana bread would bake eventually in a parked car on a day this hot, if we could find all the ingredients and a pan.

  Our phones all buzzed simultaneously when we were a few minutes outside town: BE THE FIRST TEAM TO TAKE A BUBBLE BATH AT THE SHALIMAR AND WIN 200 POINTS.

  We didn’t even have to talk about it.

  Patrick said, “On it,” then stepped on the gas and Winter said, “We need soap. Bubbles.”

  “The 7-Eleven,” Dez said. “It’s on the way.”

  “We never emptied the shampoo from Eleanor’s,” I said. “It’s in the trunk.”

  “Just drive!” Dez yelled.

  Patrick made a sharp right turn and I screeched, “What are you doing? The Shalimar is that way!” I pointed.

  “Mary,” he scolded. “Calm down. I know a back way.”

  So I said a prayer that he wasn’t about to screw this up that went like this: Please, God, let him not screw this up.

  And then, sure enough, the glowing gold lights of the Shalimar—the very catering hall and ballroom where prom had been held—came into sight around the bend in the wooded road and we pulled into the circular driveway out front. It was eerily still, even with the fountain pulsing. There was no one around.

  Dez said, “Holy shit. We really did it,” and I grabbed the shampoo bottle from the trunk and Patrick and I headed for the fountain. Winter and Dez quickly undressed down to their underwear and hid in the bushes lining the Shalimar’s circular drive, and I knew it was mine and Patrick’s turn to strip down to our intimates as soon as the fountain looked amply bubbly.

  We’d taken a picture first of the non-bubbling fountain and sent it to the Yeti, then we’d sent another one of Patrick with the shampoo bottle. One more pic after we got into the water and we’d be done. I felt giddy that we’d actually succeeded in getting there first and giddier, still, that we might be able to flaunt our success to other teams who were still on their way here.

  We needed a new team name.

  We were no Also-Rans.

  “Is it just me,” I said to Patrick, “or is the water getting bluer?”

  He studied the plumes of water and then the frothy bath by our knees. “Definitely bluer,” he said. “Like a nice shade of toxic.”

  “What is this stuff, anyway?” I tried to read the label on the bottle
in his hands so that I could see the brand name. “People wash their hair with this?”

  “Explains a lot, really.” He gave the bottle a squeeze.

  “Like what?”

  “Like why old ladies have blue hair.”

  The thundering fountain filled the air around us with mist and Patrick dunked the now-empty bottle under the water and then poured it out. “I guess I just don’t understand,” he said, and I braced myself, knowing he wasn’t still talking about blue shampoo or hair. “We share everything. We’re closer to each other than we are to anyone else by a long shot, and I mean, why not at least give it a shot?” He shook his head. “So what if it doesn’t work out. At least we tried.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said slowly. “But I just don’t feel that way about you.”

  “Is it because of prom?” He seemed to, well, stiffen.

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “Because guys get hard-ons, Mary.” His eyes bore into me. “Deal with it.”

  With that, I kicked off my shoes and walked around to the other side of the fountain, where I’d be hidden by its plumes as I stepped out of my shorts as fast as I could then stepped into the fountain. I slipped off my top just as my underwear got submerged, and lifted it off over my head just as my bra went in and tossed it aside and went underwater, lying back like I really was in a tub. I stayed under as long as I could, fountain jets pulsing against me, eyes closed against the toxic blue. I wanted to stay under longer—maybe look for some secret passage to the lost city of Atlantis—but my lungs burned with longing for air so I burst up to the surface.

  Patrick and Dez and Winter had climbed in. Dez used his phone to line up the shot of the three of us, while Patrick took two heaping handfuls of bubbles and propped them on his head to make a big white bubble-fro.

  Dez said, “Smile!” like it was two syllables and took the picture.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Patrick climbed out—wet, with blobs of bubbles sliding down his bare back to his SpongeBob boxers—and we all followed, grabbing our clothes and heading for the car. I was almost disappointed that no one was chasing us away from the Shalimar because I felt like running.