The Road to Amazing (6 page)

I felt a little judged by Nate, that
he had to build a "real" fire. Even so, I looked at Vernie. "Shall
we?"

"Oh, I don't think so," she
said.

"Really? Why not?"

"Because I saw that stairway down to
the beach. I'd never make it at night."

"Sure, you will. I'll help
you."

"No, you and your friends go, and I
think I'll turn in early."

* * *

The rest of us did go down to the fire
on the beach, and we all smoked a little weed (which, for the
record, is perfectly legal in Washington State).

But Kevin and I had flown up from
California on Wednesday, and we'd had a zillion things to do to get
ready for the weekend, and now we were both exhausted. So we
retired early too, right after midnight.

When we got to the master bedroom,
Kevin disappeared into the bathroom to get ready for bed. I
stopped, looking around the room.

Something didn't feel right. I
couldn't figure out what it was.

It was definitely an incredible
bedroom. It had a high ceiling, a king-sized bed, and a separate
seating area next to a gigantic window facing the water. I'd slept
in nice bedrooms before, but only when my parents were paying,
never with Kevin. Was that what felt weird — the fact that Kevin
and I had never slept together in a room this nice? We'd been
living together for more than a year, and sleeping together for
longer than that, but it had always been on futons in cheap
apartments or tiny bedrooms, not massive bedrooms with en-suite
bathrooms and Jacuzzi tubs.

"This place is really something," I
said, even though I wasn't sure Kevin could hear me in the bathroom
with the door closed.

I stepped up to the window to look
outside, but it was dark now, so I was mostly looking into a big
black void.

"What?" Kevin said behind
me.

I turned and suddenly my view got a
whole lot better: he was standing there in a tight t-shirt and
boxer briefs.

"Nothing," I said.

"How do you think it's going?" he
said, flossing his teeth.

"The weekend? It seems like it's going
great. Great speech, by the way. Oh, hey, isn't it fun the way Nate
and Ruby are hitting it off?"

"Yeah," Kevin said,
distracted.

"But I've heard that before, how a lot
of straight guys and lesbians really click. I think I even read how
their brains are a lot alike or something. Like straight women and
gay guys, except straight guy/lesbian relationships aren't a media
stereotype, so you never hear about 'em."

"Hmm."

Kevin wandered back into the bathroom
to brush his teeth. That's when I realized what was wrong with the
room.

"The room has no blinds or curtains,"
I said.

"What?" Kevin said from the
bathroom.

"Nothing," I said, but I couldn't help
but think it was going to be hard to stay sleeping once the sun
came up the next morning.

He joined me in the main room and
started searching through his overnight bag.

"
Damn
it," he said.

"What?" I said.

"I forgot my charge cord at my
parents' house."

"It's okay, we can share
mine."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

I didn't say anything for a second.
Then I said, "What's wrong?"

"I just told you!" Kevin
said.

"I mean in general. It seems like
something's been going on with you today. It's not about our
getting married, is it?"

Kevin froze for a second. Then he
sighed and sank down onto the bed. He looked like one of those
abandoned barns about to collapse.

"No," he said. "Well, yes,
but it's not about
getting
married. I just want everything to go well. I
mean, it's our
wedding
. The whole point of a wedding is for two people to stand up
in front of their friends and family, and tell everyone how much
the two people love each other, how important they are to each
other. That's how people know to take them seriously as a couple,
that they
are
a
couple."

I nodded vaguely. Everything Kevin
said made sense.

"But if everything is all messed up,"
Kevin said, "what's the point in doing it?"

"What makes you think things'll be
messed up?" I asked.

"I just checked the
weather. It's supposed to rain this weekend. And, I mean, a
lot
."

"Kevin!" We'd agreed we weren't going
to check the weather forecast since (a) there wasn't anything we
could do about it, (b) we had a back-up plan where we moved
everyone inside if it rained. Kevin and I disagreed on weather
forecasts anyway: I'd always thought they were mostly bullshit,
more like silly horoscopes than actual science.

"I know, I know," Kevin
said.

"I'm sure everything'll work out
fine." When he didn't answer, I added, "Do you want a blowjob? Help
you relax?"

(Incidentally, did other couples talk
like this? I sort of doubted that very many straight couples did,
but I figured other gay couples might. Then again, I'd never really
been part of any other gay couples, not long-term anyway, so I
didn't know.)

"Thanks," he said, "but I'm too
tired."

I nodded, then I headed into the
bathroom to do my own thing. After that, I turned out the light and
climbed into the bed next to Kevin.

The mattress was so big that it took
me a moment to find him.

"Hellooooo?" I said,
making an echo with my voice, pawing through the covers. "Is there
anyone
in
here?"
Finally, I found him, lean and tight in his soft cotton
undies.

I cuddled up next to him. "It's going
to be okay," I said. "I mean it. This is going to be the best
wedding of all time."

He didn't answer.

I put my hand on his forehand. "Nod if
you hear me."

He laughed and nodded.

Then, of course, I slipped my hand
down into his boxer-briefs and found that he was
rock-hard.

"I thought you said you were
exhausted," I said.

"That was almost three minutes
ago."

I laughed and started kissing
him.

And just for the record? I still
wasn't feeling any weirdness about the wedding, getting cold feet
or anything.

In fact, if anyone was being a little
neurotic, it was Kevin. How nice was that for a change?

CHAPTER FOUR

Sure enough, the sun shining in the
windows woke me up early the next morning.

What's the deal with
curtain-less bedrooms anyway? Over the years, I'd ended up in more
of them than you'd think, or bedrooms with these worthless,
gossamer-y curtains that didn't stop any light at all. This always
seemed vaguely hostile to me, like the morning person who decorated
the bedroom was making a little moral judgment on the idea of
someone actually sleeping in. Or maybe they couldn't even
conceive
of the idea
that the whole world wasn't exactly like them, up at the crack of
dawn.

But at least the
sun
was
shining,
which meant the weather forecast had been wrong about the weekend
rain, so far anyway.

Beside me in bed, Kevin somehow
slumbered blissfully on. I didn't want to wake him, so I quietly
dressed and slipped out into the main house.

I was the only person up, and
everything was so incredibly quiet. It wasn't like being back in
Los Angeles with the never-ending sounds of the city: the whoosh of
the freeways, the sound of the sirens.

I made a pot of coffee in the kitchen,
then carried a cup out to the deck.

It was still cold out, and everything
was wet with morning dew, but the view of the water was fantastic.
I loved the way it filled the channel, perfectly hugging the bays,
glistening like liquid eternity. The air smelled of pine with a
salty mist from the water below me.

But as I sat there, I realized the
island wasn't as quiet as I'd first thought. The trees all around
the house creaked, squirrels skittered in the branches, and birds
twittered. Down on the beach, waves lolled against the rocks (and I
caught a whiff of the seaweed that had probably washed up on
them).

I suddenly remembered what Christie
had told me the day before about the abandoned town of Amazing,
Washington.

I hadn't finished my coffee yet, but I
went back into the house. I was still the only one up, so I found
my jacket and shoes, and headed off across the yard, through the
parking lot, to the start of that little road that led to
Amazing.

The second I stepped onto the road,
something seemed different, but I couldn't quite figure out what it
was. The road wasn't well-used: it was just two dirt tire tracks
winding through the pine trees.

I found myself growing weirdly
excited. What would I find at the end? Christie had said there were
ruins, but what did that mean exactly? The road was mostly covered
with a scattering of leaves and pine needles, everything wet from
the dampness of autumn, so the ground felt soft, and I couldn't
hear my own footsteps. The forest was oddly quiet too. I didn't
hear any birds or squirrels now, and the trees weren't creaking
like they had been out on the deck at the house either. It felt
like the forest was holding its breath in anticipation of what was
going to happen next.

I picked up my pace, eager to get to
the end of the road.

It turned to the right,
around a bend, and then made another turn, to the left, down a hill
toward the water. Now I held
my
breath.

I found myself facing another hill —
or, rather, a rocky promontory that looked out over the water. It
was rough and jagged, but still covered with trees and ferns. To
the right, a flat apron of land looped around a little rocky cove.
The trees and undergrowth were still thick — so thick I could
barely make out the beach.

But as for the road itself, it just
ended. It wasn't even a cul-de-sac. It was a slightly wider area
where a car could park or turn around.

I didn't see the ruins Christie had
mentioned, or any sign of the town of Amazing at all. There was
only the forest.

Around me, the trees were creaking
again, and waves washed against the beach. Seagulls screeched,
fighting over something in the rocks.

Well, that was
anticlimactic
, I thought. As usual, I'd
let my imagination get away from me. As for Amazing, Christie the
Crackpot had probably made the whole thing up.

Still, I'd come this far, so I figured
I should at least look around.

I came to the end of the road, then
followed a narrow footpath down to the cove. At one point, someone
had made a bunch of stacks of flat grey rocks — cairns, I guess
they're called. Some of them poked up out of the sword ferns, and a
few of them stuck out into the trail itself, so the path veered
around them. There was something sort of otherworldly about them,
and I felt a little like I was walking through the skeletal remains
of a dinosaur. Somewhere to my right, a stream gurgled, but I
couldn't see it through the undergrowth.

Suddenly there was someone right in
front of me. I'd almost run right into them.

"Oh!" I said, pulling back.

"Russel?" the person said.

It was Min.

"Oh, my God, you scared me!" I said.
She was wearing earth-tones (typical for her), so she'd blended
right into the undergrowth. Plus, I'd been distracted by the
stream.

"What are you doing up so early?" she
asked me. She knew the hours I usually kept.

"No curtains in the master bedroom.
What about you?"

"Ruby snores."

I felt bad for her, but was actually
glad I'd run into her out here. As excited as I was to gather all
my best friends together in one house, I'd been worried that I
wouldn't be able to spend any time with them one-on-one. Min and I
didn't live in the same city anymore, and I really missed
her.

"Also..." she said.

"What?" I said.

"Well, there was this album back in
the inn — this book of articles. It talked all about this little
town of Amazing that the place is supposedly named
after."

"I know! Isn't it cool? The manager
told me about it yesterday. But she said the residents were
abducted by aliens, so I figured she was making it up."

Min smiled sardonically.

"There were really articles, though,
huh?" I said. "And did they say if the residents really all
supposedly disappeared overnight?"

She nodded.