The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life (10 page)

“Focus,”
I said to myself, and I methodically started to take notes of turns I was making. It seemed to take forever for me to find my way out, and the others were calling out—“Mary! Hurry up!”—which only made things worse. We were never going to win the whole thing if I couldn’t get out of the damn shrub maze. And then there it was, the exit, and there was Dez, holding a piece of paper and saying, “There were like fifteen copies of it so maybe we’re the first ones.”

“What’s the clue?” I reached for it

“What took you so long?” Patrick asked.

“I got turned around,” I said to him, then repeated, “What’s the clue?”

Phones buzzed and we all read the text. The Yeti said: NEXT TEAM AT FLYING SAUCERS GETS FREE FRIES TO GO ON THE YETI AND ALSO A BONUS 50 POINTS JUST BECAUSE.

Oh well.

“The clue,” I said, and Dez said, “‘Find Mohonk’s clipper
extraordinaire/helmed by a remarkable pair/The name of the ship/is the point not to skip/if you want a shot at a marvelous dare.’” He looked up. “Any ideas?”

“None,” Winter said.

“This list is way too clever.” Dez handed the clue to me and I read it again.

“Seriously,” Patrick said. “I guess this is what happens when the list maker spends a year at Yale? I mean, who would have expected? Though technically, the rhythm of the limerick is off.”

We all just looked at him.

“What?” he said. “It is!”

“I sort of thought we’d be playing beer pong and flashing our tits,” Dez said, then nodded toward the girls and added, “Or, your tits.”

“There’s still the second list.” Winter absentmindedly adjusted her bra strap. “Our tits aren’t out of the woods yet.”

“Let’s hit the gazebos and think,” I said. So we headed off toward a delicate-looking wooden plank bridge over a small valley near the lake, and snapped a picture of the gazebo on the bridge, then headed off to photograph another one up higher on the same path. It was Winter who said, “Hey, guys, this sign says Skytop Road.”

“Wasn’t there something about a Skytop on the list?” I asked.

“That’s why I mentioned it,” Winter said. And I wanted to throttle her. But not in front of the others. For a second, I thought about texting her about Carson but that seemed ludicrous even to me with her standing right there.

It’s complicated,
she’d said.

What the hell did that mean?

“Take your high-tops to the sky top,” Patrick recited.
“Fifty points.” Then he pointed at his shoes and said, “Once again my outfit saves the day.”

“It’s true,” I said, with a bit too much enthusiasm, but with Patrick I was now all about trying to keep tension at bay. “I am sorry I ever mocked your chosen attire.” I bowed down to him, like servant to master, and he smiled.

“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, T
HE
F
LYING
C
LOUD
C
LIPPER
.

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.

“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.