The Road to Amazing (25 page)

Kevin nodded, but I wasn't
sure he understood completely. It didn't matter. He had his own
stuff to think about, and that was okay. I wasn't sure how solid my
solution to the mystery of Amazing was anyway — it probably
wouldn't make a very satisfying resolution on an episode of
Veronica Mars
. But it
made sense to me, at least at that moment, on that day.

Out in the channel, a boat passed by,
the first one I could remember seeing since Kevin and I had climbed
up onto the promontory (I was pretty sure they couldn't see us).
The pine needles had long since stopped raining down around us, but
I was only realizing it now.

"Let's get married," I
said.

"What?" Kevin said. "How?"

"What do you mean 'how'? We go back to
the Amazing Inn right now and just do it. We have everything we
need: the certificate, an officiant, however many witnesses we
need. Best of all, we have cake for sixty-seven people."

"Yeah, but what about the guests? I'm
sure they've all gone home by now. And what about what you said
last night? You said the point of a wedding was so our friends and
family could show us how important we are to them."

"Maybe it is. But the people that
matter the most? They're already here, back in the house. Haven't
they proved themselves this weekend?"

Kevin shifted in the grass. Was he
finally getting cold? I wasn't.

"What?" I said.

"Back at the house. You didn't seem
all that upset when we canceled the wedding."

I thought about how to
answer this. Down on the beach, seagulls screeched, excited by all
the things that washed up during the storm. I couldn't help but
think:
Where did the seagulls go
during
the
storm?

"That was stupid," I said. "I knew how
you felt about the wedding, how you wanted it to be perfect. And I
didn't even fight for it. I just let it die."

"Why? Are you having second
thoughts?"

"No. Not at all."

He kept staring at me.

"
No!
" I said. "For the first time in
my life, I was determined to not be neurotic about something. And
I
haven't
been!"

Kevin smiled.

"But," I said, "it's true
that I've been thinking about growing older." I explained how I'd
somehow gotten it into my head that getting married meant the start
of another stage in life — a stage where you had kids, and had
problems with ear wax, and stopped having hot sex, and spent your
weekends watching reruns of
House
Hunters
. In other words, you did all the
exact same things that a zillion other people do.

"The point is," I said, "I don't want
my life to become boring. I want my life to be, well,
amazing."

"Well, we might be screwed
then," Kevin said, "because I actually love
House Hunters
. Or at least
House Hunters International
."

"I know!" I said. "Right?"

"But the rest of it? I
don't want to be like everyone else either. I don't agree with you
that having kids has to mean your life is over. For a lot of
people, having kids
is
an adventure, a really interesting one." I started to say
something, but Kevin interrupted me: "But I'm completely down with
the fact that it's not an adventure you want to take. That's not
even the point. I don't want my life to become boring, but who says
it has to?"

"No one. It doesn't! That's what I've
realized this weekend. As usual, it was incredibly obvious, but I
was too much of an idiot to see it."

Kevin looked at me.

"Think about everything
that's happened," I said. "Not just the beached orca and the rabid
bat. A clothing-optional commune? That bachelor party? And don't
get me started on our friends. A famous actor? Someone who's
helping to build a spaceship to Mars? A guy like Gunnar who also
happens to be filthy rich?" I thought for a second. "Hey, it just
occurred to me that all we need is the Skipper, and we'd have the
whole cast from
Gilligan's
Island
." Kevin laughed, which I
appreciated. "The point is, if this is the kind of stuff that
happens on our wedding weekend, I can only imagine how exciting our
marriage is going to be." I leaned in and lowered my voice. "And
that sex we just had? I mean, my
God
."

Kevin laughed again, even as he
blushed.

"But it's more than that,"
I went on. "Boring or amazing isn't something that happens
to
you. It's something
you choose, like Vernie tried to tell me. If you surround yourself
with interesting people, and if you do interesting things, your
life is interesting, as simple as that. So getting married doesn't
have anything to do with anything either. And if life ever
does
get boring, well,
it's never too late to change it. Like the people of Amazing, you
can pick up and leave."

"Leave
me
, you mean?" Kevin
asked.

"We'll leave
together
," I reassured
him.

Kevin's face got serious. "Screw
that." We were still naked, in more ways than one, and he turned
and faced me, sitting upright, sort of on one knee. "Russel
Middlebrook, I promise you an amazing life. But if I turn out to be
a total dud of a husband — if the last ten years have been one
elaborate con to get you to marry the world's most boring person —
then I give you permission to dump my ass."

At first I wasn't sure
what to make of this, if I should take it seriously or if it was
all a joke. But I never laughed. Instead, I turned to Kevin and
said, "And I promise
you
an amazing life. And if you ever truly feel like
you and I are in such different places that you can't be happy, I
give you permission to leave." I thought for a second. "Although
I'd appreciate it if you gave me some advance notice. Don't, like,
leave me a note and take off in the middle of the night. And if I
lose both my legs in an accident, please don't leave me to fester
in some horrible, rat-infested, state-run facility."

"Deal," Kevin said.

We looked at each other, and it seemed
like a good time to kiss, so we did.

Then we did both laugh, but it still
didn't feel that much like a joke. I knew it was weird to be
discussing the terms of our breaking up on our wedding day. But
somehow talking about exactly what Kevin and I expected from
marriage, that made the commitment we were making seem more real,
more serious.

I sat back, looking out at the water
again. Maybe it had to do with how hot we'd gotten from the sex or
some weird warm ocean current, but I still wasn't feeling the cold.
It actually felt good, invigorating, the breeze on my skin. I was
as clean and fresh as the wind.

"So the next question," I said. "Is
this the kind of wedding you want? Going back to the Amazing Inn
and reciting our vows in front of Min and the others? No other
friends and family?"

He gave it some serious thought. Then
he nodded and said, "I think so, yeah."

But even as he spoke, I sat upright
again. Something else had occurred to me.

"Now what?" Kevin said.

"Did you send an email or text to our
guests?" I said. "The people waiting in line at the ferry? Did you
tell them we were canceling the wedding?"

"No, I turned off my
phone."

"Oh, geez, I did too!" I fumbled for
my pants, searching for my phone. "Everyone's probably so pissed
off at us right now."

Kevin turned for his pants too. "Yeah,
we need to tell them what's going on."

I turned on my phone, and a bunch of
old texts popped up one after the other.

Yup
, I thought, scanning them all.
People are annoyed.

The last text was from
Gunnar.

The wedding's back
on!
it read.
But
don't do anything until I get back.

I showed the text to Kevin.

"What is he talking about?" he
asked.

I looked out at the water, which was
much calmer now. "Maybe the ferry's running again. But even if it
is, there's still the back-up. And it's too late." I looked at the
clock: it was almost four o'clock. "Even with the ferry and Uber,
it would take hours for everyone to get here now."

"You're right," Kevin said, but we
both started pulling on our clothes anyway.

Once I was dressed, I texted Gunnar
back, but of course he didn't answer.

Kevin and I climbed down the
promontory, then hurried back up the road to the house. Gunnar's
car wasn't in the parking lot, but the other cars were, so it
wasn't like they'd all gone to pick people up at the ferry
terminal.

The inside of the house felt like the
waiting room at a train station, with people leaning against
counters and sagging into chairs, but somehow everyone seeming
impatient at the same time.

The second Kevin and I stepped inside,
everyone perked up again.

"There you are!" Min said. "Where did
you guys go?"

I couldn't think of a good answer to
that question, so I ignored her. "What's going on?" I said. "I just
got a text from Gunnar that said the wedding is back
on."

"We got the same text," Otto said. "We
don't know anything more than you."

I texted Gunnar
again.
Where are you?
I wrote.

This time he did write
back.

Almost there!
he said.

I started texting him again, but then
I noticed something out of the corner of my eye — more boats in the
channel off-shore. At first I didn't really think anything about
them. It made sense there'd be more boats out now that the storm
had stopped.

They all seemed to be heading in the
same direction — toward the beach below the Amazing Inn.

I turned and took a closer
look.

"She'll be apples now," Nate said,
standing next to me. He'd seen the boats too, even if (as usual) I
didn't have any idea what his Australian slang meant.

Without a word, we all stepped out
onto the deck for a better view. Three boats sailed toward us, all
different sizes, none of them huge. One looked like a fishing boat,
one was a small yacht, and the third was just a regular
motorboat.

People crammed their decks. A bald man
who looked a lot like my dad gripped the railing of the yacht. And
it almost looked like my Aunt Helen standing next to him, wearing
one of her trademark purple dresses.

Gunnar stood at the bow of the fishing
boat. I heard him shouting to the other boats, like he was guiding
them all closer to shore.

"What did he
do
?" I asked Min, who
stood on the other side of me.

But of course Min didn't have any
answers for me.

We all thundered down the stairs to
the beach to meet Gunnar and his own Mosquito Fleet. The yacht and
the fishing boat were too big to land without a dock, so Gunnar was
using the motorboat as a dingy, ferrying the passengers from the
other boats to shore.

There were already people on the beach
when we got there — my cousins Ann, Jan, and Jane, and a couple
that had lived next to my parents' house when I was growing
up.

Right then, the motorboat was landing
again, and Gunnar hopped out to help people down without getting
their feet wet.

One of them was my mom, who turned
around and saw me. "Russel!" she said. She stepped forward to hug
me. "I was so worried we weren't going to make it. But Gunnar saved
everything!"

Meanwhile, my dad shook Kevin's hand.
"Congratulations, boys," he said.

I was literally speechless. I kept
watching people climb down out of the boat, even as I spotted other
faces on the two boats still farther out in the water — more
relatives and family friends, and Kevin's mom and dad
too.

Finally, I stepped closer to Gunnar.
"How did you do this?" I asked him.

He smiled at me. "I'll tell you
later," he said, then turned to continue directing the guests in
from the boats.

Truthfully, it wasn't everyone who had
planned to come to our wedding. Sixty-one people had RSVPed (in
addition to the six people who were spending the weekend with us).
Gunnar looked like he'd rounded up about thirty of them. Maybe he
wasn't able to track down contact info for a lot of them, or maybe
some people had already left the line at the ferry once they saw it
was closed.

But now I'm nitpicking. The truth is,
in a weekend full of them, Gunnar had managed to pull off the movie
moment to end all movie moments.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN