The Road to Amazing Read Online Free PDF Page A

of
Kevin back in the seventh grade was becoming clearer and clearer.
He was wearing a blue shirt and jeans. He'd recently gotten a
haircut — or maybe he always kept his hair that neatly trimmed.
Yes, I thought he was hot.
    And now I've ended up with
him , I said to myself.
    Gunnar lifted his glass again. "To
Russ and Kevin," he said, "and to destiny!"
    Who in the world wouldn't drink to
that?
    But once we'd finished toasting, Kevin
turned his attention back to the pizza — which unfortunately,
really was too big for the cookie sheet.
    "God damn it!" he said, frustrated again,
and that's when I took over and made the executive call to cook the
pizzas directly on the oven rack.

 
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    Forty or so minutes later, the
doorbell rang again, which meant that the next ferry must have
finally arrived on the island. I answered the door.
    "Vernie!" I said, grinning like a kid
getting a triple-scoop ice cream cone.
    It was my friend Vernie Rose, a
seventy-four year old woman, carrying an overnight bag. Vernie was
even shorter than Min, but wider at the hips, with silver hair that
was cut in sort of a bowl. She wore diamond cat-rim glasses, but it
was her eyes that were doing most of the sparkling.
    Vernie was a retired screenwriter —
she had once even been nominated for an Oscar (for a short film she
wrote). We'd met a few years earlier, and now she was my
screenwriting mentor. When it came time for Kevin and me to figure
out who we wanted to spend the whole wedding weekend with us, I
knew right away I wanted Vernie.
    She stepped inside, looking around the
house. "Nice place," she said. "Where's the booze?"
    I laughed. "How was the ferry
ride?"
    "Horrible. I'm too old for this shit.
But I'm pleased as punch to be here. But first I need to spend a
penny."
    I knew that meant she needed to use
the bathroom, so I pointed out the way.
    When she got back, she said, "You
thought I was kidding about the booze, didn't you?"
    But I'd totally known that was coming,
so I pulled a glass of wine out from behind my back.
    "Oh, you're gooood!" she said, taking
the glass. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."
    Right then, the doorbell rang one last
time, and I opened it.
    "Otto!" I said.
    "Russel!" he said, and we actually did
hug.
    I'd met Otto years ago when were both
sixteen and counselors at a summer camp. We'd even dated for a few
months after that, but that was all long over. Now he was an actor
living in Los Angeles, which was where I'd reconnected with him the
year before. But Otto was a burn survivor. When he was seven years
old, he got into some gasoline and matches, and now he had a big
burn on his shoulder and one-half of his face. Over the years, he'd
had some corrective surgery. Plus, he was a pretty good-looking guy
to begin with, even more so now that he'd grown into his
looks.
    Still, for a long time,
he'd struggled, because it was hard enough being an unknown actor
even without big scars on your face. But earlier that year, he'd
landed a role on a network sitcom called Hammered , about this guy, Mike
Hammer, and his friends living in a college dorm. Otto played
Dustin, one of Mike's dorm-mates, who also happened to have scars
on his face.
    Truthfully, except for Otto, the show
wasn't that special. I mean, it was mostly about guys trying to get
laid, and dealt with issues like "the friend zone," and fuck
buddies, and how for some Millennials, porn is supposedly better
than real sex — comedy themes that were completely tapped out five
years ago.
    Still, it was incredible
watching someone I knew on television. Better still, when the show
had debuted in early June, Dustin had quickly become the break-out
character. It's not every day that someone with scars on their face
gets cast in a sitcom. It was a little like Laverne Cox on Orange is the New Black being the first transgender actress playing a transgender
character on an actual TV program.
    The one problem with all this was that
ever since Otto