Are You in the Middle of Your Happy Ending?
“Anything
down there?” I asked, hurrying down the crumbling steps after the
cousins. Methane and dust made for a nearly unbreathable mix as we
neared the bottom.
“Well, Fair, it turns out you do have a ‘pool.’ You’ve had one this whole time,” called Monty.
“I heard sarcastic quotes around ‘pool’ there.”
He turned his flashlight on a half-built hole in the ground. It
was tiled, partially, but unfinished. Dirt and debris caked the bottom.
“Oh wow,” I choked. “Breathing. Eck.”
“Methane pocket, somewhere. Product of living near the tar pits. I
wonder if that’s why they left it unfinished,” Gomery half-said,
half-coughed. “But look.”
The same blue tile at the top of the stairs covered the walls. Waves formed and ceramic octopuses frolicked.
“What publicity for The Wilfair!” clapped Monty. “You found a
pool with priceless tile work and were able to hand the motel and pool
next door back to its rightful owners.”
“Monty,” I coughed.
“What? This is the pool you wanted! Everyone wins and no one has to be sad!”
“Except my guests, swimming down here.” I brushed some dust.
“It’s crummy now, but a few bucks—”
“Several hundred thousand bucks—”
“And bam! You got your pool.”
“Tell me, Monty, how I’ll supply the thing guests want most.”
“Free drinks?”
“Sunshine.”
Monty stared up. “Install a skylight.”
“That’s what people on vacation dream about, sitting under a murky ceiling hole.”
“And there are a few stories above this room. Before you even reach ground,” added Gomery.
“People back then were crazy,” said Monty, all disappointment.
“People in the future will say that about us,” I said.
“Why the hell did they even start to build a stupid pool down here?” The popcorn box kicked a concrete chunk.
“Indoor pools were once, like, the rage. Maybe my
great-grandfather did it to compete with yours, once he saw he’d made a
mistake, not building his own. By the time he realized there was no
space left on the corner, he went underground. Literally. But then they
stopped. Methane leaks. No sunlight. Ghosts. I don’t know.”
“You’ve got octopuses down here! On the walls! Keeping Wilfair guests
from these beautiful, creepy wall octopuses is mean!” gestured Monty.
“Uh... Octopuses? Octopi. Octopuses.”
“Monty. No.”
His head hung. “I’m sad. I wanted to be the hero. I wanted this to be our happy ending.”
“Maybe we’re in the middle of our happy ending and we don’t know it.” Gomery pushed up his glasses.
“A happy ending might take years to play out. It isn’t just the
kiss before the credits,” I agreed. “And why do you even want to keep
the motel? You never have time. You never have money. I’m sorry, I know
that’s impolite, or whatever, but you don’t. So why can’t I pay you more
than you make now? Why can’t I give you some extra hours in your days?
Why keep a place you don’t even want?”
“Because it’s mine!”
“That’s an empty reason. Nobody likes everything they have. The important thing is to keep the stuff you really love!”
“Have you ever had something taken away? No, you have not.” Even in the dark, Monty’s scowl was audible.
“Yes.”
“Fair Finley, not getting something she wanted! What’s the next fairytale you’ll tell?”
“You know what’s worse than having something taken away? Never
having had it. Or getting close then giving it back. Just saying, ‘nope,
I’m going to choose the greater good here, because I’m, like, so
noble.’ And your heart is crumbling, like this ridiculous pool, and
you’d like to kick the greater good, hard, right in the pants. Because
you’re selfish and you’re lonely and you know your big good choice is
going to spawn a hundred little bad choices, personal choices, like
jumping in freezing pools with mint dishes. Because you gave away what
you really wanted right before you got it. That’s worse, Monty, then
handing over something you don’t even really like.”
Quiet fell over the crumbling room.
“You started strong there, but when you got to wanting to kick
the greater good in the pants your whole nice movie speech unraveled. If
I was writing that, I would’ve ended it there. Now hold me, boss. Make
me not cry.” Monty opened his arms.
Gomery cleared his throat. “Methane management has improved. You could revive this pool.”
I faced him. “Do you not want me to buy Motel Fairwil now?”
“I want you to do what you want to do.”
“I’m taking the motel.”
“Choosing a thing over a person. How compassionate, Fair,” complained the popcorn-box’d person in my arms.
“What’s that mean?”
“You’re taking the motel but not the man.”
“The man’ll be around,” said Gomery.
“That’s the problem.” I sighed. “Remember that one time we stood next to that old pool?”
“Yes.”
“Remember I said I want you both to have a life, and enjoy the
extra time and money that’ll come from working for me, because you
deserve it?”
“So true. Those last two guys who paid us?
The necktie nerd and wannabe filmmaker? Good riddance. Cheap jerks,”
muttered Monty.
“What I didn’t say was I kind of don’t
want that for you, too. I don’t want you guys to suddenly have awesome
lives because that could be, uh, not fun for me, if, if, if. If Gomery
were to meet someone and like her. And that happened because the lady
who likes you, this lady right here, was able to gift you with, like,
time, and a life, and new opportunities.”
“Puffing yourself up there, Fair,” joked Monty.
“And I feel selfish for even thinking I don’t want you to fully
enjoy your new lives. I want you to be happy. I just want to be a part
of your happy. And if I have to watch what I helped engineer, at close
range, work out, without me. I’ll be thrilled and devastated.
Conflicting concepts. One space.”
“I’m sad,” Monty said again. “I’m the owner of a busted VCR and a broken heart. I don’t know which is worse.”
“Why not tape a note to the lobby door? Addressed to ‘The
Mysterious Stranger Who Left Us the Busted Videotape Recorder’?” Gomery
suggested. “Maybe whoever left it for us, the World’s Basement intern or
the Rainey-Palomo sisters, can replace it.”
“That’s
not all of it,” sighed Monty. “The lovely lady of my dreams might let my
cousin buy her a glass of red wine on his twenty-first birthday, and
yet my heart is crying hot heart tears over this pool business. I wanted
this moment to be different, me finding a solution which is more of a
problem. Isn’t that life, though? What we want and what actually happens
always splits at some unseen fork in the road. Reality, pah. It always
acts with total impunity!”
“Did you really just say ‘impunity’ at six o’clock in the morning?”
“Twenty four hours a day can’t hold all I have to offer, Fair.”
“Let’s go to bed, Mr. Impunity. It’s morning.”
“Be right up!”
“You go to your bed and I go to mine.”
“But my bed’ll be your bed, now, at least on paper, legally. So we’re both going to your beds.”
“Goodnight, Monty.”
“Goodnight, Miss Finley. I don’t know if I’ll like calling you that now.”
“You don’t like Miss Finley?”
“I like Fair,” Monty smiled.
We
left the methane-filled room, disappointed and cobwebby. When we
reached the top of the crumbling stairs, the guy in the glasses pulled a
blanket off a box and tossed it over the shredded wall, effectively
hiding the Pool That Never Was and Likely Would Never Be.
