MILLIONS
To keep Elliot awake on the final stretch of the trip—100 miles from Nashville—Dez reads Fahrenheit 451 aloud. It’s not at all what I thought it would be. I had a story about actual modern-day firemen in my head, but this is about a futuristic fireman named Montag who burns books because they were banned. It only took three sentences after reading the first line for us to realize what the first line meant.
“It was a pleasure to burn” = the main character literally likes setting things on fire.
Dez must’ve read the first page at least three times to make sure there wasn’t a better meaning. When she couldn’t find one, she looked at me, her eyelids halfway over her eyes, and said, “This is why I don’t read whole books.” She was so pissed she probably would have stopped reading if she hadn’t been doing it for Elliot.
It is epically disappointing that “It was a pleasure to burn” was a literal statement. I really wanted it to be a description of how you could feel about something and not about being a pyromaniac.
Dez flips to the back of the book to read the last line. She gives me the same disgusted half open eyes. She’s disappointed.
“The last line is ‘when we reach the city’?” She stares at me silently for at least thirty seconds before she screams, “What. A. Bloody. Disaster!” Dez rolls down the window, and with a frustrated groan, flings the book at the highway guard rail. The SUV falls silent.
“Well,” I say, “that book will not be reaching the city.”
Dez looks at me, lips flat, but she begins to laugh harder than I’ve ever seen her. She’s contagious, and we spend the next few miles in repeat-the-line-that-made-us-laugh hysteria.
—
The only thing any of us can talk about at the moment is the building in the Nashville skyline that looks like a Batman mask. We’ve hit downtown Nashville, but it’s the tail end of rush hour so we’re naming all the buildings in the Nashville skyline and giving them personalities.
“Look at that big glass,” Dez says.
“I bet Harvey is proud of his glass,” I say.
“He thinks he’s God’s gift to all the female buildings because of his glass,” Elliot adds.
“He spends at least five hours in the morning on his glass,” Trey says.
“He dated Google Glass?” Addy adds.
We all shrug and nod.
Fifteen minutes on the other side of Nashville, Dez finally tells us to get off on the next exit. After some right turns, some wrong turns, some playful insults, and some non-playful insults, we’re driving into a quiet neighborhood with houses that look like they were built for the emperor of the universe: columns, grand doors, gates, that kind of thing. I’ve never been to Tennessee before, but apparently Brentwood’s a cloister of rich, Top 40 artists from the last fifty years.
Dez stares at her phone and then points to a driveway at the end of the cul-de-sac. “God, this is disgusting.” She rolls her eyes at the houses. “Elliot, pull up to the gate, everyone remember this code: 4478.”
“2178?” Elliot repeats.
“No, 4478,” Dez responds.
“Wait, is it 2478 or 4487?”
“Elliot, really? 4478.”
Elliot pulls up to the keypad of the gate. He tries to catch a glimpse of the house, but all any of us can see are trees.
“What’s the code again?” he asks.
“Good lord,” she snaps, “4.4.7.8. Forty-four, seventy-eight. Four. Followed by another four. Followed by a seven, and then an eight. 4.4.7.8”
Addy starts singing, “Eight six seven five three oh nine,” under her breath.
I see Trey wink at Elliot. “Can you repeat that? I’m just going to write it down for him.”
Dez’s jaw drops in disgust, and everyone who isn’t Dez laughs.
“To hell with all of you.”
I grab her hand and kiss it. She rolls her eyes and smiles.
I’m pretty sure the driveway is part of the Appalachian Trail. I feel like we’ve been on it for half the trip. It winds into trees and oblivion. When I start expecting to see the ocean, I finally catch sight of a few house lights between swaying limbs.
We pull up to our vacation mansion. It has columns like a lot of the others do, but it looks a little more rustic. It’s as though Dez’s mom wanted her to stay in a place that wasn’t architecturally different from her house.
“Seeing how this driveway brought us all the way to Florida,” Trey says, “let’s go to Disney before we unpack.”
Elliot blows a puff of air out of his nose. “For real.”
We park the car in front of the door and proceed with the just-arrived-to-the-destination traditions of stretching, screaming in relief, and more stretching.
As Trey and I unload the bags, Dez hands me a key.
“Here’s the key to the house. I’m taking my stuff to the backyard.”
“Are you really going to camp out?” I ask. “It’s December. It’s like, forty degrees out here.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Dez …”
“Adam …”
“Elliot …” Trey adds.
“Trey …” Elliot says.
“Addy …” Addy says, grabbing her bag and walking toward the house.
I throw my hands in the air. “Fine. Do what you want; you’re not my wife. But I bet millions you’ll be inside before our trip is over.”
“You’re on, Hawthorne,” she yells, walking toward the side of the house. “Millions.”