Class Novel: Chapter 6 by Emma Hyche

Author’s Note: 
I'm pretty sure my chapter was due on April 4th, but I could be wrong. I wrote the scene following Alethia's, since I didn't see Seth's last night. I guess the person who is next could follow Seth's, since mine could precede his? Don't really know what to do from here!

I know I probably should have made the scene between Cody and Nat longer/more substantial, but every time I tried it kept getting too “romantic comedy” and I hate romantic comedies with a passion, so I’ll leave someone else with that responsibility. I think one of the most important things I did here is introduce the idea that Jake the actor might not show up, which would lead Nat to seek an actor in Cody. I really like the idea that Chad introduced of having Eugene as the quirky hotel manager she befriends, so I developed that a little more. I didn’t really mention Jack more, because I’m still kind of confused as to what their relationship was/is. I hope everyone doesn’t hate it too much!

Chapter 5

When Nat opened her eyes in the morning to the shrill beeping of the alarm clock, it took her a few seconds to figure out where she was. The blast of water in the shower was icy, and she was nearly finished before it warmed. Though she was shivering as she stepped out of the shower, she told herself the cold would be good practice for the long nights of filming in the snow which lay ahead. She hoped Jake, the actor who’d agreed to play the lead back in California, would be able to stand the climate and the isolation. She hadn’t heard from him in a few days; hopefully he was making arrangements to leave his house empty for the month minimum the movie would take to shoot. His silence was worrying, but she pushed it out of her head for now and dressed to leave. A coffee shop: that was what she needed. Someplace with strong coffee and ambient noise to iron out the last minute screenplay changes and organize her plans for location scouting. 

When the elevator doors slid open, she was greeted by a call of “Hello, Miss Nat!” from Eugene, who said reading a paperback crime novel at the front desk. 

“Hello, Eugene.”

He set the book down and smiled. “Did you sleep all right?”

“Very comfortably.” (A lie, but a harmless one.) “Do you know where I might go to get some coffee, maybe some breakfast too?”

He sighed. “Well let’s see now…There’s Amelia’s, they should be close to what you’re looking for. We don’t have a Starbucks or anything fancy like that.”

“I’m sure that would be fine.” Nat wondered internally what kind of place she was about to see, if a Starbucks seemed fancy in comparison. 

Eugene grabbed pen and paper from a drawer in the desk. “Let me draw you a map!”

“Oh I’m sure I can find it, no need.” 

“Well just in case, it’ll help you find your way faster.” He scrawled curved lines for streets and labelled them, drawing two big Xs, one with a smiley face to represent the hotel. After a few minutes he handed the paper to her. “Just follow the directions and you can’t miss it.”

“Thank you, I’ll see you later, Eugene.” As she left, she thought she heard him chuckle under his breath. 

As soon as she stepped outside, she knew the parka had been a mistake. The weather was fairly temperate, and the chill of the wind couldn’t penetrate the thick fabric. Now she knew what Eugene had been laughing at. Nice, not even ten steps out the door and I already stick out, like some clueless tourist, she thought. She made a mental note to try to squint through the snow of static on the TV and find the Weather Channel before she left tomorrow. 

She trudged down the road, looking at the mess of lines Eugene had drawn her. It was quite simple, just a few turns. Nothing he couldn’t have simply described to her and sent her on her way. He must be lonely, all alone in the hotel in the off season, she thought. Maybe he could help her with the movie, maybe get an unpaid producer’s nod or something. The title was meaningless with a budget as small as hers, but she felt for his isolation. 

She found Amelia’s with little trouble. It was smaller than even she had expected, looking like an old school diner that had been half remodeled. There were booths by the windows, and she sat down and pulled out her laptop. She was keenly aware of the glances being cast her way by the men sitting at the bar, drinking coffee and eating bacon and eggs. There was a menu on the next table and she leaned over to grab it. There was standard breakfast fare, with only the occasional oddity, like the section describing all the ways a reindeer sausage could be cooked and served.

An older woman, maybe Amelia herself, came out of the kitchen and walked to her table, in an apron imprinted with little cartoon hamburgers. She didn’t waste time with introductions. “What’ll you have?”

“Just a coffee, please. Black. And some toast.”

“It’ll be just a few minutes.” She began to walk away.  

“Oh wait! Excuse me? Ma’am?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” Nat asked, “but could you tell me what the wifi password is?”

The woman looked quizzical. “The what?”

“The wifi password. To connect. You know, like to the Internet.”

The woman stared at her for a few seconds, then walked into the kitchen, saying she’d have to check. She emerged a few minutes later with Nat’s food, and a stained napkin with a string of numbers and letters written in pencil. 

About half an hour later, a man she had not noticed at the counter walked over to her booth. He was young, maybe a year or so younger than Nat.  

“Hi,” he said. 

“Hi.” She waited for more, but he didn’t show any sign of moving. “Can I help you?”

“You’re new in town.” He stated it like a fact.

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

He laughed. “This town only has four thousand people, and you don’t look like a tourist, though you dress like one,” he said, gesturing at her coat on the seat beside her. 

She waited. “So, just by your keen powers of observation?”

He laughed again. “Not really. My father is Barrie–the one who gave you a ride yesterday. He told me about you.” 

“Oh, right.” She felt embarrassed. “So you must be Cody, then.”

“That’s right.”

Silence fell between them. She was uncomfortable, but grateful for the introduction, however circuitous, to someone local besides Eugene. He seemed to show no inclination for breaking the silence, so she spoke up, “Your father said you were just back from college.”

“Mmhm. The state university, the campus in Anchorage.” He sat down heavily at the booth without being asked.

She decided not to mention it. “Did you enjoy it?”

He shrugged. “About as well as I could have. I’m not the kind of person who learns best cooped up in a classroom. Things don’t seem real to me until I can see them with my own eyes, or feel them with my hands.” 

“Everyone has different learning styles, I suppose,” she said. “What was your major?” 

“Botany. I’m only back in Unalaska because I’ve landed a job with the Alaska Department of Agriculture.”

“Is there really a need for that kind of job around here?” she laughed, thinking of the snow and the short shrubs she had seen around town, the sole plants. 

“Oh yeah, a real big need. Unalaska is actually in a really interesting temperate zone for vegetation growth, especially in the mountainous regions. Gives a real opportunity for lots of unique species to flourish where they wouldn’t be able to survive elsewhere. There’s this special kind of moss, really rare, only grows on stones up in the mountains…”. 

He continued to talk, gesturing with his hands to describe the patterns of moss and ice, trees and bushes. It was obvious that he was passionate about his work. She couldn’t follow the terminology he used (she had managed to skip most science classes at USC with her AP scores), but it was gratifying to see someone with such a driving enthusiasm for what they did. She admired that in a person. 

He seemed to realize that he had lost her several minutes ago, and cut off his explanations. “So, what did you study?”

“Oh, film mostly. Some English classes too. I really liked the Classics.” 

“Fancy.”

The word stung, like there was a barb hidden in it. She shrugged. “Not really. Did you ever consider becoming a fisherman like your dad? Sailing out like Odysseus on the sea?”

“What?”

“Odysseus? Like the story? He was–“

“I know who Odysseus is.”

She felt the heat rise to her cheeks. Of course he knows who Odysseus is, most anyone who’s taken an English class knows that, she reproached herself.

“Do you have one?” he asked suddenly. 

“One what?” Nat said. 

“A Penelope.”

She laughed. “Wouldn’t I have an Odysseus?”

“Maybe. But you don’t seem much like the stay-at-home type. You’re here, aren’t you?” 

She paused before replying. “You don’t really know me that well.”

“Not yet.”

He was bold, she thought. “Do you? Have a Penelope?”

He was silent for a while. “Used to,” he said. The darkness in his face as he spoke kept her from pressing the issue further. 

He stood as if to go, but lingered for a second longer at the table. “It was nice to meet you,” he said, looking at her with a frankness that she found both embarrassing and intriguing. Then he was gone, the little bell above the door tinkling the announcement of his departure. She watched him through the windows spattered with snowmelt as he climbed into a truck and drove away, turning down the road leading away from the Grand Aleutian to the outskirts of town.