Class Novel: Chapter 9 by Timothy Collier

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I guess that I ended up doing a lot of character work as opposed to plot work, which was what we needed more of...so, sorry about that.  I was not really sure where and how far to take it.  But I thought that some looks into Nat's interiority here alongside some subtextual stuff between her and Cody would be a good addition.  Also, I could not resist writing something with Eugene.  It was tough to write the dialogue at times because it is essentially writing this movie which we have talked so little about, but it was fun because I thought of it as writing Nat's mind, like her consciousness and insecurities on the page.  I tried to keep most of the tension sort of under the surface.  I hope that we can all avoid the "nothing really happens" type of comments about writing, because I am very aware that I failed to manage to make more things "happen."  Hopefully, I moved things forward at least a little, though.

Chapter 9

            “If the wind picks up, we’ll have to hide out on that ledge for the night.  I don’t know if it can hold our equipment, though, and the temperature is dropping fast.”

            The lights in the dining room of the Grand Aleutian Hotel were painfully dim and the air was dry and cold.  Midnight was approaching.

            “Cody, if you could try that with more of a context,” Nat said.  “You’re weary and freezing, and,” she glanced at Susan cautiously.  “Maybe, you’re even regretting this trip.  Maybe.”

            “You’ve been up that high, Cody,” Susan added.  “Try to imagine that, and as if you were a less experienced hiker.”

            “Yeah, yeah…ok,” Cody said.  He hunched his shoulders over the back of the padded chair and cleared his throat.  “If this wind picks up, we’ll have to hide out on that ledge all night…don’t know if it can hold our equipment…and the temperature’s dropping fast.”  The ice machine whirred and sputtered down the hall.

            “Good, good,” Nat said.  “Better.”

            Cody had agreed immediately to try acting.  Nat was suspicious of the seeming lack of thought that he had put into his decision.  Susan was very excited about this development, and had said so constantly since they had met Cody the previous morning at Amelia’s to ask him.  Nat had given a slightly distorted summary of her screenplay, emphasizing the botanical and geological aspects of the scenes in the wilderness, downplaying the film’s critical attitude toward the romanticizing of nature, and omitting entirely the story’s origin in the disappearance of her brother.  Cody was exceeding her expectations at the audition, but was not at all at the level that Jake had been.  Nat thought about the work involved in getting permission to scout and film at Makushin Volcano and wondered if her film would ever be made.  Her memories of her brother were blurring, the embarrassing distance growing between her present mind and his facial expressions, his way of speaking and his great and tragic ambition.  It sounded so trite, and she had never worded it as such, but it felt like her duty to memorialize him in this way.  It seemed imperative to document what were likely his final days as a testament to his strength and weakness, his vulnerable desire that she found so deeply human.

            “It’s kinda like the Odyssey,” Cody said.  “This dangerous journey.”

            “Is that the only book that you’ve read?” Nat asked.

            “Well, no.”

            “Odysseus is journeying home, away from the real danger,” Nat said.  “Violence follows him to show him the madness of war and its glorification.”

            “Yeah, duh,” Cody said.

            “Your character is leaving home to briefly find somewhere without financial and social expectations, symbolized in his pushy parents.”

            “I thought he liked hiking.”

            “He does like hiking, Cody,” Susan said with a dismissive glance toward Nat.  “We should continue the line readings.  Maybe workshop a couple scenes.”          

            Eugene’s head appeared from behind the wall that separated the dining area from the entrance hall.  His hair was still coiffed awkwardly and coated with some thin gel.  One dull loafer stuck out from behind the corner into the room and the left arm of his tattered burgundy vest was wrapped around, palm flat against the wall.  He looked as if had stumbled across them, lost and wandering.  The ice machine hummed, taking pleasure in underlining his intrusion.

            “How’s everybody doing in here?” he asked.

            “If the wind picks up, we’ll have to hide out on that ledge for the night.  I don’t know if it can hold our equipment, though, and the temperature is dropping fast.”

            “Wonderful,” Eugene said with a confusingly genuine smile.  “I’ll be in the lobby if anything is needed.”  He bowed gracelessly and hurried off, taking care not to make resounding thuds with each step of his stiff shoes on the thinly carpeted floor.

            “Cody, let’s do the dialogue on the next page,” Susan said.  “Nat and you can run that.  Remember the context we talked about.”  Flipping the pages of their scripts, Nat and Cody straightened up in their chairs, their knees moving closer by inches.  Nat glanced at Susan with apprehension but Susan had not noticed.  Her neck was bent over the back of her chair, eyes closed in exhaustion.  Nat began her side of the dialogue with a dramatic pant.

            “If tomorrow isn’t better, I think we should go back.  Call it a hike.”

            “No, that wouldn’t make any sense.  We’re this far, and…”

            “Neither of us know the kind of shit that might happen if we keep going.  Maybe this whole idea was stupid—”

            “We’re not even going any higher in elevation.  Just around the mountain, horizontally.  The pass isn’t much farther.”

            “I’m leaving tomorrow if the weather and ground don’t soften up.  And you should do the same—”

            “Quitter,” Cody spat.  And Nat saw her stubborn brother for a moment in the dining room of the Grand Aleutian Hotel of Unalaska, Alaska, where she had traveled on this thoughtless desire to make something for him, for her.  The entire idea was delusional.  What obstacle would fall from the snowy peaks next?  The acting was mediocre, but Nat was thankful for Cody’s sincerity and effort at reading her lines  while they shivered and squinted past midnight.  Susan gave some notes and requested that they start the dialogue again from the beginning, and Nat began again with a soft waver in her voice.

            “If tomorrow isn’t better, I think we should go back.  Call it a hike.”

            That night, minutes before the sun rose from behind the mountain ridge, the valley rumbled low and snow rolled from the foothills in a short wave that dusted the air and woke the residents of the west side of Unalaska.  Nat was getting tired of Amelia’s, but Eugene still restricted the coffee at the hotel from guests.  She thought this behavior was strange from the normally courteous and friendly clerk.  When she arrived with Susan at the diner, she saw Cody sitting with his father in the corner booth, leaning in closely and speaking with twitches and gestures of their hands on the table in front of them.  Barrie’s eyes found Nat and he gave her a wide and fleeting smile.  Nat thought that Cody looked oddly rested for only sleeping a few hours.  Nat heard a loud voice from the doorway and turned to see Eugene shuffling into the diner, calling out to people that he knew, his face changing rapidly between a generous smile and a tight-lipped default stare.  Nat had never seen him outside of the hotel.  It was strange.  He was wearing his Grand Aleutian attire, except that he had removed the burgundy vest.

            “Eugene, what are you doing away from the hotel?”  He turned toward her and Susan, spun around in their barstools.

            “Nat!  Susan, hey!  I wanted pancakes.”

            Nat marveled at Eugene’s oddness.  Barrie approached the two women and began to discuss his fishing successes and the small avalanche of the morning.

            “Yep, that’ll happen pretty regularly,” he said.  “Of course, no damage to the town.  Probably a few Dall sheep got a scare up in the cliffs, though.”

            Nat did not know what a Dall sheep was.  She had decided the previous night after Cody had left that they should cast him in the film.  There was such a small chance of finding anyone else that would be willing to act, and making a trip back to Los Angeles would waste time that she did not have.  She could coach him in the more difficult scenes, attempting to channel the man that her brother was through this new addition to her life.  Cody sat in the booth in the corner, lifting a fried egg precariously with his fork and stuffing the entire thing into his mouth.  It felt so definite, casting him, like there could be no turning back.  They would be soon getting lost and found together in the story that lived in her heart and in the proud mountains that surrounded them and stabbed the blue Alaska sky.

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