100 Days (45 page)

“He’s not ‘just Josh,’ he’s—”

“I know, I know, you’ve hero-worshipped him ever since our first AV club meeting,” Jake says. “With his perfect hair and his perfect teeth and his perfect calves…”

“Bitter, much?” Aiden teases. Jake raises an eyebrow at him, and knots the tie just this side of too tight with a mischievous glint in his eye, but loosens it right away and tugs it this way and that. “Look, I know I’m being ridiculous. But he’s one of the people who got me through high school, you know? He was always there for me, and sure, okay, maybe I looked up to him, but… it’s
Josh.”

“He’s always been talented, I’ll give him that,” Jake concedes. “But babe, you interned for a year under Dmitri Serafino and I never once saw you like this.”

“‘Babe,’ huh? I like that,” Aiden says. Jake smirks at him and pulls the knot taut, gives it one last pat and brushes off Aiden’s shoulders. “I’ve just never been the guest of honor at anything before. And the wedding doesn’t count; you were right next to me.”

“And I’ll be right next to you for this, dummy,” Jake replies.

“I think I liked ‘babe’ better.”

Jake moves behind him to tug the hem of his jacket straight, then looks at his reflection in the mirror and nudges his shoulder. “Wanna know a secret?”

“Sure,” Aiden says, fiddling with his cuffs and casting an appraising glance down at himself.

“I’m nervous, too,” Jake says. “I’ve never been the
arm candy
before.”

Rolling his eyes, Aiden says, “It’s not some big red carpet thing.”

“Exactly,” Jake says, quiet but triumphant, and Aiden smiles despite the butterflies in his stomach.

In truth, Aiden is nervous not just because they’re about to attend the first and only public screening of Josh’s documentary—the idea for which Aiden gave him, in a series of emails back and forth around spring break—but also because Josh has always taken on the role of big brother with Aiden, and has the uncanny ability to know when he’s agonizing about something. Josh is going to read him like an open book, and Aiden isn’t sure that he’s ready to face the well-meaning interrogation that comes with it. The decision he now faces, between New York and Los Angeles, is consuming almost his every waking moment as he weighs pros and cons, envisions possible futures and tries not to think about what will happen if he decides on New York. When he told Jake back in Vegas that they would figure out the rest later, he didn’t exactly count on “the rest” showing up to knock on a moving door.

“Come on,” Jake murmurs, taking his hand and squeezing it. “We’re about to be very
un
fashionably late.”

After casting one final glance at himself in the mirror—with no dress code, they’ve decided to go all out and wear the same suits they wore to Toby’s and Andrew’s wedding—Aiden follows Jake out of the RV.

It’s a chilly evening, and the breeze makes him grateful for the parking spot they’ve been able to claim just one block from the theater. The small sign above the door reads,
DECEMBER SHOWS: 20th — KIDS I USED TO KNOW,
and for a moment, a swell of pride quells Aiden’s nerves. Then Jake is whispering, “I love you, I
love
you,” before all but pushing him through a set of double doors bearing a poster for Josh’s film.

Inside the Alberta Rose Theatre, two clusters of hanging white globes provide the only illumination save for the single spotlight trained on Josh, who stands center stage. Aiden blinks, surprised at how long his hair has gotten—he used to wear it close-cropped, and now it falls in tousled, coppery waves almost to his shoulders. He’s dressed as Aiden remembers, in smart jeans and a plaid shirt, but he wears glasses now, with thick horn-rimmed frames that take up half his face.

“Speak of the devil!” Josh’s voice rings out through the small theater—packed to capacity, Aiden sees, and pride surges in his chest. “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Aiden Calloway!”

The audience applauds, and Aiden’s face grows hot as an usher appears at his side to direct them to the only two open seats, right in the front row. At the sudden attention, he has a wild urge to laugh or give a thumbs up or do a dance—the very reason he prefers being behind the camera—and the only thing that keeps him in check is Jake’s unfaltering grip on his elbow.

Once they are seated and the applause has died down, Josh continues, “Now that we’re all here, I’d like to officially introduce
Kids I Used To Know,
and to thank everyone who played a part in getting us here to the Alberta Rose.

“As I was saying, the idea for this film can be traced back to this guy right here,” he says, pointing at Aiden with the same smile that used to make his knees weak. “We were emailing over spring break this year, commiserating about having to get jobs after graduation, and he said, ‘At least we know what we wanna do. How many people do
you
know that have no idea? Because I know a lot of them.’ So, Aiden, without you I’d probably still be roping high school drama clubs into shooting fan-written episodes of
Firefly.”

The audience laughs, a few people catcall from the back, and Aiden grins up at his friend, his nerves dissipating with Josh’s easy, self-deprecat­ing humor. Aiden has missed him.

“Well, now that I’ve test-driven my Oscar acceptance speech,” Josh con­tinues, pausing for more laughter, “thank you all for coming. The bar is open afterward and there’ll be karaoke, so have fun. And now, I present to you all a labor of blood, sweat, tears and love:
Kids I Used To Know.
”

With that, Josh nods to the back of the theater and jogs off to the side of the stage, out of the way of the giant screen. The lights dim and the film begins.

Josh has scored the opening with a soft, haunting piano piece that has a false brightness to it, and it flows perfectly beneath slow motion B-roll shots of students studying in libraries, sitting in lectures and walking around campus laden with textbooks. The introduction is short, as is Josh’s style; he hasn’t wasted any time grandstanding, simply provided enough footage to get his sparse opening credits out of the way.

“Do you know what you’re doing after college?” Josh’s voice asks; he’s off­screen, holding out a mic to a willowy black girl who holds a stack of books that look as if they weigh more than she does.

“I’m majoring in philosophy, man, I’ve got no idea,” she offers, and though there is laughter in her tone, the camera zooms in for a close-up of her trou­bled expression.

The first series of clips progresses in this way—Josh asks students about their post-college plans, and the majority of them are unable to give a firm answer. There’s an interview with a professor who tells him, “So many kids go to college not knowing what they want to do, and even those who
do
figure it out while they’re here, well… I see too many of them end up at Starbucks or in a McJob. We’re not preparing them, giving them the tools they need to figure out what they really want to do, or to get the jobs they want. The system is broken.”

Aiden grows increasingly uncomfortable as the documentary continues, with Josh revisiting a few of the same students at the beginning of the summer and then again in the fall to see how they’re faring in the “real world.”

“We all think that we’re gonna do better than our parents did, you know?” one guy says as Josh interviews him in a café. He’s wearing a Best Buy uniform; earlier in the film, he was shown graduating summa cum laude with a degree in business. “We tell ourselves that we’re not gonna repeat the same mistakes and wind up in dead-end jobs, going nowhere. But when there are so few oppor­tunities out there, what can you do except try to survive and hope that ‘better’ is somewhere around the corner?”

Right there is the heart of Aiden’s dilemma: what he thinks he should do versus what he wants to do. The two are tangled around one another in such a mess that he can no longer find the end of either thread. What he thinks he should do—move to L.A. and work on the movie—means getting most of what he wants: a place to be with Jake; his lifelong passion, kickstarted into a career; a shitty first apartment and a Saturday trip to IKEA to spend too much money on a couch and bedroom set. But what he
wants
is the music, for it to flow out of him in more than just pockets of downtime. Jake ignited his inspiration in Vegas and has been unwittingly feeding it ever since, spurring Aiden to write a song that he hadn’t known was inside him.

Faced with so many students who graduated only to be let down by the real world, or left with degrees they can’t use, Aiden feels selfish for even considering it.

The documentary lasts just under an hour, but it’s as if Aiden merely blinks and it’s coming to an end in snatches of dialogue from disillusioned graduates playing over the music from the beginning. The final shot is a closing door that fades to black, ready for the credits.

As the lights come back up, Aiden swallows around the lump in his throat and joins in the applause, rising to his feet along with everyone else. He doesn’t want to become a kid that Josh used to know, doesn’t want to lay to waste all he’s been working for in pursuit of a maybe. He doesn’t want to diminish in the perpetual cycle of work, sleep, work, sleep to support a dream that perhaps he’ll realize, but more than likely will keep on the backburner until he has decidedly missed his shot.

And then Jake turns to him, eyes shining with warmth and love before pulling him into a fierce hug, and Aiden is struck with a sudden clarity, seeing the future as if he’s living it right now: the lights coming up at the end of the first movie they make together, their names rolling up the screen in white text, the audience cheering and clapping for
them.
It’s what they’ve always wanted, what they’ve always talked about…

Why does it have to be right now?
he thinks, the threads untangling with the simple embrace and the memory of flickering firelight. For so long, he convinced himself that all of this is transitory, their journey compounding his thoughts into days and miles and drive time rather than the lifetime at his feet.
Mom’s on her third career; nothing’s forever. We’ve got time.
I’ve
got time.

“Josh!” Jake exclaims, cutting through Aiden’s thoughts. He rises on tiptoe to hug their old friend. “You’ve definitely come a long way from the
Firefly
stuff.”

“Well, we thought about featuring some aspiring space cowboys, but they’ve always got Comic Con,” he jokes, and looks down at Aiden. He seems to tower even higher over him than usual. “What did you think?”

“It was incredible, Josh. Really,” he says, holding Josh’s damnably inquisi­tive gaze. “Honestly, I’d never have thought something like that could come out of an email whining about college.”

“All you, my man,” Josh says. He pulls Aiden in for his standard ‘bro hug,’ one hand clasping Aiden’s and the other thumping the back of shoulder. Smiling slyly down at them with one eyebrow raised when he steps back, he adds, “And I hear congratulations are in order.”

“Yes, thank you, we know it was a long time coming,” Jake says. “When were you betting on it happening?”

“Actually, I was the last holdout,” Josh says. “I figured you’d be at least twenty-five, you both had your heads so far up your asses.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, man,” Aiden says with a laugh, and punches his shoulder for good measure.

“I call ‘em like I see ‘em, you know that,” Josh says, holding up his hands. He takes a long look at Aiden—too long and way too curious for his liking—and Aiden’s stomach ties itself into a knot. “Since we’re on the subject, what have you got planned for after the road trip?”

“Old habits die hard,” Aiden says, stalling for time. He hesitates only briefly, but it’s enough; he can see that shift in Josh’s expression, the drawing back of his shoulders that means he’s getting ready to hand out life advice like he’s the Dalai Lama. Though the decision is new and he’s barely had time to try it on for size, Aiden announces, “Matt’s asked Jake and me to come out to L.A. and work on a movie his company is producing, so we’re set.”

Aiden feels Jake’s posture go ramrod straight, and when he looks at him, a smile is spreading across his face like rays of sunlight breaking through heavy clouds.

“That’s great, man,” Josh says. “God, that’s fantastic! I don’t know many others who fell almost straight into a job, especially film students.”

“I’d be stupid not to take it,” Aiden says, “and L.A. is great, so why not?”

“Hey, man,” Josh says. “That’s the dream, am I right? I mean, sounds like you’re both following your hearts or whatever.”

Snaking his arm around Jake’s waist, Aiden says, “We are.”

“That’s awesome. You guys deserve it,” Josh tells them, as a voice Aiden doesn’t recognize calls Josh’s name from the other side of the theater—it looks like he might be off the hook. “Come on, there’s a few people I want you to meet.”

Over the course of the next hour, Josh introduces them to more people than Aiden can keep track of, including a group of five girls engaged in a heated debate over which versions of the
Lord of the Rings
movies were better, the theatrical or the extended. Unable to help getting sucked in when he hears one of the girls saying, “The theatrical versions are better because they’re
shorter,”
he loses Jake to the crowd, but looks for him every so often. He notices that Jake is standing straighter and smiling and gesturing more freely while he speaks to people whose names Aiden has already forgotten. He looks happy.

Eventually, when most of the girls have agreed to disagree and two have been whisked away by significant others, Aiden catches Jake’s eye. He’s sitting near the back, jacket removed, sleeves rolled up, and he’s looking right at Aiden, smiling softly as his finger circles the rim of his glass. Aiden climbs the shallow incline without a second thought, gravitating toward Jake as if he’s being physically reeled in.

Resting against the seat in front of Jake’s, he asks, “What are you thinking about?”

“All of us in the AV club were pushing so hard to get out of Maine, and look at us now. You, me, Josh,” Jake says, and sip at his drink. “We made it.”