One More Thing (25 page)

It was the final half hour that everyone watched intently,
when the three finalists were announced and then narrowed down to two and then, finally, a single winner—the best thing in the world.

The cameras pushed in as Neil Patrick Harris returned to the stage, wearing a crisp blue suit that sharp viewers recognized as the best of its kind.

“The three finalists for the best thing in the world are: Laughter!”

Applause.

“Love!”

Applause.

“And … Nothing.”

People seemed confused, even Neil Patrick Harris (which everyone knew a host was never supposed to seem—so much for his chances at being nominated next year).

“Uhh … Uh, we’ll be right back after this commercial break.”

When the show returned, Neil Patrick Harris was smiling again. His smile was so reassuring, conveying such a contagious calm, that everyone quickly forgot how he had seemed so unprofessionally off-balance just moments before.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to say good night to one of the three best things in the world. Good night to …”

Neil Patrick Harris opened an envelope with the red number 3 on it.

“Laughter!”

Still, amid the laughter, anxiety had settled in among many viewers and especially those in the live studio audience. What did “nothing” mean? Who had nominated it, and how did it make it all the way to the finals on its first time? When love did inevitably win in the end, what would it mean to have “nothing”
in second place? Maybe it would enhance the victory for love by placing more distance between love and everything else: “nothing even comes close to love”? Or would it mean that love was only “better than nothing”?

Some of the minds in the room more practiced in anxious thinking were able to wander even farther. If “nothing” were to somehow win—which it wouldn’t, but if it did—what would that mean, exactly? Could that still be a victory for love? Would it mean that nothing was better than love? Perhaps it would function as a gentle and welcome reminder that of course, on some level, this entire competition was meaningless—because nothing, no one thing, could really be the best thing in the world? And perhaps that would be profound or even inspiring? Or would it mean something darker than that—perhaps it would mean that all the things that had been thought of as the very best things in the world were still, on some deeper level, less than nothing?

Or maybe this was all a game of semantics: maybe everyone knew what love meant, and everyone knew what nothing meant, and it really was that simple, and that’s why everyone was so unsettled?

But it wouldn’t even come to that. Love always won, right?

“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” said Neil Patrick Harris, laughing elegantly as part of his incomparably seamless transition from laughter’s highlight reel to the next award, “now, as we wind down another unforgettable night of miracles big and small, it’s time to say goodbye to the second-best thing in the world. Ladies and gentlemen …”

Everyone watching, even the people secure in their knowledge that love always won; even those who talked themselves into believing that the infinite vagaries of the word “nothing” meant that its win could mean anything they wanted it to—everyone—held
their breath in the hope that the next thing they saw would be recognizable, somehow, as nothing.

Neil Patrick Harris smiled and began to unpeel the envelope with a red number 2.

“Everyone having a good time? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to say good night to the second-best thing in the world. Good night to—”

Screens smashed to pure black, and raw, relieved cheers flew up around the world at the appearance of the highlight reel for nothing—as well as in the television studio, where the lights had short-circuited, and the smart, modern orchestral music subtly omnipresent throughout the broadcast had been replaced with a loud, hollow buzz.

As minute after minute passed, though, collective anxiety started to regroup and return. Why was this taking so long? How long was it going to last? This was already far longer than the other highlight reels, and if it went on much more, the show would be out of time before it was able to play the annually updated highlight reel for love, the much-anticipated traditional ending of the show.

And why, some wondered, had the cut to the highlight reel for nothing been so abrupt? It was a curiously crude transition for a show, and a host, that had never made a misstep like that before.

With less than a minute left in the scheduled program, the lights and broadcast were suddenly back on.

Neil Patrick Harris stood alone onstage. There was no introductory music, no dramatic camera sweep through the crowd. Just a static shot of Neil Patrick Harris and the steady buzz of the microphone soundboard, which had been on the whole time but only now was audible on the broadcast.
Neil Patrick Harris stared straight ahead, pale and determined, looking both intensely focused and intensely disoriented at once, as if a pair of hands had reached inside him, shook him by something as deep and untraceable as integrity itself, and then placed him back exactly where he had stood, the same but forever different.

He also looked, in less abstract terms, as if someone were holding a gun to his head from offstage and forcing him to say something he didn’t want to say, which would eventually become a prevailing rumor about the night, backed up over the years, as rumors like this always were, by more and more people with less and less of a connection to the original event.

“The best thing in the world is love,” said Neil Patrick Harris. “We’re out of time. Good night.”

The next year and in all the years that followed, “nothing” was disqualified from competition.

The official statement put forth by the contest organizers explained that the competition was a competition for the best thing in the world, and that nothing was, by definition, “no thing,” the absence of a thing, and therefore had “no relevance to the competition.”

The logic was sound, even though it did nothing to explain how nothing had come to be nominated that one year; let alone become one of the three finalists; let alone become one of the two finalists; let alone—allegedly, possibly, apparently—come to have its name inside the final winning envelope; let alone who had nominated it, or what in the world it was supposed to have meant.

Whenever anyone asked Neil Patrick Harris about what had
happened on that night, he would simply say, flatly, with a voice he seemed to have long ago deliberately emptied of whatever emotion he might have once had on the subject, “Love won.”

Or maybe he was just tired of being asked about it.

Love always won in the end. No matter how it happened, no matter what it took, no matter what it meant. Fair or not, true or not, love won.

If it was a conspiracy, at least it was the best of its kind in the world.

Bingo

“I’m three away across,” said Ali, “three away up-down two different ways, and two away diagonal.”

“I’m four away up-down four different ways,” said Lisa.

“ ‘Four away’ isn’t a thing,” said Brian.

“Yes it is,” said Lisa.

“I-29,” said the announcer.

“Three away!” reported Lisa.

“That just makes you normal with us,” said Brian.

“N-44.”

“Three away two different ways!” said Lisa.

“Three away vertical two ways,” said Danielle, the oldest cousin. “Three away across one way, two away across one way.”

“Two away diagonal one way, three away diagonal another way, two away vertical two ways,” said Brian.

“Just two more,” said Ali. “Two more, baby.”

“G-60.”

“One away!” yelled Brian and Ali simultaneously. “One away!” “One away!”

“Two away
three
different ways,” said Danielle.

The prize was one hundred dollars, which was a lot if it was 1996 and you were nine, eight, also eight, or eleven and a half years old. This was a hundred dollars that no one even knew existed before Danielle had discovered the sign on the resort’s recreation-room door that afternoon and then, in a second miracle, convinced her aunt and uncle that this was the kind of activity that looked like it might be fun for the whole extended family. A hundred dollars, before taxes had been invented and exactly two weeks before the school year was to begin, meant different things to each of them but everything to all of them.

“G-52,” said the announcer.

“One away!” said Danielle.

“One away two different ways, two away three different ways, three away a ton of ways,” said Ali.

“Two away two different ways,” said Lisa.

“One away one way, two away two ways!” said Brian.

“Wait!” said Ali. “The middle space is a free space? I’m one away three different ways!”

“B-35.”

“Bingo,”
said their grandfather from the back.

Marie’s Stupid Boyfriend

No one didn’t play the guitar “on principle.” Either you can play the guitar, or you can’t.

You don’t “don’t.”

Remember him?

Pick a Lane

“Pick a lane!!!”

The driver behind me swerved to both sides of my car, leaning his head out the window to scream at me as he honked.

Here was the thing: both lanes were identical. How was I supposed to decide?

They were both the exact same width and had the exact same smoothness to the pavement. And there was no one in either lane, either.

Except for me, half in both.

There were little differences, though. The right lane bordered some woods, which were pretty. The left lane was closer
to the divider, which made a calming
whoosh
sound as you drove past it.

The thing was, I liked both of these things equally, too.

I didn’t know which one to pick!

Discussion question:

Which lane should the driver pick?

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