Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 61037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
“So, Clueless? Is that one of Echo’s favorite classic chick flicks?”
River takes a beat, like his brain is a train depot, and he’s the engineer. Pulling levers, rerouting, sending cars down another track. “I mean, Paul Rudd, am I right? Who can resist?” His voice comes out practiced, almost like a comic on stage delivering a line.
“Evidently not his fictional stepsister,” I say drily.
“C’mon. Alicia Silverstone was his former stepsister.”
“Ah, well, so much better. That makes it not taboo then.”
“It’s not taboo at all.”
“Just weird,” I say, egging him on, since this is easier. Clueless over forest rain. Movies over what do you want from love.
“Take it back. Take it back right now. You can’t be a Clueless hater. I categorically do not accept you being a Clueless hater,” River says.
I laugh, since we’re back to quick retorts and snappy replies, though it all feels a little forced to me. Still, I go along with it, because of the damn forty-eight hours I have to get through.
“Because for you, Clueless is gospel?” I ask.
“Clueless easily contains ten important life lessons.”
“Ten? You sure about that? Ten?”
He’s swift and certain. “Ten.”
I sweep my hand out. “The floor is yours. By all means, begin.”
“One. Cher has great friends. That’s key,” he says, then flashes me a grin that sure as shit feels like a reminder.
Is that the life lesson? Remember the pact, Owen. You and I are only friends.
But maybe this cigar is just a cigar. “I’ll give you that. Friends rock,” I say.
“Another lesson? Pay your parking tickets,” River says.
“Or better yet, have a friend with a car so he gets all the parking tickets,” I say, then bang my palms on the dashboard, bada-bing style.
River sneers. “I should have made you pay up for that one I got at the beer fest last year when you told me parking was allowed in the marina on a Saturday.”
“Maybe don’t always believe me,” I counter, sassing him right back.
“Maybe I won’t,” he says, then raises a finger quickly to make a point. “But the beer fest was fun. I’ll give you that.”
“Worth the parking ticket?”
“Considering you got me so buzzed I couldn’t drive home, and we had to go out bowling while I waited for my buzz to wear off, I’d say yes.”
“You love bowling,” I say.
“And arcades, and darts, and karaoke. But not axe throwing,” River points out.
“Never axe throwing.” I rub my palms together like I’m a coach, cheering him on, his boxing trainer in the ring. “Okay, you’ve done two life lessons from Clueless. Eight to go. You can do it.”
River groans, sounding like a dying animal, then stares up at the clouds, tinged, now, with orange. He tips his forehead to the windshield. “Owen,” he begins, like he needs something important.
“Yeah?”
“Concentrating on movie lessons while driving is hard,” he says, all earnest, “since I think it’s going to snow. Can you check the weather app?”
“Of course,” I say, grabbing my phone.
“Thank you. And can I revise the Clueless life lessons to three, and can I tell you my least-favorite flick?”
Laughing at his shift from gratitude to rat-a-tat-tat questions, I open the app. “It’s snowing in Tahoe, but not in Markleeville. We’re an hour away from the cabin, so we should be fine. And yes, I hereby grant you permission to pick one more lesson and then tell me the flick you hate.”
“Lesson number three from Clueless,” he says, squaring his shoulders, like he’s getting ready to deliver a big pronouncement. “It’s so much better than You’ve Got Mail.”
“That’s the lesson?”
“Yes, and we have to do our part to promote Clueless. Talk it up.”
“Where and how does Clueless need help?”
“Anywhere and everywhere that the reputation of classic rom-coms is threatened. The thing is, You’ve Got Mail is up there in the holy trinity of Meg Ryan flicks with When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle, but it does not belong. No way. Not one bit.”
River’s not wrong. “Because it’s a cheating flick,” I say, emphatically. “And it’s tricked everyone into thinking that it’s a romance, when romances should not contain cheating.”
“Yes!” River shouts, then bangs a fist on the dash. “You get me. You totally get me.”
“I also understand story and subtext and narrative, but yes, I get you too,” I say drily.
River shoots me a glare, but his brown eyes are twinkling. “Love it when you get all smarty-pants. But I’m glad we agree. Emotional cheating is just as bad as any other cheating, and that flick glorified it, then tried to make it okay with their eventual exes liking other people.”
“Yup. Also, can we talk about the biggest issue in the film?”
River nods, big and long. “The fact that Tom Hanks’s character was a lying liar who lies?”
“He was the worst. He lied to her until the last frame,” I say, then mime retching again.