Amy And Roger's Epic Detour Part 13

"Check," I said, looking at him. "Presumably."

"Check," he said, scrolling through his iPod. "But I'm seriously getting sick of my music. I wish you'd take a turn."

"I like your music," I said. And I did, to my continued surprise. It turned out that his strangely named bands made hummable, accessible music. I didn't know how I'd gone this long in life without the Lucksmiths. I was missing my musicals a little, though.

"Sungla.s.ses," Roger said, slipping his on. He turned to me, raising an eyebrow above the frames. "You know, MO Mart had a lovely selection, for only three dollars plus tax."

"I'm fine," I said, shaking my head. Roger had taken my refusal to buy sungla.s.ses as some kind of challenge. But I didn't want to buy any. It just didn't feel right somehow.

"All right," he said. "Shall we hit it?"

"Let's," I said, and Roger signaled to turn out of the mini-mart parking lot and back onto the interstate on-ramp.

"Is it a man?" I asked an hour later, as Missouri, slightly overcast, flew by the window.

"Nope," said Roger, picking up his phone from the cup holder and checking it, frowning. "Nineteen."

"I'm telling you, you can do this," I said encouragingly. "Just purse your lips and try."

"And I'm telling you," he said, smiling at me, "despite what your shirt said, not everyone can whistle. And I am that person."

"What do you think a Chick-fil-A is?" Roger asked, as we pulled off the interstate and into the parking lot.

"I don't know," I said. "So why don't we go to a nice diner instead?"

"You and your diners," he said, shaking his head.

I felt the same way about his fast-food restaurants, but kept that to myself. "Is it supposed to be 'filet,' and just spelled wrong?" I stared up at the red sign with its curly writing. "I don't know."

"Where's your sense of adventure?" asked Roger, swinging around into the drive-thru lane. Maybe the routine had been set after our first meal together at In-N-Out, but when Roger won and we ate fast food, we almost always got it to go and then ate it in the car. He pulled the car up to the speaker, which clicked on with a loud, staticky hiss. "h.e.l.lo," he said, leaning forward. "This is our first time here. What would you recommend?"

Ten minutes later, back in the parking lot, I took a doubtful bite of my chicken sandwich. "Oh my G.o.d," I murmured around my mouthful. It was seasoned, breaded chicken on a soft roll. And we were sharing an order of spicy fries. I looked up and saw Roger nodding, his sandwich almost all gone. "This is amazing."

Roger smiled. "I'm not going to say I told you so," he said. "But ..."

"Okay," I said, once we were back on the road, and I'd taken a sip of my soda. "Let me make sure I've gotten this. She's female, probably probably dead, famous, and dead, famous, and kind of kind of an explorer?" an explorer?"

"Correct," he said, putting down his visor against the sun, which had started to peek out of the clouds. "The answer is closer than you think. Sixteen."

While I racked my brain so that I might have a chance of winning this round of Twenty Questions, Roger checked his phone. He'd go a few minutes, leaving it in the console behind the cup holders, but then would seem to lose some internal battle with himself and would flip it open, checking the screen for something that just wasn't there.

"How do you know if you don't try?" I asked him as Illinois flew past the window. "You just make an O shape with your lips...." I demonstrated for him, whistling along with Paul Simon.

"I've tried," said Roger. "But not all of us can be as talented as you."

"Indiana," I said, pointing out the window, as we crossed another invisible state line. "The Hoosier State," I read off the sign.

"Hey," Roger said, putting his phone back in the console and turning to me. "Did you ever see that movie? Hoosiers Hoosiers?"

It started to get hot. The sun was beating down on the car, and I had flipped my visor down as well. I couldn't help wishing I hadn't grabbed a black shirt that morning. I stretched my arm out in the sun hitting my side of the car and saw that I was already starting to get a few freckles.

"So it's 1951," Roger said. "Gene Hackman is the coach of this Indiana high school basketball team. And they're the underdogs. And n.o.body expects them to win the big game, let alone the championship."

"But they do anyway?" I guessed.

Roger turned to me, surprised. "I thought you said you hadn't seen it."

"I just don't understand," I said an hour later, slouching down in the seat, putting my feet up on the dashboard and pulling my hair off my neck. It was getting really hot in the car now, and Roger and I had been having a battle as to whether we should have the AC on (his vote) or the windows down (my vote). But I had to admit, it was getting to be a little too hot to keep the windows down. I rolled up my window, and Roger cranked the AC.

"Don't understand what?" Roger asked. He drove up next to a huge truck, pulling the car into the shadow it cast and cooling us down considerably.

"How can someone be probably probably dead?" dead?"

"You know that counts as one of your questions, right?" he asked. "Fifteen."

"And then Shooter-I mean, Dennis Hopper-who everyone has written off, starts coaching along with Gene Hackman. And n.o.body thinks it's going to work out. Because they all think he's a loser."

"Maybe that's because his name is Shooter," I suggested.

Roger frowned at me. "Amy," he said gravely, "this is a very important movie."

"Then maybe I should see it for myself," I suggested. "Rather than just hearing about it. In detail."

"So it's the big game," Roger continued, undaunted. "And n.o.body thinks they're going to win...."

I realized it after we'd been driving for an hour in Indiana. I'd learned that the underdogs had, shockingly, won the big game and proved all the naysayers wrong. But while Roger drummed on the steering wheel and checked his phone, I looked out the window-theoretically coming up with possibly dead females who were kind of explorers-and realized that we were free. I don't know why it had taken so long for it to hit me, but suddenly there it was, making my heart pound a little harder, with excitement this time. I no longer had to worry about how I was going to lie to my mother. I was in big trouble, yes, and we were more broke than I'd have liked, but the two of us were also on our own. The damage was done. We could do anything-go anywhere-that we wanted. We were crossing America. We had a car and gas money and a destination. The road was open ahead of us. I looked at the rolling green hills pa.s.sing by outside my window and saw my smile reflected in the side mirror.

"Amelia Earhart?" I asked, staring at Roger, once I'd finally given up. "Seriously?" "Seriously?"

"What?" he asked. "We don't know that she's dead, after all. It's just presumed. I like to think that she landed on some fabulous South Sea island and has been having a great time for the last seventy years." He looked over at me and smiled. "I told you the answer was closer than you thought. Amelia."

Four songs later, I leaned back against my window and looked over at him, running his hand through his hair, something I'd noticed that he did when he was nervous. I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that we were slowly, inexorably, getting closer to Kentucky. "So," I said, not sure how to begin. "Hadley." Which was a terrible segue, but I wasn't sure what else to say.

"Yeah," said Roger, running his hand through his hair again.

"Are you worried about it?" I asked. "About seeing her?"

"A little," he said, glancing over at me, as though surprised that I'd picked up on this. "I mean, an unannounced visit is always a risk, you know?"

"But you've called her, right?"

"I have-repeatedly. In the last message I left, I told her I was going to be in her neck of the woods. But she's not calling me back."

"Maybe ...," I said slowly, trying to find the right words. "I mean, do you think it means something that she's not calling you back?"

"Of course it does," he said. "I got that. But I just have to try. And if she doesn't want to see me or talk to me, that's fine. But at least I'll have attempted it."

"You're on your quest," I said, thinking of Drew and what he'd said about Don Quixote.

"Something like that, I guess," said Roger. "I just really need some answers, that's all."

"Mind if I ask some questions?" I asked. "Like, say, five?"

Roger glanced over at me. "I had a feeling that was going to come back to haunt me," he said. He sighed and turned down the music. "Fine. Shoot."

"Are you sure?"

"That counts as one, you know," he said.

"All right," I said, realizing that I was going to have to be careful around him. And though I wanted to know more about Hadley, I also didn't want to hear him talk about her. But I felt like we had gone looking for this girl, and the only impressions I had of her were from Drew and Bronwyn. I decided to go for it. If he could ask these questions, so could I. "Do you love her?"

"Wow," he said, glancing over at me. "Jump right in, why don't you?"

"Sorry," I said, feeling like maybe I'd overstepped. "Was that too much?"

"That makes three, you know," Roger said. "No, it's okay. I ... hmm." There was silence in the car for much longer than a normal pause. This one was at Harold Pinter levels. Amy! probably would have jumped in to fill the silence. Actually, Amy! most likely wouldn't have asked the question in the first place. I pressed my fingernails into my palm to make myself wait for the answer. But Roger kept looking out the window, and after a few more moments, I couldn't take it any more.

"Roger?" I prompted.

"That's four," he said. "You're really not very good at this."

"I think you're cheating," I said, mostly just glad that the silence had been broken.

"I'm just following your lead," he said. "Do I love her? You'd think it would be an easier answer, right?"

I was certainly not the person to ask this of. To ask of this. "I don't know," I said, careful not to let my inflection rise at the end of the sentence.

He sighed, and changed lanes. "I thought I loved her," he said. "If you'd asked me that a month ago, I would have said definitively yes. I even told her so."

"You did?"

"And that's five," he said. "Yeah. Not one of the best moments of my life." I wanted to ask why not, but I'd run out of questions. Roger glanced at me and must have realized this, because he smiled faintly and continued. "She didn't say it back," he said quietly.

"Oh," I said. Even though I'd never said it to anyone romantically, I could imagine that not hearing it back would feel pretty crushing.

"Yeah," Roger agreed. "She just smiled and kissed me, but didn't say anything. And I think that's when things started to change. I don't know, maybe I freaked her out. Hadley wasn't really one for big emotional displays. Maybe it was too much for her...." His voice trailed off, and I waited as long as I could before jumping in again.

"One last one?" I asked.

"Fine," he said. "But I get a bonus question the next time it's your turn."

"Okay," I said. I looked at him and tried to figure out how to phrase it. I just wasn't sure that Roger had thought past our getting to Kentucky. I didn't know if he'd thought about what it would actually be like once we arrived. Maybe it was the navigator's job to think ahead, not the driver's. But it still worried me. "What do you want to happen when we get there?"

Roger looked at me, then back at the road. "I'm not sure," he said finally. "I don't know." That hung in the air between us for a moment, and then he turned up the music and we drove on.

When we were an hour outside Kentucky, Roger's phone rang. We both stared down at it, ringing and vibrating around the console. HADLEY CALLING HADLEY CALLING read the display. I handed it to Roger, who looked paler than he had a moment ago. read the display. I handed it to Roger, who looked paler than he had a moment ago.

He took a deep breath and opened the phone. "h.e.l.lo?" he asked, his voice suddenly a little deeper.

I looked out the window fixedly, so it wouldn't appear that I was listening to his conversation, but it was impossible not to.

"Hey," he said. "So I'm actually almost in Kentucky. I didn't know if you were around...." Roger looked over at me, then back at the road, clearing his throat. "With a friend," he said, and I felt myself deflate a little after he said that. I stared out the window and tried not to be ridiculous. I was was a friend. I should be glad I'd accomplished that, not be inexplicably disappointed that he'd identified me correctly. "Okay," he said, then must have gotten cut off, because he frowned, listening. "But are you around?" he asked. "If so, it'd be good to see you-" He stopped again and was silent, listening. "So I should just call you when we get to Louisville?" he asked, sounding a little frustrated this time. "Fine," he said after another small pause. "Sounds good." And then he hung up without saying good-bye, something that no longer surprised me. He looked at me. "Hadley," he finally said. It sounded like he was p.r.o.nouncing her name a little differently now, without the same kind of inflection he'd used a few days ago. It no longer seemed like her name was constructed solely from the alphabet's finest letters. a friend. I should be glad I'd accomplished that, not be inexplicably disappointed that he'd identified me correctly. "Okay," he said, then must have gotten cut off, because he frowned, listening. "But are you around?" he asked. "If so, it'd be good to see you-" He stopped again and was silent, listening. "So I should just call you when we get to Louisville?" he asked, sounding a little frustrated this time. "Fine," he said after another small pause. "Sounds good." And then he hung up without saying good-bye, something that no longer surprised me. He looked at me. "Hadley," he finally said. It sounded like he was p.r.o.nouncing her name a little differently now, without the same kind of inflection he'd used a few days ago. It no longer seemed like her name was constructed solely from the alphabet's finest letters.

"I a.s.sumed," I said. I waited for Roger to fill me in on the conversation, but he was silent, staring at the road, frowning slightly. "Um, what did she say?"

Roger sighed. "She wasn't very clear. That never was one of her strong points. She's never really liked making plans. She said she might be around, she wasn't sure, but I should call when we got to Louisville."

"Is that where she lives?"

Roger shook his head. "A little ways outside it," he said. "Hummingbird Valley."

An hour later we crossed into Kentucky, THE BLUEGRa.s.s STATE THE BLUEGRa.s.s STATE, according to the state sign. Roger pulled into a gas station-a Git 'n' Go, which was one I'd never seen before-and took out his phone. I stretched my legs, headed to the bathroom, then picked us up sodas and a Kentucky road map, just in case. When I headed back to the car, Roger was still sitting there, just staring down at his phone.

I slammed the door, settling into my seat, and handed him his root beer. "Well?" I asked.

"Now she's not answering," he said. He sighed and looked out at the highway. "I'd hate to have come this far for nothing." I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I just took a sip of cream soda. "I think we should go," he said.

"Okay," I said, a little surprised he was going to give up this easily. But I was willing to pick a new destination. I took out the atlas. "So where should we go?"

"No," he said, looking at me, "I mean, I think I should go to her house."

"Oh," I said. I wasn't sure that was such a great idea, but I didn't know how to tell Roger that without making him feel like a stalker. But I could only imagine what I would have felt if Michael had shown up on my doorstep. "I don't think that's the best idea, Roger."

Roger sighed, and his shoulders slumped a little. "I know that," he said. "But are we just supposed to hang around the Git 'n' Go? And wait for her to call?" He shook his head. "She was always doing things like this...." His voice trailed off, and he looked down at his phone again. "I think we just swing by. And then at least I'll have given it my best shot. Because knowing her, she might not remember to call back for three days."

I opened my mouth to try and talk him out of this plan, then stopped when I saw the expression on his face. It was determined, and I'd never seen him look so set on anything-not even Chick-fil-A. And he probably hadn't wanted to go to Yosemite, either, but maybe I'd looked something like he looked now. "Okay," I said, opening up the Kentucky map. "Let's go."

Roger looked at me, surprised, then gave me a quick smile. "Thank you," he said.

"Sure," I said, focusing down on the map. "Hummingbird Valley?"

"Yes," he said, signaling and pulling back on the highway. He handed me his phone. "Hadley Armstrong. I have her address in my phone from when I sent her flowers over Christmas break."

"That was nice of you," I said, looking up at him.

"Well, I thought so," Roger said with a small smile. "But apparently, girls don't like red roses."

I had nothing against them. "Really?" I asked. "Because I'm a girl. And I've never heard that before."

"Seriously?" He raised his eyebrows. "The way she reacted, I thought I'd committed some crime against femalekind."

I shrugged. "I just think it's nice to get flowers," I said. "It's the thought."

"Even if the thought is trite and cliche? That's a quote, by the way."

"She said that?" I asked, a little stunned.

"She did," he said. "For Valentine's Day, I got her chocolate. I didn't even go near flowers. I don't know if I'm ever going to be capable of buying them again, and-"