“Let’s do it,” I said as firmly as I could, even though my heart was pounding. “Kentucky.”
Roger stared at me for a moment longer, then nodded and offered me his pencil. “Want to figure out our route, Chekov?” he asked. He peered at the map. “I don’t think it’s actually going to take us long. And if we go through Kansas, we can meet up with my friend Drew….”
“I think we’ll go through Kansas,” I said. As I flipped through the state maps, looking at the interstates we’d have to take, a thought occurred to me that made my stomach clench a little bit. “Roger,” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer, but making myself ask it anyway, “is this—the Hadley thing—why you agreed to come on this trip in the first place?”
He looked up at me and met my eyes, a little guiltily, and I knew the answer was yes. This shouldn’t have bothered or disappointed me, but it did. “It’s okay,” I said quickly. “I mean—”
“Well, yes,” Roger said, interrupting me. “It was, at first. I mean, my mother asked me, but I didn’t have to agree. I could have gotten my father to pay for my flight. But I thought it would be a good way to see the country, and I thought that Hadley was here, and if I could just see her, and talk to her …”
I nodded, telling myself not to be bothered by this. Of course he hadn’t been excited about taking a trip with a high schooler he barely knew. I hadn’t been happy about the trip; why was I suddenly upset that he hadn’t been either?
“But seriously,” he said, with enough gravity in his tone that I looked up at him. “It’s not what I thought it was going to be. I’m having fun. I mean, it’s an adventure, right?”
“Right,” I said, looking down at the country. “An adventure.” And since he’d just put his cards down on the table, I thought that I should probably return the favor. “I didn’t want to do this at all,” I said. “I mean, at first. But now … I mean, I’m glad. That we’re doing this, I mean.”
“Me too,” he said, smiling at me. A busboy came and cleared away our plates with a loud sigh, which I took as our cue to leave. We headed out of Fran’s, causing the bell at the top of the door to jingle, and stepped out of the way of two bleary-eyed truckers who were stumbling in.
“One thing,” I said, as he unlocked the car with the clicker from a few feet away. “The guy last night at the party,” I went on, as we walked around to our opposite sides of the car and looked at each other across the hood. This had been bothering me since it happened. “The one who said that you had fire. What—what did he mean?”
“Oh,” Roger said, and I noticed that he wasn’t looking at me. “I guess that must be a guy thing. It’s stupid.” He looked down at the key chain, fiddled with it.
“Was it about my hair?” I asked, sure that this was the answer and dreading it.
“What?” he asked, looking up at me. “No. Your hair’s great. It meant that he thought you were hot. And he thought that we were … together.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding Roger’s reaction now and feeling my face get warm.
“Yeah,” he said with a laugh, opening his door and getting in. I stood outside the car for a moment longer, trying to get my face to cool down and feeling a small smile start to form on my face. Because if I remembered correctly, Roger hadn’t told the guy that it wasn’t true. This shouldn’t have made me happy. But it did.
As soon as Roger steered the car toward Kansas, the landscape began to look much more Kansas-like, even though we were still in Colorado. Soon the mountains were gone, and everything was flatter, dry-looking, straw colored—and we had our big open skies back again. As expected, the land was very, very flat. But it was just as arresting, in its own way, as the mountains had been. There was an expansiveness, a peacefulness to it, and I propped my feet on the dashboard, leaned my head back against the headrest, and just took in the scenery.
When we crossed the state line into Kansas, I noticed that signs with lights attached to the top began appearing at the side of the road, reading WHEN FLASHING, TURN TO WEATHER ADVISORY CHANNEL. I hadn’t paid much attention to these at first—I felt that after Colorado, it was going to take a lot to surprise me, sign-wise—until I realized that the weather advisory that the sign was referring to was most likely a tornado. Suddenly the skies didn’t seem so peaceful anymore, but at least, as far as I could see, they were still clear.
“Is it a person?” Roger asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Nineteen.”
“Is it a man?”
“No. Eighteen.”
“Is she alive?”
“No. Seventeen.”
“Is she famous?”
“Very. Sixteen.”
When we headed into the Sunflower Mart, without even asking, Roger grabbed a cream soda for me and a root beer for him, then made a beeline for the tiny apparel section.
“Amy!” he yelled, even though the mini-mart was empty.
“What?” I asked quietly, coming over to join him.
“Behold,” he said, spinning the black plastic display, causing the sunglasses, priced at $4.99, to whirl around. “Sunglasses.”
I tried to figure out if this was his way of telling me that I’d been wearing his too much, even though I thought I’d been careful not to. I resolved not to wear them at all in the future. “Okay,” I said, embarrassed, walking over to the chip section and grabbing some Doritos.
“You can get some! And for a reasonable price, too.”
“I’m okay,” I said, picking up some candy. “But I won’t borrow yours anymore.”
“No, I don’t care,” Roger said, coming to join me by the counter, tossing down two mini Paydays by the register, and plunking down a quarter for them. “I just don’t want you to have to keep squinting into the sun.”
“I’m fine,” I said shortly, and I saw Roger blink at this, then nod and head back to the car as I handed over my credit card.
“Okay. So it’s a she. And she’s dead. And famous. Very famous. And she’s not Queen Isabella.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe that was your first guess. Fifteen.”
“How do you do this?” I asked, looking across Roger at the speaker box outside something called a Sonic Drive-In, where we were attempting to have lunch.
“There’s a cherry-lime soda on the menu,” Roger said, staring at the huge, illuminated menu adjacent to the covered area we’d pulled the car under. “I have no idea what that is, but I might just have to try it.”
“Oh my gosh,” I said, also staring at the menu, which was almost too much to take in. There was grilled cheese. There were tater tots. There was chili—several kinds. “They have mozzarella sticks. I have to get some.”
A crackling sound came out of the speaker near Roger’s side, then died away again. Roger tapped it tentatively. “Hello?” he asked. “We need mozzarella sticks out here!”
“So,” Roger said. His mix was playing for the third time, and I mouthed along to the lyrics of the Fountains of Wayne song I had already memorized.
Our Sonic lunch had come with two mints stapled to the brown paper bag, and I unwrapped one and dropped it into his palm, then realized what I’d done and sat back hard against my seat.
“To recap. She’s dead, very famous, and not Queen Isabella, Margaret Mead, or Queen Elizabeth.”
“Correct,” I said, staring out the window. “Thirteen.”
When we were an hour outside of Wichita, the skies began to darken. I thought I’d known what cloudy skies looked like. We did get them occasionally in California. But I’d never seen anything like this. There was just so much sky, and all of it started to look cloudy, and I got the sense that things might turn on us, very quickly.
“Um. Roger?”
He glanced over at me, looking stressed. “I’m thinking,” he said. “Don’t rush me. I only have one question left.”
“Not that. I was just wondering … do you know when tornado season is?”
“Oh.” I saw him peer outside, as though noti
cing the cloudy skies for the first time. “Hmm. No. Do you?”
“No.” I looked out at the clouds, which were now covering the entire landscape, hanging low, and stretching on for as far as I could see.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “the signs aren’t flashing yet. So maybe we don’t need to think about it.”
“Okay,” I said, but I stared out the window, worried about what might be headed our way.
Roger stared at me in disbelief. “Who?”
“Ethel Merman,” I said, helping myself to some Skittles. “She’s female, dead, famous.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of her,” he said, frowning at the road.
“She’s a renowned actress! She originated most of the major musical theater roles.”
Roger just shook his head. “I think you made her up. I want a do-over.”
“All right,” I said, turning in my seat and facing him. “Your turn.” As I said this, we crossed the city limits into Wichita, and I let out a sigh of relief. Even if a tornado did show up, at least we weren’t in the middle of the highway, totally vulnerable.
“Wichita,” said Roger. “Finally.” He extricated his cell phone from the cup holder, where it had been buried under the collected detritus of the day—candy wrappers, white Sonic napkins, empty soda bottles. “I should call Drew.”
Roger had started talking about Drew more as we got closer, mostly trying to stall as he pumped me for Twenty Questions clues. He didn’t think we’d need to stay the night in Wichita—and we really didn’t have time for that, if we were going to make it to Kentucky—but he thought it would be a good place to take a break. And seeing how tired Roger was looking, how he kept shifting in his seat, I realized that he was probably ready for a rest. I was too, actually. My butt was starting to go numb, and my leg muscles were feeling tight. “Drew’s a friend from college?” I asked.
“Yes,” Roger said. “He lived on my floor last year, and was always crashing in my room because he kept getting locked out of his. He lost his key more than anyone in the dorm’s history. The RA finally stopped charging him for replacements, because she was starting to feel bad about taking all his money.” Roger pressed a number, listened for a moment, then shook his head. “Voice mail,” he said to me. “Hey, Cheeks,” he said into the phone. “Listen, dude, I’m with a friend in Kansas, and I was wondering if you wanted to meet up. Call me if you get this, it’s almost eight.” He then hung up without saying good-bye, which I was getting more used to now, and placed the phone back on top of his empty M&M bag.
“Cheeks?” I asked.
“Oh,” Roger said, laughing, “it’s just a stupid nickname thing. All the guys on our floor had them.”
“What was yours?” Roger didn’t appear to hear me but looked out the window intently. “Roger?” I asked. “What was—” Before I could finish, his phone started vibrating in the cup holder. Roger glanced down at it, but on impulse, surprising myself, I grabbed it and saw that the display read CHEEKS CALLING. I ignored Roger’s hand, which was motioning for me to give him the phone, and opened it. “Hello, Roger’s phone,” I said, sliding to the edge of my seat, out of his reach. Roger continued to try and grab for the phone, causing the car to weave slightly in the lane.
“Hey,” a low-pitched voice on the other end said. “Is Magellan there?”
I turned to Roger, who was still trying to get the phone, feeling the smile taking over my face. “Magellan?” I repeated gleefully.
Roger sighed, and his hand drooped. Clearly, this was why he’d been trying to intercept the call. “Yeah,” the voice on the phone said. “You know … Roger.”
“Sure,” I said, still smiling. “Just a second.” I handed him the phone. “Magellan,” I said, “you have a call.”
“It’s just a stupid nickname thing,” he hissed at me, before taking the phone. “Cheeks, hey,” he said. “Listen, we’re in your neck of the woods … what?” Roger glanced over at me again. “Oh. No. That’s just a friend. Hadley’s in Kentucky.”
Now it was my turn to feel embarrassed. I looked out the window until Roger waved at me to get my attention and mimed writing. I grabbed a pen and wrote the address and directions Roger dictated to me for the Wichita Country Club on a Sonic napkin.
When Roger hung up with Drew, he didn’t look directly at me but instead stared ahead at the road, as though there was something to see besides endless highway and cloudy skies. “So Drew says it should take us about twenty minutes,” he said. “I guess he’s just finishing up work.”
“Oh, that’s great,” I said. “Magellan?”
“Well, whatever,” he said, and I noticed that he was blushing slightly. “I told you it was just a stupid nickname thing.”
“I think it’s funny,” I said. “Because of your whole explorer thing?”
“Yes,” said Roger. “But it’s really gotten out of hand. I swear, some of the guys on the floor never even knew my real name. Hadley thought it was really stupid.” He had the tone in his voice that came out whenever he said her name. A combination of wistful and resigned.
“I think it’s funny,” I repeated quietly.
Roger shot me a quick smile. “I did too,” he said. “At first. It’s less funny after six months when people are yelling it at you across the quad.” He pointed to the napkin on the console between us. “Ready to navigate, Chekov?”
I picked up the napkin and smoothed it out, trying to decipher my scrawled directions. “Ready.”
Twenty minutes later, as promised, we pulled up in front of the Wichita Country Club. There was a very intimidating guard in a small wooden house checking cars as they drove through, so we drove a little farther down the street and parked. We’d both gotten out of the car and Roger had taken out his phone to call Drew again when I heard a screech of tires. A tiny red car was careening out of the entrance and heading straight toward us.
“And that’ll be Cheeks,” Roger said, smiling. The car swung around and stopped next to the Liberty. The driver’s side opened, and a round-faced, round-headed person emerged. He was wearing a teal polo shirt, pressed khakis, and loafers. “Dude,” Roger said, walking over to the car. “You look like you’re about to sell me insurance. Or trying to get me to rush your frat.”
“Magellan,” said Drew, and he and Roger did a quick guy hug that seemed to mostly consist of hitting each other on the back. “You happen to be looking at the Wichita Golf Club’s newest golfing assistant.”
“You mean golfing assistant as in … caddy?” Roger asked.
“It’s much more than that,” Drew insisted. “There’s an art to it. I have to choose the clubs. I have to read the greens….” He gestured expansively and must have noticed me as he did so. “Well, hello,” he said to me, giving me a big smile, and I noticed that his voice was suddenly deeper.
I registered all of this with surprise, and a growing sense of anxiety. He thought I was pretty. I knew it was probably because of Bronwyn’s clothes, and I felt a flash of anger at her for doing this to me. I liked being invisible. Things were easier that way. I felt my heart pounding as I looked at him, smiling expectantly at me, hating how awkward even the simplest interaction now felt. Old me would have smiled back, and even flirted a little, just for fun. But I just stuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans and stared at the ground, wishing I was still in an oversize T-shirt. “Hi,” I murmured. “I’m Amy.”
“Andrew O’Neal,” he said. “Pleasure.” He looked over at Roger and raised his eyebrows, but Roger frowned and shook his head, and Drew sighed. “Nice to meet you,” he said a little resignedly, his voice back to his normal register. I looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to figure out what had just occurred.
“Now that we’ve been properly introduced,” said Drew, “let’s move on to more important matters. Such as food.”
I hadn’t realized it until he’d said the word, but I was starving. Which was ridiculous, because we’d been eating and snacking all day and hadn’t been do
ing anything except sitting in a car. Roger looked at me, and I nodded. “Sounds good,” he said to Drew.
“Excellent,” Drew said, heading back toward his car. He motioned for us to join him. “The foursome that I was assisting forgot, for some reason, to extend an invitation to the clubhouse for dinner. So I’m famished. And you probably need a break from driving, Magellan. I think New Way is really the only way to go.”
“New Way?” asked Roger, as Drew opened the driver’s door and Roger opened the passenger door.
“New Way,” Drew agreed, pushing his seat forward so that I could climb into the back. “You’ll see.”
There’s no place like home.
—The Wizard of Oz
New Way, we soon discovered, actually meant NuWay burgers, and was, according to Drew, a Wichita landmark. Wichita itself seemed kind of confusing, with a highway running across the city, dividing it in two. Drew pulled up in front of NuWay Café, the name spelled out in white on a red and yellow awning. We suddenly seemed a long way from the yellow and red arrows of In-N-Out, with palm trees on the cups. CRUMBLY is GOOD! a sign on the window of the restaurant proclaimed.
We followed Drew into the restaurant, which was decorated with framed black-and-white pictures of NuWay and its customers through the years. It seemed Drew was telling the truth about the landmark thing. He took over the ordering for us and insisted on treating, and we emerged five minutes later with two brown paper bags that smelled delicious and were immediately dotted with faint translucent grease spots. We all got back in the car, and Drew drove us down the highway to Freddy’s Frozen Custard.
Amy & Roger's Epic Detour Page 13