“Want me to be the DJ?” Roger asked, looking down at the iPod.
“Maybe in just a minute,” I said, realizing that I’d gone back to the way I used to need silence in the car when I was first learning. “I’m concentrating here.”
“No problem,” he said, leaning back in the passenger seat. “I actually like it over here. It’s very peaceful. You might be driving for the rest of the trip.”
The sentence hung in the air between us, and I felt the weight of it. There was no more rest of the trip. The trip was over.
I pulled onto the highway and merged into the middle lane, which had always been my preferred lane. I never wanted to go as fast as the drivers in the left lane, and in the right lane there were always too many people merging. Once I hit seventy, I was doing the same speed as the rest of the cars and was able to relax a little. It was okay. It wasn’t a joy like it had once been, but it was okay. I was driving. And I was fine.
Roger had offered to stop at one of the many roadside diners we’d seen advertised on the highway—it seemed that Pennsylvania was diner country. But when I’d seen the sign for the burger place, I’d known that’s where we had to stop for lunch.
We had gotten the burgers to go, then parked in the farthest space in the parking lot. We were eating in the way-back, containers of fries sitting between us, our legs dangling over the edge.
“This is great,” Roger said, and I saw that his burger was almost gone. “Maybe there’s something good about Pennsylvania after all.”
I smiled and took a bite of my own burger, which really was excellent, and adjusted my new sunglasses. And I realized that we’d sat in this same place and eaten burgers from the In-N-Out in California on the very first day of the trip. The day we’d decided to take a detour. Just a small one. I looked across at Roger, who was so familiar to me now.
“Last one?” Roger asked, angling the fries toward me.
I shook my head. “All yours.”
He finished the fries and stood up as I stuffed the trash into the Burgertown bag. Roger shut the back door, then turned to me and took my hand in his carefully, like he was still getting used to doing this. “Want me to take over driving, Hillary?” he asked.
With my other hand, I took the keys out of my pocket and shook my head, smiling at him. “I’ve got it, Edmund.”
After I’d been driving for another hour, I could handle having music on again. Roger made his last mix, and I recognized some of his repeat bands, some of my favorites – bands I hadn’t even heard of a few days ago. I sang along to the words that I knew, and Roger kept time, drumming on the dashboard.
As I drove, I tried to picture what the rest of the day would be like. I played out the scenarios of Roger coming back with me and facing my mother’s anger. Roger standing around while she yelled at me in some kitchen I couldn’t even picture, with a fridge free from magnets. I thought about someone else watching our goodbye, even if we didn’t use those exact words.
I glanced down at the gas gauge, which was hovering close to empty. Pulling off at the next exit, I headed for a Sunoco. “Here’s a thought,” I said as I carefully pulled forward to the pump and killed the engine. Roger turned to look at me. “What if I dropped you off in Philadelphia and drove myself to Connecticut?”
Roger shook his head. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”
“I’ll be okay,” I promised. “Really. And it makes more sense this way.” Roger got out of the car and unscrewed the gas cap. I could tell he was thinking it over. I walked inside the mini-mart to prepay with cash, hoping it would be enough to get us to Philly. When I got back to the car, Roger was pumping gas.
“I’m okay with driving,” I assured him, as I squeegeed the dead-bug graveyard off our windshield. “Really. And it doesn’t make any sense for you to drive with me to Connecticut only to get back on a train to Philadelphia.”
“But you just started driving again,” Roger said, replacing the gas cap and shutting the fuel door. “I don’t know if you should drive alone yet.”
I replaced the squeegee and walked over to him. “I’m going to be fine,” I said. “And this way, I can spare you the wrath of my mother.”
Roger put his arms around me and I leaned my head into his chest. We stayed that way until a honk behind us let us know that people were waiting for the pump. I passed him the keys. He got behind the wheel and I got back into the passenger side, and we headed to the last leg of our journey.
Good-bye, so long, farewell …
—Paul Tiernan
Twenty miles outside of Philadelphia, I began to break down. It seemed that all too soon, there were signs every few feet, telling me just how close Philadelphia was. Roger was holding my hand between our seats, but I was having trouble even looking at him, choosing instead to stare out the window, and not able to think about anything except how in a very few minutes, he’d be gone.
“You okay?” Roger asked, as he turned down a residential street.
“I don’t think so,” I said, still looking out my window.
“Well, I think we’re almost there,” he said, slowing down and squinting at the numbers on his side.
“That’s not really helping,” I said, trying to keep my voice light and utterly failing. Roger looked over at me for a moment, then pulled to the side of the road. I looked around—we were between two houses. “Are we here?” I asked, confused.
“I think it’s up there,” he said, looking from the address in his phone to a driveway a few feet away. “I just wanted a little privacy.” He killed the engine, left the keys in the ignition, and turned to me, unbuckling his seat belt and then mine.
“What now?” I asked, hoping that he had some sort of a plan.
“Well,” he said, sliding to the edge of his seat, “I’m going to go in and you’re going to drive to Connecticut. And then I’m going to call you later tonight and we’ll talk.”
“No,” I said. “I mean, what’s going to happen? With us?” I asked, heart hammering.
He smiled at me. “You’re the navigator,” he said. “You want to know where we’re going, and the exact route.”
“Well, yes,” I said. “I mean …”
“But what if we hadn’t taken the detour?” he asked. “We’d have been back a long time ago. And we would only have seen Tulsa.”
“I know,” I said, thinking about the trip my mother had wanted me to take, and the trip we’d ended up taking, and how much better ours had been.
“So I think we have to be open to what happens,” he said. “We can’t know exactly what’s coming.”
“But I just want to know if …” I stopped when I realized I couldn’t finish the sentence. What I wanted was some kind of guarantee, and he couldn’t give that to me. Nobody could.
“Amy,” Roger said. I looked at him, hearing just how he’d said my name. Like it contained only the good letters. “I didn’t expect this to happen. Did you?”
“Well, of course not.”
“Exactly. So I’m just trying to figure it out myself. We can’t know what’s going to happen. We can just try to figure it out as we go along. Right?”
“Right,” I said slowly. “But …”
“I mean, I should have known,” he said, leaning back a little and smiling at me. “It always happens this way.”
“What does?”
“The best discoveries always happened to the people who weren’t looking for them. Columbus and America. Pinzón, who stumbled on Brazil while looking for the West Indies. Stanley happening on Victoria Falls. And you. Amy Curry, when I was least expecting her.”
I smiled back at him, while feeling sharply just how much I was going to miss him. It was almost a physical pain. “I’m on that list?”
“You’re at the top of that list.” He leaned over and kissed me, and I kissed back, and we stayed that way until we switched to just holding each other. He pulled away after a long moment, and I nodded. We both got out of the car, and I walked around to
the driver’s side as Roger grabbed his backpack and duffel.
“Okay,” I said. We kissed again, and he hugged me so tightly that my feet lifted off the ground.
“I’m calling you tonight,” he whispered into my ear. “And we’ll figure it out. I promise.” I nodded again, and Roger set me down, and I felt him slip something into the front pocket of my jeans. “Don’t open it until you get to Connecticut, okay?” He stepped back, smiling at me sadly. “We’re not going to say good-bye.”
“Of course not,” I said, trying my best to smile back at him.
“I’m just going to say … see you around,” he said, taking a few steps toward his dad’s house.
“Don’t be a stranger,” I said.
“Take care,” he said, stepping away.
“So long,” I said.
“Talk to you later,” he said, walking away, still facing me.
“See you soon,” I called.
He was now at the base of his driveway, and he raised a hand in a wave to me. I raised a hand back. And then he shouldered his duffel and headed up the driveway, leaving me standing by the car, alone.
* Amy Playlist #3 *
“The End of the Road” or “The Beginning”
SONG TITLE
ARTIST
“All Shook Up”
Elvis Presley
“I Guess This Is Goodbye”
Into the Woods
“New Music”
Ragtime
“The Joy You Feel”
The Light in the Piazza
“I’d Do Anything”
Oliver!
“Goodbye Until Tomorrow”
The Last Five Years
“All That I Am”
Elvis Presley
“It Would Have Been Wonderful”
A Little Night Music
“We’re Okay”
Rent
“With So Little to Be Sure Of”
Anyone Can Whistle
“Come What May”
Elvis Presley
Into the woods, then out of the woods, and home before dark.
—Stephen Sondheim
Three hours later I passed the sign that told me I’d just entered Connecticut, and I pulled off into the first rest station that I saw. I killed the engine and pulled out of my pocket what Roger had given me—an object, wrapped in a note.
The magnet had AMERICA written across it. I turned it in my hand, thinking about the trip. Thinking about the people we had met, and everything that we had seen.
I read his words over again. I wasn’t sure what would happen with us. I knew that there were no guarantees. Terrible things happened when you were least expecting them, on sunny Saturday mornings, and the consequences just had to be lived with, every day. But it seemed that wonderful things could happen too. You could be forced to take a trip, not knowing who you would meet. Not knowing that it would change your life.
I got out of the car and stretched my legs, taking in my first real view of Connecticut. It was pretty, I realized with some surprise, even at the rest station.
I took out the Connecticut map I’d bought at a gas station and unfolded it when I realized that I didn’t have the address of my mother’s—our—new house. I began to think about the house as a real place, one that I would be at in under an hour. I couldn’t picture it, but I hoped it had Internet access. I owed Julia a long-overdue e-mail. I took out my phone and dialed my mother’s cell, expecting it to go straight to voice mail, as all my other calls had.
She answered after the second ring. “Amy?” she asked, her voice a little hesitant.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, trying to speak around the lump in my throat that had formed just hearing her voice.
“Are you okay?” my mother asked, and I could hear how tense she sounded. “Is everything all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, and I could hear her let out a breath. “I’m okay. I’m in Connecticut.”
“You’re—here?” she asked, the worry in her voice replaced by surprise. “Now? With Roger?”
“No, just me,” I said, still a little surprised that it was true. “I dropped Roger off at his father’s a few hours ago.”
“You dropped him off?” my mother was sounding more and more confused. “You mean—you’re driving?”
“I am,” I said. And I felt, in the silence that followed, everything that had happened on the trip to bring me to this place.
“Well,” she said, sounding a little stunned. “That … that’s great. I mean, that you …,” her voice trailed off. “Not that I’m not upset with you,” she said, in a tone that was probably meant to be stern. But she didn’t quite pull it off. “I am. And we’re going to talk about consequences.”
“We’re going to have to talk about a lot,” I said. “I hope.”
“Well … yes,” my mother said slowly, probably trying to figure out what I was talking about. But if she didn’t get it now, it was okay. I could tell her later.
“Can I have the address?” I asked. “I just crossed the state line.”
“Oh, of course,” my mother said. She read me the address and gave me basic directions, and then silence fell between us.
“Okay,” I said after a moment. “So—”
“Are you hungry?” my mother asked, a little abruptly. “I was just about to get dinner started. But if you haven’t eaten, I’ll wait.”
“I haven’t eaten,” I said. As I said, this I realized that I actually was hungry. And that a home-cooked meal sounded pretty good.
“Well, I’ll start it now,” my mother said. “And you’ll drive safe?”
“I will,” I promised. “I’ll see you soon.” I hung up the phone and got back into the car. I placed Roger’s magnet carefully in my purse. As I did, I saw the copy of Food, Gas, and Lodging—the book that had come with me across the country. I pulled it out and opened it up to the note card, to the last page my father had read. As I looked at it, I knew I was going to be able to read beyond page sixty-two. Otherwise, I was never going to find out what happened next. I would read through to the end, even though I knew that I wouldn’t be able to discuss it with my father. But maybe Charlie and I could talk about it when he came back.
As I smoothed out the Connecticut map, the state motto on the cover caught my eye. He who transplanted sustains.
I looked at it for a long time. Even though that had obviously been Connecticut’s motto for a long time—since 1622, the map helpfully told me—it felt like a sign. It felt like it meant that maybe I was going to be okay here. That transplanted as I was, I might find a way to thrive here.
I looked at it for a moment longer, then realized that if I didn’t leave soon, I was going to be late for dinner. I turned on the car and scrolled through my mix until I found an Elvis song. Then I signaled, turned up the volume, and pulled back out onto the highway.
Amy & Roger's Epic Detour Page 28