Amy & Roger's Epic Detour (29 page)

The gates were wrought iron, and huge, and connected to two brick pillars on either side.
ARMSTRONG FARMS ESTATES
was carved on a silver plaque on the pillar on the left.
HUMMINGBIRD VALLEY
,
KENTUCKY
was carved on a plaque on the right. The whole setup was intimidating. But lucky for us, the gates were open. “I think so,” he said. Roger looked more nervous than I’d ever seen him. I watched as he clenched and unclenched his hands on the steering wheel and drove through.

True to his speculation, we did not reach the house for a long, long time. We drove up a gently winding driveway surrounded by green rolling hills. But I felt that at some point, this could not still be called a driveway. After this long, logically, it would seem to become a road again. As we drove, I thought suddenly with a pang about my house back in California, the Realtor’s sign on the lawn and the driveway that had taken me, at most, ten seconds to cross.

We made another turn in the driveway, and then suddenly it was before us: huge and imposing and what immediately sprang to mind when you pictured a Southern mansion. It was large and white, with columns, dark green shutters on the windows, and side buildings that sloped down from the main house. There was a circular drive in front, but there were no cars parked around it. In the light that was still left, I could see beautifully landscaped flowers and white porcelain pots filled with blooms lining the steps. From what I could see along the side of the house, it looked like there was an expanse of manicured grounds in the back.

“Wow,” I said, taking it all in.

“Yeah,” said Roger, looking around as well. “I’d gotten the description, but I see now that she was downplaying it a bit.” He put the car in park and killed the engine.

I turned away from the house and toward Roger. “So?” I asked. “Game plan? Are you just going to ring the bell?”

“I guess so,” he said. “I hadn’t really thought about this part. I’d thought about getting here, and what I’d say when I saw her, but not the bridge between the two.” Roger cleared his throat and cracked his knuckles. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to go for it.” He ran his hands through his hair again, making it stand up in all directions. Which was probably not the look he was going for, if he wanted to impress Hadley.

“Good,” I said as encouragingly as possible. “But—if I could just do one thing …” I leaned forward, closing the space between us in the car, and reached over to him. I placed my hands firmly on his head, feeling the spring and softness of his brown hair against my hands, how on his left side it was warmer, from driving in the sun all day. I had an impulse to run my fingers through it, but pushed it away immediately. Instead I smoothed my hands forward over the cowlick in the back, flattening it down. “There,” I said. “Better.” I smiled at him quickly, then retreated to my side of the car.

“Oh,” he said, looking in the mirror again. “Thanks.”

I was about to wish him luck, when I was distracted by the sight of a person coming around the side of the house. It was a very large person wearing a white doctor’s mask and brandishing a chain saw. And he was heading toward the car.

5
How to Decapitate a Moose

You’d better go on home, Kentucky gambler.

—Dolly Parton

“Okay,” I murmured to Roger, my pulse pounding, “I think what you should do is turn the car on quietly and back down the driveway as quickly as possible.”

“How,” Roger whispered back to me, “do you turn a car on quietly? And you do remember that driveway, right? You expect me to back down it?”

“Roger, he has a chain saw,” I hissed. “I am not going to die in Kentucky!”

Roger burst out laughing as the guy waved with his non-chain-saw-wielding arm. “Hey!” he called. “Y’all lost?”

“See?” Roger said. “He’s friendly.”

“That’s probably how he lures his victims! They have made movies about this!”

“That was Texas,” said Roger, still smiling, rolling his eyes at me and getting out of the car. “Hi,” he called. “I was just … um … looking for Hadley Armstrong.”

Coming closer, the guy took off his mask and had thankfully turned the chain saw off. We must have activated some kind of motion sensor, because the driveway was now softly lit, and I could see the guy actually looked fairly normal. He was wearing boat shoes, khakis, and a polo shirt. And though he was about the same height as Roger, he was just bigger. Not fat, exactly, just all-around big. Kind of like a teddy bear. Figuring this took him out of murderer territory, I opened my door as well and edged out slowly.

“I’m her brother,” the guy said. “Lucien Armstrong.” He held out his hand to Roger, and they shook. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Roger Sullivan,” said Roger. “Likewise.”

“Oh!” Lucien said, snapping his fingers. “You’re the guy who sent roses, right?”

Roger cleared his throat and gestured to me. “And this is Amy Curry,” he said.

I stayed where I was, leaning against the car. “Hi,” I said, lifting one hand in a wave.

“Hi,” said Lucien, clearly not picking up on this, and crossing over to me. He held out his hand, and I shook it, feeling that I’d never shaken so many hands in my life as I had in the past few days. His hand was huge, and almost closed over mine. He didn’t look anything like Hadley had in her picture. He had slightly overgrown blond hair that looked sun-bleached, and a sunburn across his cheeks. He was cute, I was surprised to see. I tried to take a step back, forgetting that I was already backed up against the car.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, extracting my hand from his.

“Sorry about the chain saw,” he said. “I was just cutting back some brush. So,” he said, looking from me to Roger, “y’all are friends of Hadley’s?” Roger nodded, and I nodded as well, thinking that it just seemed simpler than the truth.

“Yes,” Roger said, sticking his hands in his pockets. “We were in the area, and I talked to her earlier, but then she stopped answering her phone. So I just thought I’d see if she was home. I left a message, but …”

“You know, this is awful,” Lucien said. Unlike most people—and most people my age, which he looked near to—he actually seemed to really mean the things he said he felt. His brow was furrowed, and I could hear genuine regret in his voice. “I wish you could have gotten through to her, rather than coming all this way. Because Had left for a horse show a few hours ago and isn’t getting back until tomorrow. I know she’ll be sorry to have missed y’all.”

“Oh,” said Roger, nodding. “Right.” I watched as he stuck his hands in his pockets, his energy ebbing away, looking a little lost. I found myself incredibly mad at this girl I’d never met. Why would she tell Roger to call when he got to Louisville when she had no intention of being there? I could only imagine how he felt—like if we’d traveled all the way to Yosemite, only to learn it was closed on Mondays or something.

“But,” I said quickly, trying to cover the silence that was edging into uncomfortable territory, “I mean, maybe …” I looked at Roger and could see how much he didn’t want to just turn around and go. “We could crash in Louisville tonight….”

“Loo-vulle,” Roger and Lucien said simultaneously.

“Right, there,” I said. “I mean, we’re pretty tired. We came from Missouri this morning and have been driving all day. So,” I went on, trying to see how Roger felt about this plan I was inventing on the spot, “maybe we’ll just head into town now, find a hotel, and come back tomorrow?” Roger met my eyes and gave me a small smile, and I had a feeling that I’d made the right call.

“Well, excellent,” said Lucien, clapping his hands together, which made a surprisingly loud sound. “That sounds good. I would’ve hated for Had to have missed you if you’ve come all this way.”

“Great,” I said, turning back to the car. “So …”

“We don’t want to keep you,” said Roger.

“Nothing to keep me from,” Lucien said. “The parents are down in Hilton Head for the week, Had’s gone, I’m just holding the fort here by myself.” He rubbed his hand over the nape of his neck, smiling a little fixedly.

There was something in his aspect that seemed startlingly familiar to me. It took me a moment, but then it clicked into place. He was alone in his house, with his sibling and parents gone. He had seemed so happy to talk to us. He was, most likely, as lonely as I’d been for the month I lived by myself in our house. There was something about being alone in places that were usually filled with people that made them seem particularly empty when it was just you.

“It was good to meet you, man,” Roger said, extending his hand.

“Do you want to come to dinner?” I asked without even thinking about it, surprising myself. Roger glanced over at me, eyebrow raised, hand suspended in midair. “I mean, we were probably just going to grab something in town. And if you haven’t eaten, I mean …”

Roger dropped his hand. “Yeah, you should come,” he said. “I mean, if you don’t have plans, that is.”

Lucien looked from Roger to me. “Really?” he asked. “I don’t want to impose on y’all.”

“Not at all,” I said, surprised that these words were coming out of my mouth. I had spent so long trying to avoid strangers, and now I was inviting them along? Apparently, I was. I wondered when that had happened. “You should come.”

“Well, okay,” said Lucien, smiling at us. “That’s real nice of you. I appreciate it.”

“Come on,” Roger said, as he opened the driver’s-side door. “I’ll drive.”

“Great,” Lucien said, heading over to the Liberty. “All our cars are around back.” Roger met my eyes as he said this, and we exchanged a tiny smile. I wondered how many cars he was talking about, how many there had to be to use the the word “all.”

Lucien opened the passenger-side door, and startled, I took a step back, figuring that maybe he really liked riding shotgun, or something. It took a silent, confused minute of him holding the door open expectantly for me to realize that he had opened it for me, and was just waiting for me to get in.

“Oh,” I said, climbing in. “Um, thanks.” I reached to close it, but a second later, he did it for me, shutting it gently.

He got into the backseat, buckling himself into the middle and leaning forward between our seats. “Have either of you ever been to Louisville before?” he asked.

“Nope,” Roger said, and I shook my head.

“That decides it,” he said, leaning back against the seat and smiling. “We’re going to the Brown.”

The Brown, it turned out, meant the Brown Hotel in downtown Louisville. Before we got there, Lucien gave us a quick tour of Louisville, which was lovely. It was the cleanest city I’d ever seen—certainly cleaner than Los Angeles. But it was beautifully landscaped, with trees in bloom all around us, making the air smell wonderful. The streets were wide, and nobody seemed to be in a particular hurry—another big change from L.A. There was horse stuff everywhere—which made sense, considering that this was the home of the Kentucky Derby. I noticed that some of the license plates in front of us even had horses on them, which seemed like a nice touch. Louisville just felt peaceful, which I hadn’t expected.