Amy & Roger's Epic Detour (30 page)

Lucien had us drive past the Louisville Slugger Museum, which had a bat the size of the building leaning against it. I gawked at it and made a mental note to have Roger drive by in the morning again so that I could take a picture. Charlie would get a kick out of it—he’d always loved baseball. This thought jarred me a little bit, and made me realize how little I’d been thinking about my brother—or how much I’d been trying not to think about my brother. I had a suspicion that it was the latter. But I didn’t want to think about Charlie. He was too tangled in everything that had happened, and then everything that had happened with him afterward…. I stared out the window, trying to concentrate only on Louisville passing by.

Lucien directed Roger to a very fancy-looking hotel. It had a huge red canopy, with
THE BROWN
written on it in gold lettering. It looked
nice
, and way out of our price range.

“This looks great,” Roger said, glancing over at me, and I had a feeling he was also thinking of the four hundred dollars and change that was all the money we had. This place looked like it probably cost that much for one night. “But I’m not sure this is exactly the kind of place we were planning on staying tonight….”

“No worries,” said Lucien. “We’re just eating here.”

“Oh,” Roger said. “Got it.” It seemed like restaurants at this hotel might also be a little more expensive than the fast-food and diner dinners we’d been having, but I figured we could probably afford it for one meal.

Lucien’s directions brought Roger around to the valet entrance, and before we could say anything, three doors were opened simultaneously by valets in white coats. I stepped out, glad once again I was wearing Bronwyn’s clothes. I noticed that Roger was tucking his white T-shirt hurriedly into his jeans. Lucien stepped over to the valet who’d opened Roger’s door and shook his hand, and I saw a flash of green pass from his palm to the valet’s as he did this. Then he motioned us inside the hotel, as the doors were pulled open for us by two more valets, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. We stepped inside, and I looked around, my mouth hanging open a little. I was now certain this was out of our price range—this was an extremely nice hotel. There were chandeliers above us, and thick, patterned carpet on the floor, and there seemed to be a lot of shiny brass fixtures everywhere.

Lucien led us across the lobby—filled with antique-looking couches, Oriental rugs, and oil paintings of horses—and down three steps to J. Graham’s Café and Bar. There was a crowd standing around the host’s podium, but Lucien just walked up to the front, and we were seated right away, in a corner booth that looked out on the quiet street, lit with streetlights. “Enjoy your dinner, Mr. Armstrong,” the host murmured as he handed us menus and departed.

I looked at Lucien, surprised. “They know you here?” I asked.

Lucien shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “We’ve been coming here a long time,” he said. “Every Derby season, the parents rent out a suite on the eleventh floor. So you get to know the staff.”

“Right,” I said, as though this was perfectly normal, and not at all intimidating. I looked around the tastefully decorated, clearly expensive restaurant and realized how long it had been since I’d been somewhere like this. Roger and I hadn’t encountered cloth napkins in quite some time. I started to open up my menu, but Lucien laid his hand on top of it.

“If I may,” he said, looking between Roger and me. “The Brown makes a famous dish that originated here, and if you haven’t had it, you really should.”

I thought about Roger asking me before where my sense of adventure was. I knew that he’d been kidding, mostly, but the question was now reverberating in my mind. Even Old me had always been a little cautious. I had to be, with Charlie not taking any caution at all. And I’d been reading maps too long not to want to follow some sort of plan and have an ending in sight. But I had told my mother off, and the world hadn’t ended. And here I was, cut loose and in Kentucky, with Roger and a stranger, at a fancy restaurant, wearing someone else’s clothes. Maybe my sense of adventure wasn’t lost. Maybe it had just been lying dormant. I pushed my menu away. “Sounds good,” I said, hoping immediately after I said this that the famous dish wasn’t snails. Or anything to do with sweetbreads, which I’d found out the hard way in England were neither sweet nor breads.

I saw Roger give me a little smile across the table, though it faded when he heard Lucien order for all of us, something called a Hot Brown.

“You guys do eat meat, right?” he asked when three skillets were placed in front of us simultaneously by three waiters. “I should have checked, with you being from California and all.” We’d done the basic introductions while we’d waited for the worrisomely named food to arrive. We’d found out that Lucien was eighteen and beginning college at Vanderbilt in the fall.

“No vegetarians here,” Roger said.

“Good,” Lucien said, “then dig in.”

I looked down at the skillet that had been laid across my plate. One of the waiters had explained the dish: A Hot Brown was a turkey breast on big pieces of soft-looking bread, covered with parmesan cheese and a creamy sauce, flanked by tomato slices and finished with parsley and two pieces of bacon laid across the top. I had just been taking it in, wondering where to start, when I realized Lucien hadn’t started eating yet. He was looking at me expectantly, and only after I’d raised my fork did he raise his. I’d heard about Southern manners, but I’d assumed they’d died out a hundred years before. Apparently not. The proof was sitting in front of me, waiting for me to take a bite before he would begin to eat.

The silverware was surprisingly heavy, and I cut a small piece and took a bite. It was fantastic. I took another bite, and saw that across the table, Roger was eating with gusto. I realized as I ate more that these were all foods I liked—why had nobody except people in Kentucky realized how good they might be when combined and covered with melted cheese?

Roger had ordered a Coke, since root beer was not on the menu. But I’d taken Lucien’s lead and ordered what he had, something called sweet tea. I took a small sip, then another one, realizing that cream soda might just have been eclipsed as my favorite drink. It was iced tea, but very sweet, with the sugar not grainy and mixed in, but part of the drink itself. Between this and the NuWay, I decided that from now on I would always follow the recommendations of the locals, as I hadn’t been steered wrong yet. Lucien said that he would take care of ordering dessert, and I was happy to put myself in his hands.

I headed to the ladies’ room, leaving the boys in an intense discussion of sports movies. I only hoped, for Lucien’s sake, that he would have the sense not to bring up
Hoosiers
. As I washed my hands, I looked at my reflection. I thought back to the me reflected in the bathroom mirror at Yosemite. I looked different, and not only because I hadn’t just been crying, then rubbing my face with paper towels that felt like they’d been made from some kind of bark. I was more tan now, and I had a new wardrobe. But it wasn’t that, entirely. I looked at my reflection a moment longer, pulling my shoulders back.

When I returned to the table, the boys stopped talking immediately, which worried me. But before I could say anything, dessert plates were presented. “Derby pie,” Lucien said. “A Louisville tradition. Enjoy.” He motioned the waiter to come closer, then said, “And a glass of Maker’s Mark, please.”

The waiter looked from Roger to me and back to Lucien again, who just stared back at him coolly. “Absolutely,” the waiter said, leaving.

“Did you just order a drink?” I asked, baffled, wondering if Kentucky was somehow exempt from the drinking laws of the rest of the country.

“Dude,” Roger said reverently around a mouthful of dessert. He saluted Lucien with his fork and went on eating. I took a bite myself. The pie was a mixture of chocolate and strawberries and pecans, and it was great. I found myself wishing that Kentucky was better about exporting their local dishes to the rest of the country.

The waiter placed a short glass half-filled with two ice cubes and a dark brown liquid in front of Lucien.

“What is this?” I asked. “Do they not card in Kentucky?”

“Not always,” Lucien said with a smile. “We have in front of us a glass of genuine Kentucky bourbon. You know that bourbon is the only drink native to America?” Roger and I shook our heads. “It is,” he continued. “And unless it’s made in Kentucky, it can’t be called bourbon. Otherwise, it’s just called sour mash.”

“Like champagne,” I said, recalling the fact I’d once learned while rehearsing a Noel Coward play. “Unless it’s made in the Champagne region of France, it’s just called sparkling wine.”

“Well, exactly,” said Lucien. He set the glass of bourbon in the center of the table. “So who’s driving?” he asked. “I’m happy to, if y’all are comfortable with that.”

Roger glanced at me and took a sip of his soda. “I’ll keep driving,” he said. “Not a problem.”

“Oh,” Lucien said. “Okay.”

“I’m not really driving right now,” I said after a moment of silence, feeling like some explanation was called for. But after I said it, I realized this explanation hadn’t actually clarified anything. “Just … not,” I said, stopping when I realized that without going into why, I wasn’t going to be able to make myself any clearer.

“Well, whatever works,” Lucien said. He gestured to the bourbon. “Would you like it?”

“That’s okay,” I said, drinking my second glass of sweet tea.

Lucien raised his eyebrows at me. “You’re turning down a glass of our authentic local bourbon?” he asked.

“Oh,” I said, glancing over at Roger, who for some reason was looking up at the ceiling, smiling. “Um, sure.” With both of them watching me closely, I slid the glass toward me and lifted it up. It was surprisingly heavy, and I sniffed the liquid, then stopped, wondering if you were only supposed to do that for wine. At any rate, it smelled kind of like a stump. I took a tentative sip and almost spat the entire mouthful across the table. It tasted like stump too. Smoky stump. It was kind of like what I imagined it would be like to drink a forest fire. I forced myself to swallow it, and it burned my throat going down and made my eyes water. “Mmm,” I choked out when I was able to speak again. “That’s … smooth.”

I looked up and saw that both Roger and Lucien were laughing. “Sorry about that,” Lucien said, moving the drink away from me and into the center of the table again. “We just wanted to see if I could get you to drink it.”

“What?” I asked, still coughing a little. Roger was still smiling. “Both of you?”

“Small side bet,” said Lucien, slapping a twenty on the table. “Welcome to Kentucky.”

“I thought I was going to insult you if I didn’t drink it,” I said, feeling flustered and betrayed, but also noticing how Roger looked like he was having fun as he leaned back against the booth, pocketing his twenty. I mentally added it to our current total.

“Nah,” Lucien said. He edged my water glass toward me. “You’ll probably need that.” I grabbed the glass and took a big sip. “I think bourbon’s disgusting. I have no idea how my mother drinks it. I think you actually can’t drink it until you’re in your fifties and can no longer taste anything.”

“Sorry about that,” Roger said to me, looking a little sheepish.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. I tried to glare at him but found I couldn’t keep the expression on my face.

“Cheers?” asked Lucien, holding up his water. I raised my sweet tea glass and Roger lifted his Coke.

“Cheers,” I said, and we clinked.

Lucien looked across at Roger. “So. You and Hadley, huh?”

“Yeah,” Roger said, clearing his throat. “I mean, we were dating this year at school. We broke up right as classes were ending.”

“Let me guess,” Lucien said with a sigh. “You haven’t heard from her since?”

“Not really,” said Roger. “I mean, we talked a little today, but …”

“Now she’s not returning your calls?”

“No,” he said slowly. “She’s not.”

Lucien shook his head. “I’m sorry, man,” he said. “I’m afraid that’s just her MO.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Modus operandi,” Lucien said. “It’s Latin.”

“No,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I know what that means. I mean, what do you mean?”

“One more guess,” said Lucien, ignoring my question and turning again to Roger. “She didn’t really give any explanation for why she was ending it either.”

“Who,” Roger said, a little blustery, “who said that she ended it? I mean, maybe it was my idea.” Lucien just looked at him, and Roger sighed. “No,” he said. “No explanation.”

“Her MO,” Lucien said, turning to me. “I’ve been watching her do this to suckers—no offense—”

“None taken,” said Roger.

“Since she was in middle school. I’m afraid it’s just what she does. You got caught in Hurricane Hadley. She comes in, shakes things up, and then leaves destruction and confused guys behind in her wake.”

“This happens a lot?” Roger asked, his voice a bit strained.

Lucien nodded, and then there was a moment in which we all became very interested in our drinks. “But nobody’s actually ever called her on this shit before,” Lucien said, breaking the silence. “So good for you for coming here, man. Maybe you’ll be the one to get through to her.” He held his glass up to Roger. “I wish you luck.”

I looked over at Roger, who was still staring down into his soda, and I felt like I was seeing something that I shouldn’t have.

“But what do I know?” Lucien asked, a bit too loudly, maybe feeling the same way I did. “I mean, I’m just the younger brother. It’s not exactly like she confides in me.” He turned to me, and with the air of someone who is desperate to change the subject, asked, “Do you have any siblings?”

“One brother,” I said, feeling like I’d already thought about Charlie more than I’d wanted to tonight, and wishing that Lucien had chosen almost any other subject.

“Older?”

“Younger,” I said. “Three minutes.”

Lucien’s eyebrows shot up. “No shit,” he said. “Twins?” I nodded. “So you guys must be super close, right?”

I felt my stomach clench a little when he said this. Charlie and I had had moments when we were younger when we’d been close, but mostly it seemed like we’d been battling our whole lives. Like there was always a wall between us that never came down. “Not really,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “No, not very close.”