Amy & Roger's Epic Detour (8 page)

“Oh, ha ha,” I said, trying for a light laugh but, even I could hear, failing miserably. “No, I’m fine. I was just, um …” I had no idea how to finish that sentence, so I didn’t even try, and it just hung there in midair between us. “Thanks for making the bed,” I said finally. “You didn’t have to.”

“It was no big deal,” Roger said with a smile. He stood and looked at me for a moment, taking in my outfit. “You look hot.”

“What? Me?” I stammered, completely flummoxed.

“Yeah,” he said, still looking at me.

What?
Was this some kind of come-on or something? Right before we were about to sleep in the same bed? Like this wasn’t complicated enough already. “Oh. Um, thank you. I mean, not that you don’t, but I’m not sure that you should—I mean …”

“Oh, no,” Roger said quickly, and I could see that he was blushing again. “No. I mean—I meant what you’re wearing. Are you going to be too warm?”

Oh
. I momentarily wondered if it would be possible to get one of the bears lurking outside to come in and kill me. “Oh, right,” I said, trying to force my voice to stay upbeat. “Um, I think I’ll be okay. I always get pretty cold here at night.” Roger nodded and stretched, revealing a flat strip of stomach this time, and I looked away again, wishing that he could have worn a slightly longer shirt. “Are you going to be okay?” I asked. “Warm enough, I mean?”

“Oh, sure,” he said, pulling back the covers on his side. Relieved to have some direction, I pulled them back on my side as well. “I’m always hot at night. Hadley used to call me the space heater.”

I walked over to the door, checked that it was locked, and turned out the light. But because of the white walls, and the moonlight filtering in, there was still enough light to see to get back to my side of the bed. Roger got in, and I climbed in as well, staying as far over as possible on my side while still actually being on the bed. I kept both arms pressed against my sides and looked up at the ceiling, acutely aware of how close together we were. I could have reached out and touched him without even extending my arm. I could feel the rhythm of his breathing. “Hadley?” I asked after a moment, figuring this was the ex-girlfriend—the one whose side of the bed I was now occupying.

“Yeah,” said Roger, and I could hear a strain in his voice. “My girlfriend. My
ex
-girlfriend,” he corrected immediately, sounding annoyed with himself. “She … she was just …”

I waited, turning my head slightly to look over at him, but apparently what Hadley was wasn’t going to be articulated. Roger sighed deeply, then tucked his arms behind his head. I took in the gun show for a moment, then looked fixedly up at the ceiling.

“What about you?” he asked, turning his head toward me. “Is there anyone in the picture?”

I immediately thought of Michael, but wasn’t sure how he fit into any picture I wanted to tell Roger about. “Um, not really,” I said. Then, thinking that made me sound too pathetic, I added, “I mean, there was this guy, but it was just … I mean it was mostly just … I mean, it wasn’t really …” I stopped, wondering where all my adjectives, nouns, and verbs had gone. Mr. Collins would not have approved. “I don’t know,” I finally concluded brilliantly. “Not really.”

I looked over and saw that Roger was now on his side, facing me, curled up a little bit. I usually slept—or tried to sleep—on my side as well. I looked up at the ceiling, mentally preparing myself for another long night. I’d started having insomnia for the first time in my life over the last month. I’d lie awake for hours before finally giving up and going to watch the Weather Channel. For whatever reason, I found it soothing—the preciseness of it, the way it essentially predicted the future. I liked that the meteorologists could tell people across the country what their days and weeks would bring. They were preparing people, letting them know that a storm might be coming toward them. And that way, you weren’t caught totally off guard and unprepared when it finally hit you. After watching the Doppler radar for a while, I could usually doze off for an hour or two. But here, without the seven-day forecast, with bears potentially hanging around outside, and sharing a bed with Roger, I knew I wouldn’t be getting any sleep.

“Well, good night, Amy,” Roger said.

“Good night. Sleep tight. Don’t let the bears bite,” I added automatically. It was how my father and Charlie and I had always said good night when we were here. I hadn’t thought about it in years, and yet there it was, just waiting for the right prompt.

Roger laughed, a quieter version of the laugh I’d heard earlier. “Right,” he said. “You too.” I saw his eyes close and figured he’d probably be asleep immediately. I felt irrationally envious of him—someone who could just drift off, someone whose thoughts didn’t keep him up. Someone like I’d once been.

Roger’s breathing got more even, and slower, and I could feel myself start to relax a little on my side of the bed. There was a little stretch of bed between us that Roger didn’t seem to be drifting toward. Moving as incrementally as I could, I turned myself over to lie on one side, facing Roger, and curled up.

And even though I knew that sleep was going to be impossible, I let my eyes close as well.

The next thing I knew, I was awake again. I squinted at my watch and was shocked to see that it was three a.m. I’d fallen asleep—even without the benefit of the Doppler radar. I sat up and looked around. The cabin was darker than it had been before—maybe the moon was behind a cloud—and I was alone in bed. I immediately felt myself begin to panic, which was ironic, considering how much I hadn’t wanted to share the bed in the first place. But now it felt much too big. I was starting to run though a list in my head of where Roger could have gone—the bathroom, off to do a little late-night stargazing—when I heard his voice outside. I looked to the door and saw that it was slightly ajar, and I could hear him talking.

“Hey, Hadley,” I heard him say, “it’s me again.” I looked around and wondered what I should do. Turn on my iPod? I knew I wasn’t supposed to hear this, but at the same time, I really, really wanted to. Before I could make a decision, Roger continued. He sounded nervous.

“So I guess you’re not in. Or maybe you’re sleeping. I guess it’s pretty late there. Or early. So if this woke you, I’m sorry….” He paused. “I’m up in the mountains in California, and the stars are so beautiful here. I wish you could see them. I’m …” His voice trailed off. “I just don’t understand what happened, Had. Or why you haven’t been in touch. It’s not really like you. So I … I don’t know. Anyway, give me a call if you get this, okay?”

I waited to hear him say good-bye, but nothing followed that. Figuring that he’d be heading in soon, I lay back down and closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep so he wouldn’t know I’d heard him.

But the next time I opened my eyes, it was fully light out, and I could hear birds—some chirping, some squawking—all around me. I looked at my watch and saw that it was eight o’clock. I looked across the bed at Roger, his head just a hand’s distance away from mine. He was sleeping soundly, the covers falling off his shoulder. I watched him for a moment, hoping this wasn’t creepy, just taking in what it was like to see someone when they looked so peaceful, when all their defenses were down. I looked away, then rolled out of bed and stretched. I’d just slept more soundly than I had in months.

You’ll be missed, Miss California.

—Jack’s Mannequin

After Roger woke up, we headed to the lodge, a building I’d always loved. It was stone, with an enormous fireplace where people tended to congregate. Between the wooden decor and the constantly burning fire, it was the kind of place that made you want to curl up with hot chocolate, even in July. And decorating it were pictures of my long-ago ancestors, who’d descended on Yosemite more than a century before and set up a camp for profit. Eventually it had been made part of the park. It seemed like the main thing my ancestors had been responsible for was the “Firefall,” in which flame was poured, nightly, down a chute carved into a mountain. The Firefall was stopped in the sixties, mostly because people were amazed that it hadn’t killed anyone yet. After I’d given Roger the brief tour of my family history, we ate breakfast.

Or, more accurately,
I
ate breakfast. Roger ate the kind of meal usually reserved for holiday dinners and people with tapeworms. Luckily, it was a buffet, and all-you-can-eat, a policy I had a feeling they might be revising after our visit. As Roger came back with his third heaping plateful—this one focused on various meat groups—he raised his eyebrows at my plate. “Is that all you’re eating?” he asked.

“It is,” I said, taking a sip of orange juice. I’d already had oatmeal, two muffins, and a banana, which seemed like more than enough for me. “I’m pretty full.”

Roger shook his head. “You should carb up,” he said. He settled into his chair, picked up the
Yosemite Guide
we’d taken on our way in, and began reading it while eating a piece of sausage. “There’s a lot going on today—hiking, walks, something called Badger Pass—and you’re going to need the energy.”

He handed me the paper, and I pretended to read it as I looked at him over the top of it. “So how’d you sleep last night?” I asked as casually as I could.

“Great,” Roger said, but I noticed that he was concentrating very hard on his Canadian bacon. “I was out like a light. How about you?”

“Oh, fine,” I said lightly. I looked across at him and realized that there was more to Roger than I’d assumed. And that I was not the only liar sitting at the table.

“Hi, it’s Amy’s phone. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks!”

Beep.

“Hi, Amy, it’s your mother. I guess we’re playing phone tag. Glad you made it to New Mexico, and I hope by now you two are well on your way to Oklahoma. I called the Gallup Holiday Inn to make sure you’d checked in, but they had no record of you. But I didn’t get the impression the desk clerk really knew what she was doing. So just call me back so I’ll know everything’s on track.”