Amy & Roger's Epic Detour (16 page)

“Hey,” I said, sticking my hands into my pockets, hoping she wouldn’t notice the jam.

“Are you Amy?” she asked, looking at me closely. She walked over to me, somehow managing to avoid stepping on any clothes or shoes. She was looking at me with the friendliest expression I’d ever seen on anyone who wasn’t a flight attendant.

“Yes,” I said, sticking out my hand to shake hers, figuring that maybe this was the thing to do at college. “Hi.”

She didn’t even acknowledge my hand, just took a step closer and hugged me tight. I immediately felt myself stiffening. I hadn’t really hugged anyone in a long time. A few people had hugged me at the funeral, but those had been quick, barely touching, two-pats-on-the-back hugs. This girl wasn’t letting go. After a moment, I tried to extricate myself, but that only seemed to make her hold tighter. It was strange to feel, since we were about the same height, but it seemed like I was being hugged by a much bigger person. I felt something inside me weaken, a splinter or two popping off the dam I’d put up in front of everything I didn’t want to feel. The second I felt this, I took a step back. Bronwyn took a step back of her own and smiled at me.

“So nice to meet you!” she said, and I heard a faint, twangy Southern accent in her words. “You,” for example, seemed to have more syllables in it than I was used to hearing.

“You too. Um …” I said, just to check. “Are you Bronwyn?”

“Oh my goodness!” she said with a laugh. “I’m so sorry! Yes, I am. Bronwyn Elizabeth Taylor. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Elizabeth Taylor?” I repeated, not sure I’d heard correctly.

Bronwyn laughed again. “Yes, I know. Blame my older sister. She was obsessed with
National Velvet
around the time I was born. Girls and horses, you know,” she said, and I nodded, like I was able to follow this. “So she suggested it as a middle name, and here I am. That’s why you don’t let a five-year-old pick your name, am I right?”

“Right,” I said, a bit stunned. She spoke
fast
, seeming to go against all the things I’d heard about the slow Southern drawl. Reeling a bit, I tried to drag the conversation back to familiar ground. “Thank you so much for letting me stay here tonight.”

“Oh, pshaw!” she said. I had never heard anyone actually say this word aloud before, but there it was: puh-shaw. “I’m thrilled you all are staying here. I am just starved for some good conversation. And Roger is one of my top ten favorite people in the world.” She said this like it was truly an honor. I believed her immediately.

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah. He’s really—”

“And I am just sick,” she continued on, “about what that girl has done to him. Such a sweet boy. Nothing but practice to someone like Hadley.” I noticed that Bronwyn pronounced her name in the opposite way that Roger had, practically spitting out the syllables. “She took one look at him and saw someone she could sharpen her claws on.” I nodded dumbly, feeling a bit like I’d just walked into a tornado. I tried to sift through what she’d just said, tried to think of a proper response to any of it. “So …,” I began.

“My goodness, where are my manners? Please sit down.”

I didn’t see any place where this seemed possible, but Bronwyn swept some clothes off the bed and patted it, then crossed the room and hopped up on her desk. I lowered myself carefully onto the space she’d cleared. She was looking at me expectantly, so I decided to try again. “So,” I said, then waited a moment. When she didn’t jump in, I continued, “So you’re the RA here for the summer?”

“I am,” she said with a groan that somehow managed to also seem good-natured. “It’s free room and board, keeps me from having to be home all summer and provide slave labor at my aunt’s day care. But enough about me!” She leaned forward. “I want to hear all about you! How’s the drive been so far?”

“Oh,” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable now that the full force of her attention was turned to me. “Good, I guess. So far.”

“Has
she
come up yet?” The way Bronwyn said “she,” I had no doubt who she meant.

“No,” I said. “Not really. He hasn’t really talked about it.”

Bronwyn nodded. “I thought as much. No worries, darling. I’ll get it out of him.”

“Um,” I said, “I think that’s why we’re here, though. One of the reasons,” I added quickly. “He said he was looking for Hadley—he thought she might be on campus this summer.”

Bronwyn snorted. “Well, she’s not. Believe me, I’d have known about it and sent out an all-points bulletin.” She turned to her desk and lifted a framed photo off it. “You want the visual?” Before I could reply, she crossed the room and handed it to me.

There were four people in the picture: Bronwyn on the left, standing next to a cute, stocky guy with close-cropped curly black hair, then Roger standing next to a striking blond girl. I figured this had to be Hadley, and not only because someone had drawn horns on top of her head with red marker. I looked closer. She was almost as tall as Roger, willowy, with small, perfect features, evenly tanned skin, and pale blond hair. She was smiling absently and looking off-camera, but Roger, who was smiling right at her, hadn’t seemed to notice. “Huh,” I said, not sure what the proper response to this was.

“I know,” Bronwyn said. “Totally, right? Can’t you just see it on her face?” She took the picture back from me. “But look at Jaime,” she said, smiling at it, her finger resting on the guy standing next to her. “Isn’t he just the sweetest? Don’t you just want to eat him up?”

“Mmm,” I said, as neutrally as possible, figuring this was probably not something to agree to with too much enthusiasm. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“He is,” she said, sighing happily. “And pretty much Roger’s best friend around here. That’s how I got to know him, you see. And her,” she added darkly, after a moment.

“So,” I said, feeling like I was on the verge of uncovering a mystery, “what exactly happened between them?”

Bronwyn shoved another armful of clothes onto the floor and sat down next to me. “Honey, if I knew that I could have fixed this two months ago. I think the problem is that there isn’t any
there
there. I think she just got bored and wanted to be free in Kentucky for the summer. But I don’t know,” she said. “We’ll have to ask RS….” She paused and looked around, as though she had just noticed Roger wasn’t in the room. “Speaking of, where is that boy?”

“He’s getting the bags,” I said. I realized that he really should have been back by now, and I wondered if he was taking his time on purpose, so that Bronwyn and I could talk.

“Gotcha. Well, we should start getting ready anyway. There’s a party at the Quiet Dorm tonight. You’re coming,” she said, and I noticed that she didn’t phrase it as a question, or wait for my answer. “We’ll get dressed, and …” Her eyes shifted to my outfit. “Well, maybe you can borrow something of mine. It’ll be fun!”

And you’re doing fine in Colorado.
—Jackson Browne

The Quiet Dorm did not live up to its name. Roger had explained, on the walk to the party, that the houses that were for specific things during the school year—like the International House—became just regular housing during the summer for the students staying on campus. Apparently, the wildest parties over the summer happened at the Substance-Free Dorm.

We could hear the party when we were still down the street from it: the steady, pounding beat of music mixed with laughter and the occasional yell. The Quiet Dorm was walking distance from the International House, in another run-down house—this one looked like it might have been an old Victorian. When we got closer, I could see that there was a fake beach in front of the wraparound porch, an expanse of sand with a volleyball net strung up across it. It didn’t seem like anyone was going to be playing tonight, though, as a small campfire had been made next to the net. There were people standing around it, couples talking on the porch, and a guy passed out over the railing, still clutching his bottle of beer. It was all very familiar—replace the bottles of Mile-High Ale that were scattered around with Dos Equis, and it could have easily been the parties I’d been to at College of the West. I’d only been to a handful, and always with Michael. I had tended to stick next to him, sipping the warm keg beer out of my red plastic cup and smiling when someone spoke to me, trying not to say anything that would identify me as a high school student.

Charlie, on the other hand, had been going over to campus since we were in middle school, when he was apparently treated like a mascot at the parties. By the time we were in high school, he was just accepted as a fixture. And often, he was the one who was providing the party, or at least the one who knew who was holding. It had always been jarring to look across a dorm room or a house as I sat on the sidelines and see my brother, front and center, holding court.

As I followed Bronwyn and Roger up the stairs, I grabbed onto the railing, avoiding the passed-out guy, trying not to lose my balance. I was perfectly sober, but I was not wearing my own shoes. This had not been my choice, but apparently “no” was not a word Bronwyn readily understood.

“Of course you’re coming!” she’d said after I’d protested and Roger had reappeared with my suitcase. She’d said hello but then shooed him out again so we could begin to get ready. Which is when I found out that I was, most likely, not getting out of going to the party.

“It’s really okay,” I said.

Bronwyn, who had been humming something under her breath and rummaging in one of her drawers, turned and looked at me. “Of course you have to go,” she said. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’m fine here,” I said.
“Really.”

She waved my words away again. “You’re coming, sugar,” she said. “And what’s more, it’s going to be fun.” She straightened up and looked at me closely. “I think we could change this up a bit,” she said, gesturing to my flip-flops, loose T-shirt, and jeans. “I understand you had to dress for travel and all.”

“Right,” I murmured. I didn’t want to tell her that this had become my uniform. It wasn’t planned, just what I kept gravitating toward. Somehow, clothes that were too fitted felt like they were suffocating me, skirts made my legs feel too cold, bright colors drew too much attention. So I’d ended up with an ensemble that let me hide a little, and let me fade into the background, and it was working just fine.

“But,” she continued, “to every season. Am I right? A time to be casual and a time to dress up. And this is the latter.” She pulled out a pink one-shouldered top, looked at it, then me, then tossed it on the bureau. She rummaged farther in, gave a little gasp of triumph, and came out with a long, sky-blue top edged with yellow. “Perfect,” she said.

“Bronwyn,” I started, not wanting to offend her, but not wanting her to make all this effort for nothing. “Not that I don’t appreciate this, but I just don’t think I feel like going to a party tonight.” That was an understatement, but I wasn’t sure how else to put it. I was only just getting used to spending time with Roger. I had spent almost three months barely talking to anyone, and the thought of seeing so many people, and being around that many strangers, made me feel like the only thing I wanted to do was crawl into bed. Once, I’d happily gone to parties. It had never been an issue. But that, of course, had been Before. That had been Old me.

“I know,” said Bronwyn with a sigh, surprising me. “Half the time I don’t want to go out either, darling. But you know what? You go anyway. It’s the Taylor family motto: You get up, you dress up, you show up. And usually have a pretty good time by the end of it.” She threw the blue shirt at me, and I caught it. “And sometimes,” she added, in slightly hushed tones, like she was letting me in on a secret, “if you don’t feel great on the inside, just look great on the outside, and after a while you won’t be able to tell the difference.” She smiled at me. I guess I didn’t look totally convinced, because she shrugged and said, “But if you’re miserable, I promise you can leave early, ’kay? Now put that on and I’ll find you a skirt.”

I realized that resistance was futile and pulled off the jam-stained T-shirt as Bronwyn emerged from a pile of clothing with a denim skirt. She glanced up at me, and I tried to turn away—I was only wearing my bra—to put the blue shirt on. As I felt the softness of the material, I could tell that this was a really nice shirt. After spending the last few months in preshrunk cotton, I’d almost forgotten what it felt like, and I ran my fingers over the neckline, which was delicately scalloped.

“This too,” she said, and a bra whacked me in the head.

“Um,” I said, holding it up, “I think I’m okay….” This just seemed to be taking the clothes borrowing a little far.

“Don’t worry, it’s new,” she said. “I bought it for my roommate last year. I mean, the girl lived in her sports bra. Such a shame. But she told me she didn’t want it. And that I was being
inappropriate
. Can you believe it? Try it on.”

“Um,” I said, wishing I could just get dressed, “it’s really all right….”

“No, it isn’t,” she said. “If you’re going to dress, you have to do it all the way. I think that good underwear is so underrated.”