Read Smoke and Mirrors - Hollywood Knights One for Free Online Page A

skipping into the store.
    I had finished filling up and was flipping through
stations when she returned with a bag stuffed with stuff.
    “Did you buy out the store?”
    “Almost.  They still have cigarettes, Sno-balls,
and condoms.”
    I laughed and helped her find places to stash my
loot.
    “Fruit Stripe?  That’s your idea of gum?”
    “Yup.  When I was in high school, a couple of
friends and I split a whole big pack of it.  A third of a pack
of Fruit Stripe, all at once.  That’s a lot of sugar.”
    “Good Lord.”  I shook my head.  “And let me
guess...that’s as crazy as you got in high school.”
    “Pretty much.”
    “That explains so much,” I said.
    We argued about radio stations for a minute or three,
and then we settled on a classic rock channel we could both live
with.  That done, I finally brought us back around to the
question of the day.
    “So if not I-10, how’re we getting to L.A.?”
    Elizabeth gave me a mischievous grin.  “That
depends.  How soon do you need to get back?”
    “We’re not going by way of Canada.”
    She laughed.  “What about Memphis?”
    I winced.  “Graceland?”
    “Gibson.”
    “Like the guitar?”
    She nodded.  “Factory tours.”
    “Cool.  How far out of the way is it?”
    “Um...like...150 miles,” she said, looking away.
    “Doable, then.  Good.  And we can avoid
Tallahassee.  I’ve had the worst luck with that place.”

Chapter Ten
     
    The soda and munchies, good conversation, and even
better music sustained me for a while, but after a couple of hours,
my lack of sleep started to make itself known. We made a pit stop,
taking advantage of the opportunity to fill up the tank again, and
I handed the keys to Elizabeth. She spent a good few minutes
adjusting everything from the seat to the mirrors to the a/c to the
radio, and then we were off again.
    The next thing I knew, I was waking up as we pulled
into a truck stop.
    “Where are we?”
    “Euphala, Alabama.”
    “And I still have no idea where we are.”
    Elizabeth flashed me a smile. “Not Memphis.”
    I grinned back as I stretched and rubbed my eyes. “I
gathered.”
    We fueled up the car and then found a fast food
restaurant so we could fuel ourselves up as well. We were both wide
awake, and each of us insisted on driving, so we settled it the
only way we could: ancient and honorable combat, also known as
rock-paper-scissors. Elizabeth won, best two out of three, so she
settled behind the wheel with a canary-eating smirk and I played
navigator.
    A few hours later, we stopped for the night in
Tupelo, Mississippi. I’d tried to convince Elizabeth that staying
in Birmingham was a good plan, but she had wanted to press on, and
I’d let her. By the time we reached Tupelo, though, we were both
ready for a shower and a nap.
    We headed out early-ish the next morning and got into
Memphis shortly after noon. We grabbed lunch and then it was onward
to a day of playing tourist. We toured the Gibson factory, where I
learned more than I’d ever wanted to know about Gibson and where we
got to observe the guitar-making process. It was fascinating in a
way I never would have imagined, and Elizabeth’s infectious
excitement only made it that much better.
    After the tour, we drove around a bit, getting a good
look at Beall Street. We found a place to park near the river and
wandered around on foot a little, too. I even obliged Elizabeth
with a drive-by of Graceland.
    “So not what I expected,” Elizabeth said.
    I had to agree. The lush, rolling, green hills of the
lawn and the ornate, music-inspired fence and gates weren’t
anything I’d expected to see, but they at least fit with what I
knew of Graceland. I’d thought we would to be able to see the
house, but it was out of view beyond the rolling hills. And the
surrounding neighborhood…well, Elizabeth summed that up best when
she said, “I had no idea that Graceland was ‘In the Ghetto’.”
    Once we got back to a more inviting area of