Page 13 of The Dauntless (Spy Girl 5)
“Oh,” she says knowingly.
Next thing I know, First Lady Amanda Spear has made up a story about an amazing little clothing boutique in Athens, Georgia, that she’s always wanted to visit, and has waived protection, against the wishes of her security detail—although she does allow them to drive us the short distance to the airport.
She seems practically giddy at the thought of having a day to herself.
Once we’re settled on the plane and take off, she turns to me with a grin on her face. “Tell me everything.”
“I already told you everything.” Well, almost everything. I didn’t tell her about Chauncey and The Priest. Or about taking Dupree’s ring.
“Everything, except what you are going to do about Lorenzo. And I know that you’re staying in the same room as my son.”
I laugh at her eagerness to gossip. It reminds me of Allie.
“Staying in the same room, yes. Sleeping together, no. We’re just friends.”
“Do you think that might change?”
“Like we’ll become enemies? I hope not,” I tease, knowing that’s not at all what she meant.
“Oh, come on. I haven’t had a girls’ day in forever.”
“In that case, Amanda, what about you and the president? He’s got awfully dreamy blue eyes.”
She flicks her hand in the air, like I’m being silly, but she blushes. “Ryan’s flying in from Washington later tonight.”
“You seem like you are still in love.”
She smiles to herself. “We are.” She launches into the story of how they met at a New Haven college bar, how she was casually dating a couple of different guys at the time, and how she was smitten after only a few dates.
“It wasn’t love at first sight, but I did think he was quite the hunk.” She pulls out her phone and shows me a Polaroid of the pair. “This was taken nine days after we met. He told me he loved me later that night, and we’ve been together ever since.”
“You never fought or broke up?” I ask. Honestly, I have no idea how this side of love works.
She rolls her eyes. “Well, we did have one big blowout and broke up. It was right after we got engaged actually.”
“What happened?”
“Another woman.”
My eyes get huge.
“Oh,” she says, “not like that. Well, it was sort of like that. We met our sophomore year of college and got engaged six months later. Ryan had dated a girl all during high school and into college even though he went to Yale and she went to Penn State. Things were different back then. There was no video-chatting or texting. Long-distance relationships survived on phone calls and letters. When she learned through the grapevine that he was engaged, she came running into town. I walked in on them kissing in his dorm room.”
“That must have been devastating,” I say, imagining seeing Lorenzo kissing someone else. That’s the main reason I don’t want to ever go back to Montrovia. My heart couldn’t bear it.
“It was. I actually let out this guttural scream-cry sort of noise because I felt such pain. He heard me and tried to tell me it wasn’t what it looked like. I called him a cheater and a liar, threw the ring at him, and ran out.”
“Then what happened?” Obviously, I know they worked it out, but having just felt a similar betrayal, I can’t understand it. I still love Lorenzo in spite of it all.
“After two excruciatingly long days, he called and left me a message, saying we needed to talk. Of course, by then, my sorrow had turned to anger as a way to cope. There was no way I was going to talk to him. But he showed up at my door with a bag of doughnuts.
“Sounds silly, but when we’d met, neither of us had wanted the night to end. We’d closed down the bar at two in the morning and then gone to an after-hours place. At five a.m., he had taken me to this little mom-and-pop doughnut shop.”
“And that’s all it took? Doughnuts?”
“The doughnuts softened my heart, I guess you could say. Because I couldn’t be angry with him when he was at my door with doughnuts, like he had been so many times before. I listened to what he had to say. He told me that she unexpectedly showed up and wanted him back. Told him that he was making a mistake. That they were supposed to get married. That she kissed him to prove her point. He said it took him by surprise. That he had grabbed both her arms and was pushing her away when I saw them.”
“If that was true, why did he wait two days?”
“Because he said that he needed a few days to reflect. Ryan’s father is a judge. Let’s just say, his daddy let him know that he’d better never end up in his courtroom when he was growing up. He was taught reason. He told me he learned that, sometimes, life caught you off guard and that I was the best and only rash decision he’d ever made.”
“And you lived happily ever after,” I say with a dreamy sigh.
“Life isn’t a fairy tale, Huntley. But, with the right love, it certainly can feel like it sometimes.” She studies my face. “You should talk to him.”
“Only if he brings me doughnuts,” I tease.
Upon landing in Athens, we hop in a rental car that I had waiting for us on the tarmac and head north on Highway 72.
“How far of a drive is it?” Amanda asks.
“About an hour.”
“I’m getting hungry. What do you say we drive through Chick-fil-A?”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“What? They only have the best fast-food chicken sandwich you will ever have in your life,” she says with a laugh. “Actually, I like their tenders. And the waffle fries, oh my gosh.”
“Driving through sounds perfect.”
We watch the highway for signs and make a quick stop, choosing to eat and drive, making the trip go faster. We find the Georgia Guidestones in what seems to be the middle of nowhere.
The second we pull up, Amanda stops jabbering, clearly remembering what I told her about my memories. As I’m parking, it all comes back.
“It’s huge,” I told my mom. “Who put it here? And why?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions,” she said but then told me the story.
I find myself repeating my mother’s words for Amanda as we circle the monument.
“The story goes that, in 1979, in a small town about ninety miles from Atlanta, an elderly gentleman went to a granite wholesaler and commissioned a unique project for a small group of loyal Americans who believed in God and country. The monument is supposed to be instructions for future generations, inscribed in eight modern languages as well as four ancient language scripts, on how to rebuild society after a destructive event.
“The four outer stones are arranged so that they mark the lunar declination cycle. The center column has a hole carved at an angle for viewing the North Star as well as a slot that is aligned with the sun solstices and equinoxes. And a small aperture in the capstone allows a ray of sun to shine a beam, indicating the day of the year, meaning the stones can be used as a compass, clock, and calendar.”
“I will admit that I did a little research on the stones while you were driving. It’s my understanding it’s the guidelines that upset people and started all the conspiracy theories about who had built it and why.”
“I know. Upon first glance, they seem to be basic life lessons, right
? Things like: Rule passion - faith - tradition - and all things with tempered reason; Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts; Avoid petty laws and useless officials; Prize truth - beauty - love - seeking harmony with the infinite; Balance personal rights with social duties; Be not a cancer on the earth - Leave room for nature - Leave room for nature; Guide reproduction wisely - improving fitness and diversity.”
“But some of them got conspiracy theorists in an uproar,” she says. “Like, Let all nations rule internally, resolving external disputes in a world court—which you wouldn’t think was that big of a deal. We already have the United Nations, the World Trade Organization.”
“Except the same conspiracy theorists say the United Nations—whose flag literally shows the world in its crosshairs and also has thirty-three sections and is flanked by olive branches similar to the Masonic symbols—is part of an elitist group of authority.”
“Well, there have been elitist groups in every society in history, so …” she counters.
“I remember my mother telling me that, when it says, Unite humanity with a living new language, some believe this to mean the English language. But it’s the very first one—Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature—that concerned her. She told me that conspiracy theories suggest there is a group who wants to make this happen. Some call it the Big Culling and say that only the strong will survive. They believe humans are being poisoned with things like fluoride in our water, chemicals in our sweeteners and soft drinks, and genetically modified food that destroys our immune systems. While it’s true that those things are causing cancers and other health issues, if that is the great culling, it’s taking an awfully long time. If someone wanted to make it happen faster, how would they do it?”
“Nuclear?” Amanda asks.
“We’re talking thirteen out of fourteen would be dead. Ares’s idea of Arcadia was one with nature, something you couldn’t have after a nuclear fallout. When I was here with my mom, I asked her why put the Guidestones here, in the middle of nowhere.”
