The Thousand Mile Love Story

by Natalie Vivien

  “I’m hungry,” said Jill, yawning. “I saw a fast food joint a mile back or so…”

  “Oh no you don’t!” said Robin, shaking her head and taking her camera out of her back pocket. “Come on, everyone…we’re getting a group shot!”

  “How are you possibly going to get a group shot if there’s no one around to take it…oh my God,” said Tiffany, throwing her hands up in the air as Robin first tried to prop the camera on a tree branch (it fell out), and finally on the “sacrificial altar,” (or so said the small placard next to it) in the center of Foamhenge.

  “Okay, guys, gather around that stone…no, the other one there,” said Robin, waving vaguely as she stared down at the camera. Andee stood on the left, Tiffany in the middle (because, as it was often argued, she should stand in the middle since she was the shortest), and Jill on the end, just like ten years had never passed. This was always how they had posed for pictures.

  “Okay, ten seconds!” Robin yelled, and ran like mad toward the three women. That’s when Andee realized that, just like in the old pictures, Robin’s place was on her left, holding her around the shoulders.

  The red button on top of the camera began to flash urgently as Robin collided with her, laughing a little as she spun around, put her arm around Andee’s shoulders as if she did this every day, squeezing her close.

  “Smile!” Robin called out, and it was the only thing that reminded Andee that she had to. And she did. The camera flashed, and the women broke apart, Andee self conscious, Tiff and Jill laughing as Robin ran back to the camera, looked at the picture and grimaced a little. “It’s not my best work, but at least we have evidence,” she said, glancing up at the women and winking.

  “I’m going to be forced to become a cannibal if we don’t get food soon,” said Jill, her words punctuated by an angry growl from her stomach.

  “Well,” said Robin, putting the camera in her pocket and drawing out a well-folded piece of paper. “We’re currently in Natural Bridge, Virginia. That means all we have to do is set up camp for tonight—do you want to do that before or after we eat?”

  “We’re camping?” asked Andee, which—she realized after she said it—was a silly question. There were currently two tents residing in the trunk, the trunk that could hold two bodies (the options for carrying bodies now were getting pretty limited with all the suitcases). She just hadn’t thought they were camping so soon.

  “Yeah! Shenandoah National Park—some of the prettiest camping you’ll ever see. Didn’t you used to camp there with your family when you were a kid? I remember you telling me something like that,” said Robin, turning her gaze to Andee and giving her the famous grin, the one where her mouth turned up at the edges, where she tilted her head, where she got Andee to agree to anything.

  “Yeah,” Andee murmured, folding her arms. She remembered Andee telling her that?

  “…And then tomorrow, there’s some pretty happy stuff on this list,” said Robin, holding it up with that grin, still, before folding it and sliding it into her back pocket. “But we got kind of a late start today, so what about setting up the camp now? We could get hotdogs, make a fire—hell, we could make s’mores!”

  “We are going to be very, very sick of s’mores when this road trip is over,” began Tiff as the four women began the walk back to the car.

  “Or will they always make us think of the road trip?” asked Jill, a soft edge of nostalgia to her voice as she slung an arm around Tiffany, and another around Andee.

  “Nope, sorry, not for me, Jillie! They’ll always make me think of the first time I kissed a girl!” laughed Tiff, getting out from under Jill’s arm with a quick duck and dancing ahead of them—downhill, in heels.

  “Okay, you can’t leave it open ended like that,” said Robin laughing and waggling her eyebrows. “What happened?”

  “It was at summer camp, would you believe it?”

  “Oh my God, not Camp Christian?” Andee practically squeaked, but Tiffany was laughing and nodding. That’s where she’d met Tiff, after all, when they were both seniors.

  “Eighth grade,” said Tiffany, somewhat triumphantly, as she opened the driver’s side door of the car. “We’d just had s’mores, and a junior--I think her name was Amanda something--totally took me into the woods and made out with me. Or I might have actually taken her out into the woods.” Tiffany’s grin was pure wickedness as she winked at them. “We’ll never know, will we?”

  “Tiff, you’re a heartbreaker!” said Robin, grabbing the keys from her hand and smoothly sliding into the driver’s side seat before Tiffany could sit down. “And thanks so much for getting that door for me!”

  “You bitch,” Tiff sighed dramatically, but fell into the back seat with Andee. “You know,” she said, trying to hide her smile as she adjusted her bandana over her hair, “something tells me you don’t much like my driving.”

  “Oh, we do, we do,” said Robin, putting the key in the ignition.

  “It’d just be nice to arrive at the wedding alive!” said Jill, throwing up her arms as Robin roared out of the parking lot, bits of gravel ricocheting up from under the tires.

  “Hey, be nice to my baby!” Tiffany hollered, and Robin obliged, lowering her speed as she raised her foot a bit from the gas pedal.

  The mountains in this part of Virginia were breathtaking (yes, the mountains in all of Virginia were breathtaking, but Andee had a certain fondness for this area). Andee couldn’t remember the last time she’d been near the Shenandoah Valley, and certainly not the last time she’d been to Shenandoah National Park. Robin was right, she had visited it many times as a child—they often camped here during summer vacation—and she was looking forward to the big trees, the rolling view of the mountains, the lush scent of the decaying foliage and moss and the heady green bracken and leaves that seemed to be all you could see in these forests.

  They stopped at a little gas station just outside of the entrance of the park to get “essentials.” And by “essentials,” Robin meant beer, so Tiff stepped up to the plate and loaded the counter with hotdogs, hotdog buns, ketchup, mustard, graham crackers, marshmallows and bars of chocolate as Andee wandered the aisles beneath the sputtering florescent lights and looked at all of the overpriced camping equipment that the little store was willing to sell you in exchange for part of your soul.

  “Who doesn’t want a two hundred dollar generic sleeping bag?” asked Robin wryly from behind her. Andee hadn’t even heard her approach and reddened as the woman brushed past her. Was it purposeful, the way that Robin’s fingers grazed the small of Andee’s back? And why did Andee’s body respond like that? You’d think it was ten years ago, before everything. Every last sense was heightened as Robin went past in the cramped hallway, carrying the packs of beer in her arms, and Andee turned to follow the sight of her, breathing out.

  “It’s kind of obvious,” said Tiffany, her voice soft as she came to stand at Andee’s elbow.

  “What’s obvious?” asked Andee, swallowing again, but Tiffany said nothing, only raised her eyebrows and carried her bags of groceries past Andee and down toward the car. Jill was already in the parking lot, and that meant just Andee was left in the store, trying to decide if she wanted to purchase a forty dollar flashlight or not. She decided against it and trotted down the creaking wooden steps toward the convertible.

  When she reached it, Jill was crying.

  “I’m so sorry,” she was saying, mopping at her eyes with an already damp tissue as Robin shut the car trunk with a slam and frowned grimly as she leaned against it.

  “What the hell? What the hell?” Tiffany repeated, staring down at Jill’s phone in her hand before handing it back to Jill as she ground her teeth together. “I’m going to drive back to Blacksburg, and I’m going to find Leila, and I’m going to…”

  “But isn’t she right? I’m scum, aren’t I?” Andee had never heard anything like this come out of Jill’s mouth, Jill who exuded confidence even when she was doing something so pedestrian as
waiting in line for a mocha, effortlessly standing with power in her impressive heels. This was not the Jill Andee knew, reduced to tears, wondering if she was, in fact, scum.

  “We’re going into the national park, we’re setting up camp before the sun sets,” said Robin, pointing to the sun that did not look like it was in danger of setting anytime soon, “and we’re roasting hotdogs on sticks like the pioneers did. And don’t tell me that pioneers did not, in fact, roast hotdogs on sticks, Tiff, because I assure you they did.” Tiff shut her mouth and grinned, shaking her head as she climbed through the passenger side door. “And you’re going to stop accepting texts from Leila,” Robin told Jill calmly, sitting down in the driver’s seat and turning around so she could look Jill squarely in the eye. “You’re not scum, and Leila’s being an asshole.”

  Jill took a wavering breath and, for a moment, Andee wondered if Jill would argue with Robin. But she didn’t. She nodded, and Robin turned right back around, started the car and left the parking lot.

  And they drove into Shenandoah National Park.

  After checking in with the main park cabin and being given a map of the camping locations, they drove under the magnificent trees, trying to follow the map as beneath the canopy, it began to get darker, even with the sun out.

  “Oh my God, I think I’m being turned on by scenery,” Tiff breathed out, staring upward at the towering trees and mountains looming blue and black on the horizon. “This is gorgeous! This is probably the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life…”

  “We won’t tell Emily you said that,” said Robin, glancing down at the folded map and then glanced back up at the road. “Everyone, keep your eyeballs peeled for lot seventy-two. And then we can park and get settled and relax,” she said, glancing backward and winking. At Andee.

  Andee’s stomach flip-flopped as she took a deep breath, tried to calm her frazzled nerves. It was technically two days into the trip. Robin would be acting a little more familiar with her—after all, they’d been very close friends before they became girlfriends, and after that, they’d been very close girlfriends. It would make sense that Robin was reverting back to the old patterns. But it made Andee uncomfortable.

  Actually, no. If she was being perfectly honest with herself, which was often hard for Andee (especially concerning this) she would have admitted that it didn’t make her uncomfortable so much as wanting to kiss Robin. Which, admittedly, were two very different reactions. She hated that, though. She didn’t want to be so easily influenced by a pair of achingly beautiful blue eyes, a mouth that Andee wished was pressed against hers, long fingers that Andee wished…

  Andee swallowed. She swallowed, and then she took a stick of gum out of her purse on the floor, popping it into her mouth just like she’d done when she’d given up smoking. It hadn’t really worked with the cravings then, and it most certainly didn’t help now. She chewed thoughtfully, gazing up at the trees, anywhere but at the shoulders sitting ahead of her in the car, the sweep of short blue and brown hair that Andee wanted to run her hands through. Trees weren’t Robin, and that meant trees were safe to look at.

  As they drove by an outcropping of rocks, a robin—a real robin, the bird—landed on one of the boulders, threw back its head and began to sing triumphantly.

  Not even nature was safe to look at.

  They found lot seventy-two fairly quickly, and parked the car along it, Robin popping the trunk as the four women spilled out and began stretching again. Even though they hadn’t driven very far, it was starting to be ingrained in their heads: stretch when you can.

  “And look, we’re close to the port-o-potties!” sang Tiff triumphantly, imitating Vanna White as she gestured sweepingly toward them, a little down the road. “Oh, this is wonderful. What a lovely spot!”

  “I know a guy,” said Robin, winking at her as she hefted one of the first tent bags out of the trunk. “So who wants to help me set up?”

  Jill raised her hand, still sniffling, but seeming to stabilize a little.

  “I’ll get the fire going,” said Andee quietly, taking the matches and bit of newspaper from one of the miscellaneous camping bags in the trunk.

  “My nails are killing me,” said Tiff sadly, staring down at what had once been brilliant and flashing cobalt blue, but what was now severely chipped. “I’ll help you get the fire going and set up for hotdogs, and then I seriously need to paint these babies.”

  “You can’t use nail polish remover around the fire!” Robin spluttered, dropping the tent poles as she gazed up at Tiff with wide eyes. “You’re crazier than Lucy!”

  “At least I don’t have a Ricky around telling me I’m crazy,” she said, practically flouncing as she grabbed her make-up case from the trunk, too. “And I can use nail polish remover around the fire, because I brought nail polish remover pads, duh.”

  “What will they invent next?” said Robin, rolling her eyes and grinning up at Andee. “What about you, Andee? Gonna paint your nails?” she asked innocently as Jill began to put the tent poles together and Robin spread out the actual tent fabric. “I remember you being a little more butch than you are now.”

  Andee found herself snorting, rising to the bait faster than she could tell herself not to. “I had short hair,” she said, running her hands through her longer brunette hair now, carefully held up in a ponytail. “That didn’t make me butch.”

  “True, true,” said Robin, brows up. “I just remember a lot more plaid.”

  “It was the end of the nineties—we were all wearing plaid,” Jill grunted, hefting the elongated pole into the air like she was holding a fishing pole and trying to reel in a very disgruntled trout.

  “And plaid doesn’t make a butch,” said Tiffany primly, crossing her legs as she sat down on a stump and opened up her makeup case, removing a little pad of gauze from a glass container. “Emily’s been telling me that she wants me to be more attractive to me. I said, ‘honey, I’m attracted to butches, but I’m also attracted to you! You don’t have to change yourself for me!’ So that’s when she shaved her head and started dressing in man’s clothes. But that’s not what makes a butch. It’s an attitude. It comes from here,” said Tiff, patting her heart before she continued removing the nail polish from her right pinkie.

  “What about that Cole lady? I thought you guys were going to get married. The one before Emily,” said Robin, threading the pole through the slot in the tent fabric. “She was a real butch,” she said thoughtfully, without judgment.

  “She was,” said Tiff with a sigh, stopping rubbing at her nail for a moment as she gazed up with a soft look to her eyes. “But we weren’t really compatible is the thing,” she said then, glancing back down at her nails, brow furrowed. “It just wouldn’t have worked out.”

  “I’m not really wholly femme, anyway. I think those labels are old news,” said Andee, shaking her head. “I am what I am.”

  “Are you Popeye now?” asked Robin, laughing and winking, but she sobered after a moment. “Those labels aren’t old news to everyone. I identify as butch.”

  It’s one of the reasons I loved you. Andee bit her lip very, very hard to keep the thought from becoming actual words she said out loud.

  When they’d been “baby lesbians,” as Kimberly had laughingly called it, once upon a time, they’d all been experimenting with gender, with how they perceived themselves and how they wanted the world to perceive them. And now Andee knew what and who she was, and who and what she wanted.

  And Robin was pretty much the epitome of that last part.

  She watched Robin and Jill erect the tent before rousing herself to actually set up the fire. She crumpled the paper, put the dried moss and bits of twigs and pine needles on top of that, and then the larger twigs, unthinkingly building the necessary box formation ending in a pyramid at the top as she’d done it a thousand times before on her summer camping trips. She lit the long match and fed it in, waiting for it to take, happy to concentrate on something else besides Robin bending over,
Robin’s laughing mouth, Robin raising the tent up.

  “Ahem,” said Tiff, her brows raised as she crossed her legs the other way, prettily layering nail polish on her right pointer finger as she cocked her head and gazed at Andee. Slowly, she shook her head, mouth turning up at the corners.

  “What?” Andee hissed, blowing on the fire as it began to climb into the twigs. Perfect. She rose up from her knees, brushing off her pants.

  There was the soft ding of a text message received, and then Jill, across the camping lot, was reaching into her pocket.

  “Don’t you dare, missy!” Tiff bellowed, but too late. Jill had stared down at the phone, and, like a very dark magic, tears began to spill out of her eyes, falling down her cheeks.

  “Oh my God, Jillie,” said Robin softly, taking the phone from her and glancing down at it. Her shoulders rose, and she turned to the other women, eyes flashing. “This woman is a fucking asshole.”

  “Language!” said Tiff mildly, but then Robin crossed the space between them and handed the phone to Tiffany, who took it gingerly with her nails.

  “Fucking asshole,” Tiff repeated, mouth in a thin red line. “I’m going to go kill her. And you will bear witness that it was an absolutely valid murder.”

  “No, no,” said Jill softly between her tears, taking the phone back from Robin and cradling it in her hands as she stared down at it. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe…”

  “No, she’s not.” Robin’s voice was so soft and kind, it was beginning to melt Andee’s legs. “Come on…let’s start making dinner.”

  Jill sniffled, was trying to stop her tears, but couldn’t quite as she sat down on a log next to Tiff, the two erect tents behind her, positioned around the fire. Even though Tiffany was half-way through painting her nails—what was almost a ritualistic practice to the curvy little woman—she stopped, put the cap back on the bottle and hugged Jill close, keeping her nails pointed outward. It looked a little awkward, but mostly sweet. Jill pressed her forehead to the diminutive red-head’s shoulder.