The Thousand Mile Love Story

by Natalie Vivien

  Andee realized that she had probably flushed a very bright red, but she chose to ignore it, balling her fists in frustration. “That’s not what this is about.” She spread her hands flat on her knees and stared down at her chewed-on nails. “Kimberly called Robin,” she said then, breathing out. “Robin was in the shower, and I took the call. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, because… Well, you know Kimberly. And she was talking about this woman named Monica.” Andee fixed Tiffany with a meaningful stare. “The woman from the dorm room. That night. The woman in Robin’s bed. And Kimberly said that Monica missed Robin and wanted to see her, and… You know what that means,” she said, sagging, all the fight leaving her. Soul-deep exhaustion gripped Andee, then, and it felt as if it would never let go. “Robin lied,” said Andee. “Robin lied about everything.”

  Tiffany sighed for so long that Andee glanced sidelong at her, mouth pursed. Tiffany’s cheeks were still puffed out, and she was chewing on her perfectly red lip, a little bit of the red stain getting onto her tiny teeth.

  “Look,” said Tiffany, then, and she sounded tired, too. “I can sit here and defend Robin until it gets dark again.” She pointed to the sun climbing into the sky, having just risen an hour or so ago in the east. “But I won’t, because you’re going to think what you’re going to think, Andee, because you’re stubborn. But I want you to consider, just for a moment, that Kimberly is… Well…” She trailed off, waving her hand. “Kimberly is Kimberly,” she finished awkwardly, rolling her eyes. “And anything Kimberly says shouldn’t be taken for granted as the truth—”

  “What the heck?” said Andee, standing, again balling her hands into fists. “Why does everyone always give Kimberly the short end of the stick? Why don’t you feel that way about Robin? She’s the one who…” Andee gulped down air and fell silent as Tiffany stared at her, bright green eyes wide and still.

  “There are sides to Kimberly that you’ve never seen, Andee,” said Tiffany, softly, quietly. “And she’ll spend the rest of her life trying to hide them from everyone, including you. But I’ve seen through her.”

  Tiffany stood, brushing off the bottom of her short, ruffled skirt, the blue fabric floating around her. “Come on down. We’re leaving for Massachusetts in a little while.” She cleared her throat before she stepped forward, reaching up to place her hands on Andee’s shoulders, her perfectly painted nails sparkling red in the morning light. “Just…just think about the fact that we’re a few days away from a wedding now. And that that’s important. It’s why we’re here,” said Tiffany, reaching up on her tiptoes to hug Andee tightly. Then she turned on her spiked heels and began to stagger gingerly over the trail, back toward their campsite.

  Andee sat back down against the pine tree, staring up at the brilliant blue sky and the fluffy white clouds that reminded her of a child’s painting of a perfect day. She sighed, put her chin in her hand, rubbed at her drying eyes that now just felt salty and dirty. She wanted to wash her face. Actually, no—that wasn’t quite right. What she really wanted to do was to sink down in her favorite chair at home with a love story and a cup of coffee and lots and lots of chocolate. She wanted to forget that this road trip had ever happened.

  But Tiffany was right about one thing (if Andee had been in a better mood, she might have admitted to herself that Tiffany was often right about everything): the wedding was in three days. The wedding that had begun all of this, that had provided the motivation for the road trip.

  Elizabeth and Heather were getting married, and their love was a beautiful, bright thing that deserved their friends’ support and celebration.

  That’s why Andee had agreed to come, because Elizabeth and Heather had asked her to. And, right now, Andee knew, she was being selfish to think so much about herself, about her relationship—or lack thereof—with Robin. It was selfish to think so much about Robin, selfish and ridiculous.

  And whatever Tiffany said about her, Andee was not ridiculous.

  She stood now and brushed off the seat of her jeans, frowning.

  “Andee!” came a shout from below, through the trees: Tiffany, yelling her head off. “Andee, we’re ready to goooo!”

  She could do this. She could face whatever she had to face. She had to, for Elizabeth and Heather’s sake.

  Andee took another gulp of air, put one foot in front of the other, and walked down the hillside like she was marching to her doom.

  ---

  When Andee reached the campsite, the green convertible was already packed with the tents and suitcases, and she took in the scene before her with a thundering heart. Tiffany sat in the driver’s seat of the car, and Robin was leaning against her door, bending down, her head on the same level as Tiffany’s, because they were deep in conversation. Serious conversation.

  Jill, in the passenger seat, stared at her cell phone in her lap, looking thoughtful.

  With a deep breath, Andee put her hands in her pockets and walked into the clearing quickly, aiming for her seat on the back bench seat of the car.

  Robin straightened as Andee got closer. Robin, with her bright blue eyes wide as she stared at her. Robin wore her leather coat now, and it gracefully hugged her body, all of those places that—just last night—Andee had touched, caressed, kissed, tasted…

  Andee swallowed, breathed out, tried to calm her thundering heart. Failed.

  “What happened?” asked Robin quietly, eyes searching Andee’s as Andee stared pointedly at the ground, lost in her thoughts.

  “Let’s go,” said Andee, voice rough to her own ears as she opened up the back door to the convertible. But Robin stopped her, reaching out and placing her own warm hand over Andee’s fingers, a gesture that moved her closer. Robin’s cologne washed over Andee, and the scent and the warmth and the simple, lovely nearness of Robin made Andee’s mouth go dry…even as it made other parts of Andee awaken.

  Her body—and her heart—always responded to Robin so instinctually, as if it recognized in the other woman some separate aspect of itself…

  “What happened? Andee. Please,” whispered Robin, reaching out, then, and wrapping her long fingers around the curve of Andee’s waist. Andee’s heart beat so quickly that it was in danger of building a door and slamming right out of her chest. Andee swallowed, couldn’t look up at Robin, but—as always—Robin’s gaze was a kind of gravity that Andee couldn’t, despite her best efforts, disobey.

  She looked up, up and into Robin’s too-blue eyes, so bright, so blue that they seemed to go on forever, like the sky or the sea.

  “Please,” said Andee, breathing out, frustrated that her voice, her hands, were shaking. “Let’s just go. Let’s just… Let’s just get on the road.”

  Tiffany stared out of the front of the convertible, her elbow on the door as she sighed, tugging at the bandana that covered her red curls, glancing quickly in the rearview mirror at Andee and catching her gaze before pulling the sunglasses down.

  As Andee got into the car, Robin groaned, raking a long-fingered hand through her hair, sighing. Then she climbed in beside Andee, taking care not to touch her.

  Tiffany started the car in silence. And, in silence, the four women left the campground.

  “Coffee is a cure-all,” said Tiffany, after a few uncomfortable minutes had passed. The Herkimer, New York, campground had been pretty isolated, but they were back on the highway again, and a road sign promised a rest stop in only one mile.

  Tiffany opened her mouth to speak, brow lifted up over the rim of the sunglasses, but whatever she’d been about to bring up died unsaid. Because of the explosion.

  The car jerked to the right and then to the left, the big red truck in the other lane screeching and honking loudly. Tiffany swore and jerked on the steering wheel, slamming on the brakes. She jerked the wheel again, and then they were driving slower and slower on the curb of the highway, the car thumping along.

  “Flat,” said Robin with a sigh, leaping out of the car without opening the door and squatting down beside the back right t
ire. “Dead as a doornail,” she pronounced with a grimace, standing and brushing off her hands. “Tiff, where do you keep the spare?”

  Tiffany turned to Robin with a look of disbelief. “You’re asking me a car-related question,” she reminded Robin, her mouth twitching at the corners. “This means that you’re speaking Martian.”

  Robin exhaled and shook her head, but she was grinning a little, too. Still, the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Pop the trunk, will you?” she asked, and Tiffany did.

  Robin pushed around the suitcases and the tents and camping supplies. “Thank heavens Emily keeps a jack back here…” said Robin, voice muffled as she poked at a few tools at the rear of the trunk. “If I can just find the tire, I’ll be able to get us back on the road.”

  “Great,” said Tiffany, dragging her cell phone out of her purse. “Let me call Emily and find out where that spare is…”

  “I can see the rest stop from here,” said Jill wistfully, exiting the car and stretching a little with a yawn. “I’m going to go get some coffee, if that’s okay with you guys.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Andee quickly, even as Tiffany raised her eyebrows at her, shaking her head.

  But, “Hi, baby,” Tiffany said then into the cell phone, cooing as she held the slim pink receiver against her ear. “I miss you, too. Hey, listen… Do you know where the spare tire is for the convertible?”

  “You guys go on. This shouldn’t take long,” said Robin, avoiding Andee’s gaze as she spoke.

  And then Jill and Andee were walking alongside the highway. Andee crossed her arms, sighing out as the early morning traffic thundered past them. It wasn’t particularly safe to walk beside the highway, but the rest stop looked to be about a five-minute stroll ahead of them. Andee was just happy to give her heart a break from being around Robin…

  “Hey,” said Jill, then, and Andee sighed for a long moment. Great. Another intervention. “Hey, hey,” said Jill, holding up her hands in a conciliatory gesture, “I don’t mean to start anything or…anything. But you seemed really happy last night, and I don’t understand—”

  “A lot can change in a morning,” said Andee quietly, biting her lip as they began to turn down the exit ramp, aiming for the rest stop.

  “It’s none of my business,” said Jill softly. Kindly. “But you were really happy. I mean, when you were together. You guys… You were always meant to be together, you know? In college it was so obvious, and these last few days…” Jill swallowed, took out her cell phone, mindlessly thumbing through her text messages for a silent moment. “Leila and I,” she said then, her voice much softer; the loud traffic forced Andee to strain to hear. “Our time has come and gone. I understand that now,” said Jill, glancing up at Andee, searching her eyes as she cleared her throat. “I’ve lost Leila. I’m resigned to it. But you haven’t lost Robin.”

  Andee stared at the bright logo signs over the long building proclaiming that coffee and lots of fried food could be found within. “I don’t think I ever had Robin to begin with,” she said quietly, shaking her head.

  But Jill shook her head, too. “You’re wrong.”

  Andee looked at her friend, surprised. Jill never really talked like this. She kept things cursory, top level—like which color you were going to dye your hair, or which hockey team was probably going to go all the way this year. She rarely spoke about emotional things. But here she was now, disagreeing with Andee on a matter of the heart. “You always had her, And,” murmured Jill softly, her expression grave but gentle. “Always.”

  They stepped through the glass doors leading into the rest area and ordered four coffees, Andee fumbling through her wallet to find money with which to pay the bored cashier. They carried two cups each back out of the building, searching the parking lot in case the tire had been changed already and Tiffany had driven up. But no—out on the highway, Andee could just make out the green convertible in the distance, still stranded by the side of the road, two small figures crouching near it.

  “Let’s be knights with shining Styrofoam cups and rescue those damsels,” said Jill with a wink, gesturing toward Robin and Tiffany in the distance, and Andee grinned in spite of herself. She followed the taller woman as she began the trek back to the convertible.

  As they got closer, Andee could see that Tiff still had her pink cell phone glued to her ear as she watched Robin kneeling down on the side of the road, wielding some sort of x-shaped tool that Andee couldn’t even guess the name of. Robin had taken off her leather jacket and left it in the car. Her tight-fitting jeans offered more hotness than Andee was prepared to deal with right now, and her black t-shirt clearly outlined the curves that Andee had rediscovered and reverenced only last night.

  Andee knew, in that moment, that her face was bright red as Robin glanced up from the tire, one brow raised. She smiled a little when she saw Andee, and Andee thrust out the cup of coffee to her with no comment. Andee didn’t want that easy grin to crumple her resolve, didn’t want to even look at Robin when she smiled, because Robin’s mischievous mouth had always been the one thing that could make Andee do anything.

  So if Andee didn’t look at it, it would have no power over her.

  Yeah, right, she thought miserably, her heart beating a mile a minute as Robin reached up to take the coffee from her, long fingers brushing over Andee’s hand so that Andee shivered. Everything about Robin affected Andee, from her smile to her touch to the sound of her voice and her laughter.

  How was she going to survive these last three days? More worryingly…how was she going to go back to her life after all of this? After last night?

  Robin gazed up at her through her long brown lashes and took a lingering sip of coffee, head to the side, studying Andee up and down.

  Andee’s heart continued to thunder within her, and her knees began to turn to jell-o.

  Yeah. She probably wouldn’t survive.

  ---

  Hours passed, and Andee hardly noticed the pretty scenery flying by. What she did notice was the fact that Robin’s knees were still pretty dirty from kneeling on the side of the road, all dusty, the fabric a little bit frayed, so that Robin’s skin was visible through this tiny hole worn into her jeans. She noticed that, when Robin laughed, she tilted her head back just a little, took in a breath that made her close her eyes… She looked even more attractive when she laughed. Which was, by the laws of physics, impossible, considering how attractive Andee already found Robin to be.

  And as the convertible sped along, Andee realized that last night hadn’t honestly changed things for her. It had simply reawakened what had been lying quiet and dormant within her for ten long years.

  Andee wanted Robin, had always wanted Robin. Still wanted Robin.

  Fiercely.

  But she kept turning over the phone call in her mind. She couldn’t remember the conversation word for word anymore, which was frustrating, but Andee knew that Kimberly (What did Kimberly have to do with any of this? It made no sense…) had implied that Monica, the naked woman in Robin’s dorm room a decade ago, wanted to see Robin again. Again.

  Andee remembered that word—and wished she could forget it.

  In short, Andee had spent the last few hours of the road trip wallowing in existential misery.

  Tiffany kept taking little glances in the rearview mirror and sighing loudly, glaring into Andee’s watery eyes. After what felt like the millionth glance, Tiffany shifted her gaze to Robin.

  “We’re doing it,” she muttered.

  Robin groaned, shook her head. “Tiff, we don’t have time,” she said, but the redhead was already slamming her pointy-toed shoe down on the gas. Every occupant in the car was thrown to the left as Tiffany swerved, hopping over two lanes to take an exit off of the highway.

  Robin collided with Andee, the seatbelts constricting them both as Robin muttered something that sounded like an apology and gracefully eased back onto her side of the backseat. Andee breathed out, her skin alive and tingling.

&
nbsp; “What the heck, Tiff?” asked Jill, glancing down at the GPS. “Where are we going?”

  “Robin and I had a discussion while you gals were gallivanting after that coffee,” said Tiffany, sniffing and adjusting her bandana in the rearview mirror, effectively taking her eyes off of the road completely. The car started to veer to the left, and Andee closed her eyes, breathing out, feeling entirely unprepared to meet her maker. “And Rob had planned this great thing but said we can’t do it now because of how far we’ll fallen behind schedule. And I’m like, ‘I’ve already been to Provincetown!’ It’s nice and all, but this thing is super awesome, and we are so going.” Tiffany made the pronouncement regally, leaving no room for argument.

  The tractor-trailer behind them laid on its horn: Tiffany had zigzagged into the other lane with no warning at all.

  “There’s nothing better in the world than Provincetown,” said Jill sternly, grabbing up her now-cold coffee cup and taking a sip before wrinkling her nose. “So,” she sighed, sounding defeated, “where are we going?”

  Tiffany glanced in the rearview mirror again, catching Andee’s eye. Tiffany had pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head as she’d adjusted her makeup, patting at the corners of her cheekbones with red-nailed fingertips. Her eyes were flashing brightly, and her hair writhed, whipping out of her bandana. Andee, despite her best efforts to be bold, sank down in her seat.

  “We’re going to where history was made, ladies,” said Tiffany triumphantly. “Where the stuff of legends was born. It’s not to be missed! So we’re not gonna miss it!”

  ---

  “History,” Jill repeated, staring up at the pretty Victorian house. One of the dark gray shutters on the second floor rattled ominously in the wind. “You’re as bad as Robin, Tiff.”