The Thousand Mile Love Story

by Natalie Vivien

  It was sentimental, but as Robin squeezed her waist one last time before letting go, as Tiffany trotted back to the car, her laughter echoing in the little clearing, Jill groaning at one of her jokes, Andee turned and took in the sight of the three women opening the doors to the small green convertible.

  The road trip was almost over. The thousand miles were almost traversed. It was almost the end of an adventure that had changed her life…for good.

  “C’mon, Andee. Burlington’s not gonna look at itself!” shouted Tiffany in the gloom.

  And overhead, across the expanse of blue sky fading to black, shot a single glowing star.

  “Oh, my gosh. Did you see that?” said Jill.

  The four women stared upward as Andee walked over to the car, her hands in her pockets.

  “Everyone make a wish!” Jill sighed happily.

  Andee slipped her own arm around Robin’s waist this time, leaning close. Robin glanced down in surprise, brows up, as Andee stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around Robin’s neck and kissed her gently on her warm, sweet mouth.

  “Oh, my God, you guys,” Tiffany groaned, but it was a very encouraging groan.

  And after everyone was buckled into the car, Tiffany started the engine, and she pressed her toes to the floor.

  The end had begun.

  ---

  “What restaurant’s going to be open at eleven o’clock at night on a Thursday?” Jill muttered, as they followed the stilted directions of the GPS, making that final right onto, funnily enough, Wright Avenue.

  “Just give me something with meat between two buns, and I’ll be a happy camper,” said Tiffany, glancing from the GPS to the road again as houses sped past.

  “That statement is wrong on so many levels, but I don’t have any energy to make the obligatory jokes,” said Robin, yawning and stretching overhead. “At the risk of sounding ridiculous, are we there ye—”

  Tiffany slammed on the brakes.

  “We’re here!” she sang out, putting on her blinker (much too late) and swerving into the driveway that presented itself on their right.

  Even though Andee had visited Elizabeth and Heather several times, she was still impressed by their house. Right out of college, they had opened up Two Old Crows Antiques in downtown Burlington. They’d always known exactly what they wanted out of life—and exactly what they needed to do in order to get it. Their path had been hard, at first. They’d paid their dues for a couple of years, living on the spoils of grocery store Dumpster diving (before it was A Cool Thing To Do) and living in a tiny apartment that Andee remembered now, shivering, for its cockroach infestation. But they’d always been able to make rent on their storefront, and thanks to their keen eyes and shrewd business skills, they’d built up a little antiques empire in Burlington.

  And their empire had finally permitted them to afford this.

  It wasn’t a palace or a mansion, by any stretch of the imagination, and the house was perpetually in a state of renovation. But the front lawn and gardens were impeccable—Heather had a green thumb and loved puttering out there.

  As the green convertible pulled up to the sprawling New England-style house, its blue siding lit up by the car’s headlights, Andee felt eager and excited. There were lights on in many of the rooms, and even at this late hour, seventies rock wafted through the open windows.

  “Oh, my God!” came the cry, then, and Elizabeth vaulted herself out of the front door, running across the lawn and toward the car, her long skirt trailing behind her like a billowing ghost. She collided with Tiffany and actually picked up the diminutive redhead, twirling her around like she was a rather large doll. Tiffany was giggling through the whole process. Elizabeth was much taller than her, and when she set Tiffany down, Tiffany had to stand on tiptoes, and Elizabeth had to crouch for them to embrace again. Elizabeth’s long brown hair fell over Tiffany in a shining cascade.

  “Oh, my God, you guys,” said Elizabeth again, and she was in tears as she made the rounds, embracing everyone so tightly that there were a couple of oofs of breath. But everyone else was in tears, too, because it was finally happening. Heather and Elizabeth were finally getting married. Andee realized it fully when Elizabeth reached for her, held her close, the scent of sandalwood filling Andee’s nose as tears leaked from her eyes.

  “You’re getting married, Liz,” she whispered, and then Elizabeth really started crying, and Heather—walking much more sedately out of the house, and only now just reaching them—sighed and smiled as she hugged Tiffany gently.

  “She’s been like this all day,” said Heather, tossing her head, her long black hair moving away from her face. Elizabeth and Heather embodied the cliché that lesbians in a very long relationship began to resemble one another. They both wore their hair long, dressed in hippie chic clothes, and they tended to finish each other’s sentences. It wasn’t hard to tell that they were meant to be together. Heather gazed fondly at Elizabeth as Elizabeth sniffled and Robin handed her a tissue. She took it, patting at her eyes and sighing happily as she draped one arm around Robin and the other around Andee, squeezing gently.

  “And do my eyes deceive me?” said Elizabeth, glancing between them, “or are broken fences mended?”

  “That’s a nice metaphor,” grinned Andee, and then Robin’s brow was up, and everyone was laughing, because it was very late at night, and they had all accomplished quite a bit that day. Everything seemed hilarious in their exhaustion.

  “Come on in. Come on in. I’m being a terrible hostess. I was just so excited to see you guys!” said Elizabeth, dabbing at her eyes again with the tissue as Tiffany popped the convertible’s trunk and everyone began taking out bags and carrying them toward the sprawling house. “We’ve got rooms set up for everyone, or you guys can bunk any way you want to,” said Elizabeth, staring pointedly over her shoulder with a wide grin at Andee and Robin. Andee knew she was blushing, but she laughed, too.

  This is what it had been like, before everything, back in college. So easy, everyone caring about everyone else.

  A family.

  But as Elizabeth pushed the front door open more, as the women trooped into the wide entryway, Andee glanced up at the arch that led into the house itself.

  And there was Kimberly, leaning against the frame, hands in her pockets, nonchalant as she gazed at them, head back, considering.

  Kimberly, like Tiffany, was short, but where Tiffany was curvy, Kimberly was boyish, elfin. She had short black hair and a sardonic smile, and she hadn’t really changed much since the last time Andee had seen her. Andee couldn’t really remember the last time she’d seen her.

  Kimberly glanced across the room, her eyes flashing as they connected with Robin’s, and then she was grinning widely, her red lipstick making her look a little ghoulish as she pushed off the wall and stood up straight.

  Andee noticed that Robin stiffened as she watched Kimberly, her face changing from a smile to a closed and distant frown.

  “Hey, guys!” said Kimberly, voice light. Tiffany came over to hug her, and Jill, too, but Robin stayed where she was with Elizabeth and Heather at the entrance to the house. She made no move toward Kimberly, and Kimberly made no move toward her.

  Tension sparked for a moment or two until Joanna wandered in. Kimberly’s wife didn’t even glance at Kimberly as she grinned at the other women. Joanna had her black hair up in a towel and wore pajamas covered in hearts. She batted her dark eyes at Andee and kissed her on both cheeks before she went around to each of the new visitors and did likewise. Andee had always liked Joanna; she was such a sweetheart, and what Andee had always thought Kimberly needed: someone to ground her. But as Joanna and Kimberly passed each other, Joanna going back into the house proper, they didn’t even glance each other’s way.

  Andee was too tired to make sense of anything, and as everyone wheeled or lugged their suitcases toward the main staircase, Elizabeth shut the front door behind them and leaned against it, still smiling.

  “Whew, it’s
been a long day for us… Bet it’s been a long day for you guys, too,” she said, wrapping her arms around Heather and drawing her close beside her. “So, I figured I would be merciful to all of you and just order pizza.”

  “You’re going to be sainted, surely,” said Robin with a grin, as the others slumped, relieved.

  “I mean, seriously. Think about it,” said Elizabeth, stepping forward, her head to the side as she grinned and looked at each woman in turn. “Do you realize that this is the first time the Adventure Lezzies are all back together in—let’s see… Oh, since college?” The women laughed, but Andee sighed. It was true. It had been ten long years …

  “And I thought,” continued Elizabeth with a mischievous grin, “for old time’s sake, there couldn’t be a better dinner than pizza.”

  “And beer!” promised Heather, as the women weakly cheered.

  They put their suitcases up on the second floor landing in time to hear the doorbell ring. Elizabeth answered it, and the enticing aroma of warm pizza began to permeate the house. Andee’s stomach growled as the women trotted down the stairs to help the poor pizza delivery guy with his stack of five heavy cardboard boxes.

  “So, here’s the vegan one with vegan cheese for Heather, and the meat eater’s deluxe for me and Robin. And then here’s the one with half-mushroom and half-pineapple for Andee and Tiff. And Kimberly and Joanna are sharing the plain cheese one,” said Elizabeth, handing around boxes and taking the clipboard from the delivery guy to sign the receipt. “Thank you so much!” she sang to him, as the women carried the boxes into the large dining room.

  Heather was in the process of carrying in some six-packs from the kitchen. Robin helped her set them all down, and then everyone was chatting in happy, delighted voices.

  This was special. Two days before the wedding, and the gang was all here.

  “You know what we need?” said Robin then, popping the tab on her cold can of beer. “We need a toast.” All of the women in the act of sitting down or biting into their pizza or sipping from their beers stopped, grinning as they raised their cans.

  “To Elizabeth and Heather,” said Robin solemnly, though her lips were twitching upwards. “And to a million years of them being together. You’re perfect for each other, guys.”

  The aww rippled around the table, but Robin wasn’t done yet.

  “And you know what?” she said, raising the can after taking a sip from it. “To the Adventure Lezzies!”

  “Hell, yes!” Tiffany shouted at the top of her lungs, shoving her can into the air.

  “We’re together again, ladies!” said Robin, and cans were smashed together, and beer spilled onto the antique tabletop, but Elizabeth and Heather didn’t mind in the slightest. Everyone began to dig into their pizza, laughing and grinning and content.

  “So, how are things going for the wedding? What can we help with tomorrow?” Andee asked Elizabeth, who was seated to her right. Robin sat on her left.

  “Oh, my goodness. Pretty much everything is ready except for setting up at the venue. Have we ever taken you to the Green Mountain Grange? It’s this great Victorian building downtown—all original brickwork, just gorgeous,” said Elizabeth, taking a sip of her beer as she bit into the crust of a piece of pizza. “They have a bar in their lower level,” she said, as Andee shook her head, “which is why I wondered if we might have taken you there. Well, the wedding is going to be in the big dance hall, and then we’ll go downstairs to the reception area, and the bar will service the wedding. We’re going to head over tomorrow. We have the place for the rehearsal, and then the day after that for the wedding. Oh, my God, honey, I can’t believe I just said that…” sighed Elizabeth happily, turning to her left and kissing Heather gently on the lips.

  “She’s been unreachably happy this past week,” said Heather with a grin, leaning forward so that Robin and Andee could hear her over the raucous laughter coming from the end of the table—courtesy of Tiffany and Jill. “We’re having alteration problems with her gown, and she doesn’t even care.”

  “The right strap keeps coming off,” sighed Elizabeth happily. “But if I walk down the aisle with one strap or two, who’s going to say anything about it?”

  “See, she doesn’t care,” laughed Heather, as Kimberly rolled her eyes on Heather’s other side, tearing a piece of pizza in two and shoving one half of it into her mouth.

  “We got these really big white Chinese lanterns, so we have to hang them,” said Elizabeth, ticking the items off on her fingers, “but the venue might hang them for us. I’m not sure… The tables are taken care of. We need to bring some boxes of things there, like the table centerpieces and the card box and the guest book. You could probably tell from the invitations,” said Elizabeth, taking another sip from her beer, “but our wedding’s theme is vintage romance,” she sighed happily. “Lots of lace, pastel colors, old books. It’s going to be so beautiful when Green Mountain Grange is transformed…”

  “That’s why the dress strap is problematic,” said Heather, leaning forward, forever the realist. “It’s a vintage dress, and we had it updated by a local seamstress. She does great work, and we’re really happy with it, but then Godiva got a hold of it…”

  “Your cat?” said Andee, horrified. Godiva Esquire was a terminally grumpy gray cat that they’d rescued about nine years ago. She was getting up there in years, and as time progressed, Godiva was turning grumpiness into an art form.

  “She almost destroyed it,” said Heather with a sigh, but Elizabeth shook her head, ate another bite of pizza.

  “Oh, it’s not really that bad,” she said with a grin. “But, yeah, the seamstress has really been tested. We haven’t seen the dress since we took it to her yesterday.”

  “This all happened yesterday?” said Andee, with her mouth open. She didn’t want to say it, but Elizabeth might not have an actual dress to wear to her own wedding?

  “It’ll all work out,” said Elizabeth breezily, biting into a new piece of pizza. Across the table, Heather sighed and grinned and shook her head, catching Andee’s eyes. She looked bemused and resigned. “Honestly,” said Elizabeth then, swallowing and taking another chug of beer. “It doesn’t matter if I got married in my undergarments—”

  “That’d be pretty sexy,” said Heather, wrapping an arm around her soon-to-be wife and squeezing gently as she grinned at her.

  “All that matters is that, in front of the people I care about most in this lifetime, I’m making it known that I’ll love you forever, baby,” sighed Elizabeth, putting her head on Heather’s shoulder.

  “Oh, my God, you guys!” said Tiffany, and then her phone came out, and she was snapping a picture of the happy couple.

  “Are we allowed to beat our forks against our beer cans and make you two kiss?” said Jill with a wink. “Is this too early?”

  “I’m doing it!” said Robin, searching around for a fork. When she couldn’t find one, she tapped the side of her beer can with her finger. Heather, with a wide grin, wrapped her arms around the very obliging Elizabeth and brought her in for a very long kiss, which Tiffany, of course, took another picture of.

  Cheers rose around the table, and Robin put her arm around Andee’s shoulders.

  “To love,” said Robin then, raising her almost-empty beer can.

  “So cheesy!” called Tiffany, but she sounded like she liked cheesiness very much.

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Andee with a smile, raising her full can of beer.

  The cans clinked together, and more beer got onto the antique tabletop, laughter spilling over, too, as pizza was consumed and beer was drank and memories were shared.

  Outside, the green convertible rested, a thousand miles come and gone.

  ---

  “My boobs could not possibly have grown that much these past few days,” said Tiffany, inhaling deeply as she tried to zip up the back of her bridesmaid dress. “Oh, my God, Andee, help,” she muttered, voice panicked as she tugged on the light pink zipper.

/>   “You’re okay. We’ll make it work,” Andee promised, taking the tiny zipper in her fingers and tugging.

  The waist and hips of the dress, a sweet little pink vintage number, fit Tiffany perfectly, were a little loose… But somehow, Tiffany’s breasts had grown on the road trip. Because when the zipper reached her chest area, it stuck and wouldn’t budge, even as Tiffany pressed down on her chest, exhaling as much as she could.

  “Robin?” called Andee, sticking her head out of the bedroom Tiffany was now occupying.

  “What, babe?” called Robin from down the hall, in the bedroom that Robin and Andee were now occupying, and where Robin and Jill were helping each other try on their suits.

  “I need help with this zipper,” growled Andee, tugging on it again. Tiffany breathed out, pressed on the fabric as Andee tugged. And then somehow, miraculously, the zipper moved up and drew the last bit of the dress closed.

  “False alarm,” said Andee with a grin, as Robin strode to the doorway and stood in it, leaning.

  Andee’s jaw dropped as she stared.

  She’d seen Robin in suits before, but it had certainly been a large number of years since that had happened. Here and now, she wore the dove gray suit like it was a glove, the soft pink of the tie resting gently against her chest as Robin cocked her head, grinning mischievously at Andee’s reaction, her own eyes roving over Andee.

  “You look stunning,” Robin murmured, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around Andee’s waist, drawing Andee to her as Tiffany turned in the mirror, inspecting the dress from all angles.

  “You’re gorgeous,” Andee murmured, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss Robin soundly on the mouth.

  “Do I look all right? Is it obvious that my boobs are getting flattened?” said Tiffany, turning this way and that. Robin chuckled as Andee broke away, and both women glanced at Tiffany—gorgeous Tiffany, who wore that dress like she’d been made for it.