whither thou goest
Touchdown in Raleigh greets them with stormy skies. Dani is jostled awake by a man hitting her in the head with a backpack.
Jamie cusses him out and spends the whole time they’re waiting for their luggage trying to spot him in the tired crowd, looking for blood. There’s an ease with which she holds Dani’s hand that Dani has never experienced before. Sure and calm, their fingers laced loosely together, and she keeps squeezing Dani’s hand three times every time Dani’s mind starts to drift away from her.
She calls her mother from the pay phone at the car rental place—just off the airport parking lot.
Says things like: “Yeah, it was fine,” and, “I miss you, too.”
It’s early in America and she’s still on London time, which makes the early morning light seem smudged in her eyes. She keeps trying to blink it away, listening to her mother rattle off warnings about North Carolina—citing some special she saw on TV about a man who kidnapped girls from gas stations and buried them alive by the highway.
Dani’s fairly certain she’s describing the plot to some trashy television movie, but she pretends to agree, if only so she can get off the phone faster.
“How long before you’re home?” her mom asks and Dani’s watching Jamie smoke a cigarette through the glass door of the agency.
By “home” she means “Ohio” and Dani doesn’t want to fight this early.
So she leaves out the important part and says, “We were thinking about taking our time,” like it really is that simple.
“Who’s we?”
Jamie catches Dani watching and smiles at her, smoke slipping past her perfect lips. Her eyes catch the sunlight in a way that makes Dani feel substantially less tired.
“Me,” she corrects. “I just meant me.”
________
They buy an atlas in a gas station and Dani points their rented Ford Taurus north and just starts driving. Jamie flips through the radio as they go, complaining about the music, and occasionally points out a cow or a horse as they roll through farmland.
“It’s different than I thought,” she says as they cross the border into Virginia. “Bigger.”
Dani laughs, sunglasses perched on her nose, feeling lighter and lighter as the miles stack up behind them. “I’m pretty sure your whole country can fit in Texas.”
Jamie gives her an uneasy look. “Poppins,” she says slowly, the vocal equivalent of tip-toeing, “what the fuck is Texas?”
________
That night, they eat dinner at a hotel bar in Charlottesville. There’s money from Henry burning a hole in both of their pockets and each of them still has a check from him tucked away in their things, uncashed. Jamie orders a cheeseburger, already complaining about fried food before it even gets there, and Dani picks at her own meal, far too content to just watch Jamie as she wipes the corner of her mouth with a napkin. Sips at her glass of wine.
“God, this thing’s turning my stomach,” she complains and Dani bumps their feet together under the table.
“Then stop eating it.”
Jamie purses her lips. Points a finger in the air. “Don’t,” she says seriously, pausing for emphasis. “Tell me what to do.”
She finishes her food painstakingly to the sound of Dani’s laughter.
________
That night, they sleep in separate beds, a nightstand between them. Dani has a nightmare that she’s drowning and someone is trying to rescue her. Their hands keep slipping. She drowns anyway.
In the morning, she covers the mirror in the bathroom before she gets ready and forgets to uncover it when she’s finished.
It’s not possible that Jamie doesn’t notice, but she’s kind enough not to say anything.
________
Jamie falls asleep in Baltimore and doesn’t wake up until they’re almost to Philadelphia. The radio is on, but the connection is shitty and the music keeps fading in and out in between bouts of loud static.
“Where are we?” she asks, looking out the window. She lifts her feet up and plants them on the dashboard, yawning behind her hand.
“Pennsylvania.” Dani glances over at her. Adjusts her hands on the steering wheel. “Feel a little better?”
Jamie is confused for a moment. Then, “Didn’t sleep well last night. Thas’ all.”
“Oh.”
“Harder to sleep without a pretty girl to cuddle.”
Dani bumps her turn signal on. Speeds up past the minivan driving slowly in the right lane. Gets in front of them. Turns it off.
Her neck feels hot. She should be used to this, maybe—a brief memory of the way Jamie’s lips felt like on her chest that night they spent together comes to mind, flustering her. But they haven’t done more than hold hands since boarding their flight in London.
Part of her thinks Jamie might be waiting for Dani to make up her mind.
She takes a deep breath. “Maybe we can fix that tonight.”
She can feel Jamie’s eyes on her, looking her over. “Yeah?”
Dani nods. “Yeah.”
“Well...I look forward to it then, Poppins.”
Jamie flicks the radio off. They drive in silence for the next hour.
________
Philadelphia, Center City. Dani finds a parking garage by the Liberty Bell and they have lunch in a little bistro nearby. It’s bustling in Independence Park—people flitting to and fro with cameras and maps. Dani watches them through the window, watches the way that the sun beams down past the tall buildings, illuminating the cobblestone streets.
“This is more like it,” Jamie says, two bites into her cheesesteak.
“Why am I not surprised you like that better than you like cheeseburgers?” Dani asks.
Jamie laughs, making Dani’s head spin and shrugs. “Guess you must already be figuring me out.”
There’s something about that Dani likes the sound of.
After eating, they wait forty-five minutes in the warm, September air to see the Liberty Bell. It’s not worth it—especially not to Jamie, who knows little else about it save for what history Dani butchered in line, piecing it together from the time her and her mother visited Philadelphia when she was in grade school.
They stop at a gift shop nearby and Jamie makes fun of a bobblehead of Benjamin Franklin for at least a minute, so Dani buys it for her. Hands it over as they’re walking back to the parking garage and Jamie is delighted. Holds it up. Mimics its bounce until Dani’s cheeks are bright pink from laughing too hard.
________
In the parking garage, Dani is fumbling with the keys when Jamie steps into her space, presses her into the driver’s side window, and kisses her. It’s a slow kiss, tongue and hands slipping around Dani’s hips, pulling her nearer. Dani drops the keys on the pavement, pushes into the pressure of Jamie’s body.
Eventually, Jamie pulls back, flushed and happy. Presses another chaste kiss to Dani’s lips and then flits around to the other side of the car to get in.
Dani stands there a moment, in the stifling concrete heat of a city she does not belong to and wonders at the flutter of her own heart.
________
A motel in Conshohocken. One bed. They order pizza and eat it right there in the middle of the comforter, using the lid of the box as a plate. The room is filled with dim orange light, and the street lamps outside can be seen with every air-conditioned sway of the curtains.
There’s a sitcom playing on the TV—some husband getting himself into trouble, his family picking up the pieces. Dani eats slowly and tries not to stare at the bare skin of Jamie’s legs, the baggy, oversized shirt that’s hanging loose around her hips. She keeps remembering what they feel like wrapped around her waist and choking a little on her food.
When they’re brushing their teeth in the bathroom, side-by-side, Jamie bumps her elbow into Dani’s side and makes a face at her in the mirror. It strikes Dani how little time they’ve actually known another. Somehow, it feels like years already.
In the cool safety of the bed, Jamie leans in and kisses Dani, soft and easy. No hurry or rush or deadlines. No one to interrupt them. “Am I allowed to do that?” she asks when she pulls away, running her thumb across Dani’s cheekbone.
Dani closes her eyes. Remembers the curl of Jamie’s fingers around that cigarette at the airport. Her head leaned against the window of the car as she slept. Pushing her fries towards Dani at that first hotel, pestering her until she finally ate some.
Nodding, she whispers, “Yes.”
________
Breakfast at an IHOP. Blueberry syrup. Jamie complaining that Pepsi burns her nose. Dani steals some of her hash browns and Jamie pretends to be mad at her about it until they’re in the car again.
________
“Are you coming home soon?” her mom asks, her voice grainy through the line.
“I don’t—”
Her mom sighs, heavy and hard. “First it was a month. Then two. Then six. Then it was that you’d gotten a job and now you’re in the country again and you can’t even be bothered to come see your mother.”
“Mom,” Dani says. “I don’t...I don’t know that I’m—”
Outside, Jamie is gassing up the car. She’s leaned back against it while she waits, arms crossed. When she catches Dani looking, she gives a wave and a smile that makes Dani’s breath catch.
“So...where then?”
There’s an accusatory note to her mom’s voice that Dani would normally shrink under. She doesn’t this time.
Instead, she says, “We were thinking Vermont.”
“Danielle, who’s we?”
Leaning back against the glass of the phone booth, Dani takes a deep breath. Says: “Me and a...a friend.”
“What friend?”
She ponders this. Thinks about Jamie’s hand finding hers on the gear shift. Thinks about morning kisses and a hand combing through her hair as she drives.
Decides to be brave.
“A...girlfriend,” she says, plain as day. “My girlfriend.”
Her mother splutters. Dani can’t bring herself to care.
________
“Girlfriend, huh?” Jamie asks in the car.
Dani taps her fingers against the steering wheel. Edges the car further up the drive-thru line. “Yeah,” she says. “Is that…?”
“Girlfriend.” Jamie hums thoughtfully around the word. She turns back to Dani after a moment, beaming. “Can’t say I don’t like the sound of that.”
They eat their food in the parking lot and, when they’re done, Jamie kisses Dani, nice and long, with grease on her lips.
________
Skipping around New York City, they stop in Albany for the night.
Still feeling brave, when Jamie goes to take a shower, Dani waits a few minutes and then joins her. In the steam-filled air, she sheds her clothes and pulls the curtain back, steps inside.
Jamie’s body looks different in the light. Slick and soft and Dani wants to press her fingers to every inch of it.
“Am I allowed to do this?” she asks when Jamie turns around, surprised.
Jamie steps forward, pressing the wet length of her body against Dani’s, their curves slotting into place. “Yes,” she whispers. “As long as you’re sure.”
Dani smiles. Whispers, “I am,” then, “Kiss me.”
Jamie does. Arms around Dani’s waist, hands exploring for the second time—eagerly creating a new map of her favorite places. She kisses the hollow of Dani’s collarbones, presses her back into the cool tile of the shower wall and fucks her with her fingers, keeping an arm looped around her to keep her steady. It’s embarrassingly quick. Dani hadn’t realized how much she’d been wanting this.
“What do you like?” she asks, kissing down Jamie’s jaw, scrunching her nose when wet curls tickle her forehead.
“You,” Jamie says.
And Dani can work with that. Slips a hand down between Jamie’s legs. Kisses her and touches her, liking the way Jamie’s muscles move, the way her moans fill the bathroom, echoing off the tiles.
________
Saratoga Springs. Jamie buys Owen a postcard. Dani buys Flora and Miles hand-knit hats.
“How close are we?” Dani asks as they pass the border of New Hampshire.
Jamie shifts her sunglasses to her forehead and consults the atlas spread out on her lap. “Close,” she says.
Her hand finds Dani’s thigh and squeezes.
________
Three hours later, they’re in Vermont.
Jamie’s hand drifts up Dani’s thigh in excitement and Dani pulls over at a travel center a few minute later. Parks in the outskirts. Closes her eyes and tips her head back as Jamie undoes the button on her jeans and slips her hand inside.
“Where to now?” she asks, wiping her hand off on a paper napkin a little later as Dani catches her breath.
Dani catches her face in her palms. Kisses her hard. “Wherever you want,” she says.
________
Burlington is nice enough. Bigger than Dani had been picturing. Pretty.
They walk downtown, looking at all the shops, occasionally stopping to look into windows. As the sun sets, the lights come on in the streets, giving everything a sort of dreamlike, ethereal glow that makes Dani catch Jamie’s hand in her own.
There’s an empty storefront in between a pet store and a cafe and Jamie brings them to a stop there. She leans her hand against the window, looking into the dark space beyond the glass, and when she pulls away, she’s grinning.
“What?” Dani asks, raising an eyebrow.
“I just had a thought.”
“A good one?”
“Dani,” Jamie says, serious for the first time in a while. “I know you’ve said that you don’t want to...make plans, but...We could live here, yeah? Build a life? Together?”
Tears burn at Dani’s eyes. Jamie’s expression is the most honest one she’s ever seen. She thinks of that weight in her chest—the one she’s been carrying with her since they left. Thinks about how much lighter it feels when Jamie looks at her like that.
She’s been trying not to think about it. Trying not to wonder what might happen next.
It hasn’t been difficult. Jamie makes it easy for her.
It would be so easy, Dani thinks, to forget everything here.
“Is that what you want?” she asks, sniffling a little. “With me?”
Jamie smiles. Just like that. “With you?” she says. “I want as much as you’ll give me.”
There aren’t many people on the street. Just a few stragglers well up the road, and it’s getting dark. They’re standing in a shadow.
These are the excuses Dani gives herself before she kisses Jamie, right there on the sidewalk. Pulls her in and holds her as tightly as she can without breaking the other woman, without falling apart.
“I want that, too,” she whispers when she pulls away. “Anything with you.”
Something in her chest loosens. Jamie can’t stop grinning.
________
They cash Henry’s checks at a bank in town. Use them to lease the storefront and fill it with plants. Find an apartment nearby and do the same thing there. Buy a couch together. Cook meals. Slow dance to records as they wait for their food to finish cooking. Pick out sheets and towels together.
Jamie handpaints the name of their store on a ladder they borrow from the pet shop. Dani holds the base and laughs at every joke Jamie throws her way.
Easy things. Things Dani never knew to wish for.
They build a place they can call home.
...