V & S Go West

When we tell Clarence that I need to drive my car from New York to Los Angeles, the first thing he says is, you can have the time off. She can’t. He is, of course, pointing at S, not knowing we’ve stayed up the night before planning a 12-day, 10-city cross country road trip. We’ve planned this trip down to a T, but what we haven’t factored in is our boss not being on board.

Only one of us technically needs the time off, I think. Maybe he’s forgotten that before this trip starts, this restaurant will no longer be my workplace and by the time this trip ends, San Francisco will no longer be my home.

On the night before we are set to leave, I am sitting at my parents’ dining room table asking my dad for the third or fourth time to explain the documents I need to bring to the DMV once I am settled in LA. S is upstairs finishing the last of her packing. I have yet to start mine, though I’ve been living out of a suitcase for the last week. Most of my belongings are now in LA, a few are waiting back in San Francisco.

We are waking up at 5 am and the lack of sleep I know I am going to get is only one of the things making me anxious. For months, I’ve looked forward to this move. For weeks, since Clarence granted us the okay, I’ve been ecstatic about this trip. But for days, I’ve abandoned my confidence and settled for uncertainty about this decision.  

I use S’s excitement that next morning to mask my fear. We divide the drive from New York to Virginia Beach by stopping for lunch in D.C. I see how we could spend a whole weekend, embracing our inner historians, but the humidity in June nor the man in the White House that summer make me want to stay.

I never finished the playlists I was working on for the trip. They were meant to be specific to each city we’d visit, but I struggled finding relation to places I’d never been. We’ve decided to go by different names on this trip, different best friend duos from movies and tv shows. Blair and Serena, Rachel and Monica, Romy and Michelle. S is a better liar than I am so I practice my poker face in the side view mirror while she drives the second half to Virginia Beach.

The road that leads us to Virginia Beach is lined with cut down trees and billboards for new condos. I try to picture a forest that once was, curious with imagined memories of a place I’ve never dreamed of. We check into the first grody motel of many and head toward the water as the sun begins to set. The t-shirts and hats in the shops on the boardwalk are all decorated with the same slogan, Virginia is for lovers. It’s funny, our friendship started behind a host stand, trading secrets and stories at a time we were both abandoning the idea of lovers. It was a time I had forgotten how to open up, a time I needed to hear her story and understand it was okay to accept that not all love is the love we call forever.

We spend Golden Hour on the beach, skipping through the breaking waves. This is the last city in which we’ll see the ocean until we reach the Pacific. I dig my toes beneath the wet sand and let the Atlantic drench the bottoms of my pants, accepting I know nothing of what is to come.

Another five hundred miles are put on the car the next day driving to Savannah. Our stiff legs walk through Forsyth Park and Jones Street. I begin to worry how quickly this trip will go by. We’ve spent the majority of the day driving, only to arrive exhausted and I fear how many more will be like this. We are set up on a blind date with a friend of a friend’s. There is no time for sightseeing when you travel like this so we figure we’ll see Savannah through the eyes of a local. At an Oyster Bar called Sorry Charlie’s, she introduces us to hush puppies, po boys and fried green tomatoes. We are exhausted and our friend has ordered a second carafe of wine for us. We take turns sneaking the rest into her glass so she can continue telling her story and we can continue on our way. 

We are somewhere close to the line that divides Florida and Alabama when we discover what true rain is. It starts as a drizzle along an open road until clouds appear in the distance that are the color of charcoal. The closer they get, the harder the rain falls until it all breaks through all at once. Our windshield wipers can’t keep up and we are crying, screaming at the denting noise of rain hitting the rooftop. We pull off to the shoulder behind other cars flashing their hazards. The highway becomes empty except for a few trucks that blaze past.

We leave the rain in Florida and arrive in New Orleans. Our Airbnb is close to Frenchmen Street and as we unlock the front door, we hear music and cheers in the distance. We follow the sounds and learn the rainbow at the end of this thunderstorm is New Orleans’ Pride Parade. A walk around the neighborhood quickly becomes a night decorated in beads, dancing our way in and out of bars courtesy of the different bands playing on opposite sides of walls.

We are Blair and Serena that night, though when I dance to I Wish by Stevie Wonder with a boy whose beads intertwine with mine, I forget my name. I don’t mind him knowing. He, too, is on a cross country trip, ending in San Diego, though I don’t let that excite me when we exchange numbers. This is one night of fun that ends with us eating barbecue and jambalaya made and served out of the bed of a pickup truck at four in the morning.

We spend the next day nourishing our hangovers with grits, gumbo and even gator. We browse the shops of the French Market and buy matching necklaces to commemorate this trip. We get one for Jessie as well, our third counterpart back West. We turn in early that night, too tired to go out again, though one bar does remember us from our dance moves the previous night. In the morning, we revive ourselves with Beignets and Cafe Au Laits.

Another five hundred miles West and we are in Austin, settling into another room someone else has opened up to us for a few hours of sleep. I’ve stopped minding the brevity of our stays and started enjoying the duration of our drives. There is something about watching landscapes change while listening to 2000s girl jams with my best friend that I know I’ll always hold on to. I don’t have a best friend in Los Angeles; I’m not sure I will find one.

In Austin, we direct our Uber driver to take us to the best barbecue he knows and we are not disappointed. He tells us about a speakeasy that we become determined to find. The only sign at the address reads “Good Life Barber Shop” so we go inside, walk down the stairs, past an actual barber shop and there it is. A small, cozy space we find we have to ourselves. The exposed brick wall is decorated with lipstick marks of different sizes and colors. After a few drinks, the bartender hands us two tubes of plastic wrapped lipstick and tells us we can leave our mark if we wish. We do and S leaves a kiss on my cheek that serves as a conversation starter for the rest of the night.

That night we are Josie and Daphne; we’ve just watched Some Like it Hot. We find two scooters and ride up and down the streets and happen upon Friend’s Bar. Inside, the band on stage refers to us, between songs, as the scooter girls. When they do ask our names, I, once again, tell them my own, forgetting I am supposed to be called Josie. The bartender, whom we’ve lied to, looks over probably still wondering if she is named Daphne. When it’s time to turn in we notice a man taking our scooters and throwing them into a van. He’s collecting them around the city charging them. We strike up conversation and he gives us two, takes one for himself and the three of us cruise the empty streets.

Austin picks up on our deceit so we drive to the desert where there is no one we can lie to. We arrive before the sun is gone; the heat sticks around and welcomes us to break the desert’s silence. The loudest noises become our laughter as we drink wine in this ghost town called Terlingua and recount the night we’ve left behind.

Of the people we’ve met in Austin, not many know where our desert dome is. It sits on an unofficial Ruby Road in this small town that borders Mexico and Ruby Road is full of rocks and sand and little jack rabbits that prance back and forth.

We make dinner and as we wait for nightfall, we talk about the girls we once were. I tell stories of a girl who didn’t know herself. A girl who was insecure, afraid and through all of that I am reminded that that girl ran away, made a new life thousands of miles away and found love and happiness followed by heartbreak and friendship. I wonder why I am giving this life up, what I am running from this time and I wonder where this confidence is coming from. This confidence that fights my anxiety, forcing myself to believe things will only get better. Although I feel like we have known each other our whole lives, I find our pasts are always a topic we add to. Soon, our presents and futures will be too.

At night the stars come into view and they are nothing short of everywhere. The loudest ones are the ones I swear are moving and I don’t have to understand anything about the cosmos behind them to know that I am the happiest I might ever be. The happiest I can be, knowing there are only so many days like this one left to come.

Our entire bodies are stiff the next day driving to New Mexico. We pass through Marfa and I stand in front of another Prada storefront I will never enter. We fight tiredness and stop for lunch, pretending our night wasn’t what it turned out to be. Back at the dome, late in the night we watched as a spider furiously spun a fly around, the fly’s body fidgeting as the web clung to it. My eyes wandered toward the wall above this scene and fixated on another guest. A yellow scorpion waiting patiently. Panic set in and we began phoning friends in different directions for advice.

One friend told us to catch and release it. One friend told us we had to kill it. Instead, we named it. Jean Blanc after the new villain on Becca Kufrin’s season of The Bachelorette we had been watching. It made it easier to acknowledge his presence. An hour passed and neither of us had moved, even the fly and spider had become motionless. S handed me a pan, and held a pot in her own hands. She was to hit it first and I was to strike if she missed. We thought it was a perfect plan till she moved the pot away and he was no longer there. He wasn’t on the bottom of the pot either. It was too late for me to save us because Jean Blanc was upright on the counter in front of us, still alive, stinger curved, staring us in the eyes. My hands remained gripping the pan as S packed our things and we slept under the stars with the sunroof shade open.

Our time in New Mexico is brief. We find the closest Mexican restaurant and check out the White Sands before a thunderstorm that lasts the rest of our stay. We cuddle up at another motel in La Luz and watch Thelma and Louise, adding their names to our list.

I bet they wouldn’t have been scared of Jean Blanc, I say and S laughs.

Thelma and Louise killed a guy for saying “Suck my dick,” they would have killed Jean Blanc with their bare hands.”

Two hundred miles from La Luz we discover a town along Highway 60 called Pie Town. There is no service for me to confirm whether or not this is an actual town. It appears uninhabited at first, but along the stretch of road, we spot Pie Town Cafe. It’s a small space directly across from another lonely red building that reads Mercantile.

In the little cafe, we are the only guests. The man who serves is also the cafe’s owner and wears Jeans, a black button-down shirt, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. Pie Town is a town with a population under two hundred stretching somewhere between fifty-five and sixty miles. He tells us the town’s name comes from settlers who found themselves stranded and sold pies to others eventually traveling through. Our lunch is a more dessert-centered one as we sample their Cherry Raspberry, Peach Blueberry and Apple and I conclude I’ll never eat pie as special as this.

We reach Sedona late in the late afternoon and settle in for two nights with S’s older brother, his partner and their two children. It feels like weeks since we’ve had hospitality like this, sleeping in a bed that doesn’t have a fixed check out time. They are a sweet reminder of the homes we are missing.

We hike Cathedral Rock the next afternoon. S and her brother take turns climbing while I sit on an edge and wrap my head around how fast we are moving. There are only three days left of this journey; we’ve already started seeing signs for California on the freeways. Each time we are on the 10 West I’m reminded that my new home runs parallel to it. On this trip I’ve seen so much beauty in the different cities we’ve closed our eyes in and it terrifies me how fast time moves as I get older. The past year, the year I call one of the best of my life has, flown by faster than any other and in three days I turn the page on another chapter.

The next day we see The Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and spend a brief night under the stars of Zion. Our day in Las Vegas is a blur and I find myself hoping we are always as carefree as Josie and Daphne who swear to each other that what happens in Vegas absolutely does stay in Vegas.

On June 18th, we cross the California state line. A little over two hundred miles later I am showing S my new bedroom. The people I will live with aren’t home and I am relieved. We don’t stay long; this isn’t our last stop. In Santa Barbara we head to the beach, ending our trip now with our feet in the Pacific. While we drink cocktails and eat fish tacos, I bury my toes in the sand while S fidgets with her own feet below the table. I don’t know then in the years to come I’ll visit Santa Barbara quite a bit. I’ll eat on that beach again, perhaps at the same table. Though the person I am with won’t understand the humor when I tell him the story of how S buried my shoes in the sand beneath us, leading me into a panic, desperately digging for my sandals.

Jessie is there to welcome us when we walk through the door. I walk toward my bedroom, instinctively, ready to put my bags down when I remember there is a new girl who has already moved in. Ironically, we share the same name. I put my things down in S’s room and it hits me, the reality that this part of my life is over.

It takes me four nights to leave for good. Four nights filled with multiple going away parties and too many tears in the bar bathrooms. When I do finally leave, it’s the first time I’ve driven to a new city without S sitting next to me.

Years from then, I’ll forget the name of the boy I met in New Orleans. Driving in thunderstorms will no longer scare me and pie will never be as good as it is along Highway 60.

I’ll learn that time slows down when you’re unhappy and accept that Los Angeles will never be the home to me that San Francisco was. Though, one day, S will be unpacking boxes with a boy she loves in an apartment four miles from mine. At that same time, I will be four hundred miles up the coast walking along the great highway with a boy I love, who draws me back to the bay frequently. I’ll often wonder what life would have been like had I not left. Then I remember, had I not left, S and I would not be planning on naming our daughters Josie and Daphne.

Victoria Crowe is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles. She writes both nonfiction and fiction and finds her poetry is usually decent after a bottle of wine. She is the founder of the online journal You Might Need To Hear This. In her spare time she enjoys reading, propagating her peace lily and practicing yoga at 7 am to pretend she has her life together.