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Van agrees to drive. Sort of. She says her truck won’t make the trip, but knows someone outside Pittsburgh who owes her a favor, so Tai plugs the address into her GPS and doesn’t ask any more questions. On this topic at least. They still have at least 10 hours in the car and close to 20 years to catch up on. It feels a bit like pulling teeth and immediately tonguing the wound, but Taissa Turner has never been one to know when to quit. Van turns up the radio after about 40 minutes.
The house they eventually pull up to is unremarkable in the way many suburban houses tend to be. Single story with white paneled garage. A sizable Chevy SUV sits in the driveway and the lawn is just slightly overgrown. The neighboring house has a sign for an alarm company. Taissa hangs back as Van walks up to the front door, their meager luggage sitting on the curb ready to be transferred. She's curious, always has been. Claims it as her fatal flaw in every interview because Pride is harder to spin. So despite Van’s insistence on “strictly casual” being her MO for relationships, Tai can’t help but wonder who will walk out that door. An ex, maybe or possibly someone connected to her mother’s illness. Maybe Van was in a Facebook group for vintage movie lovers or something.
Instead, Tai watches a woman about their age walk out the door and hug Van the way she had wanted to when she walked in that video store in the middle of fucking Ohio. Like lovers reunited at the end of a cheesy 80s romcom that Tai still doesn’t fully get. The woman herself is blonde, taller than Van and dressed in a sensible sweater and jeans. She could be anyone. She could be anyone, but she’s clearly someone to Van who slings a duffle bag off the porch and onto her shoulder as she and the woman make their way to the curb. A woman who with each step closer she is starting to recognize.
“Taissa Turner,” Laura Lee says, “It’s been a while.”
And it has.
Taissa hadn’t given much more than a passing thought as to what Laura Lee had been up to since they were rescued. She’d been one of the first to leave Jersey, sent to live with family out of state or something, her parents and younger siblings staying long enough to finish out the school year and sell the house. Even her pet investigator had problems tracking her down as Laura Lee Miller was such a common name. She’d simply faded in the background like so many other high school memories. Now, though, Tai wishes she’d known to pay attention. Hadn’t been so quick to dismiss Laura Lee’s devotion to Lottie as simply a misplaced devotion to God. Hadn’t scrubbed her memory of the girl clean of anything other than blonde hair and a cross. Because here she is, twenty five years later, using a cane to walk down the drive with Van at her shoulder carrying her bag like they’ve done this before. Packing up the Chevy because this shitty road trip just added another passenger. Tai picks up the bags from the sidewalk and loads them in the trunk.
The Chevy Traverse has a sizable trunk, leather seats, and hand controls. Laura Lee’s car has hand controls because while none of them had returned right, not everyone returned whole. Pieces of the girls they were are scattered in that godforsaken forest and not all metaphorically. So, Laura Lee’s car has hand controls which means she’s driving. Van is in the passenger seat, idly flipping through satellite radio stations, so Tai is in the pilot seat directly behind the drivers’. It’s awkward and Taissa can tell by Van’s smirk in the rearview that it’s not completely unintentional. Luckily Laura Lee seems to be just as oblivious as she was in high school, or just as over their petty drama. The placid expression looks just as baffling on this older face.
“So,” Laura Lee starts, “I hear congratulations are in order, Taissa. I can’t imagine how stressful that all must have been, but it seems like it was worth it.”
“Uh, yeah,” Tai replies, her years of politicking failing her. “Thank you. It was, it was hard won, but I’m hoping to do some good in office.”
Taissa pretends she can’t hear Van snort when she continues, “How about you, Laura Lee? It’s, well, it’s been awhile.”
Laura Lee laughs and shares a look with Van who just shrugs. “Just Laura is fine. I haven’t been Laura Lee in years.”
Tai had noticed the simple gold band, but also that it was on the wrong hand. Hadn’t thought much of it. She really needs to stop doing that.
“You’re married?” Tai asks and this time Van laughs out right. Tai kind of wants to hit her and watches stunned as Laura Lee does just that.
“Be nice. And I was married. Briefly. Kept the name and the ring though. Figured I was owed that much," Laura smiles at her in the rearview mirror. “I read a little about your family. They look lovely, Tai.”
Taissa smiles tightly and leans back in her seat. “They are.”
For a moment it seems like they’ve exhausted all their small talk. Selections of Bjork, Dave Matthews Band, and Hozier play briefly on the radio as Van scrolls. Tai picks at her cuticles and stares at the headrest in front of her. It’s not like Taissa and Laura Lee had ever been particularly close. On the field, Laura would funnel the ball back up the left lane whenever she fought against an opposing striker, but so did Nat. So did Lottie. Even when they were freezing, a huddled girlmob in front of the fireplace rather than individual beings, Laura Lee would drift toward Akilah, towards Lottie, while Tai's always had Van. Van who is skipping through Laura’s radio presets like she knows them.
“So,” Tai starts, “You keep in touch with anyone else?”
It’s a weak subterfuge and Van won’t let her have it. “Come on, Tai. Just ask.”
She leaves the radio playing a Tori Amos song.
“Fine. When did this,” she gestures between the two front seats “happen?”
Van looks to Laura Lee before answering. “A couple years after…well after, Lee and I ran into each other. I’d just gotten to Ohio and Laura was living with relatives in Kentucky. Both of us were still talking to some of the other girls, but it’d been a while since we’d seen anyone in you know, in person. A little jarring to be honest. No one in that Kroger was ready for that reunion of freaks. Caught up over pancakes at an IHOP and, you know, kept texting every now and then. Visited once or twice before it got weird. Maybe sent a birthday message or two on Facebook. Typical adult friendship,” Van directs most of the story to the rearview mirror, injecting enough humor for Tai to know she’s keeping something back, but too afraid to ask. Too aware that she’s not allowed to ask. Not anymore. Thankfully Laura speaks next.
“To answer your other question, Tai, yes, I still talk to Lottie or, well, Charlotte. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen her, though, which is why I’m glad Van reached out when she did. I’ve…well I think its been long enough.”
“Charlotte?” Tai asks because that’s a point she can press.
Laura raises a brow at her, stretching the pale pink scar tissue on the right side of her face.
“We’re not kids anymore, Taissa. Haven’t been for a while.”