Chapter Text
1992
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Day One
Bette pulled out the map again, as she waited for Alice's friend to finish getting ready and finally come out to her car. Apparently, despite assurances from her girlfriend, her car trip companion was someone who was unable to be ready by a specific time.
Bette took the extra time to make final notes on her map. She had, over the past week, figured out the most efficient as well as convenient way for two people to drive from New York to California. Bette had factored in affordable places to stay, keeping driving time basically even each day and speed.
Bette tapped her pen on the steering wheel, once and then twice and then groaned. There was very little that Bette hated more than waiting. It fell somewhere between coffee orders being taken wrong and the way her stomach turned when she saw people bite their nails.
She was contemplating if she had brought along enough CD’s as to not get bored, when she heard a knocking on her car window.
It was a short, well shorter than her blonde, who had a bob and apparently smiled with every last tooth on display. She was cute, in that cheerleader, happy way that suggested to the brunette that there would barely be any conversation of substance over the next five days.
“You’re here,” Bette said, as the girl began piling her bags in the back seat. “Finally.”
The girl stuck out her hand and smiled even wider. “Hi, I’m Tina Kennard. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. I think it’ll be fun.”
Bette forced a smile and took her hand. “Bette Porter. Hurry up, I have a pretty tightly planned schedule.”
Tina could feel her smile tighten, as she looked at Bette and the map that she had spread out on the windshield. There were, what looked like, at least 15 sticky notes placed in different areas marking off restaurants, places to stay, the cheapest gas stations. Jesus, who had she agreed to make, what was meant to be a fun trip, with.
She sat in her seat and watched as Bette finished the note she must have been writing when Tina interrupted before packing up the map and putting it in the console between them. Tina watched as the woman turned the car on and pulled away from her college dorms, aggressively beeping her horn at any students that dare get in her.
Tina took a moment to close her and put on her sunglasses. Her hand rubbed her temples, a vain attempt at soothing the headache that had been there since the moment she had opened her eyes that morning. The previous night had been her last living on campus, and therefore absolutely worthy of celebration, just not perhaps to the early hour that she had stayed out, drinking shot after shot of various disgusting liquids. “Can we stop to get something to eat? Even just a gas station?”
Bette rolled her eyes but shook her head. “No, we are already behind my planned schedule and it’s not my problem you stupidly decided to be hungover for a long car trip. But I do think right now would be a good time to go over some… well, car guidelines.”
“You have rules? Jesus almighty,” Tina complained. “Look, if I don’t eat soon my hungover problem will become your hungover problem. Just let me get some sustenance and I promise we can go over whatever dull rules you have.”
Tina heard Bette huff and click her teeth, before she turned on the right blinker and started to make the exit for the upcoming gas station. The brunette parked in the parking bay to the right of the building, and let out another heavy breath before turning to Tina. “You have five minutes to get whatever you need and then we are sticking strictly to my schedule.”
The blonde gave a mock salute before grabbing her wallet and departing the car. How were they possibly meant to survive in a car together for five days, she wondered.
-
Bette felt her eyebrow twitch as she watched Tina's left foot move from being face up to on its side. Both feet had been on the dashboard for the past half hour and Bette congratulated herself on the fact that she was yet to raise the issue - to think Alice was always complaining that she was inflexible. Clearly, she could be patient, and more easy going than she was given credit for. She just had standards that were well above getting scuff marks off her dashboard.
Bette sighed as she looked out at the long stretch of road before her. It wasn't that she minded long car trips, but perhaps driving from New Haven to California within five days, was biting off more than she could chew. The brunette stole a quick glance at the blonde asleep beside her. Alice had assured her that Tina would be good company but so far all she had done was act hungover, demand they stop for food that she was yet to eat and sleep through the first three hours of the car trip. Bette couldn't deny that her car companion was pretty though, in that obvious, doe-eyed, blond way that screamed American princess. The image only further cemented by the shrunk pink tee and light blue shorts that she was sporting. Bette swallowed as her eyes wandered down the blonde's legs, which although shorter than her own seemed endless when stretched out on the dashboard.
With a final look to her companion, and the desire for her mind to wander in any other direction, her hand made its way to the radio as she quietly tried to turn it on.
I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's gray and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday, I'm in love
Bette loved this song, loved anything by the Cure really, and soon found herself quietly singing along.
"Alice had mentioned that you did karaoke with her, but I was hesitant to believe her," Tina yawned. "How long was I asleep for?"
Bette nearly jumped out of her seat. "Sorry, if I woke you. I was just getting bored of the silence," she said. "And it wasn't a regular thing."
"What wasn't regular?" Tina asked as she ruffled through her bag of gas station treats.
"Karaoke," Bette mumbled, her eyes glued to the items Tina was pulling out of her larger paper carry bag. It seemed to be an unhealthy snack galore, the exact opposite of what Bette had assumed or hoped for. "I-I I'm not a karaoke person, Alice is just persistent."
Tina just shrugged as she opened one of the foil bags. "Well, you have a nice voice."
Bette muttered a thanks and turned her mind back to the road. How much had Alice told Tina about their time together? They'd only been dating for about a month and if Bette was honest she didn't see if lasting much longer. She had assumed this was a shared instinct, especially seeing as Alice would still be in New York for the next six months but maybe that was a statement that Bette would need to revise if she's off telling Tina about their limited number of karaoke nights as though it was some bit between them.
The brunette was pulled from her thoughts by a loud crunching sound beside her. "Can you eat quieter?"
"It's caramel popcorn. It's designed to be crunchy," Tina complained. "How do you suppose that I eat it quieter than I currently am?"
Bette clicked her tongue in annoyance and took a deep breath. "I don't know but I would suggest you find a way."
Tina rolled her eyes, and never one to back down took a handful of the popcorn and filled her mouth, making the crunch even louder. God, she just wanted this day to be over.
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They get to Dayton, Ohio late, too late for either of them to even politely pretend they enjoyed the car ride. It’s past midnight and their bones hurt, their legs feel like jelly, they’ve been in the car so long.
Tina walked along the concrete footpath, stretching out her legs like a baby giraffe, as her eyes followed Bette going into the small motel office. She’s picking up their two motel room keys, so they can finally separate, like old, splintered wood.
We only have four more days to go , they each thought. I’m going to fucking kill Alice.
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Day Two
Tina's eyes wandered the length of Bette Porter’s body as she watched her travel companion order her coffee.
“In one cup I’d like lactose free milk to exactly 70 degrees. Not one above, not one below. Then in the second cup, three shots of espresso,” Bette ordered. Tina smiled at the confusion that passed through the barista's face. “What? I like to measure the amounts myself?”
Bette was annoying, absolutely no doubt about it, Tina decided. What was wrong with quick, sharp ordering and then trusting that the professional trained to create the order knew what they were doing. But still. there was something, an air about the brunette that kept drawing Tina back in. Her deep brown eyes, like endless whirlpools that made you forget for just a second that she was a total, maniacal monster.
Tina had ordered a latte with an extra shot and pump of caramel; like a mars bar, melted in a cup. Nothing like the science experiment that Bette had the poor person at the coffee machine creating. She’d be lucky if they didn’t spit in her drink.
When both drinks were ready and Bette had finished pouring in the expresso shots to her exact personal preference, they each piled in the car. This morning it was Tina who would start behind the wheel, until they took a break in the afternoon for Bette to take over the wheel.
As Tina began to pull out of the park, she noticed her companion reaching into her bag for a book. God, as much as Tina might find Bette to be insufferable, if the blonde went much longer sitting in silence, her brain would explode with boredom. “So, why are you moving to California?” Tina asked.
Bette just blinked up at her like she’d been asked to solve some incomprehensible math equation. “What? Why are you asking me that?”
“We have about ten hours of driving today. We may as well use some of that to get to know each other,” Tina suggested. “So, California. What’s it to ya?”
“It’s a state where they’ve recently banned private companies from discriminating based on sexual orientation,” Bette told her. “At least, that’s why it beat out New York for me.”
Tina tilted her head and nodded. “Oh, right. Okay. But what else are you doing there? Like, what company are you not being discriminated against by?”
“I’m going to be an assistant for Margo Leavin,” Bette smiled. “She’s a West Hollywood gallerist, a Yale professor introduced me to. She offered me a training position.”
Bette bit her lip at the thought, quelling her wide smile. After six years of studying, hundreds of hours spent writing and learning and diving into art, she was finally going to work properly at a gallery. She was going to be the one to find exhibitions to showcase and artists with ideas to share. Her excitement spread through her body like wildfire. “What are you doing there?”
“I’m studying film production,” Tina told her.
Bette rolled her eyes - of course, big eyes, blondie, is working in television. “That’s… interesting.”
Tina gripped the steering wheel as her body stiffened. “Alice didn’t mention you’re a snob.”
“I’m not a snob,” Bette scoffed. “I just have better things to do with my time than watch vanilla sitcoms with an ever nagging wife.”
Tina felt her lips thin at the insinuation. “They’re not al-”
“Nagging wives, rebellious teens, ugly husbands, very special episodes,” Bette argued. “It’s all just the same shit, isn’t it?.”
Tina bit the inside of her cheek to distract herself from her rising anger. She hated when people reduced the entire industry to a few shows. There was more to storytelling than generic family-based multicams, especially in the film landscape where Tina ultimately wanted to land. “Bugsy? Fried Green Tomatoes? Mediterraneo ?”
Bette just shrugged again. “Are they films? I haven’t seen them.”
Tina’s eyes bulged out of her head as she stared ahead of the road. How had Bette managed to miss the best films of the past year. Okay, sure, maybe Mediterraneo was a little more obscure, but Fried Green Tomatoes? On what planet had Bette been living on? “That’s… I actually don't even know what to say. How haven’t you even heard of those films?”
“I read,” Bette defended. “And visit art galleries. Or I go to bars to meet women.”
Tina still couldn’t believe that such a creative type like Bette so completely disregarded film. “My love of telling stories isn’t that dissimilar to the reason you love art. And being a producer isn’t different from your role as a gallerist.”
“Uh huh.” The blonde could hear the doubt coating Bette’s words. “Sure, sure.”
“What do you think a director does? You don’t think that looking at the image, the picture, the way that the light reflects on the actors, the way they are framed isn’t like a heap of their job?” Tina asked. “When actors are doing a scene they will consider hand placements, where the camera is, how to make it look most compelling or beautiful or whatever the moment calls for. They understand that they are making a visual picture. God, the, when you find the people who can do that best, and you see what they create? Well, it’s like you‘re in another galaxy, another universe. Like all the things that were meant to matter, just don’t.”
The brunette supposed that she could understand that. After all, it wasn’t that far off what it was that she was doing, was it? West Hollywood was more than legal protection for her, it was more than a specific art gallery, it was the freedom she’d been seeking since she was 16 and desperately jealous of her best friend’s boyfriend. It was where she’d known she’d belong since she was 19 and imagining her art professor’s face when in bed with her boyfriend. California would be the place, away from her homophobic father, away from her reckless sister, that Bette Porter could just be Bette.
She supposed that she could imagine that the way art pulled at her insides and undid her, only to stitch her back up even better, that film, did that to Tina. That where Bette found herself in brushstrokes and texture, Tina felt the same watching images dancing across a screen. Bette rolled her eyes, her hand raised in surrender. “Okay, okay. I get it, alright,” she smiled. “Even if I’m gonna stick with my sapphic poetry and my galleries.”
Tina laughed. “Such a lost cause.”
Bette just looked out the window and just grinned.
-
The second day, like the first one, is long. The landscape, although admittedly beautiful, is repetitive and even for Bette, NPR can only play for so long before the boredom becomes painful.
Every few hours they switch off drivers, and therefore the corresponding responsibility of choosing the car activity. Which is how for three hours, Bette found herself playing ‘would you rather’ with Tina and learnt that she’d rather be a mammal than insects, be always nude than never nude, and that she’d rather have a finger for a tongue than the other way around.
And taste everything you touch? Gross, Tina had defended.
The brunette had shrugged her agreement before trying to decide if she’d never brush her teeth or her hair again.
-
Bette blinked once and twice and then a third time before she recognised where she was sitting. It was the passenger seat of her car, her head resting on the window, her feet tucked under on the seat. It turns out the hum of the car engine and the repetitive landscape had eventually worked to send Bette to sleep.
“I was just about to wake you sleepy head,” Tina said. “We are at a diner in Tulsa.”
Bette just nodded and stretched her arms as she tried to wake up. She loved her car, it had been a high school graduation present from her father and it had seen her through a lot, but her legs ached from the extended time of being coiled up like a snake. “You should've woken me up for my shift.”
The brunette widened her eyes, as if to force them to stay open when Tina smiled down at her and shrugged. “You just looked so happy asleep.”
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Day Three
Day three started out well. The sun shone nicely, and Bette made sure to buy them both coffees. A deliberate effort to be nicer after Tina’s good deed of letting her have extra sleep the day before. The brunette tries, so much, to keep that energy and thoughtfulness going throughout the day. That doesn’t mean she finds it easy. She hates chatter for chatter sake but Tina seems to thrive off of it.
For the past two hours, the blonde had been rabbiting on about this thing and that thing, and Bette’s pretty sure that even if her life depended on it, she’d be unable to recount what had been said. It was amazing what conversation talkative people could make out of nothing.
“Bette?” The change in Tina’s tone pulled Bette out of her revelry, and she tried to focus back on what the blonde was saying.
“Sorry, I was just looking at the petrol gauge, and I think I missed a question?” Bette lied.
“How long have you been seeing Alice?” Tina repeated.
Bette just shrugged. “Not long. A few weeks I guess. We’ve known each other a little bit longer though.”
“Well, how did you meet?” Tina tried.
Bette felt her hands grip the steering wheel even tighter. “Why all the questions?”
Tina just shrugged. “It was two questions about our only mutual friend and we are only five hours into an eleven hour car trip. Can’t you give me something? I just told you all about my roommate and I’m low on other conversation points.”
Oh, so that’s what she’d been talking about. At least now Bette could fake something about that later on. “We just met at a few parties. I had been trying to get out of my New Haven apartment more over the past few months so I would visit a friend in New York, Laura, and Alice was there. Not all that interesting.”
Tina smiled at the brunette. “Alice would say it’s the beginning of a love story.”
Bett coughed in surprise. “She did not say that.”
“No, she didn’t,” Tina agreed. “But she does really like you. I don’t know her super well but I’ve heard she talks about you a ton.”
Bette breathed out deeply. It wasn’t great to be hearing that Alice was apparently really enjoying their time together when the past few days had nothing but really made it clear to Bette that they needed to break up. Like, pronto. “I really wished she wouldn’t. Sometimes I really fucking hate women. Chatty bitches.”
Tina’s eyes widened at her companion’s anger. “All women or just lesbians?”
“There are no straight women,” Bette claimed, with a scoff. “Are there women yet to be intimate with another woman? Sure. Are there women who marry men? Yes, but are there completely straight women? Not in my experience.”
Tina scoffed. “Well, then I guess I’m a first for you. I’m straight.”
The blonde watched as Bette’s fingers tapped and skidded along the steering wheel. “I disagree. I really don’t get that vibe off of you. And I had the most accurate gaydar of anyone at Yale. There wasn’t one time I was wrong.”
“You met me like two days ago,” Tina argued. “You don’t know me, like, at all. Name one thing about me other than my name? Hell, I'll even take that. What's my last name?”
Bette just shrugged. “Knowing you is besides the point. There are studies. Women have more complex sexualities than men.”
Tina could feel her blood pressure rise alongside her voice. “Besides the point? Studies? You’re trying to say that I’m gay because of some bullshit studies.”
“I don’t think I called you gay, Tina. I just said that you are attracted to women. I mean, you checked out the waitress at dinner last night,” Bette replied.
Tina is pretty sure that Bette has lost her damn mind if she thinks that Tina wouldn’t notice if her sexuality had changed. So yeah, she’d noticed the jeans the waitress had been wearing, but only because she wanted a pair. “You are wrong.”
Bette just sighed. The last thing she needed to deal with after the whole Kelly fiasco was another so-called straight girl suffering a homosexual panic. “How about we just drop it?”
Tina tries to drop it, she does. She tries to drop it when they argue over what CD to listen to, she tries to drop it when they stop for lunch and Tina’s forced to listen to Bette once again compete with herself for the world’s longest order, and she tries to drop it each and every time they switch driving.
She knows, really, she does, that no good can come of the conversation. But, she’s not gay, she’s just not and she doesn’t understand Bette’s need to believe the opposite. Which is how, during after dinner pie, and yes, with it heated for exactly 25 seconds and with the ice cream on the side instead of the advertised cream, for the ever precious Bette, she found herself raising it again. “What about me screams gay to you.”
“This again?” Bette complained. “I thought we agreed to let the sleeping homosexual dog lie.”
Tina just rolled her eyes. “Tell me.”
“It’s an energy, Tina,” Bette informed her. “Indefinable. I feel more strongly, the further across the kinsey scale that you sit. I think you sit pretty far across. The vibe isn’t subtle. I don’t think I’d put you as a five on the scale, but definitely at least a four.”
“Really?,” Tina asked, her tone dipped in anger. “You’ve just decided this after, what, a few days together? Where half the time you’ve barely listened to me?”
“You asked?” Bette argued. “Don’t get mad at me just because you’ve never had great sex. Like, we’ve all suffered from compulsive heterosexuality, you have my sympathies.”
Tina felt her cheeks go red. “I have had good sex, great sex even.”
The blonde’s stomach turned, as Bette’s eyebrows raised in doubt. “Oh yeah? With who?”
“Eric,” Tina tried.
“Now, that's a lie. One that even you don't believe,” Bette told her. “No one has great sex with someone named Eric . Erics’ are pretty boys who are more concerned with their own pleasure than yours.”
Tina grabbed her bag, and put on her coat, eyes already locked in on the exit. “Fuck off Bette. Just fuck off.”
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Day Four
Tina’s silent treatment followed them through to the next morning. When Bette gives back her motel key in the morning, the blonde is already sitting in the car, coffee in hand, a book in the other. The brunette feels her whole body slump, as she observes the scene. There was very little she wanted less than to get into a car for the next ten hours facing the silent treatment.
Even if, thank god, it was their last day in the car together. Bette slid into the passenger seat, and turned to her companion, false cheer living in her smile, determined to test the waters with a bright hello, when she just watched as Tina turned up the music and went back to her book.
Bette prides herself on the fact that it takes her a few hours to break. “Are you seriously just not going to talk to me ever again? All because I think you’d be happier if you dated women. I honestly didn’t think I’d be the first person to tell you that.”
“It’s how you brought it up, Bette,” Tina said. “It wasn’t for my benefit or because you were worried about me. You wanted to be right about something and you didn’t care how telling me this would make me feel.”
Bette let out a sigh. Great, now she felt even shittier. “I honestly never meant to shock you. I mean, I don’t think what I said is all that bad.”
“Bette,” Tina warned. The brunette knew that she was walking a tricky line but she wasn’t going to lie to the blonde.
“So what? You’ve never been a little too interested in a teacher? Never had a best friend that you were just a little extra close to?” Bette asked.
Tina swallowed down the alarm she felt at the questions. “I think it’s best if we really do just end this entire conversation, frankly all conversation now.”
Bette just nodded, understanding the demand. If this really was a big deal to the blond, then it really wasn’t her place to try and force her. Bette stood behind her belief that there was no such thing as a straight woman but she wasn’t going to force Tina to come out and figure out her sexuality within a couple of days in the car with her.
So for hours, and hours, and then even some more hours, they drove essentially in silence. Bette tried some small talk over lunch but barely got mumbled garbling in return. She was determined though, even just for a good report back to Alice, to end this trip on somewhat of a good note.
“Are you really just not going to speak to me?” Bette asked for an even deeper silence. Tina’s eyes didn’t even stray from her book in response. “It’s a pity. You were going to be the only person that I even knew in Los Angeles.”
“Now, that’s a lie,” Tina said. “I don’t believe that at all. You already have a job.”
Bette shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “It seemed like a white lie though.”
Tina just raised her eyebrows in fake surprise before returning back to her book and reinstituting her cone of silence.
By the time they got to Tina’s designated drop off spot in Los Angeles, Bette had given up all, entire hope, of any goodwill being directed her way. Even when she got out of the car to help unload Tina’s bags.
“I guess this is goodbye,” Bette said, with a small awkward wave. It was far from the high strung, dominating personality that Tina had witnessed over the past few days.
God, what the hell, Tina might as well really throw off the neurotic idiot. The blonde took three steps forward until she stood directly in front of the taller woman. Bette’s heeled boots, and Tina’s flat sandals made the height difference even greater, but it didn’t stop the blonde. She just lifted herself up, and gave the briefest, lightest kiss to Bette's surprised mouth.
“Yeah, just as I thought,” Tina said. “I’m not into women at all. ”
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