Author's note to the readers:
Yes, I know it's been a year since my last chapter...I apologize and can only offer up the fact that this past year has been 'full'. Both my professional life and social life has had a year unlike any other, but, in the end, it's all good. All of that being said, let's get back to Trish's story, shall we? I've missed her also...
~~~
No answer...
It was the third time that Trish had tried to reach Bobby's 'friend' in Erie. Cruising at three over the speed limit, Trish was entering the western suburbs of Cleveland and would soon be in Erie, and, not a bad time to stop for the night.
"Vicki, this is Trish, Bobby's friend," she began her message, "give me a call if there's a chance that we might grab a bite to eat or a drink tonight, will you? I'll be staying in or near Erie tonight and just hate to eat alone," laughing after she had said it.
Ending the cell call, Trish kept her eyes on the road, Bonnie Raitt doing her thing from the car's stereo system, while reaching for her 'road roach', jumping a bit when her cell rang.
"Damn, that was quick," Trish said to herself, and the empty car, when the caller I.D. showed it to be Vicki.
"Hey Vicki," Trish said by way of greeting.
"Hey, yourself," Vicki's soft voice replied, "I've been waiting for your call but had to run out for a few hours; sorry I missed the earlier calls, but I'll make it up to you."
"Don't be silly," Trish responded, "I don't expect you to put your life on hold because I'm on a road trip," laughing a bit.
"Bobby told me to take good care of you, so for starters, cancel your reservation, you're staying at my place. Secondly, I have a small dinner party scheduled, so you'll eat and drink here, with a couple of my friends and I. Third, Bobby said you'd try to give me an argument and that I was not to accept your lame-ass excuses, understood?"
"Crystal clear," Trish said, liking the voice on the other end of the call.
"Do you have a Garmin or some such?"
"Yep."
"Punch in the address I'm about to give you and I'll see you in a couple of hours."
Address given, they ended the call and Trish lit her doobie, inhaled deeply, and smilingly, slowly, let the pungent smoke seep from her lips.
"Yowza," She said aloud as the smoke 'hit' her. "Well, alright!", letting the Maui herb carry her eastward into Pennslyvania, the Erie welcoming signs beginning to appear on the roadside.
"Thanks for the directions, Bitch!" Trish said aloud to her navigation system. She had named the on-board system's female voice, 'Bitch'.
Yes, she was stoned when deciding to do that.
"Vicki?, My reliable GPS system 'done fucked up again'", Trish teased into her cell, "I'm at the end of some country lane, at a dead end, staring at a grove of Maple trees...at least, I think they're Maple trees."
"Look to your right," Vicki replied, "See an old, rickity-looking gate and fence?"
"Yeaah," Trish said, dragging out the word as her eyes swept to the right, spying said gate and fence.
"Back up, turn to the gate as if you're going to run through it...the gate should open automatically", Vicki said.
"Well, fuck me running," Trish said as the gate swung open smoothly, revealing a well-worn path with tire tracks into the surrounding grove of trees.
"I'll meet you on the porch," Vicki said, disconnecting afterwards.
The 'driveway' was approximately a half-mile long, winding path, through the beautiful trees and opened up to show an older, Federalist-style, two story house with a porch that surrounded the house on three sides. Standing on the porch, waving, was a very attractive, no, make that, 'extremely', attractive woman of mixed race; Clearly, a bit of Afro-American blood flowing through her veins, coupled with some European genes, as well.
Parking, Trish got out of her car, stretched, and walked towards Vicki who was approaching her, the two of them greeting in a 'new friend's' embrace. Trish quickly judged Vicki to be 'near' her own age, somewhere between thirty-five and forty, she had judged...and, she was very fucking wrong.
Vicki, as it turned out when they exchanged brief introductory bios while Vicki gave Trish a quick tour, was forty-eight but looked nowhere near that age, Trish had decided. Good for her!, Trish thought. Vicki and Bobby had known each other for several years, their common connection, it turned out, to be a woman that they were both 'seeing' when Bobby lived in Erie, years ago.
"The bitch played us both," Vicki chuckled to Trish as she told the story, "So, B and me paid the bitch back by starting to see each other," laughing, then finishing her glass of excellent Merlot.
"The rest, as they say, is history," Vicki opined as she handed Trish a freshly poured glass of wine.
Vicki was a tall (5'9"), willowy (130-ish), woman that looked 10 years younger than her age. She was an artist, and, the head of the Fine Arts Department at a smaller, private Liberal Arts college near Erie. "Where the really wealthy send their kids who can't cut it at the Ivys," referring to Brown, Yale, and the like. Her 200+ year-old home stood on about 10 acres, mostly woodlands, with a small pond, and also had a carriage house that had been remodled to use as her studio. She worked in many mediums but preferred the textures of oils as her favorite.
"Our dinner guests, tonight", Vicki said as they walked back to the 'big house' after the fifty-cent tour, "are colleagues, both professors in their respective fields, both insanely smart, and somewhat unconventional in their lifestyle."
"How so?", Trish asked, curious with that last remark.
Chuckling a bit, Vicki stopped and turned to Trish, saying, "Theirs is a marriage of convenience, the draw for both of them, their intellect, but they also quickly found that they both had the same tastes when it came to sexual gratification..." Vicki's voice trailing off teasingly.
Raising an eyebrow in questioning, Trish simply stared at Vicki, waiting for the punch-line.
"They both like young men," Vicki finally said, turning to continue the trek to the house, "Both for their own reasons, and neither, jealous of the other."
"Whatever works," was Trish's only comment, stopping at her car to grab her overnight bag, following Vicki into the house, bag in hand.
Shown to her bedroom, with it's own bathroom, Trish showered, mused over the conversation with Vicki, dressed, and joined Vicki downstairs, helping with the final prep for dinner.
The Olsens were in their early fifties, attractive in a 'quirky' manner and incredibly witty in a dry sort of way. Dinner was fabulous, Vicki's wine selection even more so, and much too soon, the evening was over and the Olsens on their way.
"Join me for another glass or two, and an after-dinner toke or three?" Vicki asked with a smile.
"Yep." was Trish's simple answer.
Okay, the glass or two turned into a bottle or three, and the tokes, well, the tokes they lost track of amidst the shared laughter on Vicki's porch, the sense of fall coming in that late summer night's air.
They had the same sense of ironic humor about them, both self-assured and strong women in their own worlds. Before they said goodnight-NO!Don't get ahead of me here-it was decided that Vicki would join Trish on the trek into New York's Wine Country. A quick phone call the next morning secured one of Vicki's grad students and her boyfriend as house-sitters for the two or three nights that they'd be gone.
"You still sitting here?" Vicki asked smart-assedly, the next morning, when she buckled her seatbelt, "Let's get this fucking show on the road, girl!"
"O-tay! Buckwheat," Trish replied, pinning Vicki into her seat when she floored her new sport-sedan. And off they went, quickly crossing into New York State on the interstate, then dropping off to pick up local roads towards Auburn, Elmira, and the rest of the Wine Region.
Finding a quaint, quiet B&B that was 'roughly' centrally located among the vineyards, they explored the smaller vineyards, finding several 'gems in the rough'. They laughed, they sampled-boy, did they sample-and returned to the B&B after dinner to sit on their private second-story porch to enjoy the herbs that both had with them.
The more time they spent together, the larger the elephant in the room became. They both knew it was there. They both felt it's presence as they got ready for bed after wine-filled days and smoke-filled evenings. They both felt it but neither did anything about it. Not until their last day, and night, together back at Vicki's home.
It had been decided that Trish would spend another night as Vicki's guest, then start back west to return to Colorado, possibly with Jil as a co-pilot. Trish didn't know about that yet but would call Jil tomorrow as she drove back towards South Bend and Chicago.
