Amanda Vitale

The Last Trip

Ross parks the borrowed Plymouth down the street from Gayle’s apartment, just like she asked. It’s 5:45 in the morning. They have a two-hour drive to Portland ahead of them, and the doctor warned them not to be late.

In spite of the November chill, Ross is sweating through his jacket. He considers cracking open the car door for cool air. Or he could just climb out, wait out on the sidewalk. Yes, that’s what he’ll do. That way, when Gayle approaches the car, the mist will reveal an icon of indifference, arms crossed, James Dean brought back to life. She’ll be too surprised to say hello, Ross reckons. That’s when he’ll open the door for her and say something witty and impressive. What that is, he doesn’t know.

Too absorbed by their imaginary reunion, Ross doesn’t see Gayle hurrying through the darkness. Not even bothering to knock on the window, she yanks the door open.

“Nice car,” Gayle says, leaning down to see him, frozen in the driver’s seat. “Did you steal it?”

Then she’s in the passenger seat beside him, black coat swallowing her whole, a pillbox hat to match. A fragrant dampness fills the car. Ross shifts forward in his seat to get a good look at her. She’s even wearing makeup.

Gayle’s tight smile falls when she notices how hard Ross is looking at her. “Good morning to you too,” she says.

“Right. Sorry. Good morning.” He almost asks how she’s doing but thinks better of it. He has mapped out how he wants this day to go. Saying the wrong thing to Gayle before they even hit the road is a sure way to ruin his plan.

“Did you steal that hat from Jackie Kennedy?” he says instead.

She makes a laughing noise in her throat. “I needed to look the part. But really, whose car is this?”

“My roommate’s. He let me borrow it,” Ross says. He leaves out the fact he had to do his roommate’s economics homework to get the keys.

Earlier that summer, just weeks after high school graduation, Ross kissed Gayle for the first time while they sat at the Meier & Frank luncheonette counter downtown, waiting for their ice cream sundaes. He hadn’t planned to do it there, but this was their Saturday tradition, and they were adults now.

She didn’t pull away or lean in, she just let him do it. After it was over, she said they would only ever be friends. She wasn’t being cruel, which somehow made it worse. Gayle wanted to go places, and Ross did not. He liked Oregon and its rainy seasons and the lush greenery that came afterward. He was content with weekend trips to the coast, a slanted-roof home outside of Portland. Gayle told him that if he left Oregon with her to go wherever (Gayle did not have a destination in mind), he’d eventually hate her for it.

Gayle was the smartest person he knew. Not because she was good at everything–she most certainly was not–but she put in the work. She took advanced algebra as a freshman and spent many Saturday evenings at the kitchen table with her books next to the unwashed dinner dishes. She rarely raised her hand in class, reserving those moments for when she was more than sure of the answer. All this to say, she’d become an expert in Ross and knew him better than he knew himself.

Ross left the luncheonette that day alone. As he rode his bike home, he tried not to cry, because that’s just what Gayle would’ve expected him to do. While he hid in his room and ignored his mother calling him down for dinner that night, he thought, Gayle knows I’m sulking in my room right now, that’s why she hasn’t called yet. He went downstairs to help set the table, said nothing when his mother asked what was wrong, and when the phone rang several hours later, he told his mother not to answer it. 

Gayle and Ross started at the university in Eugene that fall and prior to the failed kiss, they had planned their class schedules around the other. When school began, Ross made an appointment with the registrar to drop some of his classes, but when this proved unsuccessful, he sat on the opposite side of the lecture hall until he finally changed majors to something she hated.

As the leaves brightened in the fall, so did Ross. He joined a fraternity and played helmetless football on the university’s club team. He even secured an invite to the Alpha Phi social earlier that fall. It was with a girl who bore a striking resemblance to Tuesday Weld. She had a red, puckered mouth that was easy to find in the dark.

After a few minutes on the road, Gayle unclasps her leather purse. “I’ve got something for you. Hold out your hand.”

Something cold and small drops into his palm.

“Joan said this doctor only sees married women,” Gayle says by way of explanation. “So I got us rings from a garage sale.”

Ross shoves the ring into his jacket pocket and regrips the wheel since the road is slick. While small, the ring throws his body off center. She expects me to say nothing, he thinks. What she doesn’t expect is the new Ross, who asks questions when he deserves the answers.

“Does he know your procedure is today?” Ross asks. “I mean, does he even care?”

Gayle looks out the window at the dark nothing.

“He’s at least paying for it, right?”

The car fills with an uneasy silence, weighed down by his more-than-apparent attempt to make her feel rotten.

Truth be told, the only reason Ross is even in this car is guilt.

A particular memory manifests in Ross as he drives, but it doesn’t come from his brain but the pit of his stomach; a sick, rolling sensation. Last week, in the library, Ross walked right past Gayle at a table with her new friends. Girls with bumpy skin who wore too much black, pencil-thin guys who talked about nuclear treaties with the Soviet Union. When Gayle saw Ross, she took off her glasses and waved. But he ignored her and felt so pleased about it afterward.

“So this doc, he thinks we’re married?” Ross says. “We don’t need to show a marriage license, right?”

“No.” Gayle looks at him with an air of irritation. “I mean, how morally righteous can this doctor be? Who is he to demand proof of good behavior?”

The headlights of an oncoming car cut through the darkness. Bright and alive and staring right at Ross.

“We should have a story, though,” he says. “In case the doctor asks us…like where we got married, do we have other kids?”

Gayle leans toward the dashboard and starts to turn the radio dials. She asks, “You don’t mind if I put the news on for President Kennedy’s funeral, do you? I think it’s starting back east.”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“We should listen. We’re good Catholics.” She flashes him an amused and unsettling smile. “Most days.”

He waves her hand away from the radio dial so he can search for the broadcast. It was Gayle’s idea to schedule the procedure during the president’s funeral. Everyone will be inside watching it, she told him over the phone yesterday, no one will see us going into the doctor’s basement office.

They listen to a solemn, crackly description of President Kennedy’s last trip from the Capitol to the White House in a flag-draped coffin.

Something about this scene inspires Gayle to say, “If the doc asks, let’s say…we were high school sweethearts.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“We can say our first date was the spring dance sophomore year. Right?”

But it was their junior year spring dance. Gayle’s seventeenth birthday party had been a few days after, and she wore a purple dress, hand sewn by Ross’ mother, to both the dance and her party. Ross doesn’t correct her, because Gayle will probably say, “You always liked those dances more than me,” or something gratuitous like that.

Once in Portland, he parks a block over from the doctor’s house. The car hisses and pops now that the engine is off. Gayle too seems discontent with the sudden stillness. A noisy exhale like there’s too much air in her lungs, then she’s sliding the ring on her finger. It’s far too large. Ross wishes he didn’t notice. Then he spies a gold bracelet on her tiny wrist. She didn’t buy that herself, he thinks.

Needing to get out of this confined space, Ross throws open the door, but Gayle catches his arm.

“Wait, you need to put the ring on.”

Ross drops the ring once it’s free from his pocket. It bounces on the seat and disappears into the dark. He swears and leans down to look for it under his seat. Embarrassment beads on his forehead.

Gayle pushes him back so she can easily pluck the ring from the floorboard.

“I thee wed,” she says while taking his sweaty hand and sliding the ring on his finger.

This is exactly what he did and didn’t want. Something grows between the past and present versions of himself, a membrane surprisingly strong despite its translucence. Now there’s a big, dumb smile on his face. Just like that, there’s little left of his reinvention. So it clearly wasn’t much of a reinvention at all.

“This is not how I pictured it,” he says with a soft laugh.

“We can stop by a divorce lawyer. See if they have a special rate for nuptials lasting twenty-four-hours or less.”

“As long as you take me out to a steak dinner with all the money you saved on this dime store lawyer.”

“Are you asking to be asked out? What would your fraternity brothers think?”

Ross waits for Gayle to mention his new girl. She must know he’s been busy in her absence. But Gayle is laughing, and he laughs too, but their amusement dies quickly, as if a passenger in the back seat said, you won’t see much of each other after this.

“Thank you…thank you for coming with me today,” she whispers, now serious. “It wasn’t your problem.”

His gaze catches on the hem of Gayle’s skirt. All those things she did with someone else. She was a girl with plans, and that’s what he admired about her. But today is proof that she did learn to compromise, in some manner, with someone. Just not him.

“Of course I’d be here,” he says. “You’re making the right choice.”

She looks like she wants to say, Don’t pity me.

“My mother called me to say that I’m never going to get married if I join student government instead of a sorority. I said I don’t plan on marrying at all, but look at me.” She wiggles her ring finger. “She’d be so proud of her little girl.”

No marriage? This is new information to him. He looks at the ring, then at her face, a puzzle that he feels less and less capable of solving. What has changed in her life since last summer?

“You don’t want to get married? Since when?” he asks. “Ever?”

The humor disappears from her expression, like they were actors on stage and Ross had flubbed one too many lines.

“Maybe I’ll get married and buy a house in California, or maybe I’ll get married a bunch of times in a bunch of different places or maybe I won’t get married at all,” she says with fresh disdain. “It doesn’t really matter.”

She takes out two dollars from her purse. “I assume you told your roommate you would fill up the car with gas. This should be more than enough.”

“I’m not taking that,” he says before getting out of the car.

By the time Ross slams the door, Gayle is already on the sidewalk, scraping her mud-caked heel on the edge of the curb. Without looking at him, she holds up the folded dollar bills for him to take.

Ross glances up and down the street and is relieved to see it’s deserted. The pavement is slick with last night’s rain. Without a breeze, everything is still and damp.

Instead of taking the money, Ross digs his hands into the pockets of his new sport coat. The Alpha Phi said he looked good in it. The lump in his stomach forms out of concern for Gayle’s feelings, not his own. He is about to set her straight.

She chose her ambitions over him, and look where she ended up—coming back to Ross for help.

“Gayle, listen.” He presses his toes down hard in his shoes. “We’ve each changed since we last–”

She spins around, her face brilliant and flushed, suddenly close enough that he can smell the cakey staleness of her lipstick. Her hand is at his waist, digging and pulling till she secures the waistband of his trousers, never once breaking eye contact. Then she yanks his white undershirt up. Damp air finds the prickled skin of his lower stomach, now sucked in with anticipation.

Please, he thinks and maybe even whispers out loud. His heartbeat is in his ears. In this moment, on a leafy street in a Portland suburb, Gayle could do anything to Ross and he would let her.

Her finger hooks into his belt loop and pulls it from his body. Between skin and fabric, she wedges in the two-dollar bills.

“Keep the change,” she whispers.

Ross blinks and discovers Gayle is already walking fast toward the doctor’s house. It’s right there on the corner. Far too close, he didn’t realize it was so close. He watches Gayle’s quick pace, how eager she is to get on with it, and he knows he is witnessing the beginning and the ending, something that is both dead and alive. What comes next is a sadness that can only precipitate peace.

He stuffs the money in his pocket, yanks his shirt back down. Then he hurries after Gayle who is already far ahead.

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Amanda Vitale: “‘The Last Trip’ was written in response to a prompt that simply said ‘1963.’ My first instinct was to write a story about JFK’s funeral, but then I thought it would be more interesting to write a piece about characters not watching his funeral, and if so, why? I started this piece before the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, so returning to it after that stunning reversal of women’s bodily autonomy was an unusual experience but reminded me why storytelling is so critical in the first place. I am originally from Arizona but now reside outside of Washington, D.C. I enjoy writing fiction about recent or not-so-recent historical trends to remind us where we’ve been.”