High Sierra
By Missy

SERIES: Souvenirs
SUBTITLE: High Sierra
FOLLOWS: Souviners, Fire With Fire, Bury That Jewel
PART: 1 of 1
RATING: R
PAIRING(s): L/L
DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, Myself and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask, but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!
CATEGORY: Songfic.
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SETTING IN TIMELINE: California Era
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: Laverne thinks upon the path which lead her to this place, this lake
NOTES: Fourth fic in a shared universe. Lyrics from the Parton/Harris/Rondstadt song "High Sierra." Don't belong to me, they belong to the writers.

Boldface = flashbacks, italics=lyrics in this chapter.

****
On a half-tank of gas and full stomachs, they pulled off of the highway and into a hospitable, free campground sight.

Laverne noticed the marked coolness in the air when Lenny pulled the brake. She jumped out of the car as soon as they came to a rest, stretching her aching legs.

He slumped against the side of the car and began fanning himself, trying to break the almost acrid heat burning their throats and noses. And yet he moved more slowly, as though he were lost in another world entirely. Laverne understood his distance, one that had lain in his skin since learning of Squiggy's leaving California.

She had spent the afternoon entertaining herself with thoughts of others just as far away.

***

I've been higher than the high sierra
Lower than Death Valley must be
I've been right, mostly wrong
Wrong about you, right about me

He lay across the seat, his bare toes wiggling against the wind. Sometime after two, she insisted on driving them through Nevada and into Texas. Tired, he did not complain, and instead slept like a log, his head in her lap.

She smiled to herself; Fonzie used to do that. He would spend long nights in garages, trying to get enough money to buy his own bike. They would nuzzle together at the movies and spend the rest of their time just talking.

It was all so perfectly innocent, something not even Shirley had believed. Sexuality didn't figure into things until long after he had graduated, and then treated her like a gentleman. They hadn't gotten very far.

The older they got, the fewer pretentious she had, the more he gained. After he moved into the Cunningham's place, he suddenly had less and less time for her, beyond asking for favors that caused stress and embarrassment. The magical understanding they had was gradually lost, and she felt replaced at the end of the road.

***

"You want some chocolate?"

Laverne shook her head, lifting her chin to the wafting breezes. Something had to be directing those heavenly breezes up toward them.

"Water!"

Laverne looked down. A short distance and at the end of a winding path sat a small sand beach and a pond of cool, clear liquid.

Lenny pulled off his tee-shirt before she could ask if he wanted to take a dip.

***

I've been cussed and I've been praised
And I've been nothing these days

Then there was Norman; sweet, funny, loyal. She dated firemen and sportsmen for a reason; in each individual case, it seemed like they could take care of her. Norman had failed in that; being transferred to Massachusetts and conveniently losing her number.

All memories of Randy were locked away, too painful to examine. Memories of Jake were too meager to even be considered.

***
At the edge of the pond, she stripped off her white blouse, carefully folding it until it lay L-side up.

"Vernie, whattya waitin' for?" Lenny was already down to his jeans.

"My zipper's stuck." She lied, as she fiddled with the fly of her shorts.

"Want me to help?"

Abashed, she shrunk back. "Uh, no, no...I can get it." She pulled the zipper down while he busied himself with his motorcycle boots.

Her boots came off quickly, and she didn't look up before diving into the lake. She quickly regretted diving to its depths, which were pitch-black in the evening. Groping for her bearings, she finally found the surface and broke it, gasping.

Once she finished bobbing, she realized two things; she had been instantly refreshed and Lenny was staring at her, his eyes bright in the glow of the moon.

"It's cold, but it's nice." She gasped.

He grinned and bit his palm.

"What's that about?" Then she looked down and, with a groan, tried to sink deeper into the lake.

Nothing on the label said anything about her bra becoming see-through when it was wet.

"Aww!" He complained, squatting the edge of the lake, where he could meet her eyes. "Whatt're you hiding for?"

"Cause you can see more of me than I can of you!"

"I can fix that..." Lenny stood up and stuck his thumb into the waistband of his boxers.

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Yeah..." Embarrassment crept into his expression.

"Oh..." A wicked gleam entered her eyes. "Want me to dare you?"

I dare you. Three words they had tossed back and forth throughout their childhood.

She saw the waistband of his shorts slip over his hips before she disappeared beneath the water, cheeks red.

***

The way I feel, can't explain
So much passion turned to pain
The sun still shines most of the time
Did you know the sun shines when it rains

And then there was Sonny. Sonny, to whom she had opened her heart...only to have it mailed back to her when he started dating a stewardess. Their relationship had gone down in flames of anger and mistrust.

And then there was Lenny...should she put him in league with those other men? Could she?

He had been there, met each of those men; had envied, praised, hated and pretended cool blasé-ness. The entire time, he had let her fall and rise on her own merits, until they found one another.

And made an entirely different discovery in the doorway of her apartment.

***

She surfaced to the cold, clear water and absolute silence.

"Lenny?" She called, worry setting in.

She screamed when two arms pulled her backwards.

"Gotcha!" He said against her ear.

"Don't you do that again!"

"I won the dare." He pointed out, as they paddled backwards. She turned around and faced him; Laverne looked down, felt a wave of embarrassment, and tried to meet his eyes. "Whatt're you scared of."

"Nothing!"

"You are too!" He shoulders slumped a little. "I get it. Ya don't wanna see my..."

"Lenny!" She gasped.

"It ain't yucky, Laverne; it's the least-yucky thing I got!"

"It's not that."

"Why?"

"Cause I ain't ever seen a guy before." She said.

He broke into laugher. "Don't try an' make me feel better."

"It's true."

"What about Fonzie?"

"I said 'looked', Len, not touched."

"Do you want to?"

"Want to what?"

"See me?"

The last was delivered in a conspiratorial whisper. "Not yet."

"But I saw you!"

"I want it to be special."

Lenny groaned. "I waited thirty years for special, Vernie. What've I got?"

"I know what you got." Laverne pointed out. She suddenly realized how close their bodies were, how well she could feel.

He pressed himself against the softness of her belly. There she could feel everything from his developing arousal to the vibration of water being treaded against her side. She squeezed her eyes shut, a tiny moan escaping her lips. His lips were cold, but substantive, nurturing.

A sudden flashlight on the water was the rudest awakening possible.

"Hello? Does someone own this car?" A voice shouted from up the path.

Lenny swam out in front of Laverne, protecting her with his body. "Yeah, it's mine."

"It needs to be moved; this is private property. The campgrounds are a couple of miles back."

"Okay, buddy. Just let me get on land." The light over the water dimmed, and he took a second to press himself against her once more. His voice was rough and muted. "Remember when we were six?"

A thousand things seemed to race through Laverne's mind "Why?"

"You were the one who taught me how to swim."

And she knew, without having to be told, that was exactly what she needed to do to get to shore.

***

When she had woken up that morning, she understood, with absolute certainty, why she was spooned against Lenny's fully-dressed body in the backseat of his convertible. They changed clothing behind trees, used the public faculties, and found breakfast with a couple of itinerant former hippies, then gassed up. Before there had been some slight doubt, but no more.

The questions, which had flashed through her mind earlier in the drive suddenly seemed clearer. Running away with any other man that'd come before him would've been a bad choice; and this, above all else, was...well, not perfect. Just. She decided she liked that word a lot.

Something else swept through her as she recalled that they hadn't completed what they'd started that night. She felt like a tease. That was almost as bad as...she regretted that negative thought she'd had about Shirley the second it came from her wandering mind. Shirley wasn't, after all, much of a tease; that much she learned after breaking her diary's coding system. But why was she even thinking about being a tease, when she'd never promised Lenny her body? Never dared him to follow her that far?

She punched the brake and slid into the parking lot of a Dairy Queen. He lay perfectly still for a moment before rolling his head deeper into her lap, the buckle on her belt waking him up.

He stretched, yawned. "What time'sit?"

"About five."

"Aww, I slept too much!"

"Nah; I just followed Route 66." She felt a flash of regret as he set up.

"I'm sorry, Vernie. I messed up your skirt..."

She looked down and noticed a blob of Dippity-Doo on her skirt. "It's okay. This was Shirl's skirt. Actually, it was her shawl, and I sewed it up into a..."

"Laverne, I ain't sorry for what I did last night."

"I'm not, either."1

"Then why didn't we..."

"Cause..." She squeezed the hand that rested on her knee. "It wasn't the right time. When it is, nothing's gonna stop us."

"Sure?" He sounded like a very vulnerable child.

"I didn't let you go for a reason, Len."

"Okay. I'm getting a burger; you want something?"

"A shake, some fries, a burger..."

"Lemme write it down." She gave him her order once more. Slowly. When he left, she noticed that the place's pay phone was unoccupied.

Fortifying herself with self-confidence, she picked up the phone and dialed her father's number.

I've been higher than the high sierra
Lower than Death Valley must be
I've been right, mostly wrong
Wrong about you, right about me.




Fin

To "Bury That Jewel"
To "Walking Lonley"









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