Therese made no attempt to conceal the tiny, amused smile which had appeared on her lips, knowing that it wouldn't be interpreted as a sign of derision. Standing between the coffee table and one of the sofas, with her hands bunched up in front of her like a good girl, she followed the dash of yellow and lavender with her eyes. She found it amusing, the way Carol often demonstrated her concern by chastising her in inoffensive, little bouts. Upon arriving home, Therese had squeezed Carol's outreached fingers without giving it any thought, but it elicited a loud, shocked gasp in the blonde woman, who had risen from the bottle-green sofa as if stung. Straightening her skirt, Carol had purposefully marched into the kitchen to put the kettle on, and embarked on one of her breathy reprimands, declaring it outrageous that Therese didn't own a pair of gloves, that Therese's hands were so cold that she could probably warm them up by sticking them in the icebox.
Remaining where she was, in the center of the apartment, she let the amusement caused by Carol's indignation translate into an overflowing surge of emotion. They read each other, she thought, without having to deconstruct each other, without having to line up and analyze all the little parts separately, excruciatingly. Such was the difference, she supposed, between constantly struggling -and failing- to grasp a word here and there (something which happened with other people) and speaking each other's language.
"Sit. Drink this." With resolute force, Carol set down the tray with all the tea paraphernalia, making the white china rattle slightly.
That was one of the homey sounds which gave her peace, along with the snap of Carol's lighter, the clinking of tumblers in the cupboard, the dull thud of Carol's jewel case when it shut, and the needle touching a record late in the afternoon. More comforting than any of those sounds was perhaps the opposite: the sudden disappearance of the tap-tap-tap of Carol's heels, which meant that she had slipped out of her shoes and was padding around the apartment in her stockings.
Their home. It was both a place and a person, she'd discovered, being someone who had never really had a home. For Therese, there was an overwhelming clarity in being with Carol which she had felt from the very first moment, like an inevitably cosmic sensation, even before she'd known to label it as love. It was the clarity of saying "yes" to every proposition: sitting across from Carol in a restaurant right before she'd pensively called her "a strange girl", clutching the large phone receiver in the hallway, or sitting on the terrace of her building, feeling the relief wash over her at the prospect of their road trip. How taken aback -disappointed, hurt, and almost indignant- she'd been when Carol had informed her that she would be leaving for a while, wherever her car would take her. Not even in retrospect did Therese want to think of it as some form of entitlement – nothing as aggressive as that. Being in Carol's company had been, from the beginning, like the discovery another bodily function, a new way of devoting not only her senses, but all that she was, for she would have done anything for Carol.
Only when Therese had taken several sips of the smoky beverage -her fingers curled around the cup to warm them up-, did Carol visibly relax: combing back a few yellow strands of hair using her pinkie, she lit a cigarette, reclined on the sofa, and sighed. And when the exhaled cloud of smoke broke against Therese's shoulder and engulfed her, she set down her teacup, responding to a wordless invitation. She leaned in, burying her face in the neck of Carol's lilac sweater, and felt the woman's body welcoming her: sighing again, as if to make even more room for Therese. She breathed in Carol's perfume, which had been greatly missed all day, and moved her hands round her waist to press on the small of her back.
On one occasion she had refrained from saying "yes", and still it hadn't been a clear-cut "no", but an "I don't think so". It had nevertheless taken everything in her to utter those words, for they implied continuing to live as she had lived during those endless months without Carol: as an ascetic, refusing to indulge her senses in the thing they desired the most, grasping onto some sense of control. It had been comparably easier to exist frugally all those years before Carol, for she hadn't known what she'd lacked, or that she'd lacked anything at all, just feeling that permeating feeling of dissatisfaction like a bad taste in her mouth: a reminder that there was something not entirely right with her. However, she had emerged from the abrupt end of their road trip and from those months a stronger person; after all, anyone could be a Spartan, provided they'd never known anything apart from bleakness and hardship. Therese didn't feel childlike anymore, nor a prisoner of a two-dimensional, misty city. "Is that what comes from getting away from me?" Carol had asked in the bar of the Ritz Tower, at once attempting irony and delivering a bittersweet jab against herself. Her sadness had bled through her words and her carefully composed facade, as it sometimes did, and only then had Therese uttered a firm "no".
She had found a place in the world (or rather, dug herself a little nook among a homogeneous mass of white-shirted, chain-smoking, strident newsmen), and lost some of the old, all-encompassing sense of disconnectedness, along with most of her wide-eyed gaze. But she would have never voluntarily relinquished being with Carol in that desperate, tail-chasing trip, nor had she truly found that Carol could be blamed. The worst part was that she had understood Carol's impossible situation, yet the knowledge that they'd both gone against themselves had first broken her, then haunted her, and finally hardened her.
It felt like a long time ago, even though less than a year had gone by since she had pushed out of the backseat of Carol's Packard -driven by Abby-, feeling sicker than she'd ever felt, later realizing that it had been a somatic reaction to the pain of having lost Carol. Once home, she had gingerly developed every single picture she'd taken during their journey, grasping at shadows to obtain shadows of what she'd felt, of what she'd had: staring at inky blurs floating in liquid while they slowly composed the shapes of the woman she loved. And, naturally, when that proved insufficient, she'd dared to stand on her tiptoes and drop a coin into the hallway payphone. "I miss you," she'd said, and then again, "I miss you," softly, into the black receiver, when Carol had already hung up on her, with the dial tone as her sole listener.
Carol's hand rubbed her gently between the shoulders and then moved upwards: from the back of her neck to her hair. Responding immediately, Therese shivered, and lifted her head when she felt Carol shifting underneath her – she was reaching out to deposit her cigarette in the ashtray, so that her fingers were now free to trace the skin under Therese's chin and stroke her cheek. Their eyes locked, and Therese felt another jolt of emotion which made her insides tighten and jump. She now knew to recognize this as a sign of desire, something certainly unknown to her before Carol, and very much tangible to her -albeit in the most visceral of ways- when they were getting to know each other. Back then, it had been more akin to blindly hurling herself towards that brilliant source of light and heat, like a moth, unable to verbalize how or why, but without struggling to figure out an explanation. She'd had no reserves, none of the past chronic unpreparedness to take steps forward she'd felt with Richard. On the contrary, what she'd found impossibly harrowing had been the inability to do anything. The worst feeling of all, she'd discovered, was the passive and eternal wait for time to heal a wound.
"I've missed you," Therese whispered, grateful and completely aware of the fact that she wouldn't have to pronounce those words in the present tense again.
There was a slight change in Carol's expression – a softening of her features, a glint in her eyes. If she set her mind to it, Therese could write a thick volume's worth of tiny gestures and glances of varying length, of pitch and tone of voice – things which were imperceptible to the world but earthshaking for them. They had never stopped seducing each other, or so it seemed to her; whether deliberately or unconsciously, Carol stirred her with her mere presence. At that precise moment, however, inside the home they had made for themselves, it was safe to do much more. Carol raised her head and kissed her, enveloping Therese's lips with her own, tightly, as if she didn't wish to let go of them.
The way Carol's fingers sifted through her hair invariably weakened her, but in the manner of a wave: receding only to move forward. Therese pushed her upper body against Carol's -their breasts breathing and moving as one- and she parted her mouth to deepen the kiss. Her hands closed around Carol's sweater instinctively, revealing the warm skin underneath it, and her fingertips started drawing abstract shapes up and down the woman's sides. With an inflaming, low-pitched moan, Carol sat up and unbuttoned Therese's jacket, exposing her clavicles before bowing her head and covering them with slow, wet kisses. Therese gasped and arched her back, grabbing a handful of blonde hair. Their bodies were arranged in opposed postures, which enabled them to be much closer – Therese all but sitting on Carol's lap.
Harshly, suddenly, the doorbell rang, and Carol let out a muffled chuckle, her lips still pressed against Therese's collarbone. "You made me forget Abby and Shirley were coming over."
"I forgot, too." Therese tried to rearrange her long skirt, which had sprawled over Carol's legs. She blinked in the golden illumination of the room like an astonished child waking up from a dream, with the rude, electrical ringing still in her ears. "I thought I'd have time for a shower."
"Later," Carol said, firmly, but winking at her as she walked past her towards the door, casually fixing her clothes and her hair.
Therese stood up and rebuttoned her jacket, in spite of being sure that her cheeks were on fire and of how flustered she felt. From that spot she could see a section of the front door and of Carol, and heard the usual sounds of guests arriving: high-pitched greetings, minor complaints about the weather, the traffic, or the scarcity of parking spaces, and the rustling of coats. She picked up the tray with her forgotten tea and brought it into the kitchen, for she could see that Carol had bought copious things to drink and prepared enough hors d'ouvres and finger sandwiches, but hadn't yet carried them out to the living room.
"Where's Therese? Oh, there you are!" Abby, who was about to enter the kitchen but had her head turned towards Carol, almost bumped into the refilled tray. She delivered a peck to Therese's cheek and let her pass, already rummaging her purse for a cigarette. In any case, her abilities lied in mixing drinks, which she set out to do straightaway, with the cigarette confidently poised between her lips and commending them on the apartment's latest modifications at the same time.
For a moment, the four of them shared the same few square feet in a confusing coming and going of food, glassware, and greetings. Shirley squeezed Therese's arm and kissed her cheek as well before helping her. Even though they didn't know each other all that well, Therese believed she liked her, with her imposing height and her curly mane of red hair, because she appeared to counter her striking appearance with a warm voice and a mellow prosody.
They settled in the living room after an initial fuss about where the napkins were and which records they should play, with Abby and Shirley occupying the green sofa and Carol gesturing for Therese to sit with her on the pinkish loveseat next to the record player. She noticed that someone -probably Carol- had poured her a glass of white wine, which was her preference, and she drank deeply after they had clinked their glasses and giggled through a variety of toasts. Therese wriggled closer to Carol and smiled up at her when she felt the woman's fingers stroking and parting her hair. She thought about that single kiss to the cheek, how the few times Therese had met some of Abby's acquaintances -women like them-, they had greeted one another that way.
The night she'd felt hollow except for a cold, creeping loneliness, the night she'd understood that she could never let go of Carol and that nobody else could ever measure up, when she'd gone searching for her at the Oak Room, Therese had remained completely still, trying to catch a glimpse of her through the blur of dark suits sluggishly strolling about. She'd experienced a sort of calm impatience, as in those interminable seconds when one had to wait for a cloud to move aside in order to feel the heat of the sun once again. And then, after spotting each other, Therese had had the serene certainty that it would always be Carol. Their growing smiles had been more determinant than any signature or anything anyone could ever put on paper, yet invisible to everybody else there. "Hello, darling," Carol had said with mild surprise, when Therese had approached the table, as if nothing monumental had just taken place, then stood up and kissed her cheek while the others made room for her. "I'm so delighted you were able to make it." In the midst of a waterfall of emotions, Therese had admired Carol for being able to speak at all, but that supposedly meaningless gesture, that kiss, enclosed so many things, like the sharing of a secret.
In most ways, they were just like everybody else, but Carol had chastised her the minute Therese had attempted to separate herself from "those people" who looked a certain way. Not that they weren't special, but they were only special to themselves. The world was full of people like them and all kinds of people, but weren't they all inherently the same? Therese had known that Carol was right and, in a way, she'd already understood that the night of Phil's party, when she'd met Genevieve Cantrell. Weathered, and worldlier than when she'd first encountered Carol, Therese had recognized the layered interplay of signals and glances, the young woman's interest in her, and hadn't judged them as alien to her. The fact that she'd felt cornered and had locked herself inside the bathroom was a different matter -perhaps one of timing-, and an insurmountable one, for the sight of other couples doing the commonest things in their own little bubbles had provoked a specific yearning within, which nobody else could have filled: the acceptance of the knowledge that she hadn't stopped loving Carol.
She snuggled closer to Carol, stole her cigarette, and grinned at the woman's mock-protest ("You thief!") as she puffed away. Therese then captured Carol's free hand with her own and interlocked their fingers, earning an almost imperceptible, joyful squeal from the blonde. With the exception of occasional, humorous remarks from Carol, they were all listening to Abby as she recounted a long-winded, topsy-turvy tale about a romantic beach picnic she and Shirley had attempted to have on the windiest, most tempestuous of days.
"The damned blanket kept blowing in our faces, along with half the sand on the beach, and this one-" Abby nudged Shirley, who'd turned away because her own laughter had caused her a coughing fit, "this one was on her hands and knees, saying 'It's not that bad', 'It's not that bad', over and over to make me feel better, until I told her to eat her sand sandwich."
Enjoying the vibration of Carol's abdomen when she laughed, Therese looked at Abby and wondered if she'd ever seen her so chipper. Mordant and incisive, yes, and good with an audience, entirely capable of holding her own, but Therese believed she'd detected a new easiness in her demeanor and even in her laughter – something which no doubt had plenty to do with Shirley. Perhaps, however, it was also about Carol, about seeing Carol happier and living her life instead of boxed in as if in a dollhouse, however much she missed sharing her daughter's day-to-day. Therese had grown to appreciate Abby since the days when she'd felt their bond left her on the outside looking in, suspecting that there would be parts of Carol she'd never be able to access, whereas Abby did have a key. Now, at least, she no longer had the nagging sensation of being a little girl watching two adults interact, turning her head this way and that like the spectator of a tennis match, wishing to help but unequipped to do so, which had everything to do with her own growth and not because there had been any change in Carol and Abby's friendship.
Shirley pointed at the wall between the kitchen and their bedroom door, which was almost entirely covered in framed photographs, and asked if they were all Therese's. With difficulty, because Carol was gently tugging at the hair on the back of her head, Therese nodded. She liked the simple presentation she'd chosen for each of them -a thin, tarnished silver frame and a black passe-partout-, since most were nothing more than snapshots of the city, instances of humanity squeezing between the buildings which, for whichever reason, had caught her eye. Carol's proud expression whenever somebody mentioned her photography always made her giddy with bliss. There were, in fact, several pictures of Carol on display, including one Therese had taken from the window of their apartment: Carol making her way down Madison Avenue, impossible to miss or mistake for anybody else even at a distance. One which wasn't there but in their bedroom, on Carol's dressing table, showed Carol dressed with flair but kneeling on the ground to get closer to Rindy's height, and they were both looking down at something on the child's tiny hand, with Carol touching her daughter's fingertips with her own.
Possessed by a sudden urge, Therese rushed to fetch her camera, and attempted to photograph the three women as naturally and discreetly as possible, with the smoke blooming from their cigarettes providing a sort of mysterious hue. Her intention was to portray the intimacy between them, their rapport, which commonly went unnoticed. She was accustomed to being the observant eye and had very often felt invisible, but Carol had looked at her and had seen her, and would never forget that she was there. That her presence could affect Carol so much, that she could make such a difference, impressed Therese still.
"Abby," Carol said, staring directly into Therese's eyes and gingerly removing the camera from between her hands. "Would you take our picture?"