Chapter 1

"Hey," she could hear someone far off in her conscious trying to get her attention, pulling her back to the land of the living. Her eyes flickered open, taking in the half-eaten sandwich she'd given up on finishing, the overturned coffee cups – what a lot of help they'd been! – and then she found that her head was resting on Josh's arm. Josh the tech guy. Josh whom she had only known for several months and now was sleeping on. Great, just great Mary! "You can go on home. I think I've got it from here."

"Are you sure? Oh, Josh. I'm so sorry I fell asleep on you." She righted herself, putting the professional distance that had been lacking back between them. "What time is it anyway?" Mary peered down at her watch but couldn't quite make out the numbers through her half-tired, half-blind eyes.

"It's a quarter past eight." Josh informed her without taking his eyes off of the monitor, the image of the homeless man, James, taking the food he'd just bought to a homeless woman, Ilene, who couldn't walk. Mary had watched the footage over a hundred times that day, knew this man's story like the back of her hand. And she wanted this story to matter, to really stand out and she knew that what she and Josh had accomplished that day was good. Even if Jonah hated her newly founded human interest segment. Well, he can't hate the inflated ratings anyway.

Mary pulled herself up from her seat, her tired body calling out in protest. She was definitely not thirty any longer. These late nights – was 8:15 really that late? – were not as easy to bounce back from as she had once remembered. "You sure you've got it from here?"

"Positive, ma'am." Josh saluted her.

"You can cut it out with the ma'am." She laughed. "Just call me Mary like everyone else. Please, you don't have to make me feel any older than I already am."

"Have a good night, Mary." He smiled. "I'll leave this on Jonah's desk as soon as it's done."

"Great work today." Mary said as she made her way out of the editing room, heading towards her desk. The sandwich Josh had brought her from around the corner several hours ago had done little more than make her want to gag. She was exhausted and starving. She wondered, as she collected up her things, if Rhoda would still be awake. Rhoda, the ever-concerned roommate, had called earlier to see when Mary would be back, promising to save her some proper dinner.

Mary wasn't quite certain why she felt such a pleasant sensation creep through her body at the idea of returning home to Rhoda. Rhoda's sudden appearance back in her life was like a bright ray of sunshine in an otherwise bleak room. Her apartment had not felt the same, not since Steven had died. And perhaps that was why she'd left, gone searching through Europe for something intangible, some kind of relief, perhaps. Though she was quickly realizing that maybe all she'd needed was the return of her very best friend. Now she had something to look forward to every evening, someone to return to and suddenly her apartment was a home again. It was alive and warm – perhaps as it had never been – now that Rhoda inhabited its recesses.

Mary smiled to herself. As she picked up the last of the files she needed to go through to place in her satchel, she felt another presence in the news room. Glancing up she noticed the very first person whom had spoken to her on that fateful first day she'd gotten the job here at WNYT. Andrew. Yes, his name was Andrew. The mail boy. Did they still call them mail boys?

"What are you doing here so late?" Mary inquired.

"Oh, I have to do one last video run before the late news." He shrugged and smiled sheepishly back.

"Ah, they certainly work you hard." Mary nodded.

"Yeah, seems like it sometimes. But not nearly as hard as they work you." He moved ever so much closer to her.

"Oh, no. I do it to myself. I mean, it was my idea to add this segment and – oh, I don't want to bore you. But I'm here this late because it's a labor of love, I suppose."

"I wish I could say that running mail and videos was a labor of love for me." Andrew shoved his hands in his pockets, as if he weren't quite sure what to do with them.

"What is your labor of love?" Mary asked.

"I write. Some poetry, plays, mostly short stories." He glanced down at his shoes.

"Really? I'd love to read something some time." Mary found she would be curious to see what twenty-something year old males wrote about nowadays.

"You would? I mean…certainly. I'll bring you some of my stuff tomorrow." He eagerly looked to her again.

"Of course!" Mary pulled her bag onto her shoulder.

"Hey, I hope you wouldn't take this the wrong way, but uh…would you wanna grab a drink with me?" He motioned towards the elevator bank.

Mary, surprised and a little thrown off, laughed sharply. "Oh! I'm not…not laughing at the idea, I just – you'd wanna get a drink with me?"

"Yeah, sure. You're a cool lady. I think we'd have a lot to talk about." He looked very serious about this drink.

Mary waved him off, "oh, please. I'm old enough to be your mot – older sister."

He laughed. "No, really. What do you say to a drink?" Andrew looked so insistent.

"No, no. Not tonight, I'm afraid. I must get home to sleep."

"Maybe tomorrow night?" He persisted.

"You really want to take me out for a drink?" Mary looked seriously at him.

"Yeah, I, uh," he rubbed at the back of his head. Were his cheeks flushing? What was it with all the younger men who fixated so on her? Did she have some sort of cougar allure – wasn't that what they were called nowadays? Cougars and cubs? "Would you go out with me? Tomorrow?"

Mary laughed nervously, "like on a date?"

"Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah." He nodded.

Well, she had to admire his balls. "Uh, okay. One drink. Tomorrow after work. But it'll have to be before 8:30 or I might fall asleep on you."

"I'm off at 5 tomorrow."

"Great." Mary nodded, a curious smile pulling at her lips. Had she really just agreed to a date with a kid who was practically her daughter's age? Was she losing her mind?

Rose would probably be proud of her, for stepping outside her comfort zone and doing something as crazy as going out with this boy. Oh God, what had she just done?

It was just a drink, right?

The tension eased from her shoulders as she placed the key in the lock, turning the door handle to enter into her home. There was an immediate sense of peace that overcame her, a contented feeling that enveloped her like a hug as she stepped over the threshold and inhaled the fragrant remnants of whatever delicious dish Rhoda had made that evening, mixed with the scent of a cinnamon candle, and a fragrance that was solely Rhoda. It was warm and inviting, this mix of aromas.

"Rhoda! You'll never believe what happened to me today." Mary laughed to herself as she tossed the mail onto the table by the door, her keys going into the little dish, slipping from her heels, moaning in delight as her stocking clad feet hit the ground.

There was no response.

"Rhoda?" Mary tried again, for the woman couldn't be too far away, could she?

Mary rounded the corner into the kitchen, happy to find a little plate covered in tin foil waiting for her – how she'd longed to have had this in her marriage! Perhaps she'd gotten it wrong all those years, maybe she'd needed a wife all along. She read the handwritten note, Rhoda's beautiful, flowing script, of how long to microwave the food, reminding her to remove the tin foil, as if she were a child and didn't know! As she popped it in the microwave she glanced about, realizing that Rhoda was absent. Had she gone to bed already? A wave of disappointment washed over her.

"Rho? Are you still awake?" Mary moved from the kitchen to the sitting room, peering down the stairs into the second level. Here she could make out the sounds of a television, the flicker of its surface dancing on the wall. Rhoda was probably passed out in front of the television, exhausted from her own day of work.

A rather uncharacteristic moan, however, caught Mary's attention. Her ears perked up then, homed in on the sound. Was that…. but certainly Rhoda wasn't making…There it was again! It wasn't a cry of discomfort or fear it was…pleasurable, gratifying, orgasmic. What in the world…

Mary wasn't quite certain she should venture down into the television room. She wasn't quite certain she wanted to know what she'd find. But those moans, those groans of passion were not Rhoda's – not that Mary would know what Rhoda sounded like in such moments, but there was a certain quality to the noises that made Mary very sure they could not belong to Rhoda. So then who….

Mary found herself inching down the stairs, millions of possibilities flashing before her, one including her own daughter, which made her pause for a moment.

When she rounded the corner, her mouth fell open. There, before her, were two women passionately entwined together in some strange position, their bodies completely nude, touching the way a woman and man might. Was that woman really….oh but then…where was her mouth going…. "Oh my God!" Mary gasped.

"Mare?" Rhoda turned then, popping up from her spot on the couch. The television screen went suddenly blank. "Mary, I can explain…I…oh." Rhoda fell into a fit of giggles. "Oh God, kid. I know what this looks like, but I…"

"Well it looks like two women having sex in some kind of pornographic movie." Mary crossed her arms over her chest.

"Uh, yeah, Mare. That would be what two women having sex look like. Oh, come on. You've never watched a porno? Oh, who am I kidding. Of course Mary Richards hasn't seen a porno."

"I never said that." Mary insisted. "Steven and I watched a number of …. pornos …. together."

"A number? Whatd'ya mean? Like one." Rhoda laughed, her body relaxing from being frightened half to the death by Mary's sudden appearance. She moved to the VCR and ejected the tape.

"Why were you watching that?" Mary wasn't sure why her voice quivered when she asked this question.

"Well, I didn't know what it was, to be honest. I was just going through some things and thought I'd see if you had any family videos of when Rose was a little kid. I was curious about her and I found this one, labeled "Rose 1998" and assumed it was a home video, not a porno." Rhoda ran a hand through her hair and moved towards Mary. "I mean, come on, kid. Can you imagine me, Rhoda, voluntarily watching a dirty lesbian flick?" Rhoda's smile was a little lopsided, a little uncertain.

They held one another's gazes for a moment, watching the other. Those nearly twenty years of being separated had left Mary feeling so close yet so far from Rhoda. Did she really know that Rhoda wouldn't watch such a thing?

Mary looked away first. She waved her hands before her, as if clearing the air. "Of course not. I just wonder how it got there."

"Who knows. But clever to hide it in plain sight." Rhoda laughed and stepped past Mary, heading towards the stairs. "Did you find your dinner?"

"Heating it up now." Mary nodded, following after her roommate, back to the kitchen where Rhoda put on a pot of water for tea. Their somewhat nightly ritual.

Rhoda sat at the table with Mary as she picked at her food.

"You'll never guess what happened as I was leaving tonight." Mary, still distracted by what she'd come home to, decided to rewind and take it back to the moment before she'd discovered her housemate watching what she'd been watching.

"What?"

"The mail boy asked me out on a date." Mary rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

Rhoda burst out laughing, "oh Mare. You've still got your charm, kid. Can't keep those men away. Or should I say boys." Rhoda's eyes twinkled. "The younger ones always did take a shine to you, didn't they?"

"You know, you're right. I don't know what it is about me but younger men have always been drawn to me."

"It's your long, long legs and friendly demeanor, I'd say. Lends itself to admirers of the younger generation." Rhoda winked. "Hey, how'd you turn him down?"

Mary glanced up from her bite of delicious smoked salmon – God, had Rhoda learned how to cook! "Uh, I didn't."

"You di – Mare! You can't be serious. How many times do I gotta tell you? The younger ones aren't worth it."

"Oh, Rhoda." Mary reached out and grabbed her hand. "What's the harm in a drink with a colleague. One drink. Tomorrow night."

Rhoda looked rather thrown off by this announcement. "One drink, huh? Well, I trust you'll have him home before bedtime."

"Oh, stop it." Mary released her hand with a laugh. How she'd missed their witty banter, how glad she was to have her back. Why had she been watching a lesbian porno? Why had those women been doing that? Was that even possible? "You've – uh," Mary scratched her forehead. "You've really watched pornos before?"

Rhoda looked a little confused by the change in conversation before laughing again. "Sure kid. Living in Paris they're everywhere, sex is everywhere. Jean-Pierre was really into them. They're not so bad, I mean the more tastefully done ones. I know how horrible it can be, for the girls, but in Paris they were regarded differently…" Rhoda shrugged. "Oh, stop looking at me like that. I was just about to turn it off before you got home. I don't enjoy them."

"I didn't think – well…" Mary sighed. How much really had changed between them? Why was it making Mary so crazy? It shouldn't matter at all. Rhoda had accidentally stumbled across it and shouldn't Mary be angry with Steven or….oh God, Rose. Rose with her bisexual tendencies. It was probably Rose's. She would kill her. Ground her for eternity when she saw her again, though how could one really ground a twenty-one-year-old who didn't even live at home anymore?

"Can we just forget the whole thing, Mare?" Rhoda grinned, grasping for Mary's hand across the table.

Mary nodded, a smile pulling at her lips as she felt their fingers entwine. "Consider it forgotten."