On Madison Avenue (Late March)
On Madison Avenue, the taxi stopped. Therese had half-expected that it would not, that she had not told the driver the address at all, that the address did not exist, that Carol's new apartment on Madison Avenue did not exist, that the taxi driver would continue driving her uptown until she was forced to give him all the money she had and walk back for miles. But the taxi stopped, and Therese looked at the building through the foggy window. She paid the driver and stepped out with her two small suitcases. Her few other belongings would be arriving later. Carol had arranged it all.
Therese already had a key. She made her way inside and up to the top floor of the newer, taller apartment building and unlocked the door of the apartment. It swung open easily, and Therese stepped in. The door fell shut behind her, and she put her suitcases down where she stood. She took off her gloves, and her hands were shaking. It was very silent in the apartment. She was surrounded by Carol's things, Carol's coats on the coat stand, Carol's scarves on the shelf, Carol's name on boxes neatly stacked along the wall.
She walked into the apartment, past the kitchen filled with Carol's cups and plates and glasses, some still neatly wrapped in white tissue paper, into the large living room filled with more boxes that had Carol's name on them and furniture that Therese recognized from Carol's house. It was as though she had walked straight into an apartment that was Carol, as though she had been asked to design a set that was Carol and this was what she had designed. It made her dizzy. There was Carol's gramophone, Carol's plants on the windowsill.
Therese took off her coat and slung it across the back of one of Carol's chairs. When she raised her head, she caught a whiff of Carol's perfume in the air. It passed in a moment, like a current or a sea breeze. She felt a twinge of pain in her side, and then in her heart, at having to move into this apartment that was Carol's, at having walked into Carol's neatness and thrown her coat down into it. A restlessness crept through her. She wondered whether she had made the right choice.
Therese picked up her coat again and walked to the wide windows at the other end of the living room. Madison Avenue was dotted with toy cars and toy people that Carol might have bought from her at Frankenberg's. Over the flat roofs of the buildings across the street she could just see the green and grey of Central Park. It made her think of the country around where Carol lived- had lived, she corrected herself. The sky was very bright and blue and full of wind today. The clouds cast shadows on Carol's rug beneath her feet. Therese turned and saw Carol's shadow before she saw Carol.
Carol was standing in the doorway that led out into the hall and to the bedrooms. She was leaning against the doorframe, so that Therese's eyes could follow the long line from her ankle to her shoulder up and up. Carol's arms were crossed. Carol had been watching Therese, Therese realized, as she did not think Carol had ever watched her before. It had always been Therese watching as Carol talked to others or listened to music or drove her car or brushed her hair. It had always been her watching Carol.
Therese moved when Carol moved. They met in the middle of the room. She dropped her coat on the way to Carol's arms. She felt Carol's hands spread across her back and shoulders, Carol's lips and nose graze her neck, Carol's hair tickle her cheek. She felt her own hands reach out to touch Carol's dress, Carol's hair. She squeezed her eyes shut. Carol's perfume was all around her now and beyond that- Carol. Carol held her so tightly she felt she would never breathe again.
When she opened her eyes, she was looking into Carol's. 'Do you like it?' Carol asked about. How could she not like the apartment, Therese thought. When she loved Carol.
'I love it,' Therese said.
A sudden softness came into Carol's eyes. Here where there was no one to spy on them, listen in on them, walk in on them, Carol seemed to have come to life, seemed to have materialized out of the air and the light and the apartment that was so much her. The softness spread, like a sunrise, across her face and suffused it with color. It reached Carol's mouth, and she smiled, and she took Therese's face in her hands and kissed her.
The softness found Therese then. It raced along her skin, left goose bumps wherever it went, reached her head and clouded her mind. She felt Carol let go of her and take her hand. In her clouded mind, she heard Carol speak. 'Welcome home, darling,' Carol said. Therese clutched at Carol's hand as though she were blind. In her clouded mind, Therese heard Carol's words repeated to her, over and over and over again, extending farther and farther into the clouded horizon of her future life with Carol, with only Carol.