A/N: A prompt from allkindsofkids on Tumblr: Carol and Therese kiss and make up after their first fight. The honeymoon is over. Easy living?


On Madison Avenue (Mid-May)

On Madison Avenue, the heat was suffocating. Therese desperately tried to blame the heat. Like the hand of some enormous god, it weighed down on everything in sight. No amount of air-conditioning could help. But when she finally rushed out of the apartment and away from Carol, she knew it was not the only thing to blame. On the street, mailmen sweated through their shirts and secretaries fanned themselves with magazines. Therese did not see them. She had shocked herself more than she had shocked Carol, she was sure.

She had come home after eight long hours at Harkevy's studio. They were working on a set for an Australian play, but the set itself was not working, and no one felt like doing anything to fix it, and no one but Therese seemed to have read the play anyway. She had tried not to raise her voice. She had left quietly. Then, on the way home, she had found a red cat by a fire escape between Lexington and Park, howling, shouting for her. It was one of those inexplicable things. It had seemed like the only living soul in the city that day.

She had found Carol sitting on the floor of the living room, sorting through furniture catalogues, her dress spread out around her like the petals of a flower. They had not seen each other since the night before. When Carol spotted the cat, she sighed. 'I'll only end up taking care of it, Therese,' was all she said, with an aloofness that had all of a sudden reminded Therese of walking to Frankenberg's in the cold; or of sleeping in Carol's car by the side of the road; or even – in the not-so-far-off distance – of waking up at the Home with the wind whistling in her ears. And she had heard in Carol's sigh all the sighs of all the people to whom she had expressed a desire to be more than what she was.

Even as she began to yell at her, Therese knew it was absurd. Even as she had brought up Sioux Falls. But she had done it anyway. She had even cried. Carol had borne it all silently. That was all Therese heard, as she hurried down Madison Avenue in the heat – Carol's silence.

The city hung, suspended, like from a gallows. Therese went to the restaurant off Fifth where Carol had made a reservation for that evening, only to find that it had already been cancelled. She walked all the way to the Hudson River and watched the water dance until it ate up the sun. A wave of guilt and then embarrassment and then sadness washed over her, until somehow everything she felt nullified everything else and she ended up walking back through the darkening streets filled with Carol's silence and feeling nothing at all.

Sweat prickled her shoulders and neck. On Columbus, a group of college students whistled at her. She looked at them and thought of Carol. Sitting on the floor of their apartment, Carol had been wearing a summer dress that Therese had never seen, had never even seen hanging in their closet. In the hot light, the dress had shimmered golden, had left her chest and back exposed, drops of perspiration at her throat, her skin bright pink like it sometimes was at night.

It was their first taste of summer together. And yet. No sunrise was perpetual.

At the apartment, Therese went to sleep in the second bedroom. She slept soundly, to her own surprise, and dreamed of a golden light growing brighter, growing larger, encompassing everything. The light seemed about to burst, to reveal something else, when she woke. It was early morning. Heat flooded the room. In the kitchen, she made a point of feeding the cat. Carol had prepared breakfast for her, but she did not touch it. She had slept without Carol before, after all.

When she returned late in the day, Carol was on the couch reading Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the evening shadows slanting in through the windows. Therese had no memory of taking the novel with her when she had moved. Carol frowned as she read, and Therese was struck by the strange idea that Carol was trying to understand something about her, Therese, the artist as a young woman. Well, if anything, it was Richard who had wanted Therese to read it and had probably read himself into it. But the novel, she had found, was nothing like Richard.

He turned to appease the fierce longings of his heart before which everything else was idle and alien. He cared little that he was in mortal sin… Therese almost went over to ask Carol's opinion before she remembered that she was angry. That night, the cat slept with her because Carol was no longer feeding it. She dreamed strangely, of a taxi that would only play Billie Holiday songs, driving her from one end of the island to the other, all the doors locked and the radiators on, and awoke with tears in her eyes.

The second time Carol made her breakfast, Therese threw it out. 'I can manage on my own, you know.'

Carol did not answer immediately. 'I know,' she said.

Harkevy shouted at her over the set designs and she shouted back. She worked hard, and, one way or another, the designs began to come along. The heat began to subside. Yet she slept less well, dreaming only sometimes. Days passed and she slept alone with the cat and then one night she opened her eyes and saw Carol, a black silhouette, sitting on the side of the bed. At first Therese thought she was a mirage, from a desert.

'Therese,' Carol said. She sounded tired. 'What's the matter?'

The air-conditioning dripped, like a leaking clock. It dripped for what seemed like hours. Carol got up to go.

'You're leaving?' Therese said quickly.

Carol stopped in the doorway. 'Only to the other room,' she said, but did not move. The air-conditioning dripped on. Then she turned and stepped into the bed, pulled the sheets to, and the darkness slid back into place around them. Therese thought of Romeo and Juliet. What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, / So stumblest on my council? No man.

A moment passed before Therese took her hand. They could have been anywhere in the world.

She told Carol then about work, about the bad Australian play, about how Harkevy lost his temper, and Carol squeezed her hand. It helped that she could not see Carol's face, or she might never have said a word.

'What an ordeal,' Carol said when she had finished. 'Anything I can do?'

She closed her eyes. 'Will you wear that dress tomorrow?'

'Which one?'

'With the golden flowers.'

'All right,' Carol said, and it sounded like she was smiling. 'Anything else?'

'Sleep with me?'

A sliver of light fell down and hit a strand of Carol's hair. Their hands twisted together, lives twisting. Billie Holiday had not lied, Therese thought, she had not lied, after all, and Carol's arm slipped around her hips and her body was warm, warm as the heat could never be.

Another moment passed, then something soft jumped on top of them. Carol groaned. It was the cat. He was not leaving either.

Therese named him Holiday as a reminder.


A/N: So sorry this took so abominably long. Thank you all so much for your patience. I'm starting my final year of university this October, so there are some tough times ahead. Hope you'll stick with me! Everyone I've met in this community has been so incredibly kind and supportive and enthusiastic and it just brightens my day. Thank you!

Fun facts: the play Therese is working on is 'Buy Me Blue Ribbons', which flopped on Broadway in October 1951.

The red cat is looking ahead to 'Breakfast at Tiffany's': 'I don't know who I am! I'm like cat here, a no-name slob. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other.' (s-media-cache-ak0*pinimg*com/564x/29/da/13/29da13b48ad8d309c28fbbe52f33b970*jpg)

I just realized that the name Holiday actually echoes Holly Golightly… Hope everyone appreciates the irony of a cat named Holiday marking ~the end~ of C and T's honeymoon…

Carol's dress (also funny because the illustration looks like it could be Carol from the book): www*sovintagepatterns*com/thumbnail*asp?file=assets/images/mccalls4111*jpg&maxx=500&maxy=0