A/N: Soundtrack: 'Hope Is A Heartache' by Léon.

In New York (February 1959)

I. Today

In New York, Therese listened to the wind. She couldn't sleep. The wind whistled through the long windows. Eventually, she got up to check whether they'd been closed properly, but they had. It was only the storm. She stood by the windows and looked out into the darkness, out at the city that she had left behind. Far below, the avenue was empty. Central Park, stretching out across the road, was empty. But, on the horizon, she thought she saw a flash of thunder, one, and then another, each time rolling a little closer to the city and a little further out of the darkness.

She decided to give up on sleep altogether and go through the schedule again for the next day. It was her first time back in the city in over five years. But the days leading up to the trip had been so frantic that she'd hardly had time to think about what it would be like to be back again until she had landed or, even, until she was on her own in this large golden hotel room that overlooked the buildings and the streets and the park that she knew so well. The city was the same as when she'd left it. How could it be the same, she thought, when she was so different.

It was almost as though New York, just by staying the way it was, had become a marker of time, a reminder of how much things had changed. Therese now no longer worked as a photojournalist or as a set designer—although she'd tried that again for a bit once she'd resigned from The Times in London in 1955—and she knew so much more about the world than she had before. She had seen so many more countries, so many more cities, had met so many more people. As she lay back against the bed, she realized that she had now, at last, seen the pyramids along the Nile and the sunrise on a tropic isle, even though she didn't belong to anyone anymore.

She was awoken by the telephone. She'd overslept, and on the phone someone from the production team was in hysterics because a delivery had been postponed due to the storm. She threw on her clothes and, when she got downstairs, the lobby was already thronging with guests for the first day of the Press Week of New York. It was like a scene from a Bob Fosse show. At least the weather forecast hadn't kept the crowds at bay. For a moment, Therese, caught between a man in a silver suit and a woman covered with feathers, gazed across the lobby in awe. Then she spotted her boss, Leonard Stevens, to one side. He was a tall man, coming up to middle age, with a long face and a large mustache, and he swayed uncomfortably above the crowd.

He waved her over.

'Everything all right?' he asked in his low, English voice. 'You look tired.'

'Yes, sorry, I didn't sleep very well.'

'Jet lag?'

'Yes, probably.'

And that was the end of their conversation, as she ran off to deal with the deliveries. Over the past few years, since Therese had started working as his assistant, Leonard had risen steeply through the ranks of fashion photographers. Now there were never enough hours in the day to do all the work they had to do. She had first met him through Harrison, the art editor at The Times, who didn't tell her that she would be meeting someone who worked for Vogue, or she might never have gone at all. But Leonard wasn't the sort of person that she would have associated with a fashion magazine.

He was rather awkward, rather serious and, like Therese, only cared about his work. She still remembered visiting his studio for the first time just south of the river in London. It was a dingy basement flat, with five untended plants growing in the windows and memorabilia from his travels scattered on shelves and tables, in boxes and jars. In the darkroom, he'd shown her images from overseas—of women balancing on pedestals above foreign plains, hiding among ostriches or palm trees—in vibrant color, like gaudy jewels. At first, she had thought that it wasn't to her taste at all. But as Leonard explained his desire to shoot all across the globe, in the open air, she understood something more about his images than she had about Harrison's picture pages.

Working at The Times, she had found it harder and harder to stick to Harrison's strict guidelines and to the few, perfect frames that they always had to take. The photographs she was taking in her spare time, in black and white, sometimes almost abstract, mostly of people sitting on filthy streets and in clubs, had started to creep into her work. And she noticed that Harrison, although always polite, had begun to tell her off here and there for cutting a corner.

She could never have asked him to publish any of her more artistic photos instead. Black and white was not allowed in any shape or form. Black and white was everything that had to be hidden. Color was where innovation lay, where heroism and glamor lay. Color represented the Britain they had to promote in Harrison's picture pages, his pretty pages, which were neither entirely representative of reality or creativity. Color, so bright, so vivid, was a kind of gloss, a veneer, through which to see the country, a country full of post-war ruins.

But Leonard's images, although they were far more colorful than the ones she had taken for Harrison, did not pretend to be anything other than what they were. They were not journalism. They were escapism, pure and simple. They were a reminder of the splendor of human invention, of the clothes that people could make, of the exotic places that people could travel to, and, of course, of the beauty of the women who lived in the world. They were a means of getting a country back on track, a sharp turn away from the violence of the war, a combination of reality and total fantasy. Looking at them in a darkroom under the streets of London had felt like gazing through a telescope at the swirl of a supernova.

Now, Leonard had been invited to open a show in New York during the Press Week, and Therese felt like she'd stepped straight into the supernova that she'd glimpsed years earlier. Although New York was the same, the Press Week was a part of the city that she'd never even dreamed of. Over the years, she'd seen what lay behind the extravagance of the fashion shoots—the poverty of the countries they visited, the mindlessness of the models, the long hours of work—but this first day of the Press Week she allowed to herself to indulge in the job again, in the clothes, in the glamor, even as she spent the entire time running through the elaborately dressed people and the decadent halls of the hotel in a daze.

It was only just before the official opening and the first runway that evening that she had the chance to rest. She went up to her room and changed into a dress that she'd reserved specially for the occasion. It was a kind of homecoming dress, made by an American designer, in dark red silk. Her hair was longer now, and she pinned it back the way she had seen the women do in Paris. Then she went to sit in a quiet corner of the lobby with a glass of champagne to watch the people pass by.

A man in a tuxedo smiled at her, and a woman stared at her dress. She enjoyed the attention, but she still enjoyed watching others more. In the corner, an elderly lady was slowly and studiously rearranging all the folds of her elaborate pink gown. By the entrance, two young men in suits were arguing. Somewhere outside of her line of sight, a conversation dissolved into laughter. She realized that the last time that she had watched a group of New Yorkers like this had been at the work party, her last party with Harkevy, that she'd attended with Carol in 1953. She remembered that she'd wondered whether she would miss these people, these New Yorkers, whether there would be anything to life without Carol. What a strange thought that was now, when there had been so much to life without her.

She remembered, vividly, Carol in her black suit smoking next to her at the party. She remembered the sparkle in her eyes as she laughed. After all, it was impossible to see New York without seeing Carol. She had seen her in the black buildings the night before, in the approach of the storm. She had seen her in the land that had stretched out beneath her when they had neared the city through the sky. Although they had lived so much longer apart than together now, scenes from their time together still stood out to Therese like lightning, clearer and brighter than anything else in her life. But she knew better than to give in to her visions, to her memories. She knew better than to fall away into a land of the past.

Her gaze lingered on a woman standing among a group at the next table, wearing a blue woolen suit, with her back to Therese. Therese wondered whether she was still daydreaming. Then she got up and went over to her.

'Abby?' she said.

The woman turned around.

'Christ almighty,' Abby said, reaching out her hands toward Therese as if they were long-lost relatives. 'Look who it is!'

Therese was shocked. She let Abby hug her. 'Abby, how are you?'

'I'm magnificent! And you?'

'I'm fine.'

'Fine, indeed! I hear you're quite the attraction here. Of course, we always knew you'd make it. Some girls are destined for stardom—'

Therese let Abby talk. Once she had gotten over her initial shock, she had the chance to look at her properly. Abby's laugh lines had deepened, and she had gained some weight, but it suited her. Therese wondered whether that meant that Jean was still feeding her steaks. She suppressed a laugh. 'How's Jean?' she asked once she could get a word in.

'Who?' Abby asked, with mischief. 'Oh, yes! She's fine. She's at home walking the dog or what have you...' So they were still together. It was strange to think that Abby and Jean had outlasted her and Carol, after all. 'But I was sorry to hear about Holiday.'

Therese frowned. 'What about him?'

'Oh, you don't—' Abby stumbled. 'I thought Carol said she was going to write to you?'

She hadn't heard from Carol in years. 'Has something happened to him?'

'He died, Therese. A few months ago, I think. Carol didn't tell you?'

Therese felt her heart break. She looked away. The cat must have been old already, of course. She didn't know how old he was when she had found him. Why do we keep putting our love into such fleeting things, over and over again? she thought. It was ridiculous, really. She hadn't even seen him in years, her little Holiday. But she had always liked to think that he was there, somewhere, somehow hers. She remembered the time when she thought that she was immune to love, when she was with Richard. And then, when she'd met Carol, there had been so much of it, in so many different forms. There had been so much to lose.

'What else wouldn't she have told me?' she asked then.

'I don't know—'

'Is there anything else?'

'Really, it's hers to tell—'

'What is it?'

'Well, she can't see Rindy anymore,' Abby said.

'What do you mean?'

'Or, Rindy doesn't want to see her anymore. But I— If you want to know, you can call her, if you like. I'm sure she'd be happy to hear from you.'

Therese hesitated. 'Does she still live in the same—'

'Yes, but you'll have better luck at the furniture house. She owns it now, you know...'

Then someone announced that the show was beginning, and the crowd began to move, in one huge wave, toward the set of double doors that led out of the lobby. Before she lost Abby, Therese managed to apologize for being a bit abrupt and put it down to the fact that they were all worried about the exhibition. Abby waved it away. They agreed to try and meet at the bar for a drink once the event was over. And then they were swept into the dining hall.

The event was lavish. Therese sat with Leonard at one of the perfectly white tables, under the diamond chandeliers, while the models strutted down a stage that ran through the entire length of the room. She'd been looking forward to the opening for weeks. She recognized a number of the models and an even greater number of the designers. But she couldn't focus.

She thought of Carol. She wondered, as she had only fleetingly done before, what it was that had first drawn her to Carol. Looking at the models, she wondered whether it was just lust. Lust, one of the seven cardinal sins, she could hear Sister Alicia say. Even in London, when she'd sometimes lain in the dark after a long day of work and closed her eyes, the slightest thought of touching Carol's hair, her dress, her neck was enough to make her lose herself. She'd never been able to go any further than that in her mind, those snippets of desire, or it would feel like she was desecrating her, desecrating an icon. Sometimes it already did.

But then, perhaps, it was not just lust. Because when she let her thoughts roam like that, carefully, desperately, there was always something significant missing, something she could never fully recreate in her mind. Like the brush of Carol's hand across her cheek, her voice when she talked on the phone, her eyes when she saw something she liked, and more than that even, more even than the things that could be seen or heard. There was always a gap in her mind, a gap that grew wider the more she thought about it.

But perhaps, then, it had been loneliness, despair at finding no other love? And yet, she could find it elsewhere now, if she wanted to. She had first briefly found it with Mireille, then with Genevieve, and then with an English model who had taken her on long, rambling walks through the countryside. And she could probably find it with other women who worked in the arts, if she liked. These women were not as invisible as Therese had once thought they were, if she knew where to look. But still, sometimes, often, depending on the season, she would find herself wondering about Carol, about where she was, what she was thinking, what she was doing. She thought of showing Carol something, before realizing that she was far away.

She knew that her thoughts of Carol weren't as clear as her thoughts of other things. She knew that they were colored by the rosy romance of memory, of nostalgia, of first love. She knew that perhaps they had nothing to do with Carol as she was at all anymore. Carol was just a person, like everyone else. But in Therese's mind, in her memory, she was more. She was a miracle that remained even though it had passed.

By the time the show was over, her thoughts had exhausted themselves, and she had no desire to think about Carol anymore. When she went to meet Abby at the bar, as they had agreed, she was her regular self. They didn't talk much about Carol, but she heard all about how Jean had bought the building next to the steakhouse to expand the business and how Abby would be decorating it. It sounded like it would take centuries to finish, but Abby was optimistic, as ever.

Then Abby asked Therese to tell her everything about the last five years, and Therese began eagerly. But she realized that anything she told Abby might make it back to Carol, one way or another, and that she ought to choose her words carefully. So she told Abby about leaving The Times to go and design sets in the West End, and then she told her about arguing so heavily with a director of one of the plays she'd been working on that she'd been fired on the spot. She told her how she'd been out of work for a few months, how she spent her time walking the streets, taking photographs, and then ended up working as a waitress in a café.

But she didn't tell her that—shortly after Carol had written to her to say that she ought to set her free—she'd started a relationship with Mireille. She didn't tell her that, when she left The Times, she also lost Mireille's company forever, or how it was Genevieve whom she had argued with in the theater. She also didn't tell Abby about how, after that, she had decided to only focus on her work, until Leonard had introduced her to a model who then left her to marry a family friend. She had lived more than she dared tell. But she did tell Abby about how, when she had received the call from Harrison about the new job, she'd asked him why he had wanted to help her. And he'd said: 'Because you're a hard one to forget.' She told it as a joke, and laughed.

But Abby only smiled. 'Well, he's not wrong,' she said.

They parted on good terms. She told Abby that Leonard's opening was tomorrow evening at the galleries in Grand Central, if she could make it, and Abby said she'd try to come. Therese walked her to the entrance of the hotel, where the crowds had finally died away. Outside, the wind still raged. When Abby was halfway across the street, Therese shouted after her, 'Say hello to Carol from me, would you?'

'Why don't you tell her yourself?' Abby shouted back as she threw Therese a last wave. Then she jumped into her car and sped off down the avenue, past the dancing trees.

Therese stood in the entrance looking down the street for a while. She had all but decided that she wouldn't call Carol after the show, but she was calm now, so perhaps she ought to, even if only out of politeness. She looked at her watch. It was late, around ten o'clock. She considered leaving it till tomorrow. No, she thought. She wanted to get it over with.

She went up to her room, picked up the phone and stood with it by the window. She looked out over the park as she had the night before. Because it was late, she decided she'd call Carol at the apartment directly. She hesitated another moment before dialing. But then she had already dialed, and the operator was asking her whom she wanted to reach. Then the phone had begun to ring.

The phone rang for several minutes. She waited. But nothing happened. Irritated, she hung up and dialed the number of the furniture store. She had to dial three times because her hands had started to shake. Again, the operator asked her for the address. Therese almost snapped at her. Again, the phone started to ring. How would Carol's voice sound? She felt that someone was about to answer and, suddenly, she hung up.

No, she thought, she wouldn't speak to Carol. She stood with the phone in her hand, in the dark room, for a little longer. She thought of all the people across the city, alone in their dark rooms. She put the phone back on the nightstand. No, she thought, she didn't want to spend the few days she had in New York thinking about something that was in the past, the way she had spent the first event. She didn't want to spend it thinking about what she should or shouldn't have said, or what might or might not have been. She was happy to be back. She was happy on her own. She felt calm again. It was as if the firmness of her decision had made her imagination go quiet.

She undressed and lay down in the large, empty bed, and did not think about anything at all. It was only when she started to drift to sleep that she thought of how she would once lie in bed in the apartment just over on Madison with Holiday by her side. The tears dripped down the side of her face and onto the pillow. But she was so tired that she did sleep that night. She slept completely soundly, just as she had on those nights on Madison Avenue years ago—as if Holiday were still there with her, after all.

II. Tomorrow

The next day, the city hovered on the brink of the storm. The air crackled, and rain drizzled intermittently, almost kindly, throughout. Therese ran between the hotel and Grand Central where they were still putting up the photographs. They were running behind, as always. Leonard was not happy with the placement of this photo or that, and the space was vast, and there were other people's deliveries and installations to take account of. Therese answered phone calls from the press. It was only about half an hour before the scheduled time of the opening that everything was in place.

And then, before the actual storm broke, the opening was on top of them. Cameras flashed, the crowds from the hotel flooded the station, and Grand Central was transformed. When Therese had been here before, as every New Yorker had, she had never imagined that there were art galleries right above the platforms, that she could ever be there for any reason other than to travel someplace else. When the opening started, she did pause once to wonder whether this was the right place for her, among these women in their flowing dresses, among these glitzy photographs, in these high-class galleries, whether she shouldn't, in fact, be traveling someplace else.

Of course, it wasn't the kind of venue, the kind of show, that Leonard had told her he'd wanted when they had first met. But that didn't seem to matter anymore. He was a different man now. And she was a different woman, she supposed. But those kinds of thoughts had never gotten her anywhere good in the past, only into arguments with people that she cared for, so she tried to stop thinking altogether, tried to be here, only here, only in this room, and nowhere else.

She was in the middle of a conversation with a photographer from the American Vogue when someone said her name. She turned around.

'Abby!' she said.

Abby kissed her on the cheeks. 'Is this what they do in Europe?'

Therese laughed. 'You made it!'

'Of course. Through wind and hail, and so on.' Abby looked her over. 'My, don't you look fetching.'

Therese smiled. She had chosen a black dress, slim and understated, that she'd found in Italy with Leonard. It made her feel older, more professional. 'So do you,' she said. Abby was wearing a green suit that looked very new.

'Why, thanks.' Abby glanced around. 'And this is extravagant!'

'It certainly is. Did you just arrive?'

'Yes, just now. I'd better explore. And find Carol.' She peered through the crowd. 'Shall we catch up later?'

Therese looked at her. 'Carol's here?'

'Yes, I hope you don't mind. She had nowhere else to be'—Abby laughed—'so I suggested she tag along. Last I saw she was at the bar, if you want to say hello. Katherine!' Abby waved at a friend and, with a squeeze of Therese's arm, she was gone.

Therese paused. The bar was only in the next room over, she knew. It would only take a few steps through the crowd to reach it. She pictured herself moving toward the doorway, through the door, and then looking over the heads of the people. She thought of how she might not spot Carol at first. But then, by the counter, she might see the glint of a bracelet, or a hand raised to a bartender, and she would follow the hand to a bare shoulder, or a coat, or a dress, and she would see the blond hair, the tilt of the head. And then the figure might turn, might turn, even slightly, and she would see her face.

Without realizing it, Therese felt her feet begin to carry her. It seemed almost fitting that so many years of being so far from anything that resembled Carol could be collapsed in just a second, that it would take nothing, nothing but a few steps. Wasn't that always the way? Change came suddenly and surreptitiously. Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned abruptly. But it was only Leonard, asking her if she had met an old colleague of his. And then the colleague was there and they had begun a new conversation. Her last thought was that Carol would have left the bar by now. And what was the point of seeing her anyway, when they would be leaving New York again in a few days' time?

The evening passed quickly, and Therese heard the storm break outside toward the end of it. Still, she held out, somewhere in the back of her mind, that Carol might come to find her of her own accord. But Carol did not.

The crowd was noticeably thinning when Therese, just as she was standing alone and looking at a photograph without seeing it, heard someone call out to her. She looked up to see that Abby was coming over in her coat.

'You're still here?' Therese asked, surprised.

'Didn't we say we'd catch up?'

'Yes, of course. I'm sorry. It's been such a busy night.'

'I can imagine. Did you find Carol?'

'I— I looked, but I couldn't find her,' Therese said.

'Oh,' Abby said. 'I see.' Therese instantly felt that Abby knew she'd lied. 'You must have been very busy. Well, we were just about to leave, anyway.' Abby gestured to one side and, as Therese looked over in the direction that she'd indicated, she saw Carol standing by the door.

Carol was talking to a woman whom Therese did not recognize. She was carrying her fur coat and wearing the gray dress that Therese remembered from so many evenings spent together. She seemed thinner now. Her hair was shorter. She raised a hand to brush it back, once on either side, and for a moment it was almost as though they'd never been separated at all. How old was Carol now? she asked herself, as if she had not thought of her at least once on every one of her birthdays. She was thirty-eight. And Rindy would be fourteen. Therese realized that she herself was nearly the age Carol had been when she'd first met her.

Then Carol looked at her, and the sense of being out of her depth, of being unsettled in some way, came over Therese again, just like when she had first spoken to Abby the day before. Carol said a few words to the woman that she'd been talking to, and then she came to them.

'Therese,' Carol said, and her voice was the same. 'How nice to see you again.'

'Nice to see you, too.' Up close, she noticed that the lines on Carol's face were harder, as if she had just had to ward off a rebuke.

'You look very well,' Carol went on. 'I almost didn't recognize you.'

'Didn't you?' She smelled Carol's perfume. She realized that it was nothing like what she remembered it to be.

A man interrupted to ask Therese at what time the galleries closed, and she felt that she would strangle him. She saw that Abby was talking to Leonard.

'I'm sorry we surprised you,' Carol said, once the man had gone.

'It's all right.'

'It was Abby's idea, but I wanted to come and see what you'd achieved.'

'And what do you think?' She felt somehow nervous, asking the question. There had been so many things that she had imagined she would say, if she ever saw Carol again, and now she could not think of any of them.

'It's very impressive.'

'Is it what you expected?'

Carol hesitated. 'I'm not sure I knew what to expect. Five years is a long time.' Her eyes studied Therese strangely, as if she were studying one of the photographs in the show, so that Therese had the sensation that Carol was not looking at her at all, but at a faraway image of her. She suddenly felt a gulf open up between them. There was something distinctly different about Carol, and she could not say what it was exactly. Seeing Carol again was much like seeing New York, if not more shocking, because people changed more than cities did.

'I'm only sorry I didn't get to see any of your pictures here,' Carol said.

'Oh, but I have my portfolio.' Relieved at the excuse to break away, she went to a nearby table to find it, and Carol followed. Therese watched as she began to turn the pages. Carol looked through the photographs carefully, as she might look through a collection of priceless antiques. Therese could see her eye follow the lines and shapes. She could see her bring her experience to it. Once or twice, she made a comment, and Therese provided an explanation in response. It was the first time, she realized, that they had stood together like that, exchanging ideas.

'This is beautiful,' Carol said over one image. There was something different about her, certainly. She had always been serious, collected, but there was something else there now—a sense of resignation, of surrender, under the hardness. The image Carol lingered over was of a woman in a long, flowing dress, standing in a city square, with her back to the camera, her arms outstretched toward the sky. Therese had caught it in the early hours of a long night in London. She had written a note under it: In London (May 1957). Carol's fingers traced the shape of the woman, of the dress.

Therese looked at Carol's hand, with the light freckles sprinkled across the back, and suddenly remembered watching Carol's fingers trace a map in Colorado Springs, trace the roads through the mountains, and as she thought this, she saw a drop fall on the page. It fell next to Carol's fingers, onto the woman in the dress. Then another drop fell next to it. And another, and another. They spread across the ink and blossomed, like flowers, like vines. Tap, tap, tap.

Therese looked up, alarmed. 'Carol?'

But Carol had turned away, and when she had turned back, there were no tears on her face. And there was nothing on the photograph either. She had wiped it clean. She had closed the folder. And, just as suddenly, Therese remembered wanting to kiss the gleaming tear from her cheek in Virginia, years ago, and not being able to.

'It's getting late,' Carol said, and then she had walked back to Abby's side.

Therese realized that they had only been together for a matter of minutes and that she had not even had the chance to ask Carol anything about herself. When she next looked up, she saw that Carol was already leaving with Abby, a specter of the past.

Then, from Therese's side, Leonard called out: 'Excuse me, Mrs.—'

'Aird,' Carol provided, turning in the doorway. There was no way to escape Harge's name, after all.

'Mrs. Aird, do you by any chance pose for pictures?'

Carol laughed. 'Perhaps in another life, Mr. Stevens! But thank you.' Yes, in another life. 'Congratulations on the show. Good night.'

'Good night!'

They passed through the doorway. Therese did not think that she might have stopped them, if she had stopped them, until they were already gone.

When she next met Leonard's eyes, she could see that they were full of questions, but she did not answer them. 'An old friend,' she said simply.

She dragged herself to the after-party. It was held in the famous cocktail bar just down the stairs, and the setting, with its high ceilings typical of Grand Central, was spectacular. Again, the people were elaborately dressed, but the novelty had already begun to wear off. Besides, Therese knew that she fit in. Many of the people knew who she was, and a number of them approached her to talk about Leonard's work. But, despite her best efforts, she could not go along as easily as she had earlier in the evening.

She kept seeing Carol's hands on the photograph. She saw the drops sitting on the paper, dripping off. In her memory, the scene seemed even more like a mirage, like something merely imagined, or dreamed. But the pain remained, twisting inside her. She heard the trains whirring in the distance. She suddenly didn't want to meet anyone new. Every time she met someone, she had to start over. Every time, she had to try again. It almost cost too much, to know someone and to lose them, each time again.

In the corner of the bar, there was a band that had begun to play. The people had begun to dance. Once, she would've enjoyed watching them. A man even asked her to dance and she tried, briefly, to dance with him. But he kept trying to make conversation, and she didn't want to talk, so she gave up. Eventually, she told Leonard that she wasn't feeling well, and left. She walked through the empty terminal and heard her footsteps echo on the floor, the band play behind her. She knew that it was madness to go, that there were important people to meet at the party. But when had she ever been held back by anything like that? She was free, wasn't she?

III. Tomorrow Still

Outside, the flood seemed Biblical. The buildings rocked beneath the thunder. Luckily, she didn't have to go far before she found a taxi. It was late, too late to really be going anywhere, but she went before she had the chance to think about it. Once inside the car, she realized that the St. Regis hotel, where she had gone to meet Carol at the start of the decade after they had first separated, was nearby. She thought of all the hotels she had seen with Carol, when she had felt that this country was hers, that this city was hers. And now, did New York even belong to her anymore? Did anywhere? Maybe the only place where she was at home was in hotels and train stations.

The taxi drove her down the endless avenues. She saw a man trying to shield himself with a newspaper, a couple run into a restaurant, New Yorkers battling the storm. And then the taxi had already come to a stop, and she stepped out into Central Park. It was gray and deserted. She paid the driver, who looked at her as though she were crazy. Perhaps she was. From where she stood, she could just see her hotel, towering over her. She walked with her umbrella and saw the buildings hidden by the clouds, the trees stretching up into the sky. Eventually, she walked out of the park and through the streets of the city that she had left behind.

She walked in through the front doors, through the lobby. She went up in the elevator, where the water still dripped off her clothes. She rang the doorbell. Immediately, she heard footsteps inside. She was vaguely aware of walking into something that might stay with her forever, as if she were stepping into the Sirens' den.

Carol swung the door open and then stood still. She was barefoot and holding a drink. For a moment, Therese felt just as shocked to see her, even though she was the one who had come to the apartment.

Then Abby appeared in the hall, wearing her coat. 'Oh, Therese,' she said. 'I was just on my way out.' She kissed Carol on the cheek. 'Good night, Carol.' She kissed Therese, too, and then she was gone. Therese had the impression that they'd just been talking about her.

'What happened?' Carol asked, looking at her.

'I went for a walk,' she said. She almost felt like laughing. 'Can I come in?'

Carol moved to one side, and Therese stepped past her into the apartment. She saw Carol's shoes in the corner and her coats on the coat stand. She walked away from them quickly and, when she entered the living room, she noticed that it seemed almost unlived in, but otherwise the same. There were cardboard boxes standing along one wall. It was dark in the apartment, and, from behind a doorway, Carol turned on a light. Dust floated down.

'Are you moving out?' Therese asked. The possibility had never occurred to her.

'No, I'm only selling a few things,' Carol answered. 'I might sell the place, eventually, but I haven't decided on that yet.' If Carol sold the apartment, Therese thought that she would never come back to New York again. Carol gave her a towel from the bathroom. 'Here,' she said.

Therese took it. 'Thanks.' She began to cross the living room, through the shadows.

'Is something wrong?' Carol asked.

She felt that she ought to be irritated that Carol had come to the gallery without asking first, that her evening had been cut short. But she was not. 'No, I'm fine.'

'Can I get you anything?'

'No, thank you.' She reached the windows and looked out, through the rain. Why was it always raining when they parted or met?

'The view must be better from your hotel room,' Carol remarked.

'It's only a little higher up,' she said. But much more lonely, she thought. She felt tired all of a sudden, without the ability to do anything about anything. Outside, thunder rumbled over the park. 'You know, no matter how hard I try, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you while I've been here.'

There was a pause. 'I'm sorry. I knew I shouldn't have come this evening.'

'No, it doesn't matter. I would have felt the same way whether you were there or not.' She watched the rain. Then she heard herself speak again. 'Sometimes when I feel low, I close my eyes at night and think of the time I spent with you. I may not have been happy all the time we were together, but for most of it I was. And happiness isn't even the right word. It wasn't happiness. It was ecstasy. I don't know if I'll ever feel that way again.' How could she say it? You have changed and shaped my life, forever and ever, all I'll ever know.

She felt Carol's eyes on her. 'It may only be that way in your memory.'

'Yes, probably,' she said. 'And you probably didn't feel that way either, did you?'

'I was older, Therese. I'd seen some of it before—well, you now know what it's like to be even a bit older.' She seemed to smile. Then she was quiet again. 'But I can't say I don't know what you mean.'

Behind her, Carol was tapping her glass, almost nervously. Therese felt that she ought to ask her about what Abby had mentioned, even though she did not want to. She didn't quite dare ask about Holiday, but she decided to bring up Rindy immediately. 'Abby told me that you can't see Rindy anymore.' She turned to look at her.

Carol was standing in the shadows, behind the sofa. Her dress seemed liquid black. She continued tapping the glass. 'Yes. Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. They told me that she was the one who didn't want to see me. But I think Harge finally convinced her that it was better that way, and he's probably right. I'm glad it's over.' She spoke without much emotion, as if she were talking about something that had happened a long time ago. And perhaps it had.

'Oh, Carol... Can he do that?'

'He can do whatever he wants. Besides, people aren't always consistent about what they want.'

'No, that's true,' Therese said. 'They're not.'

There was a silence. Carol went over to a side-table and picked up a cigarette. She offered one to Therese, but Therese declined. She put the case back on the table, and then she lit the cigarette. The flame flashed across her face, like lightning. 'Do you think I made the right choice?' she asked then, and now there was some emotion, an uncertainty, in her voice that Therese had never heard before.

'About Rindy?'

'About letting you go.'

Therese didn't know what to say. 'We both made a choice.' But Carol still seemed uncertain, so she added, 'Yes, you did.'

'That's good. I'm glad.' Carol still did not look at her, but tapped the cigarette into an ashtray. 'Because your letter, the one you wrote in response... Anyway, I thought you might have resented me.'

Therese crushed the towel in her hand. Had Carol thought that all these years? 'No, of course not.' She had the last time they had separated, but not this time, not in the least. How could she, when she had been the one to go? 'If anything, I admired you. I always admire you.'

Carol smiled. 'All right. Because I only wanted was best for you.'

'I understand.'

There was another silence. Carol looked at her. 'And did you meet anyone else on your travels?'

Therese was taken aback by her directness. 'Yes,' she replied. She really didn't want to talk about any of them. 'But it didn't last. Did you?'

'No,' Carol said.

'Why not?'

'No particular reason. I just didn't have the desire, or the time.' Therese wondered where it went then, all that time.

'Does it bother you that I have?'

'Why would it bother me?'

'I don't know. I just don't think I could ask the question so calmly,' she went on, without knowing what she was saying.

Carol's tone was steady. 'It's good that you've met other people. You should live your life.'

'Yes, but you don't need to look out for me anymore,' she said, and heard her own voice as something gentle. 'I'm not a baby. I'm nearly the age you were when I met you.'

'Yes,' Carol said, and seemed thoughtful. 'How strange.'

I love you, Therese wanted to say then. But she didn't.

Carol fixed her hair. 'And, are you happy?' she asked.

'Yes,' Therese said. 'Yes, I am. Are you?'

Carol was still thoughtful. 'Who's happy all the time?' She laughed a little. 'It's the American myth.'

Therese became aware that water was dripping off her clothes and all over the floor. She thought of Carol's tears, dripping onto the photograph. She began to find it unbearable to be there. 'I'm sorry,' she said.

Carol looked up. 'For what?'

'For leaving you.'

Therese realized that she was crying again. She thought that it had only been the rain on her face. Angry, she wiped at her cheeks with the towel, and the towel smelled like Carol, and the tears would not stop.

Then Carol was near her. 'No, don't say that.' Carol was near, and she took Therese's hand, and she squeezed it painfully hard. 'Don't say that, darling. You were right. You were absolutely right. I'd give anything to see you the way you are now, blossoming, in your element.' Carol's hand let go of her own. 'It isn't that.'

'What is it, then?' she asked quietly.

Smoke from Carol's cigarette floated up between them, like a cloud. For an instant, it seemed like she wouldn't answer the question. 'I don't want to trap you,' she said, and then Therese felt that she would answer, after all.

'I came here, didn't I?'

Carol's eyes shifted. She looked softer, softer than Therese had ever seen her look before. 'It's this...stupidity...' she said. She shook her head. 'Conforming, conforming. I don't know why I do it. I think I don't. But I do. And where has it left me? Rindy hasn't been mine for so long now.' She lowered her cigarette. 'I suppose I can't stand that I spent so much time waiting for her to come back. Even with you.' How strange it was to hear Carol say this, Carol, who was the bravest person she knew. 'I only wondered, what if we'd been free? Maybe it would have made a difference.' She shrugged. 'Then again, maybe not.' Maybe they would even have been able to work together, Therese thought. Maybe not.

'We all conform,' Therese said. 'Or we wouldn't be able to live.' If she looked at her own life, she knew that it was true.

'Yes, but the question is to what degree. And at what cost.' There it was again, the uncertainty, as if she was asking Therese something.

'There's no cost.'

'None?'

Therese was silent. They looked at each other, suspended between years, between continents. Then Carol smiled, as if to acknowledge that there was no real answer to the question. 'Let me get you something dry to wear,' she said, and she left Therese alone.

Therese looked around the apartment, at the lamps, at the chairs that she had known so well. There was, she supposed, always a cost to having to live in the world, no matter how they tried to escape it. Maybe growing up meant realizing that you were never as free as you thought you were. But something in Therese rebelled at the thought, absolutely refused to accept it. She noticed that the piano was still there, in the corner, that it hadn't been sold. She remembered sitting at it over Christmas, in the evenings, in summer and winter. She remembered Holiday weaving his way between her legs. She had felt then like the woman in the picture that Carol had cried over, like she was about to take flight, like she hovered above the world itself. In this apartment, anything had seemed possible.

When Carol came back, Therese changed into a robe that looked much like the one she used to wear. Her dress was hung up to dry by the windows, and Carol touched it admiringly. Therese suddenly wished that she had brought something back for her, some sort of gift. She had seen so many things that she would've loved for Carol to wear. She had seen so much without her.

They began to talk, and she learned that Abby had told Carol everything that Therese had told her, just as she had expected. But Carol questioned her further, and Therese added color, detail to the stories. She confessed that she blamed herself for walking out of both of her earlier jobs and explained how she felt that Leonard had changed with fame. Who were those people who were so confident in what they did? she often wondered. Who were so comfortable in their places, who were never thinking, dreaming of something else?

But she learned that Carol shared her sense of restlessness, that it was this that had made her want to drive again instead of staying in the city. She learned that Carol spent most of her time on the road now, hunting down antiques, rather than in the store. And Therese told her, impulsively, that she was glad, so very glad to hear that the strongest image that she had of her, of her driving in her Packard through the open country, her eyes on the horizon, still held true. Carol smiled at the confession.

For once, Therese found herself eager to talk. Being with Carol gave her a sense of joy, subtle, tender. It made her want to say things she wouldn't normally say. During a lull in the conversation, she began to tell Carol about a dream that she had had one night, on one of her journeys with Leonard, on a faraway island. The radio had been playing American songs, and she had fallen asleep listening to them, in the heat. In her dream, she had dreamt that she and Carol were dancing to one of the songs, and that gradually Carol, of all people, had begun to sing it in her ear. It was an embarrassing thing to share, but she told it while looking away, out over the view from the Madison Avenue apartment that she loved, and the view had drawn the story out of her.

When she looked back, she saw that Carol had gotten up. She took a record off the shelf and put it on the record player. Then she reached out her hand to Therese. 'Why don't we make that dream a reality?' she said.

At first, Therese thought she was joking. But she wasn't. And the strangeness, the aptness of the question made Therese feel like she was still dreaming, as if she had gone to bed the night before and never woken up, as if she were dreaming of tomorrow. She took Carol's hand.

'I haven't danced in a while,' she said, and felt Carol's fingers touch her back.

'Well, then, you've been missing out.'

From the phonograph, a woman's voice began to sing, the way it had in her dream. And Therese heard the sounds of people at a club, talking in the background, clinking their glasses.

Speak low when you speak, love… Our moment is swift; like ships adrift, we're swept apart too soon…

Carol swung her out suddenly to the side, taking her by surprise, and she laughed. Carol laughed, too, and then pulled her back in. Therese held onto her. She held onto Carol's shoulder. She felt Carol's hair brush her cheek. Then she heard, through the rain, through the music, Carol's voice begin to sing along with the song, almost inaudibly.

Speak low, darling, speak low… Love is a spark, lost in the dark, too soon, too soon…

Therese moved her head closer, just to hear more. As she did, she felt Carol let go of her hand and put her arms around her. Their bodies touched. Carol's hands pressed against her waist, against her shoulders.

Speak low, darling, speak low... I feel wherever I go that tomorrow is near, tomorrow is here and always too soon…

She heard Carol's voice complete the song in her ear, the way she had dreamed of it at night. My angel. Therese felt like falling, falling forward, with the rain, with the lightning, and never getting up.

'Kiss me,' she said, against Carol's cheek.

Carol looked at her a moment. Then she kissed her, and Therese thought that this was what life was for, for these tastes of heaven.

When they went to bed, the rain was gone. Therese lay awake and gazed at the buildings against the brightening sky. Tomorrow is near, she thought. And then her tossing and turning, her restlessness was replaced by a yearning, a simple desire. She knew that she could live without Carol. She could, if she wanted to. But she did not want to. It was as if a burden had been lifted. It was as if, by losing Rindy, they had received some reassurance that they could not possibly have taken any other route, and that there was nothing either of them could do to change the way things were.

Eventually, she got up and went to the phone. She called Leonard, who had just returned from the party, and told him that she wouldn't be flying back with him to London. She told him she would find a way to work from New York, perhaps work freelance in the way that she had always imagined herself doing, and that she would never forget how he'd helped her. He seemed disappointed, but somehow not surprised. They had worked together for a long time, after all.

After she hung up, she stood and looked out the window for a while. She felt, distinctly, that she did not know what life would look like now. It stretched out before her like an open road. And suddenly she felt it again—that sense of ecstasy.

She thought then that, yes, she and Carol still had to speak low when they spoke of love, to speak softly when lovingly, to dance cautiously in the dark. But the thought did not frustrate her. She thought that, one day, perhaps, they could dance the way they had somewhere where other people danced. But that day still seemed a long way away to her, many seasons and years away. Well, when or if it came, that day, she hoped that she and Carol would be there to see it, wherever they were, whatever they looked like. Not ships adrift, not swept apart, but held close, together.

Outside, the light glinted on the wet trees, on the wet streets. As she watched, it began to fall through the apartment. It caught the piano and the armchairs and the saucers in the kitchen. In the bedroom, it began to seep through the curtains. It fell across the bed in long, thin lines, one, and then another, and another. It fell across Carol's sleepingbody. Before she went to sleep, Therese took a photograph of her, lying in the light, just to remember this day by: In New York (February 1959). The sun had begun to rise.

Fin.

A/N: So, this fic turned out to be a little longer than 'The Great Gatsby'… I'm so sorry again about the wait. I had a lot going on over the past few months but finally found some time in isolation – I hope everyone is doing well in these strange times and that maybe this final chapter helps distract you a bit!

Here's the playlist of the songs that go with all the scenes (someone asked me for it a while ago). Some have been mentioned in my notes, but there are many here that haven't been, and they're in order with the scenes: open*spotify*com/user/pmpphv3mt1v5ivtq36p1brcel/playlist/60MGGZ9sutVvFi63oYxMJV

There was a lot to wrap up in this chapter (and there were A LOT of drafts, the first one dating back to December ha), so I hope it works. For me, it sort of became a chapter about freedom and what it means to be free as the years go by (free to live, free to love, etc.) – please let me know your thoughts! I also hope you enjoyed the references to previous chapters and to the epigraph of these scenes, which is from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'. Thank you also to Abby for doing much of the heavy lifting this time.

Bit of trivia: The figure of Leonard is inspired by Norman Parkinson, and C&T's (largely unspoken) debate about the cost of hiding is inspired by the real-life one that Edie and Thea had. Therese is staying in the Pierre Hotel, where the Press Week was sometimes held, and a Bob Fosse show was at the time playing on Broadway. Also, I kept one final prompt back for this scene, from anonymous, way back when: "C&T are listening to a Sarah Vaughan record. Carol sings the opening line of 'Speak Low' to Therese." But the record wasn't released until 1958, so here we are.

Thank you all so much for bearing with me and continuing to read over all these years – the scenes ended up taking a lot of work to write, but they have also meant a lot to me personally, and your support and wonderful comments, feedback, and stories have made it more than worth the while. Times have certainly changed since late 2015 when I started these (not to mention the 1950's), and let's hope that it won't be long before they change again for the better. (And maybe you'll see my book on the shelves one day...) Stay safe, take care, and happy Pride xx