Saturday, September 17th, 1955

9:15 a.m.

Carol looked down at her fruit-stained hands, red streaks marking her fingertips of her pink skin. The palms of her hands were covered in bright blotches of red from where she had placed recently picked berries before putting them into the bucket draped from her arm. Juice from the berries seeped onto her skin, down her fingers, and underneath the ring on her left hand. Carol admired the way the droplets of juice dried to the golden ring; she would just have to thoroughly clean it when they got home. Bits of raspberry juice also found its way under her cuticles, probably her fingernails as well if she could see well beneath the red nail polish.

The only benefits of her grandparents' old house in Greenwich weren't just the seclusion of the property or the swimming pool with its pavilion, Carol had realized one day. There were also the several bushes of raspberries out back where she remembered picking fruit as a child. Her grandparents had bushes of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries every summer, and Carol had loved collecting fruit for her grandmother to make jams and other treats. Later in the fall, she'd pick apples from the small orchard by the driveway, then help her grandmother make different varieties of apple pie.

It was one of the happiest memories of her childhood, gathering fruit to make different things. As she grew up and ended up spending less and less time with her grandparents, Carol realized that she missed doing those simple tasks. Sure, there were always people to "do it for you," however, it wasn't the same level of satisfaction, and took away from the conversation she used to have and the skills she learned. Once she got married, went off to Europe, then returned home, everything had become about Rindy and the preoccupation for her well-being. There was no time to pick and can like when she was younger. Maybe when Rindy was older, but perhaps the divorce had put a damper in such activities.

It took Therese some time to get accustomed to spending weekends in Greenwich during the summer. She had spent so much time in cities, always someone in the adjacent space or at least on the same floor; she had become perhaps too dependent upon the sound of the city to lull her to sleep. Carol sometimes missed being in the country, or at least in the nearby suburbs, where there was lush lawns and four sides of privacy in the great outdoors.

Assessing the contents of the bucket on her arm, Carol realized that she had probably picked too many berries. She had no idea what Therese had gathered in her own pail, but guessed by the movements of her jaw that not many of the berries she had picked had actually ended up in the bucket. Carol smiled, as she watched Therese put another handful of berries into her mouth.

"If you also want that pie later, you'll stop eating all the raspberries."

Therese stood a little higher to look over the raspberry bush, still savoring the latest bit of fruit and now defiantly chewing in a dramatic fashion. Carol raised an eyebrow as she watched Therese eat. "I picked plenty of raspberries," she said as she raised her pail up to show Carol its contents. "We have enough now for jam and a pie?"

Carol looked and noticed that between the two of them they had plenty of berries. She motioned for Therese to come back toward her so they could go into the house to start cleaning and prepping what they had gathered. Therese plucked a few more berries from the bushes and placed them into her pail before she jogged around the bush back to where Carol was standing. When she rounded the corner, Therese immediately noticed Carol's berry-stained fingers.

"Look at your hands!"

Carol looked down at them, still unphased by the red blotches on her skin. "What? I'm sure yours aren't any better."

"No, not by much," she answered after a quick glance. "Come on, let's go clean up and start making this jam."

Before they could track any dirt or mud into the house, Carol and Therese removed their shoes before opening the door into the kitchen. Therese's feet were instantly cold as they touched the slate paving stone at the entrance. Carol at least wore a pair of socks so wasn't quite as bothered as she scurried into the house.

Standing in front of the kitchen sink, Carol looked out at the lawn, noticing some areas that she would need to draw to the gardener's attention before the leaves started falling. She turned back toward the cupboard where the glasses and mugs were kept, and removed a blue tinted glass which she partially filled with lukewarm water and a drop of dish soap. Very carefully, she removed the ring from her finger and placed it into the cup to soak.

Therese came into the kitchen carrying Carol's bucket and her pail of raspberries, ready to also wash up before starting to help with the jam. She walked next to Carol who stood at the sink, now with the water running to make it warmer than the water she had used her for ring and the soap. Once they were standing side by side, Therese nudged her hip against Carol's, which jostled her from her thoughts as she looked out onto the lawn. Carol drifted back to the present and remembered the running water. She ran her hands under it to wet them, then picked up the bar of hand soap beside the sponge. She held out the bar of bubbly soap to Therese who grabbed it and scrubbed her fingers under the hot water.

"Looking forward to making jam?"

"Very. I've always wanted to learn." Therese replied and the soap passed again and again over the palms of her hands. She rinsed them at the same time as Carol, who jokingly placed hers above Therese's as the water ran, so all her soapy bubbles rinsed into her. "Hey!"

Carol laughed and dried her now clean hands on a nearby dish towel that hung from a hook against a cabinet. This time, she bumped her hip against Therese's and grinned back at her. "Do you like staying here?" asked Carol.

Therese shook off the excess water and then finished drying her hands by wiping them on the pedal pushers she wore. "I like it. I mean, it's not the city, of course."

"No, certainly not," Carol agreed. "How would you feel if we lived here year round? Would you like that?"

Therese scrunched up her nose and tilted her head back and forth, thinking and debating in her mind. "I would, but I don't know about the commute. I like being in the city, near friends, for work, things like that."

"'We'll have Manhattan…'" Carol softly sang.

Carol always knew how to bring a smile to Therese's face, even when she was deep in thought and working through something all-too serious. "I'd worry though about you becoming isolated out here." Therese quietly admitted.

"Me?"

"Like you were in Ridgewood, away from your friends and all."

"Don't you think it's different now, with the job and - and you?"

Pausing before continuing, Therese looked down at her feet, smiling at the red nail polish Carol had applied a few days earlier. "Definitely, but with just you and me here in all this house, it'd be lonely. Maybe in different ways than before for both of us."

As much as Carol liked spending time there, it would be a lonely existence for them. Everything revolved around being in Manhattan and their jobs, and living out in Greenwich made that all the more difficult. There was leeway with the anonymity of city life, and there was simply the overall convenience of being where they already needed to be. "You're right," she sighed, "not yet. We're not there yet."

"I'm not ruling it out for someday, Carol, just, like you said, not yet."

Therese took her hand, swinging it back and forth. "I liked the summer here: going swimming, having this privacy, but it's not the same as back home." Therese pulled Carol closer to her and put a hand around her neck to pull her in to kiss. Diverting her lips from Carol's, she leaned into her ear instead and whispered, "Besides, there's plenty of surfaces in that apartment where I've still yet to take you."

"Oh?" Carol squeaked out through the shudder that coursed through her body. If it wasn't the shaking from what Therese had softly spoken into her ear, then it was certainly Therese's breath hitting her earlobe and the side of her face grazing her own. Just the breath against her ear was enough for Carol, but Therese was easily distracted and began to kiss the goosebumps that rose under her ear, just by her hairline. Before Carol could completely collapse to the floor, she hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter, letting her legs dangle well above the floor. "Well, I suppose since we're not there we could just start working on this house. Besides, there are so many more options."

It only took a smirk from Therese who accepted the invitation to hike up her skirt and slide her hand all the way up her inner thigh.