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She’d seen her playing pool, over in the corner, tried to be discreet. But now she’s here, sliding onto the bar stool next to her, reaching up and running a hand through short curled hair and asking with a soft smile—
“Can I buy you a drink?”
(You should try it, Abby says, because she’s got something or other to attend to and can’t make their usual Thursday drink date, and like everything Abby suggests, Carol does.
She takes a seat at the bar, orders a martini, raises the toothpick and nips the olive off it slowly. It’s easier with Abby, but with Abby no one approaches them because they look like a couple still, so maybe it’s best.)
In the midst of worrying—about being here, about being alone, about Rindy at home—she looks over the girl’s shoulder, back over at the pool table, at the girl’s friends trying to watch secretively and failing and turning back around quickly, and Carol smiles, turns back to the girl and tilts her head just a bit, a silent yes, and realizes offhand that the knot in her stomach is loosening, replace by something like budding excitement.
“Only if you let me buy you one,” Carol replies smoothly, and the girl smiles, all dimples.
-
Late, late, she leaves with Therese’s number on a slip of paper, her hand cradling Therese’s cheek and a quick stolen kiss to the corner of her mouth under the streetlight before she steps away, opens the door of her car and slips in and gives a little wave goodbye before leaving.
-
They leave the bar behind next time, because it’s not her scene, never was without Abby and her big-city ways, find a booth at Katz’s instead on Therese’s recommendation and order.
“My daughter,” Carol says, holds out the picture of Rindy and watches as Therese takes it as delicately as Carol offers it.
“She looks just like you,” Therese says as she hands it back, not a mere observation but a compliment followed by a smile and a look in Therese’s eyes, like she’s proud of Carol somehow, and the compliment has her smiling, too—not the kind she puts on at parties and dinners and Harge’s work functions, but a real one, warm and easy.
They eat and drink and they leave eventually when they’ve been there too long to stay any longer.
But they step outside, gather their coats closer around them, Therese pulling down her hat over her ears, and it’s far from the end of the night, Carol realizes, a flutter of excitement long replacing the knot of anxiety.
“Watch your step,” Therese says as she leads Carol into the darkened theater, reaches out and takes her hand, and Carol picks her way in the dark in her heels, follows Therese until they’re on stage and Therese leaves her for just a moment, to flick a switch and throw the stage and all its settings into brilliant light before coming back to her side.
“You made this?” Carol asks, because if there’s a problem with a leaking roof or frozen pipes the most she knows how to do is look up someone in the phonebook and call for help. Therese nods, a hand on her hip.
“Danny and I,” Therese says modestly, and Carol watches her looking out at her own handiwork, wonders if Therese knows how beautiful she is.
-
There is another date, another dinner, but this time—
“Would you like to come back to my place for coffee?” Therese asks, something new in the way she asks, and Carol feels it, the wave that merely lapped now a swell that picks her up and bears her toward something that makes her heart hurt with want.
“I would. Yes,” Carol says, and coffee is forgotten once Therese’s apartment door is unlocked and pushed open, and then in Therese’s bed Carol finds herself keening yes yes yes against her lips as Therese kisses her, fingers crooked deep inside her, coaxes an orgasm from her as easily and kindly as if it were something to be done every night, as common as saying I love you.
“You’re magnificent,” Carol tells her later from where she lies between her thighs, the truth in every way, slips her hand from Therese’s thigh slowly up her hip and to lay flat against her trembling stomach as Therese catches her breath, licks her lips and tastes Therese.
-
It is her week with Rindy and Rindy picks the Central Park Zoo.
Abby was the first person she could never say no to, not even when they were girls, Abby with her terrible, wonderful ideas and quick wit and no lack of courage. And then came Rindy, small and curled in her arms, a piece of her she couldn’t deny a single thing to.
And now there is Therese, too, and Therese meets them at the gates, standing there with her hands in her pockets watching people walk by, and Carol greets her with a glancing kiss to her cheek that can pass as an affectation, a friendly hello.
Rindy, far from shy, takes to Therese like a duck to water, wants to hold Therese’s hand instead and sit on her shoulders and have Therese lift her up to see the zebras, and Carol lets her with a laugh, tells Therese, “If she gets too heavy, hand her back to me.”
-
The night ends in her apartment instead, Rindy fed and bathed and asleep in her own room now, fast asleep, and the two of them finishing drinks on the settee, Billie Holiday crooning softly on the record player.
“Will you be my girl?” Therese asks, sudden, hands clutching at her glass, face serious like it is when she’s lost in thought or alone except this time it’s neither, only nervous, and Carol takes a drink of her rye, hides her smile in that before speaking, can’t help but tease.
“Thought I already was,” Carol replies smartly, and it only takes a moment for the tone of it and her smile to register, for Therese to smile back, all dimples, that one that reaches her eyes and makes them crinkle just a little.
-
“My girl,” Carol tries it out, a murmur, lips brushing against Therese’s shoulder lazily, almost a kiss as they lie together, and feels Therese pull her closer.
She falls asleep with Therese in her arms, arm slipped under hers and a hand cupped over her breast, nose pressed to the nape of Therese’s neck and Therese’s fingers slipped loose between hers.