Chapter Text
“So, are you going to say anything to me ever again, or are we just going to see out the rest of our days in total silence?”
These, the first words out of her mouth since before she boarded the train in Chicago. They are more defensive than they have any right to be, but Charlie has been a silent, brooding companion for more hours now than she can count. Carson has become better at not filling moments of quiet, but she is not yet a master. She is, in fact, surprised to have participated in the stalemate for so long.
Charlie sets his watch down on the nightstand with some force, and although he has never once been violent towards her, Carson finds herself flinching at the sound of glass meeting wood. Charlie catches the gesture and his lips grow thinner as he looks away. Something tells her that he is taking some joy, some comfort, in letting his emotions stew until they bubble over. Not only has he not spoken to her, he has barely looked at her either.
Once, on the train, she caught him glancing in her direction as she tried to read A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (the closest thing to a memento of Greta that she had dared hold in her hands in front of Charlie) but their eyes didn’t meet and, in a matter of seconds, he was back to staring blankly out of the window.
“I can’t think of one single thing I want to say to you, Carson. We already established that you don’t need me; I just didn’t realise at the time how wholly true it was.”
He steps into his pyjamas like this is a normal night, like the world isn’t upside down, like their house still feels like a home rather than a pile of old stones - ancient ruins of a once-mighty empire, reduced to dust and ashes. Carson supposes that they never will move the bed to the other wall now.
“I - ” she begins, the platitude ready to spill over when words suddenly, unexpectedly fail her. Does she? Does she need Charlie? Once upon a time, she needed him more than anything, but she thinks that version of her is gone forever. She thinks that she needs the memory of him more than anything else.
Charlie scoffs, the sound acerbic and blade-sharp. “Exactly.”
He starts to peel back the bedcovers before pausing and saying, “I’m disgusted with you, Carson. Ashamed. You should be too. You never should have gone to the tryouts. You never should have been around women like that.”
Carson sighs, feeling her eyebrows pull together under the weight of a sharp, nausea-inducing headache that has plagued her since she left the train. She rubs her palm across her forehead. “I am ashamed, and I’m guilty. Because I hurt you.”
Finally, his eyes meet hers and they are hot with anger and, just as he said, repulsion.
“Really? Is that all?”
She stares resolutely at him, face set with a conviction she had never, ever felt before she first boarded that train to Chicago, to Greta and the Peaches.
“Yes. That’s all.” There would always be a part of her that regretted hurting him, but she would never, ever feel guilt or shame for loving Greta, for drinking in their passion like nectar.
Charlie scoffs again. “I should have known you wouldn’t have the willpower... I should have known you’d be too weak to be in an environment like that. I should never have let you go.”
She doesn’t bother to tell him how hard she tried, at the start, to deny her feelings. It doesn’t matter now anyway. She would never deny them again.
Still, his words hurt her. There are so many things he could have said, so many names or slurs or curses he could have used, but they had known each other too long by now and they both know all too well where the soft flesh is. They both know how to cleave down to the bone in one fell swoop.
She feels a hot flash of anger pass through her. All this time, he had seen it too. Carson Clark, the kid who was too scared to stand up for herself in the schoolyard when her peers laughed at her for wanting to play baseball. Carson Clark, the plain, retiring teenager who was little more than a barely-visible wallflower to all the other boys. The young woman too used to being walked all over by her sister to ever feel an ounce of confidence in herself. Carson Shaw, the lonely housewife who was so lost and unhappy, her own husband had known it and done nothing. His words brand her like an iron, and she blinks away the tears.
( Come on, Shaw , says a voice that sounds like it belongs to Jess McCready. There’s no crying in baseball. )
She isn’t any of those people anymore. She is Carson, the pro baseball player, coach of the Rockford Peaches, and she had learned more than a thing or two about how to rob the fucking bank.
“I think I’m kind of done,” she says slowly, quietly, “waiting for anyone to give me permission to do or be anything, anymore.”
“You’re selfish, Car. God fucking damnit . You never loved me at all, did you?”
“Of course I did. Of course I still do,” Carson protests, and she knows it is true. They have known each other for so long and their two hearts share so much of one story. She had meant what she said to Max. She did love Charlie. Being with him was nice. She thought she’d believed in soulmates when they got married, but she never knew what hers truly looked like until the first time Greta’s lips touched her own. She loves him, but she loves Greta more. Everything is Greta now, and it always would be.
“Don’t bother, Carson. I saw how you were with her. I saw the way you - ” Charlie pauses and to Carson’s surprise his voice hitches. He clears his throat. “I saw the way you kissed her. I know you’ve never kissed me like that before, not once. Every time you told me you loved me, it meant nothing.”
“Charlie, we’ve known each other since we were six years old. Don’t torture yourself with a ridiculous lie to justify your hurt. It’s already justified. I betrayed you, I know that. And I’m sorry. I should have tried to end things with you first. But, after years of making literally every decision in our lives, you don’t get to call the shots on which of my emotions was real. I meant it every single time I told you I loved you.”
“So that’s just it, is it? You meant it, but now you don’t care.”
“Of course I care. We had a life together, but neither of us has been happy for a long time.”
Charlie gesticulates suddenly, throwing both hands up in frustration and defeat. “And? So what? That’s life, sometimes. It gets boring. But instead of pushing through it, you’re going to leave me so that you can run after her ? So you can play at being an invert?”
“I don’t know where I’m going,” Carson says truthfully. “Just like you heard me say to her. But we both need to release ourselves, we both need to find out about the next adventure.”
“I thought it was going to be the same one, Carson,” Charlie retorts, voice rising to a few decibels below a shout.
“I know, I thought so too. And I’m sorry it can’t be, I truly am. But, deep down, we’ve both known that this is what we have to do. For ourselves. Our whole lives have been twined together forever. When you left to fight, I realised I didn’t even know who I was. I didn’t know how to be a whole person. I needed to learn that. I think you should, too.”
“And I think you need to see a doctor. I think you need to go somewhere. Both of you do.”
For just a moment, Carson’s blood runs cold. She thinks of Dana, of a young girl she can scarcely picture. Greta has no photographs that are large enough to capture her essence.
Carson has tried not to wonder where Dana is now, whether she is alive, whether they let her keep her mind or ripped it out and left her empty. She tries not to encroach on Greta’s hurt, but the truth is that Carson thinks of Dana and Greta’s story every day. Her heart aches for them both.
“You need to leave her out of this,” Carson says eventually, sounding far more authoritative than she feels. “Hurting her won’t make this any better.”
“Just leave, Carson. Get out of my house,” Charlie says. “If you’re not going to fix yourself, if you’re going to choose to be this broken, just leave. I don’t know why you came back in the first place.”
Because I thought we could do this properly. Because I thought I owed it to you.
“Me neither.” Carson picks up her bags, all still packed. “What did you do with my wages?”
Charlie fixes her with one final empty stare. “I don’t know Carson. But I do know divorces are expensive. And so is silence. Besides, you said it yourself: you can’t open a bank account anyway.”
She feels her insides turn to ice and, eyes burning with shame and frustration, she scoops up her things and walks away.
*
“You’re back in your own head. Get out of it and pitch me another one.”
Carson winds up, eyes the plate, and throws. Ball meets bat with a familiar, satisfying sound, and the shot arcs to right field, dropping just short of a home run. She hasn’t got a patch on Lu, but she can place the ball where it needs to be.
It had been three weeks since she left Charlie, and the last place she expected to find herself was even further west, throwing baseballs for Jo De Luca.
It was a completely chance encounter, a particular quirk of fate when the two of them spotted each other milling in the vicinity of the tourist trap that was Hollywood Boulevard.
Carson wasn’t enamoured with LA in the slightest, and she especially didn’t appreciate the stuffy weather so late in the year, but she had needed to pick the first train out of town, leaving so quickly the next morning that her sister and father didn’t even know she had returned home.
She didn’t have more money than the few notes and coins in her pocketbook, so she had taken up a job bookkeeping in order to rent a modest, lonely room in a boarding lodge for unmarried women. She hated everything about it, but she just needed to hold out until she saved up enough to start anew somewhere else.
She had been working her new job for one week and was rushing out to buy lunch for herself and the greying men she grudgingly called colleagues when she had spotted Jo by chance, coming out of a matinee showing at a nearby movie theatre. Unable to resist the pull of a familiar face, she had beelined over.
“Looking for Katharine Hepburn out here?”
Jo had whirled around, face slack as she tried to make sense of the sight of Carson there in front of her. Then, after a pause long enough for Carson to begin to think she should have just kept to herself, Jo’s face had split into a smile.
They caught up that same night over beers, and then proceeded to meet up every few days to hit baseballs and set the world to rights.
Today, however, Carson’s heart wasn’t in it. She was mixed up, desperate to leave the city and wickedly heartsick for Greta.
Cigarette hanging out of one corner of her mouth, Jo waves her free hand in indignation, before huffing a sigh and giving up entirely.
“There’s no point today, is there?”
“I’m sorry, Jo. I just…” Carson trails off, no intention of trying to put into words everything she felt.
Jo strides over, baseball bat cocked over one shoulder.
“I know,” she says gently, studying her closely for a moment. “I miss her too. But we all need a bit of time to get our lives back together, right?”
“You’re right,” Carson replies, voice hollow, and she knows it to be true but it does not make the restlessness bleed out of her like she wants it to.
She wants to force it out of her pores, to scratch her own skin off so it can pour away.
*
Multiple times a week, Carson takes out a pen and paper and tries to write to Greta. She doesn’t have her forwarding address, but she thinks if she could just write down everything she feels, seal it in an envelope, and bury it in the bottom of her trunk, then she might just be able to start putting the pieces of her life back together.
She wants to ask how Greta’s job with Vivienne is. She wants to ask about where she lives, who she sees, how much she gets paid, what she does on the weekends. She wants to ask if she’s fallen in love with some girl from Queens. She wants to tell her that she, Carson, could never love anyone else again.
Instead, she lives like a ghost, going through the motions each day and never truly inhabiting her own body. She works and barely sees the numbers on the page in front of her. They make her think of Shirley, and Carson wishes she could ask her to calculate the odds of this loneliness ever leaving her. Slim to none, she thinks. Christmas creeps up and Carson barely even acknowledges it.
She drinks beers with Jo and even allows herself to be dragged to a few underground bars. She lets women flirt with her, but she never leaves with them like Jo does. There are pretty, delicate women with dresses that would fit better on Greta’s frame; there are butches and studs who make Carson ache for another minute of Jess’s company and the wild, reckless confidence it always inspired. There are the women like Max - the ones who sit in a no man’s land of gender expression - and Carson sometimes contemplates leaving the city to find an All Stars game, just to see Max pitch a hundred no-hitters.
She eats pizza on her own and thinks about warm bread. When she pictures it, she thinks of the butter melting away and sinking out of sight, just like she used to do.
She writes to Charlie, gives him her address so that he can send through anything he needs for the separation. The paperwork arrives two months into her stay in the city, and she signs and returns it all right away. She doesn’t even hesitate, and then a day later she wonders what this says about her.
She stays up late until she knows for sure that night has fallen in New York. She finds patterns in the constellations and hopes Greta does too.
*
“You didn’t hear this from me, but word on the street is that we’ll be receiving a visitor in a week or two.”
Carson hates LA and she hates Hollywood and she hates bookkeeping. She is, however, still firmly undecided when it comes to her opinion about the beach. Maybelle once dragged the team out to Lake Michigan after an away game in Racine, and Carson enjoyed it more than she thought she might.
There’s too much sand, but it’s peaceful, even when people are crowded up and down the bay when the late fall sun is out. She likes to watch the waves, envious of the tide as it ebbs and flows, always moving back and forth, clearing the seaweed and saltwater detritus away each day, making new masterpieces again tomorrow.
She and Jo are sat side-by-side on a borrowed beach towel, their bare toes just touching the tideline as the sea creeps ever closer, threatening to evict them from their chosen spot. Carson turns a piece of green sea glass over and over in her hands, contemplating the way it was made into something beautiful only after the waves had battered its sharp, broken edges away.
Jo gives her a meaningful look but Carson is genuinely none the wiser. “Who?”
“I didn’t mention it before, but Lupe wrote me. She went to home but, reading between the lines, it hasn’t gone too well. Seems she’s been over in Albuquerque for a while, but the postmark was from Yuma. She told me she was gonna stop by soon. She didn’t leave a forwarding address. but she’ll want to see you.”
“How did she know where to write?”
“I had plans to crash with a friend when I first came up here. We don’t know each other too well, but we’re mutual friends with Dot, if you remember her.”
Carson shoots a quick glance at a young couple as they stroll by, arm-in-arm and largely oblivious to anyone but each other.
“How could I forget Dorothy?” she says, biting back a grin.
“Well, I left that address with a few people, didn’t want to lose touch even more after,” Jo pauses. “Well, you know.”
The grin slides off Carson’s face. “Yeah. Course.”
“Maybe you’ll want to put in your two weeks? See where Lupe’s heading to next? Maybe it’ll be somewhere you like more than here. You’ve got to at least try and be happy.”
“Oh!” Carson says, voice rushed. “No, I mean, here’s fine. It’s nice being with y-”
“Drop it, Shaw. I travelled around with Greta my whole life, including after Dana. I’m all too familiar with the sad, lost little look on your face. I can see when a person’s just kicking up dust when they try to run from something. I know you hate it here. I know you’re thinking about heading east every other minute. Trust me, I’m trying to get rid of you anyway. You’re cramping my style at the bar.”
Carson ducks her head and smiles.
“You probably could have stopped a minute earlier.”
Jo takes a drag of her cigarette. “Now where’s the fun in that, farm girl?”
*
Jo calls the hall phone in the boarding house on a Saturday afternoon two weeks later, the background noise down the receiver suggesting that she was using the payphone a block away from her home.
“You might want to come over to mine,” she says gleefully. “And stop at a liquor store on the way. There’s a Striker in the house.”
The thought of seeing another member of the Peaches, of the proof that it hadn’t all been some beautiful dream, energises Carson enough to convince her to brave the crowded LA buses. She picks up a few bottles on the way, the old cashier eyeing her as she pays, his eyes drifting down to her left hand. A small mercy of the omnipresent California sun was how quickly it had coloured in the soft, pink-pale strip of skin left behind by her wedding ring. It had already faded in Rockford, but now it was like the band of gold tucked into her purse had never existed at all. It was an almost-forgotten heirloom, lost on a shipwreck generations ago.
“My brother is hosting his friends while they’re back home on leave,” she says unnecessarily, and it heads off the inevitable conversation.
She had been woefully unprepared for how many sly looks and probing questions an unmarried woman of her age receives, simply for existing.
Jo rents a crappy, miniscule studio at the edge of Downtown to herself, citing something about it being easier to sneak girls in and out. She answers Carson’s knock right as a peal of laughter sounds up from within.
“I haven’t told her you’re here,” Jo says quietly, and the idea makes Carson feel absurdly nervous. She and Lupe had grown remarkably close after their rocky ride mid-season, but she had never felt particularly assured that anyone ever truly wanted her around. The only exceptions were Greta, and maybe Max.
Perhaps Lupe only wanted to see Jo. Maybe she wanted a break from the Peaches.
Still, Carson smiles weakly and steps inside, passing the drinks to a grateful Jo, who bustles towards the counter space in the corner that is supposed to constitute a kitchen.
“We got company!” she calls, as though Lupe can’t see and hear everything from the tiny couch in the middle of the room. But when Carson kicks her shoes off at the door and finally looks up, two gleeful faces stare back at her.
Jess and Lupe are squashed on that awful couch, looking exactly as Carson remembers them in their flat caps and woollen pants. Something about the sight of them, unchanged but travel-rumpled, brings tears to her eyes.
“De Luca, you sneaky fucker!” Jess launches herself to her feet and claps a hand against Carson’s shoulder. “How you been Shaw? How long have you been out here?”
“Yeah, you know,” Carson says, her smile not matching the sentiment of her answer. She wonders if people will learn, in time, to stop calling her Shaw. “I’ve been…”
Without waiting for her to say anything else, Lupe pulls her into a hug that feels like the closest thing to home she’s known in months.
“Yeah, us too Shaw.”
*
After more handles of gin between them than should have been possible, Lupe finds Carson on a bench outside the apartment building. She sits down and lights a cigarette, offering one to Carson who is drunk enough to accept it. She coughs on the first inhale, but manages the next just fine.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just needed a bit of fresh air now the sun’s gone in. Can’t get used to it never really getting cold.”
Lupe nudges her shoulder into Carson’s. “No, I mean, are you okay ?”
Carson looks directly at her friend. Both of them are slack and loose from drink but the Striker’s dark, deep eyes are wide and sincere, shining with concern.
Just like that, the dam breaks and her life comes flooding out between them. Powerless to stop it, Carson tells Lupe everything she had kept from Jo, who was still processing so much of her own trauma. She tells her about the goodbye kiss with Greta, and Charlie’s discovery; that one night in Lake Valley, and the train journey to LA; the shitty job and the soulless boarding house and the crushing weight of Greta around every corner, in every grain of sand on the beach and every moonbeam under her curtain. She tells her about the separation and the boredom and the sweet, sweet longing for New York.
“So,” Lupe says when Carson finally grows quiet, her throat hoarse from talking more than she can remember in months. “Why aren’t you out there?” With a grin, she produces a half-empty bottle from somewhere and takes a swig before offering it to Carson.
“I - don’t know,” she replies honestly, ignoring the burn of the liquor on her tongue. She wonders if it will ever scald the taste of Greta out of her mouth. She hopes it doesn’t. “But, for one thing, I don’t have any money. Charlie kept everything from the Peaches.”
“Fucker,” Lupe growls, before letting her demeanour shift back again, and it is obvious her next words are a joke. “Shall we head up and get it back? Jess loves a good fist fight.”
“It was for the separation. And,” Carson pauses for a moment, unsure of how honest to be. “And to keep quiet about Greta.”
Lupe’s eyes soften and she offers a sad smile.
“Plus, even if he hadn’t,” Carson goes on, “I think we - Greta and I, I mean - both need to get our lives back on track first. I realised I don’t actually know who I am, so. That’s probably a priority.”
“Huh,” Lupe says with a laugh that is just a little too sympathetic. “That sounds like shit.”
“Yep,” Carson replies heavily, popping the ‘p’. “Are you okay, Lu?”
“Yeah,” she says dully. “I guess. I tried to go back home, but I wasn’t wanted. It hurts, but I don’t know what else I was expecting. I lasted about six days longer than you, then ran off over the border for a bit before I decided my wages probably wouldn’t last until next season if I didn’t sort my shit out. Found Jess back in New Mexico where I’d left her; she didn’t even try going back to Canada. Munitions workers get paid almost as well as baseball players, apparently. You’re in the wrong job.”
“I also need both my arms. For the baseball.”
Lupe throws her head back and laughs.
“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe not a good fit for you.” They sit in silence for a moment before she exclaims, “ fuck . I miss Rockford. Isn’t that crazy?”
Carson grins. “Not even slightly. I don’t actually know where I’m supposed to be anymore. I don’t fit anywhere but with the team. And even then…”
“Don’t,” Lupe says sharply. “I know we…had our stuff. But you’re our coach. You don’t just fit, Carson. You fit all of us together.”
Carson sniffs and Lupe does her the immense favour of pretending she can’t see the tears.
“You’re our coach too, Striker.”
“It sounds like you fucking hate it here. Come with us. Get off the ride when you find a better fit.”
“I can’t do that Lu. I know how you and Jess click. I don’t want to upset the balance.”
Behind them, the door creaks shut. Neither of them had heard company join them.
“Fuck that sideways,” Jess says suddenly, sitting down heavily by their feet. She grins, just the way Carson remembers. “How soon can you quit your job?”
*
Dearest Greta
I’ve been in LA for almost three months. That’s almost three months without seeing your face or feeling your touch. I hate it more than I can say.
I found Jo out here, totally by accident - can you believe that? I don’t know what I would have done without her these past weeks. She’s kept me from falling all the way undone. That’s just how it is without you.
I can’t believe we’re in California without you.
Speaking of unbelievable things, I leave with Lupe and Jess this afternoon. I can’t wait to get out of the city - I guess I am a farm girl, after all! I don’t know where we’re going, or where they’ll finally drop me off, but I think I might be a little bit excited to find out.
How were the holidays for you? What is New York like? Are you happy there? I hope you are - I can’t bear the thought of you being anything else. I’m sure you’re a huge success at Vivienne’s company. You’re the kind of person who can achieve anything they set their mind to.
Would you hate me if I came to visit? I know we both need to find our own paths, but all I ever do is count the days until they merge back together again.
I think Lu and Jess are struggling to adjust to life post-Rockford almost as much as I am. Is it that way for all of us? Does it feel like your halcyon days too? I wonder if we’ll ever glow any brighter than we did as the Original Rockford Peaches. When I’m with you, I think I’ll always shine.
Last night, I looked up at the sky and there were only clouds. They were covering all the stars we used to stare out at on the night practices. I think that’s when we fell in love, isn’t it? I know it’s when I fell in love with you.
I hope you know that I’m forever yours, my love.
Sending you a piece of my heart. Please take care of it.
Your Carson
She seals the paper into an envelope and tucks it beneath her training kit. Deep down, she knows Greta will never see it.
*
“ Jesus Christ ,” Jo exclaims with a low whistle. “How the hell did you afford this baby, McCready?”
The Cadillac is a tan brown, sleek, and in such good condition you’d almost think it was brand new. It was going to be a tight squeeze for three, but Carson didn’t mind. For the first time in a long time, there was a thrill of longing and excitement in her stomach. In minutes she would be out of the city, never to return to that job or that room in the boarding lodge.
“I’m a ball player. And really good at welding. And poker,” Jess says with a shrug, throwing her duffle into the trunk and gesturing at Carson to do the same with her luggage. She and Lupe give Jo a hug before climbing into the front of the car.
“I’m calling passenger seat at all times if I’m not driving,” Lu says as she winds down the window. Carson doesn’t care at all.
She takes her turn to hug Jo, the two of them holding on tighter and longer than their teammates had.
“Thank you for these past few months,” Carson murmurs into Jo’s ear before they break apart. “I think you’ve saved me from myself.”
Jo gives her a sad smile and, if Carson isn’t mistaken, her eyes are a little watery.
“Pollen count,” she lies quickly, adding in a fake cough for effect. “But uh, for what it’s worth, having a familiar face here with me while I settle in has been…just what I needed.”
Carson nods, feeling tears of her own spring up. “You know we’re gonna sign you for next season, right? The Sox have had their grace period.”
“Damn right,” Jess calls from behind the wheel. “We need that arm.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” Jo says, before exhaling and steeling herself. “Now get in the car before they leave you here on the sidewalk.”
Carson lets out a watery laugh, knocked sideways by how unexpectedly hard this is proving to be. She is desperate to leave the city, but she will miss Jo more than she can say.
“Right. Okay. Don’t be a stranger, you got that?”
“You too, Coach,” Jo says and she waits for Carson to turn away before grabbing her hand and stuffing something into it. Jo balls Carson’s fingers into a fist before letting go abruptly.
“What?” Carson begins, but Jo cuts her off, pushing her to get into the car.
“Don’t look at it. Don’t say anything. Just write to her.” She steps back so that Jess can peel away, waving until they can no longer see her out the back window.
Finally, Carson uncurls her fingers and, sure enough, there is an address written on a piece of paper in Jo’s careless, scruffy scrawl.
“Hey. You good?” Jess asks, looking at her via the driver’s mirror.
“Yeah,” Carson replies and, for the first time since she kissed Greta goodbye, it is almost the truth. “I think I am, actually.”
*
In the weeks that follow, the three of them drive east, no real destination in mind.
They take turns at the wheel, the passengers alternating between reading the map, napping, or being a general nuisance. They’re all heady, excited, gripped by some strange but unspoken feeling that life after the Peaches really might be possible.
They’re all holding out for a second season, but they know that they must find a way to endure if it doesn’t fall their way.
The road sings a song of thunder as the wheels rattle over the asphalt, and the weak but persistent sun manages to burn Jess and Carson’s noses bright red through the windscreen. Lupe laughs at them, but there’s a smudge of something on her after a few days, too, and her freckles seem to increase overnight. They trade more stories about their lives before the Peaches and sing the occasional song when the mood takes them.
For the first time, Carson is happy. She is nearing home.
They stay at some of the worst motels she has ever seen, and they eat greasy breakfasts and drink bitter coffee at roadside diners beside other weary travellers.
Jess replaces a tire when it blows out somewhere between Tucson and Las Cruces, and Lu pumps their gas near El Paso, to the bewilderment of the little old man sat in a rickety folding chair in the shade of the rest stop.
They drink very cheap beer on clear, starry nights as they sit in parking lots, their backs against the car when it finally cools down after running all day. They spend a few days in Odessa, recharging and giving far too much money to the bars they find. On a chilly but sunny afternoon in late January, Jess drives them out of town and, lacking any self-consciousness after weeks of sharing a locker room, they strip down to their undies and dive into Moss Creek Lake. Carson cries out at the shock of the water, colder than she expected, and Jess tries to jump on Lu’s shoulders as she slicks her dark curls back. They laugh and curse into the quiet air, alive and finally breathing again.
Everywhere they go, they look strange; three unmarried women who don’t dress right and don’t fit in anywhere else. Mostly, they don’t even think twice about the disapproving looks but, if things ever don’t feel right, Carson slips on her wedding ring and hopes for the best, stories of fake husbands out in Europe eventually falling easily from her lips.
Whenever they stop, if she finds a postcard, Carson buys one and adds it to a growing collection, started by a last-minute purchase in LA. She writes something on each one, but she never sends them to New York.
As February blooms, Carson finds herself alone one night, sitting alone on the hood of the car with her legs crossed beneath. She takes in the silence and stares down at an artist’s rendition of Austin, Texas, before flipping the card over and searching her pockets for a pen.
My dear Greta
I’ve been on the road with Jess and Lupe for a while now, and we’re starting to exhale. We’re having fun, although I know we’d be having even more fun if you were here with us.
We’re starting to talk about the possibility of a second season for the league. We don’t have forwarding addresses at the moment, but we’re going to try and make a few phone calls soon.
I’m writing this from just north of Austin. It's chilly here at the moment but not too bad. I bet New York is very cold. Has it snowed yet? Are you looking after yourself and keeping warm? Please take care of you for me.
You know, a part of me still can’t believe I chose this. I chose to be free. I couldn’t have done that without you. You made me brave. I wasn’t like you when we first met, but I’m trying more and more every day. As I sit here looking at the full moon, I’m trying to decide if, by choosing to be apart, we actually chose each other. Or did we choose the opposite? I think we both needed this, but now I need you more. I hope you’ll choose me when we next see each other. I have never known how to do that, but maybe you can keep teaching me.
I think, by coming out here and having this adventure, I’m searching for you. I look for you in every town we visit. They lack color, because you’re elsewhere.
I’m looking for where our resolution lives, too, but I am still waiting for it to find me. For now, I take heart in knowing that at least the moon will wait with me. She’s so pale in the sky tonight, and it’s strange to think that she is unchanged by all that has passed between us here on Earth. Me and her are both of us so lonely, but I think we’re both glowing the same. I know you are glowing too. Sometimes, I picture you looking up at the moon because it’s comforting to think we are both staring at the same thing, perhaps even at the same time.
Until we meet again.
I love you.
Your Carson