Chapter Text
Carson heard her before she saw her.
Lupe’s shoulder nudged hers as she planted herself next to Carson on the stairs leading up to the house. Carson kept her gaze ahead, willing the tears still in her eyes not to fall.
A cold beer appeared in her line of sight. Reluctantly, Carson grabbed the bottle and sipped. It was cheap, and it was gross, but it felt good going down.
“You find your…thing?” Lupe asked, and Carson could feel the pitcher’s eyes on her.
“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did,” Carson replied. She rubbed her eyes in an attempt to hide how red and blotchy she’d become, although that probably just made everything worse. Not like she cared anymore. “I also found my husband. Or rather, he found me. With her.”
“I thought you sent him back to the farm?” asked Lupe.
“We don’t live on a -- ” Carson sighed. “I did. I thought he was in Idaho. He came to surprise me and bring me home.”
“Oh shit, man…” Even though Carson had her eyes trained on Beverly’s parked car across the street, she could practically feel Lupe’s eyes widen. Sure enough, when she turned, Lupe’s eyes were as wide as saucers, her beer hovering in front of her mouth.
“Yeah, oh shit indeed,” Carson replied, shaking her head. How could this be happening? She had told Charlie to go home, that she would meet him in Idaho and together they could sort everything out. She had spent all last night formulating the perfect speech to give once she was back in Idaho. Well, it wasn’t a whole speech. It was really only a couple sentences, but the point was that she had a plan. And now that plan was fucked and her marriage was fucked and,
“I’m so fucked,” she muttered.
Lupe shook her head sympathetically before finally swigging her beer. “Fucking men. Always sticking their noses where they don’t belong.”
“He wouldn’t even look at me.” Carson’s voice was barely above a whisper. “I mean, he looked plenty at me and Gret -- but then once I tried to explain he just --” Her head fell into her hands. “We’ve known each other since we were five fucking years old, but he wouldn’t even look at me. Wouldn’t listen. He told me he was going home and not to follow.” She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the last words Charlie said to her.
Lupe started scratching the label off of her beer bottle. “You think he’ll say anything?”
“He said he wouldn’t,” said Carson, her voice shaking. “He said…he said he doesn’t want the town thinking he was married to a goddamn queer.”
Carson felt Lupe’s arm wrap around her shoulders. Tough, impenetrable Lupe was comforting her. If she wasn’t so goddamn fucked she would crack some sort of joke. But she just couldn’t. Greta was gone, the rest of the Peaches were dispersing across the entire continent and Carson had nowhere to go.
For a moment they sat like that, Carson contemplating her drastic change in circumstance while Lupe held her and nursed her Schlitz. Most of the girls were already at the train station, making the yard eerily quiet for the first time in months.
“You know,” Lupe said, finally breaking the silence. “Jess and I are headed to Chicago. She has a cousin who works at a factory up there and makes good money. We even heard they were hiring girl mechanics and drivers now. We figured we’d find something temporary, you know, until next season.”
Carson glanced up, peeking up at Lupe through her fingers. Lupe met her eyes for just a second before looking back up, squinting into the sun as she leaned back on her elbows. “We were gonna try to find an apartment for the two of us, but having another roommate would certainly make things cheaper.”
“Wait…” Carson sat up, causing Lupe to look back at her with a slight smirk. “You’re saying you and Jess want to live with me? In Chicago?”
Lupe rolled her eyes. “Yes, that is what I’m saying.”
“Can we even do that? Live alone as three single women?” asked Carson. Even as she asked, though, she could see it; the three of them working at a factory or mechanic shop, maybe finding a bar like Vi’s. Finding just a slice of what they found here in Rockford. But still, she didn’t want pity. Lupe was probably just asking to be nice. They didn’t really want to live with her.
“Jess’ cousin lives with three other women. Not in a boarding house, but in their own apartment,” Lupe answered with a slight shrug. “Who says we can’t do the same?”
Just then Jess plopped down on the other side of Carson, a scuffed suitcase clattering down beside her.
“Did you ask her?” Jess asked Lupe as she threw on her Peaches ball cap.
“Still waiting on a reply,” Lupe said. She looked at Carson and raised her eyes.
“Whatdya say, Shaw? Want to check out the Windy City?” Jess asked.
Carson looked back and forth from Jess to Lupe. “Hold on. You guys really want me to live with you? You don’t just feel sorry for me?”
Jess grinned wickedly. “Well sure, we feel sorry for you. But we also, ya know, like you.”
Despite everything that had happened in the past hour, Carson felt a smile tug at her lips. “You do?”
“Don’t be weird about it, Shaw,” Lupe said, scooting away from Carson, who technically wasn’t going to be Shaw for much longer. “Also, our train leaves in 45 minutes, so you need to decide, like -- “
“Now,” Jess finished. “You need to decide now, Farm Girl.”
It was one of the easiest decisions Carson ever made.
“I’m in.”
--
“Would you rather have to try and steal every time you were on base or always have to slide into a base?” Jess asked as they scooted onto their seats. The vinyl was sticky, covered in god-knows-what, and Carson’s dress kept sticking as she took her place at the bar.
“Oh slide,” she said, shaking her head. “How is that even a question?”
“Agreed. Stealing is fun, but too risky, hermano,” Lupe added as she nodded at the bartender, a gorgeous butch woman who was spitting image of Vi, just 10 or so years younger. A familiar yet sharp-as-ever feeling swept through Carson’s belly. How long would it take for her to let Rockford go? It wasn’t like they weren’t ever going back. But it seemed her body hadn’t gotten the memo.
The bartender nodded back and made her way over. “What can I do you for?”
They each put their orders in and chatted idly about their days. While all three of them had gotten jobs at the same manufacturing plants, they all had different jobs so they barely, if ever, actually saw each other at work.
“I saw Patty, the shortstop for Racine, on the floor today,” Lupe said as their beers were delivered. “She said she and a couple other Racine girls are living just a couple blocks from us.”
“We should have a catch with them,” Carson suggested. “Keep ourselves in shape for when April rolls around.”
“ Play catch,” Jess and Lupe said together, both rolling their eyes.
“Honestly, Shaw,” added Jess, shaking her head as she chewed the toothpick lodged in her teeth.
“Not Shaw,” Carson reminded her. The divorce papers hadn’t come yet, but they would. And when they did, she needed to be ready. So did everyone else.
“Damn, it’s too bad your shit bag of a husband had such a good last name,” said Lupe. “Coach Carson just doesn’t have the same ring to it, ya know?”
“Gee, thanks,” Carson said sarcastically. She took a sip of her beer, casually scanning the bar. It was a bit bigger than Vi’s, but had the same close-knit, secretive feeling as their hideaway in Rockford. It was Jess who’d found out about this place. She’d, well, “befriended” Adele, the owner’s girlfriend’s roommate at the plant and she’d told Jess just where to look to find the space, affectionately named The Matchbox.
Before long Adele herself joined them and pulled a blushing Jess to the dance floor. Neither Carson nor Lupe had ever seen Jess dance until Adele, unless you count the atrocious charm school lessons at the beginning of the season. None of them did. But it turned out, Jess was a natural leader on the dance floor. Both of them watch the two women, Jess twirling and throwing Adele around the room like she’d been doing it forever.
Watching the ease at which they moved, the laughter spread across their faces, as adorable as it was, hurt like hell. Carson had never understood her friends who said they missed their husbands so much it physically hurt but now…now it felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing her in the chest every time she saw a couple like Jess and Adele, every time she saw a redheaded woman walking down the street, every time she breathed. How did couples do this, go weeks without seeing or talking to the person who made their world go round?
“Have you heard from her?” Lupe asked, pulling Carson out of her little trance.
“Jesus! What are you, a mind reader?” Carson sputtered.
Lupe shook her head, but she was smiling. “No. Your eyes glazed over just like they always do whenever you’re thinking about her. Which is fucking always,” she added.
“Not always ,” Carson muttered. She sighed. “But no, I haven’t.”
“You write to her?”
“Well…” She’d tried, God knows Carson had tried to write to Greta. She’d written 10 different letters, some of them actually decent ones, too. But each time she’d thought about actually putting the letter in the mail, she froze. She knew, logically, that Greta didn’t have her address, so even if Greta had wanted to write, she couldn’t. It was up to Carson to start, but…
“You’re scared, huh?” Lupe asked, eyeing Carson as she swigged from her beer.
“Wouldn’t you be?” Carson replied. She couldn’t deny it. She was scared shitless.
Lupe thought a second before replying. “Yeah, I would. But you know, she’s the one who invited you to New York, right? Greta Doesn’t-Do-Commitment Gill was ready for you to follow her across the country. That means something.”
“But that’s just it!” exclaimed Carson. “I told her I wanted to go off on my own, find my own way in the world. If I write to her, I’m going back on what I said I wanted.”
“You can want both, dummy,” said Lupe, nudging the other woman with her shoulder. “You can figure out what you want and talk to, and even visit, her.”
“You think?” Carson asked.
Lupe just gave her a small smile, one corner of her lips slightly upturned.
“It’s already so hard for people like us to be with the women we love, Carson. Why are you making it even harder for yourself?”
--
Two days later, she mailed the 11th letter.
--
Dearest Greta,
My divorce papers came today. I guess I should be shocked, or sad, or angry. But more than anything I just feel relief. How awful is that? My marriage is over and all I can think is thank the fucking lord.
If you were here, I think you’d tell me it’s not awful. That I’m finally getting to live the life I want to live. And I think you’d be right. God, I miss you. How has it been two months already since I last saw you, last touched you? Last heard your beautiful voice?
How is New York? What sort of fancy shmancy stuff are you doing for Vivienne? I’m sure you’re blowing them all away. Have you heard from Jo?
I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner. I wanted to the second you left for the train station back in Rockford. But then Lupe and Jess and I came here to Chicago and found our place -- by the way, how did you ever sleep in the same room as Jess? We only share a wall and I swear it sounds like a thousand foghorns are going off every night. Oh, but we all work for the same factory, and none of us work nights. And there’s a baseball diamond two blocks from our place. Not too shabby, huh? Anyway, we got here and things got busy and I should have written sooner and I’m sorry I didn’t.
I miss you so much it physically hurts. It feels like I’m missing a limb, like I’m walking around Chicago without one of my arms but everyone’s still treating me like I have two. Can’t they see that part of me is missing? The very best part of me is gone and I’m surviving but I don’t know if I will be whole again until we are back together.
Until then, I will dream of you and Rockford and the owl tree.
Write back soon.
All my love,
Carson