The One That Got Away (23 page)

“Well, those kinds of dreams are the best,” Maxine replied.

“I fell asleep right away,” Natalie said. “We'd like to head back to the city after breakfast if that's okay with you, B.D. We've done everything we wanted to do here.”

I told her that was fine with me.

Our return trip was quiet. Natalie played classical music on the car's CD player; none of us spoke very much. They dropped me off in front of my apartment building, and I never saw either one again.

Chapter 27

In preparation for a new year, I transferred the birthdays and anniversaries noted in my old date book into my new one. When I came to the square for April 1, I wrote in Bridget's name.

And if, in the privacy of my apartment, I sometimes said her name aloud, well, that was nobody's business but my own.

Bridget didn't haunt me in a scary, spectral way. Nor in a friendly, intimate way, like Captain Daniel Gregg in
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
, which I would have welcomed. But there were times I thought I saw her, even though I knew it couldn't be.

In June, cruising the crowd going into Madison Square Garden for a New York Liberty basketball game, I became fixated on the nape of a woman's neck. The cut and color of her hair, the way she was standing with her hands in her pockets, made me silently beg,
turn around, turn around
. I knew it couldn't be Bridget, but I needed to see the face, feel the disappointment; feel like the fool that I was.

Today, I thought I saw Bridget again.

I remember her walk as being more of an amble than
the glide of the woman ahead of me. Bridget hated wearing socks, but even she would have to suffer for the sake of those flat, black loafers. As I moved closer, I saw that the shoes weren't shiny, but scuffed, as Bridget's surely would be.

Her pants were black and wide-legged, some soft fabric that billowed and swirled as she strode down the pavement. The gray tweed jacket was much too stylish—short, tucked at the waist, then flaring out. And those highlights in her hair came from time spent in a salon chair, something Bridget would have scorned. So why was I staring, thinking it might be her?

She turned around, hand supplementing the shade provided by her sunglasses. She could have been looking for someone, at someone—maybe even at me. I stared down at the pavement.

When I looked up again, she was gone; vanished like a mirage of water in the desert.

Maybe the two of us had some unfinished business when she died. Maybe Bridget really was the one, the only one, for me. Of course, that can never be put to the test. Death is the
ne plus ultra
of unavailability.

I named a star for Bridget. The International Star Registry included two star-locating charts with the certificate they sent me, but I just look up at the sky, as I'm doing tonight.

They say to really see the stars you have to go to a place where there are no city lights to distract from or diminish their splendor. Still, tonight in New York City, the summer night is perfect. The air has cooled to a silken temperature, and caresses my skin. I want to float naked in this tranquil darkness, but all I can do is look
up—beyond the dark towers stamped with rectangles of lamplight, to the star-studded sky.

It's tempting to think that the brightest star is Bridget's star, but I remember reading that the brightest stars are really planets.

One day—not too soon, but one day—I'll take a trip. I'll do it for my fiftieth birthday. I'll invite Angel, if we're still together. Maybe even if we're not. I'll ask Erica, my cousin Sarah, and Cathy to charter a boat with me—and we'll sail the Galapagos Islands. We'll look for blue- and red-footed boobies, flightless cormorants, lava herons, and giant tortoises. I'll make sure we're there at the right season, so we can watch Pacific green sea turtles mating. I've read that the turtles can roll in the water for hours in their copulatory embrace.

I'll bring along the little bit of Bridget's ashes that I've saved. You aren't supposed to leave anything like that on the islands, but I'll be able to scatter the ashes somewhere in Ecuador or at sea. And, in the still of the night, I'll lie on the deck of our little ship, stare up into the night sky full of shimmering stars, and remember her. Then, when I sleep, I'll dream of embracing Bridget, gently rolling for hours as two turtles together in the sea.

About the Author

Carol Rosenfeld
is an accomplished short fiction writer and poet—though it's been a while since she participated in a poetry slam.
The One That Got Away
is the first novel by this writer described as “A fruit cup in the whole-grain world of literary fiction.” A Juris Doctor (she studied at night school!), she is kept very busy as the voluntary chair of the Publishing Triangle, which has been promoting LGBT literature since 1988. And that's when she's not at her day job, working for an organization that administers grants for the many colleges in the City University of New York.

She's lived in New York since 1976, and can often be found at the opera—she has a growing fascination for Wagner (and quite a few questions, too).

Acknowledgments

The journey from inspiration to actual book took approximately twenty years. The manuscript went through numerous workshops and readers as well as a title change.

I am grateful to:

Maureen Brady, who read the first twenty-five pages nearly twenty years ago and told me the book would be published someday. Maureen's constructive criticism and unflagging support helped the manuscript to grow;

Toni Amato, for reading and commenting on it; I regret that the U.S. Postal Service lost the package;

Greg Herren, who wanted to publish it but didn't get the chance, through no fault of his own;

Paul Willis, for reading and commenting on it;

Don Weise and Julia Pastore, for reading and commenting on it;

Guillermo Filice-Castro, a wonderful poet and photographer, for helping me with Eduardo's Spanish;

Thomas Keith, for reading it, commenting on it, recommending it, and taking a proprietary interest in it—I could not have asked for a more supportive advocate;

Michele Karlsberg, who took the manuscript under her wing, and flew forward with it in her inimitable style;

Jess Wells, who picked up where everyone else left off, and helped me to get to the final manuscript; and

Trent Duffy, always my rock in the stormy seas of my life.

And to my family, friends and colleagues who have cheered me on, scheduled me for readings, attended my readings, critiqued pages from the book in workshops, and shared my excitement—your happiness for me has been the best part of the publishing experience.

To my dear friend, Pris DeLong—I should have sent you the manuscript when you asked me to, but I wanted it to be perfect, so I waited. I thought we had time. I'm sorry you never got to read this, because you wanted to.

Finally, to Kelly Smith, Marianne K. Martin, Salem West (with special thanks for getting me through the last 5%), Ann McMan, and Marlo at Bywater Books—I feel blessed that you have taken me on.

At
Bywater Books
we love good books about lesbians just like you do, and we're committed to bringing the best of contemporary lesbian writing to our avid readers. Our editorial team is dedicated to finding and developing outstanding writers who create books you won't want to put down.

We sponsor the Bywater Prize for Fiction to help with this quest. Each prize winner receives $1,000 and publication of their novel. We have already discovered amazing writers like Jill Malone, Sally Bellerose, and Hilary Sloin through the Bywater Prize. Which exciting new writer will we find next?

For more information about Bywater Books and the annual Bywater Prize for Fiction, please visit our website.

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Bywater Books

Copyright © 2015 by
Carol Rosenfeld

All rights reserved.

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Bywater Books First Edition: June 2015

Cover designer: TreeHouse Studio

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ISBN: 978-1-61294-061-8 (ebook)

This novel is a work of fiction. The characters and events described by the author are fictitious. No resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, is intended.