Alaska, and ridden bicycles through the countryside in Provence. On their first day, after a hilly, fifteen-mile pedal through the rolling countryside, they’d stopped at a winery for lunch. Jo had limited herself to a few sips of white and a single swallow of red, admiring the cool, cave-like interior of the stone farmhouse where they were dining, and enjoying her Niçoise salad and fresh baguette. Shelley, meanwhile, had insisted on tasting everything they poured, finishing her glasses and Jo’s, sampling whites, reds, rosés, sparkling wines, even dessert wines. “I’m just having a little bit!” she’d said, flushed and indignant, when Jo pointed out that they’d have to get back on their bikes when the meal was over. By the time they stepped back into the afternoon sunshine, Shelley was past tipsy. She’d put her helmet on backward, waved off Jo’s help, climbed on her bike, wobbled maybe ten yards down the smooth dirt of the winery’s driveway, and then rolled, very slowly, into a shallow, grassy ditch. Jo ran after her and found her lying on her back, helmet askew, laughing so hard she was crying.
“BUI!” she’d gasped. “Biking under the influence!” Jo had laughed and held her, and they’d drowsed together, under the lemony sun, and Jo had spent the rest of the ride pedaling solo, with Shelley sobering up in the van.
Over the years, Jo had imagined a hundred different lives for her lost love. She’d pictured Shelley in a jewelry studio, her small, fox-like face intent as she used a blowtorch to twist metal into earrings and pendants, or Shelley onstage, performing monologues, or Shelley as a poet in loose-fitting black clothing, walking through a forest bright with fall leaves. She’d been amused when, with a combination of pride and chagrin, Shelley told her that she’d become a speech therapist. “I had to do something practical after the divorce,” she explained on their first night in Colorado. They’d been in bed, where Jo had been delighted to find that Shelley smelled just the way she remembered, that same intoxicating combination of flowery perfume and tobacco, even though Shelley claimed to have stopped smoking in the 1970s. She’d put on weight since the last time Jo had seen her, and she’d been careful to keep a pillow or a length of sheet over her midsection, until Jo had pulled her hands away and kissed every silvery stretch mark, every inch of yielding skin.
“Speech therapy?”
Shelley lifted her chin. “I was broke.” Her father had died by then, of colon cancer, the year after Shelley’s wedding, and her mother wouldn’t have been supportive, even if Shelley had asked.
“No alimony?”
Shelley bit her lip, a gesture Jo remembered well, and said, “Denny wasn’t in the mood to be generous.” More lip-nibbling ensued, before Shelley said, “He found me in bed. With someone else.”
“The pizza delivery boy?” Jo teased.
“More like the pizza delivery girl,” Shelley confessed, ducking her head, as Jo felt jealousy flare in her chest at the idea of some long-ago stranger. “Denny was furious. He felt like I’d pulled some kind of bait and switch on him. That I knew I was . . .” Jo saw her throat work as she swallowed, before saying, “. . . gay before I married him. That I never intended to have kids, or be a mother, and I lied to him.”
Jo hadn’t meant to ask, but the words were out before she could stop them. “Did he have any idea? Did you ever tell him about—”
“You?” Shelley gave a sad smile and shook her head. “Of course not. He thought you were my friend. That was all.” She shook her head again. “You were the brave one, remember?”
“Not so brave that I didn’t end up exactly where you were,” Jo said.
Shelley sighed and reached for Jo’s hand.
“I took what he gave me, and I didn’t want to move back home, so I took out loans and I went back to school, and I have spent the last fifteen years teaching children how to pronounce their diphthongs.”
“Come here, you diphthong,” said Jo, opening her arms. Later, she’d whispered, “Do you forgive me?”
“For not running away with me?” Shelley answered, plucking Jo’s thoughts from her head with that old, familiar ease. “Please. You had two babies. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a fantasy.”
Jo had rolled onto her side, pulling Shelley close. “I’m here now.”
Shelley had put her condo on the market and took the first good offer that she