Free Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani Page B

the Pharmacy and asked me why I didn’t accept her son’s proposal? I was humiliated.”
    “She wound up getting her way, didn’t she?” Theodore laughs and refills our wineglasses.
    “How
are
you and Jack doing?”
    “We’re in a good place.”
    “No distractions?”
    “You mean Karen Bell?” If there are even rumors about your husband straying, it becomes the touchstone of every conversation you’ll have about your marriage. But I don’t mind, because this is Theodore. “Well, I haven’t found any notes, and there haven’t been any phone calls, and Iva Lou says that Karen found a serious boyfriend up in Honaker, and Fleeta says she hasn’t heard tell of her in Norton, so I guess she’s out of the picture entirely.”
    “Well, that’s good. It’s funny about affairs, though, isn’t it? They’re so—I don’t know,
urgent
when they’re happening, uncontrollable almost, and then once they’re over, it’s hard to remember why the passion consumed you in the first place.”
    This is why Theodore and I remain so close after all these years. He can look at my life and see it clearly, in ways that I cannot. He reads my heart like a passage from a play, with emotional understanding of the moment but with one eye always on the bigger picture. Wherever he is, I feel at home with him, even in New York City, a place that once lived only in my imagination.
    The guest bathroom is loaded up with all sorts of bubble baths and soaps in a basket. I take full advantage of a faceted bottle marked CALM, pouring the opulent lavender milk into the hottest water I can stand. The stress of my trip and all the anxiety leading up to it float up and out the transom in the steam. I let it go and breathe deeply.
    Theodore knows how to treat a guest. The candles, nestled in a series of crystal cups, are scented like sugar cookies and throw shadows of snowflakes onto the wall. There’s a stack of fluffy white towels in a wrought-iron antique stand; they’re monogrammed not with initials but with the word RELAX. There’s even a shower radio, and I turn on some music while I soak. (It’s set on a country station, which makes me laugh.) Theodore thinks of everything; maybe that’s why Radio City Music Hall snapped him up—great art is in the details.
    Theodore gets me up early with a large paper cup of coffee and a giant cinnamon and raisin bagel in a brown paper bag (does everything to eat in this city come in a sack?). He wants me up and dressed so we’re ready to hit the day running. Theodore has to be in the office, and he has mapped out places around Radio City that I can visit while he’s working. He has a whole itinerary worked out; we’ll see shows, sightsee, and even watch the Columbus Day Parade down Fifth Avenue on Monday. “You’ll really get your fill of Eye-talians,” Theodore promises.
    The offices at Radio City aren’t really offices at all. They’re small beige cubicles, sort of like a giant egg carton. The walls overflow with charts and calendars and swatches of fabric, braids and trims for costumes, watercolors of set designs, and shoes (you’d be surprised how many kinds of tap shoes there are). The phones never stop ringing. Everyone is young, and everyone seems rushed. They barely look up when Theodore introduces me; they aren’t rude, just busy. When he walks to the center of the maze, he is besieged by everyone from the dance captain to the receptionist. Of course, this is their busiest time of year; they’re in preproduction for the Christmas extravaganza. As a small group gathers around Theodore, I reach into his jacket pocket and pull out the list of places for me to check out on my own and indicate that I’ll be back for lunch.
    There must be a hundred makeup kiosks on the main floor of Saks Fifth Avenue. I think of Fleeta, who complains about having to load two measly spin racks at the Mutual’s; I wonder what she’d do if she had to help stock this operation.
    I am spritzed with four