Free Traveling Light by Andrea Thalasinos Page B

the spoon. Most of it just fell off. But then she looked at the plastic scooper. How would she clean it off before bringing it back to the hotel room? She hadn’t thought this through.
    “Shit.” She looked around the park for paper towels or something else to wipe the thing off. She bent and tried wiping it on the grass. Damn.
    “Eh, fuck it.” She chucked the damn thing in the trash and walked back to the bench. Crossing her legs, she leaned with her chin into her palm. Funny how there were so many benches in New York, but she rarely sat down to look around. Fotis was amusing to watch, like a bear sniffing and lumbering about. She thought of the view from her office window around the corner in Washington Square Park and how last year she’d spotted an older, well-dressed woman sitting down on a bench. The woman was tearing up a loaf of bread and scattering it for pigeons and crows. Not far away sat a homeless man with a dog, watching. The woman ignored him. Paula had begun to feel agitated and then angry. But as the woman left, Paula noticed two paper bags on the bench. One appeared to have a loaf of French bread. Days later she noticed the same two people as she sat reading e-mail, the same little ritual of each not acknowledging the other. The woman fed the birds before leaving two grocery bags. The man would wait until she was far enough away before making a move. Sandwiches and tubs of deli food and always something for the dog, too.
    Paula had done the same with Sophie, a homeless woman who lived in the alley adjacent to Roger’s brownstone. Sophie used the alley as a latrine and changing room. Paula would leave tubes of toothpaste, rolls of toilet paper and old clothes in a plastic bag. She’d left food in the beginning, but Sophie never touched it. For ten years they’d never spoken—except once when the woman issued a grunt that gave up her name. Paula had done the same and reached out to shake hands, but Sophie ignored it. That was all the help Sophie wanted.
    Fotis sniffed around the entire perimeter of the fence, taking particular care in some spots. After a while he came back and sat on Paula’s foot; craning his head all the way back, he looked at her upside down. She laughed. “You’re so funny,” she said in Greek. Her heart rushed open like a child’s embrace.
    “Ella, micro mou,” she said endearingly; “come here, my little one,” surprising herself by kissing his muzzle. His tail thumped the dirt and he licked her face.
    “Ready to go back?” she asked, so tired she could barely move her legs. It was after nine by the time they got back to the hotel; her cell phone rang as she opened the door.
    It was Celeste.
    “Hey,” Paula said. “I think I’ve left you a hundred messages.”
    “Sorry, I’ve been swamped.”
    “I figured. Did Eleni locate Theo’s nephew?”
    “I’ll have you know Eleni stepped right up to the plate, pit bull that she is. Peter Fanourakis came forward and claimed the body and all is arranged.”
    “Thank God.”
    “Tell me how you made out with the dog?” Celeste asked.
    “I’m sitting here looking at him.”
    “You took him home?” Heavenly hooted.
    Paula moved the phone away.
    “No. You know Roger with his allergies. I’m staying at the Soho.”
    “You’re staying at the Soho Grand with a dog from the pound?” Heavenly shouted.
    “Why’s that so funny?” Paula asked.
    “It just is; you’re such a goof,” Celeste said, and Paula heard her shouting the information across their apartment to Tony.
    “Heav, he got a bath at Pets du Jour.”
    “It’s still hilarious. So why didn’t you just take him home, ply Roger with a couple of Benadryl? Maybe it would help him find some new Law of Relativity.”
    Celeste had no clue. No one did.
    “I fed him Greek food. You know that stand by my office—souvlaki, spanakopita. He wouldn’t eat dog food—”
    “Would you? Why do you think the Hump turned into such a fat wad?”
    They both