Read Online Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Adriana Trigiani
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vintage cropped jacket in a navy blue velvet and embroidered pants, the wide-legged, high-waisted style from the early 1940s. Theodore said the weather had turned cold early and to dress warmly, so I figured the velvet would be perfect. I want to dazzle Theodore’s friends, so I even threw in some of Mama’s jewelry. She made a brooch of jet beads, which I’ll wear to a night out at the theater. My only wardrobe worry is shoes—mine are woefully not up to snuff, so I’ll splurge on some new ones in Greenwich Village (Theodore calls Eighth Street, near his apartment, Shoe Town). I’m wearing a black turtleneck and black jeans; I figure that’s a standard New York look, so I won’t look like I have “tourist” tattooed on my forehead.
It’s surprising how self-reliant I become when I’m alone. Part of being married is getting lazy; when I’m home I leave all the logistics (directions to Biltmore House and Gardens for a school field trip) and icky weird chores (cleaning the furnace, trapping mice) to my husband. It’s empowering for me to negotiate my way through one of the busiest airports in the world. I pass under the entry portal, where LA GUARDIA pulses overhead in giant red letters; how thrilling, a fellow Eye-talian and former mayor of New York City with an airport named after him!
As I wait for my luggage, it seems like thousands of people are milling about, no two of them alike. New York really is the capital of the world, and I’m as intrigued by the wide-eyed Indian woman in her turquoise sari with strips of gold lamé on the hem as I am by the tall Russian in a bad mood who yanks his oversize duffel bags off the carousel and loads them onto a cart. I reach my hands up over my head, embracing the whole scene, and have a good stretch, thrilled to be here, so happy to be a part of something so exciting and new (to me, anyway).
“Your first trip?” a voice says behind me (I guess my look of wonder and appreciation has given me away). I drop my arms and turn.
“I went through JFK once on my way to Italy.” Do I sound like a defensive tourist or what?
“Hmm. You Italian?”
“I am.” In New York, you’re an American second and where you immigrated from first.
“Me too.” The man is around sixty, with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair. He is small and trim, and has a long nose with a very fine bridge (according to the ancient art of Chinese face reading, he may well live to be a hundred years old).
“Where are your people from?” I ask.
“Napoli.”
“You’re southern.”
“And you?”
“North. The Alps.”
“They’re pieces of work up there.” The man laughs.
“How do you know?”
“I married one.” The man doesn’t take his eyes off the baggage carousel as it rotates. “Once my wife and me, we were in Atlantic City and went to a show, and they had a comedian there—you know, the warm-up guy. Anyway, he came over to our table and said, ‘You two married?’ and we said that we were, and he said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, these two agree about
nothing.
’ And everybody laughed, and so did we, ’cause it’s true. Northern Italians and southern Italians might as well be from two different planets, you know what I mean?”
I nod that I do. I can’t believe how fast people talk here. That same observation would have taken someone in Big Stone Gap about three hours to relate. Of course, back home we
have
the three hours to spare. Here everyone is in a hurry.
My cabdriver is Pakistani, and he is happy to tell me all about his homeland. I am having more interesting conversations in five minutes in New York than I do in a year in Big Stone Gap. We turn off the Grand Central Parkway and onto the road that leads to the Queens end of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. The driver waves his hand over the Manhattan skyline as though presenting a box of jewels. At any moment I expect Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to spin across the sky; I see the clouds as her marabou cape and the
It’s surprising how self-reliant I become when I’m alone. Part of being married is getting lazy; when I’m home I leave all the logistics (directions to Biltmore House and Gardens for a school field trip) and icky weird chores (cleaning the furnace, trapping mice) to my husband. It’s empowering for me to negotiate my way through one of the busiest airports in the world. I pass under the entry portal, where LA GUARDIA pulses overhead in giant red letters; how thrilling, a fellow Eye-talian and former mayor of New York City with an airport named after him!
As I wait for my luggage, it seems like thousands of people are milling about, no two of them alike. New York really is the capital of the world, and I’m as intrigued by the wide-eyed Indian woman in her turquoise sari with strips of gold lamé on the hem as I am by the tall Russian in a bad mood who yanks his oversize duffel bags off the carousel and loads them onto a cart. I reach my hands up over my head, embracing the whole scene, and have a good stretch, thrilled to be here, so happy to be a part of something so exciting and new (to me, anyway).
“Your first trip?” a voice says behind me (I guess my look of wonder and appreciation has given me away). I drop my arms and turn.
“I went through JFK once on my way to Italy.” Do I sound like a defensive tourist or what?
“Hmm. You Italian?”
“I am.” In New York, you’re an American second and where you immigrated from first.
“Me too.” The man is around sixty, with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair. He is small and trim, and has a long nose with a very fine bridge (according to the ancient art of Chinese face reading, he may well live to be a hundred years old).
“Where are your people from?” I ask.
“Napoli.”
“You’re southern.”
“And you?”
“North. The Alps.”
“They’re pieces of work up there.” The man laughs.
“How do you know?”
“I married one.” The man doesn’t take his eyes off the baggage carousel as it rotates. “Once my wife and me, we were in Atlantic City and went to a show, and they had a comedian there—you know, the warm-up guy. Anyway, he came over to our table and said, ‘You two married?’ and we said that we were, and he said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, these two agree about
nothing.
’ And everybody laughed, and so did we, ’cause it’s true. Northern Italians and southern Italians might as well be from two different planets, you know what I mean?”
I nod that I do. I can’t believe how fast people talk here. That same observation would have taken someone in Big Stone Gap about three hours to relate. Of course, back home we
have
the three hours to spare. Here everyone is in a hurry.
My cabdriver is Pakistani, and he is happy to tell me all about his homeland. I am having more interesting conversations in five minutes in New York than I do in a year in Big Stone Gap. We turn off the Grand Central Parkway and onto the road that leads to the Queens end of the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. The driver waves his hand over the Manhattan skyline as though presenting a box of jewels. At any moment I expect Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to spin across the sky; I see the clouds as her marabou cape and the
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