Traveling Light Read Online Free PDF Page A

tote. What she’d give for a cigarette, but the cop would probably use his Taser.
    “Paula.” Heavenly waved in the doorway and mouthed, Hurry up. Tucked under Celeste’s arm was a file.
    “Sorry.” Paula slung the bag of papers back over her shoulder along with her purse. “Traffic was murder.” They hurried down the polished green granite floor toward the elevators, their heels clacking as they rushed.
    The hallway lights made the diamonds in Paula’s platinum pendant shimmer.
    “Hey, ni-i-ice.” Celeste pointed. “Another new one, huh?”
    Paula touched it, embarrassed she’d not thought to tuck it under her neckline or, better yet, take it off and stuff it into the coin part of her wallet. Unhappiness buying. It was elating but made her feel foolish and indulgent. Aware of a salesperson’s eyes, Paula would chat on lightheartedly, making up this or that about a birthday or Christmas present, how her husband hates to go shopping. She’d cringe at the hollow sound of her fabrications, yet she persisted. Her Visa card would beep in approval, signaling a quick end to the pretense and the sweat that triggered the scent of her deodorant.
    The initial rush from each purchase wore off quickly. Even when she forced herself to wear a piece, the underlying sadness was amplified. Because all she’d wanted was Roger and not a collection of metal and rocks. And while no substitute for affection, necklaces, bracelets and rings were all she had to show for ten years of sleeping on a couch. It was only by pretending to be encircled in the arms of an imaginary lover that she could fall asleep. The whole thing was insane: a grown woman living in this fantasy world, sleeping alone while her husband lay snoring upstairs in a locked bedroom. How pathetic, and how grateful she was that no one knew.
    Aside from her beloved Psyche, there were days Paula wanted to gather up the entire collection and stuff it down the drop chute at the Salvation Army. It was a constant reminder of what she didn’t have. There was no answer. No solution. It wasn’t some hypothesis where running a different regression equation could yield valid results. Her husband didn’t want her. In the hard light of day, that was the bottom line—the one variable she couldn’t change.
    Heavenly would purposely go scab picking to trigger Paula’s anger. Only a week earlier, during their standing Thursday lunch date, the sparkle of diamonds in a bracelet caught Celeste’s eye.
    “God, doesn’t Roger care you’re buying stuff like this?” Celeste had asked. “Tony’d kill me.” Heavenly’s eyes punctuated the sentence for good measure.
    There’d been a brief pause, as if Paula was gathering her forces.
    “Roger doesn’t care what I do as long as I don’t ask him to be a real husband.” Her words flew like buckshot, knocking the wind out of them both. The bitterness made Paula cough. She’d looked down at her half-eaten shrimp; her stomach clenched.
    Heavenly reached to touch Paula’s hand on the table. “Yeah, but you care,” Celeste said softly. ‘I know you do, miksa mou. ” The silence was painful.
    Paula had fished out a twenty and tucked it under the salt and pepper set, muttering, “I gotta get back for a meeting.”
    Roger had more money than God yet refused to throw out a pair of pants until the crotch would split open. “I guess it’s time for a new pair,” he’d say, calling Paula upstairs to view the hilarity of his white thighs bulging through a split in the fabric. His income from Columbia was mid–six figures; proceeds from national and international patents more than matched it. This, combined with the sizable inheritance from his parents, including their brownstone, set him up for life. Yet in ten years he and Paula had not bought or owned one single thing in common.
    The only time Eleni ever spoke ill of Roger was five years earlier when he and Paula had taken her out to dinner for her seventy-fifth birthday at the Four