Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani Read Free Book Online

How’s Etta?”
    “Growing up fast.”
    “Uh-oh.”
    “Yeah, she’ll be thirteen next April.”
    “I’m sure you can handle the changes.”
    “I’m trying.”
    “Is Jack around?”
    “Sure, let me get him.”
    I call Jack, who smiles and comes to the phone when he hears that it’s Pete. When I first met Pete, he was in Italy looking for marble; he’s an importer from New Jersey. Actually, he recently added guest professor at NYU to his résumé—there aren’t many marble experts in the world. In the time since that tumultuous summer, he’s become friendly with my father and Giacomina and still visits them every time he goes to Italy on buying trips. Jack often uses marble on his jobs now, so he buys it from Pete. Their business relationship eventually turned into a friendship, which gave me the creeps at first but now is completely natural. I never realized until I got married how hard it is for men to make good male friends. Most men just have a pleasant, jocular relationship with one another; they don’t get emotional or seek advice, something that comes so naturally to me and my women friends. So, even though sharing Pete Rutledge with Jack Mac is strange, I’m actually happy that my husband has made a friend.
    I hear Jack hang up the phone. He comes into the kitchen and puts his arms around me as I bread chicken cutlets at the stove.
    “What’d Pete want?”
    “We’re redoing the foyer at the Black Diamond Savings Bank up in Norton, so I need some marble. He said you should be sure to call him when you and Etta go to New York.”
    Jack goes and washes up for dinner, and I break into a sweat. Nothing happened with Pete, I remind myself, except that I was tempted. And, of course, I always offset my temptation with the fact that Jack was back here getting chummy with Karen Bell, a lumber-supply saleswoman from Coeburn. (Jack buys his lumber locally now. It’s a little unspoken agreement we have.) These trials didn’t sink us—in fact, they helped our marriage. We looked hard at our relationship and began to resolve our differences. If Karen Bell and Pete Rutledge hadn’t come along, I don’t think Jack and I would still be together. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to send Karen Bell a thank-you note for her trouble, but in retrospect, I see that she did me a favor.
    “Ma?” Etta interrupts my thoughts.
    “Yeah?”
    “Thanks for the clothes.” Etta sees the table isn’t set, so she goes about gathering plates and silverware.
    “That was fun.”
    “Yeah, it was fun,” Etta agrees.
    I turn around and look at her. “Did you try it on?”
    “I have it on,” Etta says, adjusting her bra strap through her T-shirt.
    “What do you think?”
    Etta shrugs. “A bra’s a bra, Ma.”
    I laugh. This is so typical of Etta. I go out of my way to make things easy for her, and she doesn’t need me to! She is just like her father, who tackles a problem, finds the solution, and doesn’t dwell on it further. Of course, this makes me look like the great overreactor of all time, since I’m asking for a follow-up report on the shopping trip I planned like a CIA run.
    “Come on, Ave. They’s at Zackie’s already. Shake a leg!” Fleeta calls to me from the front doors of the Pharmacy, swinging the doors back and forth to make noise with the chimes in case the hollering didn’t get my attention.
    “I’m on my way.”
    “Hell’s bells! I hear the snares! Hurry it up!” Fleeta bolts out the door into the street.
    A good-size crowd has gathered on Main Street for the Powell Valley High School marching band practice parade and mini-concert on the post office steps, a pre-football-season fall ritual. The kids are fresh from band camp and anxious to show us what they’ve learned.
    Leading the parade is Big Stone Gap’s state-of-the-art fire truck, driven by Captain Spec Broadwater (also captain of the Rescue Squad). The wax job on the fire truck is so shiny, it’s hard to look directly at. As Spec