Angelo would be returning with the boys in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. They’d gone over to Ma and Pop for a visit. The three of them would be spending an evening at a Philadelphia Athletics baseball game. As far as Angelo knew, she’d be spending the evening with Mary Holmes, her former coworker at Smith and Weisskopf. But Angelo didn’t know that Mary didn’t really exist, at least not in Philadelphia. Angelo didn’t know that “Mary Holmes” was a code phrase she and Norman had created for their trysts.
Mary Holmes was this nosy English lady who occupied the room across the hall in the Florence pension where they first consummated their relationship – back in ’29, before Cristina had met Angelo, before Agnes had blundered her way into their lives. No one knew about Florence … except Ma and Pop, and they’d never breathe a word to Agnes. Or to Angelo.
She looked in the mirror. Why couldn’t she have straight, silky hair like Agnes? No, she had this black frizzy hair, these crazy curls and caterpillar eyebrows. And why’d she have to be so nearsighted? Glasses so thick, it made her eyes as big as the Jupiter sunspot. Agnes didn’t have to wear glasses, after all. And her figure … already she’d gained too much weight. Having two children did that to her – no longer the supple figure Norman had first caressed in Italy. But Agnes had given Norman two children, too – without gaining any weight.
Cristina put her long coat on. At least it wasn’t so cold that she needed gloves that November 1st. She didn’t have any. Angelo didn’t earn enough money to afford them. But Agnes had several pairs of gloves, at least one for each social occasion Norman took her to. Perhaps Norman wouldn’t notice when they met at the restaurant, and perhaps he wouldn’t notice when they left the hotel room.
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