In the morning Gilbert took me to the spice shop on Welton around the corner from his restaurant. Across the street a building was being demolished or constructed. We watched a workman heave a pouch of tools or something up to the third floor before we went in. Gilbert got what he needed and he was in the checkout line when he remembered he’d forgotten to get a couple of kinds of lettuce. “I’ll get them, I offered.” “Thanks, baby,” Gilbert said, and he did that thing with his eyes and mouth that makes me wet.

There was a line at the lettuce counter, and when it was my turn, a guy in a suit tried to butt in, but I told the clerk, a short Asian woman, I was next, and she said, “What do you want?” I told her the two kinds of lettuce Gilbert needed. She handed off my order to a tall American guy in a tee shirt and scraggy black hair and just the right stubble. “How much do you need?” the guy asked, and I wasn’t sure. “Maybe half a pound?” I guessed. “That’s a lot, a real lot,” said the guy’s shrug. “Maybe half that or less,” I revised. He filled two cellophane baggies with the lettuce. “Five eighteen for the yellow; six eleven for the green,” he said, “making eighteen eleven all told.” “That can’t be right,” I said. “Oh, right, sorry,” he said, “Sixteen fifteen.” I was doubtful but I didn’t want to make a fuss.