“I would like to pick yours too. Elliott gave me a tour of the restaurant. The things I found most interesting he said you purchased at some thrift store. Sorry, I guess you call them vintage stores. But I was impressed by your keen eye. I would like to go with you sometime so you can show me the ins and outs of how you look for things. I know it’s an art. I just don’t have it. But some of my clients were really hit hard by the recent recession. And loathe as I am to use this word, they want me to decorate on a budget. By the way, nice earrings. Please tell me those didn’t come from some junk store.”

I laughed out loud and couldn’t help myself. I didn’t think the woman had taken a breath since she sat down. “No, Elliott gave me these. I think he has the same feeling for thrift stores you do!”

“Well, thank God for that—he doesn’t scavenge through trash like you do. The earrings are absolutely exquisite.”

She had made the term “budget” sound positively dreary. She said it the way she said the word “thrift”—with put-upon disdain. I decided we could help each other. I discussed my idea about getting a rug in the colors of the pillows that were at Elliott’s place for Griffin’s apartment, and she provided names of her vendors after I gave the promise that this was the only condo I was decorating and that it was in Atlanta. Her conversation, like her hair, went in a million directions. But we exchanged cell phone numbers and made plans to have dinner at Elliott’s restaurant a week from then.

Elliott and I settled into a routine. While we did not make love every night, when we did, we made it count. Even with the rigors of the day, the staff dustups, the ordering of ingredients, and replacement of things—and now the extra night out to attend functions—we still walked hand in hand, still preferred each other’s company to a room full of people, and still liked to end the evening intertwined in bed. Sometimes our sex was mind-blowing, but sometimes, just as often, when we got a night off, our sleep was mind-blowing. We would wake each morning to discover the familiarity of each other’s sleeping positions. Elliott still chose to walk around the apartment with no clothes on, and I continued to grope around for the bathrobe.