Mill takes her assignment and heads with it toward Broadway to walk past the windows of discount shoes. She thinks Carlisle lives in the Shoe Box District, but she hasn’t said it. She asked for leave to visit a club in the Meat Packing District, and Carlisle said he’d send her to the Diamond District if she wasn’t careful. She imagined riding the subway alone to the Diamond District to size her engagement ring, but nothing came of it besides banter about the burden of money. “The Statue of Liberty is the color of money,” he told her on a Saturday. Apples at the Farmers’ Market are the color of dairy barns not green. Carlisle means “Granny Smiths” from New Zealand.
Mill picks the firmest green apples from the bin at Modern Gourmet. The deli is out of the Post, so she buys Raisin Bran as a joke at her expense. The shopkeepers are not fluent in the vocabulary of groceries: Motrin for margarine. All the service workers are fluent in the ways to pay. Currency is universal. The owner’s wife takes her dollars and returns her change. Mill puts the coins in her pocket to give to the man outside.
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