Sometimes I like to go to Principelli's grocery. It's a few blocks walk from my condo. The weathered brick building with its faded green awning has been there for seventy-five years and three generations of Principellis. I don't go there because I really need anything. Section provides everything from light bulbs to tampons. It's just that when I go to this little green grocery, I feel like I have a life. I listen to Tony sing along with Andrea Bocelli as I grind coffee to a fragrant pulp in his old fashioned grinder, deciding between the Kona and the Mocha Java. I squeeze the Wonder Bread and count the different shapes of pasta. I look at the Milky ways and the Dove bars and tell myself that I shouldn't eat them. I usually buy two. While I stand at the counter with my yogurt and bananas, I read the headlines on the tabloid papers and wonder if section knows who killed Princess Di. Tony always looks at me, shakes his white head and says " Where's your boyfriend, Nikita? No, boyfriend yet? What's wrong with the men around here? A beautiful girl like you should have lots of little babies by now." I'm trying to formulate a response - because that thing about babies always throws me for a loop- when he offers to set me up with his grandson, Luigi ." You'll like Luigi. He works hard and stays out of the clubs." Nobody ever said that Tony was a modern sort of man. And nobody ever said that a modern sort of girl couldn't be a little wistful about the prospect of babies.

I'm not getting bananas at Principelli's today. Today it is different. I am grocery shopping but it is in one of those cavernous stores in the suburbs. There are miles of aisles and a million brands. Boys on roller skates carrying cell phones whiz by to check prices. I am on a mission under cover as the wife of a successful young lawyer. The young lawyer is Michael and I am buying the makings of a special dinner, a sort of apology for the little spat we had this morning. There is a man following me through the store. Burkoff has already informed me that he's there, but I'm not thinking about him. I'm thinking about Michael.

I must make love to Michael tonight, under section orders. A man who doesn't love me, a man I suspect doesn't even like me much. Madeline told me yesterday that recently married couples make love an average of three times a week. She also told me that they argue. That part was easy. I told Michael this morning that he better learn where the laundry hamper is located as I threw his wet towel against his beautiful bare chest. He raised a dark eyebrow and snarled back at me about leaving long, blonde hair in the shower. Then he grinned and smacked me lightly on the rear. I stared at him, honestly shocked and a little bit thrilled. It was fun, actually, that little bit of domestic drama. I wonder if he really is that sloppy; it's like he's used to having a woman pick up after him. I wonder if Madeline has informed him about the lovemaking. If she has, I assume that he's waiting for me to make the first move like the modern woman that I am. I hate these equal marriages. If this were the fifties he'd just climb into my twin bed like Ricky Ricardo and I'd know exactly what was up. In more ways than one.

I stop in the juice aisle and throw three boxes of vegetable juice into the cart. I don't even like the stuff. I don't know about Michael. Considering I'm going to be rather intimate with him tonight, I know very little about the man, what he likes and dislikes. But then what have I ever known about Michael? The information could cover the head of a pin. All I knew the first and the last time I had sex with him was that I hadn't seen him for six months and that I would die if I couldn't touch him. I read too much into that strange reunion, something that turned out to be no more than a beautiful goodbye. It was not love, just a roll in the hay for old time's sake. At the time I felt much more than he did. I tell myself that it will not happen this time. I will think of nothing but the physical pleasure. It is Section work and nothing more.

But I wonder how you feel, Michael? Are you nervous? Are you at Section thinking about me and what we will do under that watchful eye of the camera tonight?

If I am honest on these pages I will have to admit that sometimes all I do is think about you, Michael. This morning I woke early. I lay there on my stomach and watched you sleep, discovering all the things I have never noticed before. There is a scattering of pale freckles on your shoulders and a pale moon shaped scar on the curve of your elbow. Your eyelashes grow in triple rows, the tips bright gold . There is golden red in your hair, too. It is as if the gods dipped you in light. I think about how the morning sunlight catches in the curls you try in vain to tame, stealing my breath with shameless longing even now as I walk through the grocery store. I think of how you sleep on your back with your mouth slightly parted, the lower lip lush and dewy.

Unable to help myself this morning I touched your bottom lip ever so lightly with my fingertip. I trailed my fingers to your cheek, feeling the morning's rasp of beard. I leaned closer, catching the scent of warm sleeping man. I touched your curls with my nose. They are coarse and thick, very unlike the texture of my hair. We are such a contrast, Michael and yet we fit so well together. Last night our bodies were spooned so sweetly in sleep. I woke in the dark, startled to find your arm wrapped around me, your hand on my breast. I felt you come to life against my thigh as if you were having an erotic dream. I know it was unconscious, Michael, but it was lovely all the same and I found myself hoping it was me you dreamed of and not some other woman.

I think about the rest of my morning's inventory as I push my cart down the cookie aisle. I found myself wondering about babies as I lay there watching you sleep this morning. Would they have your small, perfect ears and my turned up nose? Would they be blond or tawny? Would their eyes be blue or grey? Would they grow up to be tall and strong like us?

I tell myself that I must shake those strange impossible thoughts from my head in a hurry. The boy on roller blades zips by. I look down at the pineapples. An old man in a tweed coat winks at me and says. " Take the one with the greenest bush, lady. They're the sweetest." His wife comes over and pulls him away by the elbow. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. She calls him an incorrigible old flirt, her voice warm with affection. I wonder how long they have been married and if she's ever thought about his sleeping body and having his babies as she walked through the grocery store.

I think I have everything I need. I walk past the pharmacy. There is a boy in khaki cargo pants standing in front of a display of condoms. He looks sheepish. His hands are crammed into his pockets and he blushes as I pass him. He has pimples on his cheeks and an almost invisible blonde goatee. I feel like telling him that I admire his sense of responsibility.

In line I look at the racks of magazines. How to seduce your man. Make him love you. Ten ways to a man's heart. I reach for a bouquet of freesias. There is a lady ahead of me with two children. She's slightly pregnant or hasn't lost the weight from the first two. She looks exhausted. The toddler is pulling at her jeans and the baby sits in the cart, sobbing. She grips the handle in dejection and nods her head down as two fat tears trickle down her cheeks. My heart melts as she reaches up to me. The older woman behind me rolls her eyes at the noise. The mother is trying to be patient, saying. "Rachel, be quiet, honey, please." She looks at me with a helpless expression. Sort of saying, one woman to another, what did I get myself into?

I offer to hold the baby. The words are out of my mouth before I can believe that I've said them. I don't know how long it's been since I've held a baby. The mother looks uncertainly at my Armani coat. It is white and Rachel seems to have to remnants of a cookie in one fist. " Are you sure?"

I reach down and pull Rachel's compact little body out of the cart. She stares at me with bleary green eyes. Two little bottom teeth appear as she smiles. One cherubic hand twists in my hair, the other pokes at my chest before she gives a gulpy, shuddering sigh and rests her face on my shoulder. She smells like Ivory Soap and baby lotion. Her incredibly soft, reddish curls tickle my chin. Her ears are small and pink. Like perfect little shells.

Her mother loads her cart and thanks me profusely. She takes Rachel. My arms feel empty. She smiles and says people aren't usually as kind as me. They'd rather stare at harried mothers and shake their heads. She asks if I have children of my own. I tell her no but I'd like a baby some day. It is not just conversation, but the truth. She says I'd make a beautiful mother. Her green eyes are sincere and as she looks down at her child I'm thinking that she gloats just a little at her own good fortune.

I pay for my freesias and the groceries. At the last minute I throw in a magazine. Ten ways to make a man love you. I'll read as I wait for my handsome lawyer husband to come home.

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