“You should. Paint things. You’re a painter. Did you do the spreadsheets?”
“I did do the spreadsheets.”
Caroline patted his arm approvingly. “You’re a good Adrian,” she said.
Well, at least there was that.
Caroline settled down again, searching for a comfortable position on Tom’s ancient couch. Her thigh pressed alongside Adrian’s, warm and absorbing.
“I want to go seeAnastasiaagain,” she told him, eyes on the screen. “They used a lot of props. I need to watch it for the props.”
Adrian swallowed his first bite of pizza and answered, “I’ll take you to seeThe Barber of Sevilleat the Boston Lyric Opera. The run starts next week.” He didn’t think he could handle another performance ofAnastasia.
Caroline prized his coconut water out of his hand and took a long swig before handing it back to him.
“We should do both, then,” she said, a lock of her sweet-smelling blond hair falling over his shoulder as she nestled closer to him. A dizzy shock of emotion fluttered in his chest like a light bulb coming on.
On his other side, Tom mutely offered him the open bag of gummies. Adrian deliberated for a long moment before popping one in his mouth. It wasn’t like anyone would give him an award for staying sober when he was already snuggled up with Caroline and settling in for the duration.
“Okay,” he told her. “We’ll do both.”
Chapter Nine
“So, they are both plays with people singing,” Caroline began her analysis, more interested in the way Adrian’s pretty lower lip stuck out when he was trying not to sound obnoxious than in the actual, technical differences between musicals and opera. She’d enjoyed her first opera. It was noAnastasia, but there was room for both in her life.
She’d liked the big fluffy costumes and the gleaming gilt paint on the sets. The English translation of the libretto had been projected on a screen to the left of the stage, and the story had been a good one, ending with everyone married and happy. It was silly to be proud of herself for liking a thing, but she’d worried that she wouldn’t.
The day was one of those clear, chilly October mornings when the sky was piercingly blue and the light reflected white off the pavement and the bricks to make her squint as they moved around the Haymarket, browsing stalls of produce, cheese, and honey. Adrian was not a morning person, she’d noticed. Even though she would have been happy to go when the market opened at dawn, she thought she’d shown great restraint by meeting him there at eight, after her morning workout.
“Most operas are sung all the way through, but mostmusicals will have some spoken dialogue,” Adrian explained with great patience. He perfectly matched both the weather and the day, wearing a thick cream-colored cable-knit sweater made out of some kind of superior wool that fuzzed instead of pilled. Caroline had covertly touched his arm enough times to fondle the soft fabric that he’d given her an alarmed look, which caused her to stick her thumbs in the waistband of her running tights to restrain herself.
He was painfully handsome. It made her mouth dry to look at him with the breeze ruffling his hair and the sun bringing out the freckles across the bridge of his nose. Other women startled in acknowledgment of his remarkable beauty as he passed, Adrian acting doggedly unaware of the double takes he drew coming and going—the going because the fitted jeans looked nice on his ass too.
You probably can’t afford him, ladies, Caroline thought, even though that internal announcement wasn’t as satisfying as it ought to have been.
Caroline added half a dozen Granny Smith apples to the large wooden crate Adrian was carrying around. The crate was the first thing she’d purchased at the market; it was one of the few props left to be acquired off Rima’s list. She wondered if she could sweet-talk Adrian into painting a turn-of-the-century brand name on the side.
“But not all of them?” Caroline said. She was not really interested but was happy to hear him talk. She bought two grapefruits and added them to the box.
“No.Les Misérables, for example, is a musical with no dialogue, butBeatrice et Benedictis an opera with spoken dialogue, not a recitative.”
Les Misérableswas coming up the next week at the Charles Playhouse. Caroline couldn’t tell whether Adrianwas actually excited to see it with her or just relieved that he would no longer risk watchingAnastasiaa third time.
“So, how will I know, then,” Caroline asked, “whether I’m at a musical or the opera?”
Adrian was so obviously bothered by the idea that she might find herself at a performance without due preparation for the experience that he failed to notice her smile as she wound him up on the subject.
“There are exceptions to almost all the rules. Opera used to be entirely unamplified, but the size of modern theaters makes that impractical. You’ll rarely see a musical performed in a language other than the local vernacular, but of course there are modern English-language operas. And the musical complexity— Wait, is that a persimmon? You know not to eat it until it’s soft, right?”
Adrian broke off his lecture to squint at the latest fruit Caroline had added to the crate.
“I didn’t. Good tip,” she said. She gave him her most guileless face. “You were saying?”
Adrian opened his mouth and looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He caught her biting the inside of her lip and failed to keep his own expression straight.
“You are such a brat,” he said, dimples popping in his cheeks. “If it’s performed by an opera company, it’s an opera. Otherwise, it’s a musical.”
“That’s a tautology,” Caroline teased him.
