Eat Your Heart Out Read Online Free PDF Page A

live.
    â€œYou really look like a woman tonight,” I told her as she walked to the car.
    â€œWell, thank you, old man.”
    â€œI’m not old.”
    â€œYou’re a little old.”
    â€œYou’re catching up.”
    She looked pleased after I said that. She wanted to be older. She wanted to be something different.
    I took her to dinner at this French place that I’d taken a couple of ladies before. They’d all liked it, so I figured that Maggie would too. I kept ordering us glasses of red, and we were both drinking pretty fast.
    Halfway through dinner I figured it was time I give her the present. I was tipsy and I remember feeling extremely excited. Bizarre.
    I handed the little box across. She looked at it, frozen.
    â€œRich! You didn’t have to get me anything!” She always squealed when she was drunk.
    â€œOf course I did. Eighteen comes once in a lifetime.”
    â€œRich . . . you better not have spent a lot of money on this.”
    â€œDon’t worry, kid.”
    Then she moved her little hands and opened the box. It was wrapped in red wrapping paper, I remember, because I asked them to wrap it special. She tore the paper off, just ripped it like a little gypsy.
    Then she opened the little blue box. I remember her face looked like it melted.
    â€œOh my God, Rich.”
    All I wanted right then was for her to like it.
    â€œDo you like it?”
    Then she looked up at me, and her eyes got misty, but in a different way than I’d seen before. Like she’d just witnessed something unreal happen, not sad or anything. Not happy either.
    â€œRich, I love it.”
    She took the necklace and brought it close to her face, studying it.
    â€œDoes it look like the one that got stolen?”
    â€œExactly. Exactly the same.”
    â€œReally?”
    â€œYes.”
    I was pleased as punch—I’d gone all through the department stores two towns over, trying really hard to find one that matched what she said her mom’s had looked like.
    Then she put the necklace down on the table. She just stared at me, like I was some painting in a museum or something.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s just . . .”
    â€œWhat?”
    She went quiet. Then she looked away from me and her face got all scrunched together. She slowly turned back to me, with this expression that I couldn’t read.
    â€œNo one has ever been as nice to me as you are.”
    I didn’t really know what to say so I just smiled.
    â€œThanks, kid.” And we both smiled at each other for a while after that. But then I think she got nervous somewhere in the middle of the smile. You know the nervous feeling you get when you are staring at someone and they are staring back? I think she got that feeling.
    When she got nervous she would always say something real common, or make some stupid joke about herself.
    â€œRich, I’m shitfaced.”
    Then the waiter came by and I ordered some more wine.
    From that point on I don’t remember much. We did end up at my place, I’m sure of that.
    Maggie was real gone at that point. Truth is, I was just as gone as she was. I don’t know how because she was so much smaller than me, but that girl could really hold her liquor. I liked that about her.
    So we were back at my apartment. The room was spinning type thing. You get my drift.
    And I remember as soon as we got there, Maggie went to go get herself a glass of water from the kitchen. She tripped on nothing and fell on her little ass halfway there. She blamed her high heels.
    I was lying on my couch, facing the ceiling.
    â€œMaggie, I got a song that I just have to play for you.”
    â€œIs it good?”
    â€œNo, it’s awful. That’s why I’m playing it for you. I’m not going to play you a shit song on your birthday, kid.”
    â€œYou can’t call me kid anymore. I’m an adult now.”
    â€œOkay, woman.”
    She