Lorelei's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

a big bow across
    the back.’
    ‘Ah, the butt bow. Why do they always insist on the
    butt bow?’
    ‘I just don’t know,’ I said. I turned away, unsure of what to say next, and began to examine a collection
    of objects spread on a blanket. A small cardboard box, labeled Square Egg Press, caught my eye. The picture on the front showed a plate of hard-boiled white cubes on a bed of parsley. One of the cubes was cut into careful slices, displaying the square shock of yellow yolk inside.
    I opened the box and found a hard plastic cylinder with a squat square base. According to the instructions, you were supposed to place a hard-boiled egg, warm and quivering and rid of its shell, into the square chamber, then drop a sort of plastic hat on top of it. There was a screw-on lid, which, I gathered, pushed down on this egg hat, applying the pressure necessary to negotiate the egg into its new, unnatural shape.
    ‘What is this?’ I asked, turning back to her.
    ‘Well,’ she said, reading from the copy on the box,
    ‘apparently, it turns ordinary hard-boiled eggs into a unique square taste treat.’
    ‘Does it work?’ I asked.
    ‘You know, I never tried it,’ she said. ‘It belonged to an old roommate of mine, and when she moved out, she left it behind. I think she actually got it at a yard sale, too. She was an art history major in college, and she wrote a paper about it for a class on surrealism.’
    ‘Surreal is one word for it,’ I said. ‘How much are you asking?’
    ‘Fifty cents,’ she said, turning the box over in her hands.
    She looked thoughtful, and a little troubled. ‘I can’t believe I’ve had it all this time, and I never made a square egg.’
    ‘Well, I was going to buy it, but you don’t have to sell it if you don’t want to.’
    She shook off her troubled look and smiled. ‘No, no,’ she said. ‘It’s the kind of thing that should be passed around to as many people as possible. Maybe someday when you’re finished with it, you can sell it to someone else.’
    ‘Absolutely,’ I said. I gave her the money and stood there for a moment. ‘Well, thanks,’ I said. ‘Good luck with your sale.’ I started back toward my car.
    ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Good luck with your square eggs.’
    I drove away with a feeling like laughter caught in my chest. I felt happier than I had felt in a long time. So I went home and made some square eggs.
    It was late in the afternoon by the time I returned to her house, and she was beginning to take her unsold items inside. She was facing away from me as I drove up, the late sun in her hair, and I sat and watched her for a moment before I got out of the car. The plate of eggs sat beside me on the passenger seat. I had arranged them on a bed of parsley, just like the picture on the box, and cut one into careful squares. I hesitated for a moment - what odd courtship ritual was this? - but just then, she turned and saw me, and I figured I’d have to go through with it.
    I walked toward her, holding out my strange offering.
    ‘I thought you might like these,’ I called out.
    ‘Square eggs,’ she said. Her voice was almost reverent, and as she took the plate from me, her face was filled with a kind of wonder. ‘I can’t believe you made me
    square eggs.’
    She looked up from the plate and studied my face. She smiled a slow smile that grew until her whole face was lit with it. ‘I’m going to ask you out on a date,’ she said.
    ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Well. I’m going to say yes.’
    And we stood there smiling, with the plate between us, the egg cubes glowing palely in the growing dark.
     
    Here’s another talking-dog joke. My colleagues have been sending them to me by e-mail. A man walks into a bar with a dog. He says to the bartender, ‘I’ll sell you this dog for five bucks. He can talk.’ ‘Yeah, right,’ says the bartender.
    The man nudges the dog. ‘Go on, show him,’ he says. The dog looks up at the bartender and says, ‘Oh, please, kind