The Egg Said Nothing Read Online Free PDF Page A

it.”

    I felt my face get warm. “Ah, yeah. That’s about it.”

    “Can I be honest with you?” she asked, sounding serious.

    “Yes,” I said.

    “I think you like me. I think I can tell. I brought you this pie and coffee because you don’t like what’s here.” She paused, gesturing with her hands toward her offerings. “And you look really familiar. Like I used to know you or something. What’s your name?”

    It seemed like such a basic question, one we should be past by now. But I was also dying to know hers. To have a word in my vocabulary to indicate what she was.

    “Manny,” I said.

    “I’m Ashley.” She extended her hand across the table. “Want some pie?”

    “Yes,” I said, meaning it more than I’ve ever meant anything in my life. “What kind?”

    “You’ve never cared before. I don’t see why it should matter now.” She unrolled a napkin, sending the utensils inside scattering across the table. She picked up a fork and stabbed at the pie. Pulling up a forkful of pinkish purple goo, she brought it to her mouth.

    “Point taken.” I reached across the table and picked up the spoon lying in front of her. I jabbed into the hole she had made and pulled a glob into my own mouth. The sweetness and the tartness attacked my tongue like breath must hit the lungs of someone saved from drowning. I lifted the paper cup and took a sip. “This is hot chocolate.”

    “Yeah, I hate coffee,” Ashley said.

    “Me, too,” I admitted.

    “You do? Why do you always order it?”

    “You never gave me a menu. I had to guess,” I said. I searched her face for her thoughts.

    “You could have asked.”

    “I don’t think you’ve seen yourself,” I said quietly.

    “What?” she asked, suddenly interested.

    “You’re ridiculously pretty. You know that. I had a hard enough time simply not staring,” I confessed. “Attempting to speak to you was completely out of the question.”

    “You’re talking to me now,” she said. “What’s the difference?”

    “There’s no difference. I’m terrified right now.”

    She smiled. “I quit my job yesterday. But I showed up tonight, with pie. I get bored easily, that’s true. But this is your audition. Wow me.”

    “See, that’s the sort of thing I’ll always fail.”

    “You’re not competing with anyone, and I already like you.”

    “Why?” I asked. “I don’t get it.”

    “You’ve got something going on. I have no idea what it is, but it leaves you all angsty looking. It’s kind of exciting. You look troubled, but I don’t get that it’s for the normal reasons,” she said. “And you’re hopelessly cute.”

    My face warmed. “I’m glad you came back.”

    “I’m glad you said that. What are you going to do with me?” she asked, a loaded question if I had ever heard one.

    “What do you want to do?” I asked.

    “Uh uh. Make your move,” she said.

    “Let’s think about it. We could go get something to eat. We could wander around the streets. We could go to my apartment and watch late night TV with the sound off,” I said. “Or we could go down to the Laundromat and eat garbage out of the vending machines while freaks and weirdoes wash their clothes.”

    “Let’s go,” she said, folding the cover back over the pie. We slid out of the booth. She handed me the pie, and I picked the hot chocolate up off the table. I followed her out the diner, falling in love with her hand as she waved goodnight to the waitress I met earlier.

    “So what do you do?” she asked, looking up. She was tall, but shorter than me by a few inches.
    “I don’t work in the traditional sense,” I said wearily.

    “What, are you a writer?”

    “No, nothing so noble,” I said. “You ready?”

    She nodded.

    “I sneak around at night, well, usually at night, and gather coins out of fountains,” I said slowly, watching her face for judgment.

    “Like rare coins?” she asked earnestly.

    “No, like quarters. Mostly