The Egg Said Nothing - Caris O'Malley [10]
“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 quarters.”
She burst into laughter. “Like spare change? You collect people’s wishes? And you spend them on yourself?”
“They’re not wishes,” I said. “They lose their symbolism once they hit corporate water. At that point they either become extra income for people who don’t need it, or they can help me get along in the world.”
“I see,” she said. The idea didn’t seem to bother her, and for that I was thankful.
“What are you going to do, now that you quit Pete’s?” I asked.
“Pretty intimate with the diner, eh? Pete’s. I don’t know. I don’t really care. Maybe I’ll rob fountains.”
“That’s certainly a way to go,” I said.
We approached the Laundromat and paused to look at one another before we went in. It was as if this was a step of some significance, rather than just a way to pass the time.
“After you,” Ashley said, holding the door open.
“Thanks,” I said. I walked through the door and waited for her. Together, we walked over to the vending machines. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a fistful of change. She laughed and couldn’t stop. I started, too. Leaning into the machine, she slid down to the floor. I dropped down next to her.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said.
We sat there for a while, our knees touching. I stood up and pushed some quarters into the machine and received two bags of chips. Sitting back down, I handed one of the bags to her. I popped mine open.
“You’re kind of cool,” she said.
I was rather surprised, as that was the last impression I would have gotten from any time spent with myself. “I don’t think so,” I said, laughing at the idea.
“Not in a traditional sense,” she said. “But, you know.”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “But that’s okay.” I chomped down on a chip. The door opened, and a middle-aged woman walked in with a bag full of clothes. I looked over at Ashley, but