Read Online Milosz by Cordelia Strube - Free Book Online Page B

pick a fight with God if he had to.’ So why didn’t Milo feel protected?
    He sits next to a sickly weeping fig.
    â€˜Milo,’ Zosia says, apparently not in the least surprised to see him. ‘Are you ordering?’
    â€˜A Sleeman’s, please.’ She’s put on weight; maybe she’s overeating because she misses him. ‘I just thought I’d drop by,’ he calls after her, attracting the attention of pizza eaters. He leans back in an effort to appear relaxed. Shrivelled weeping fig leaves fall into his lap. Zosia and the moustached ­bartender stand a little too close. The bartender puts his hand on the small of her back and says something that makes her snort. Zosia never laughs, only snorts. She returns with Milo’s beer but doesn’t linger.
    â€˜We splurged on a couple of things,’ a woman in stripes at the next table announces. ‘First we bought a house, then we bought a car, a new car, we didn’t want a used car. We wanted something reliable, you know, we’ll drive it for fifteen years, run it into the ground, that sort of thing. Anyway, now we’re ready.’
    For what? Milo would like to know. The man beside her looks as though he never sleeps.
    â€˜I’m doing Pilates,’ the striped woman declares. ‘It’s supposed to help with stress but all that breathing makes me tense.’
    Zosia swings by again and ruffles Milo’s hair, which seems a friendly gesture if not fraught with desire. ‘How’s the acting business?’ she asks, her s’s sounding like z’s.
    â€˜I had a commercial audition today,’ he says.
    â€˜Good for you.’ She says good for you to anyone. Pablo admired her for this, felt she was being positive, while Milo knew she was just bored, her engineer brain hungering for electronic circuits.
    â€˜Do you remember Christopher?’ he asks. ‘My neighbour?’
    â€˜The grass cutter.’
    â€˜He got hit by a car today.’
    â€˜Killed?’
    â€˜Don’t know yet.’
    â€˜Poor little boy.’ She used to construct tall towers with Robertson that would eventually tumble. ‘You must build with him.’
    The striped woman waves frantically at Zosia. ‘Excuse me, miss, there is no eggplant on this pizza. We specifically requested eggplant.’
    Zosia stares at what remains of the pizza.
    â€˜There was no eggplant,’ the striped woman assures her.
    â€˜Why didn’t you tell me that before you ate it?’ Zosia inquires.
    The sleep-deprived man says, ‘You better not charge us for eggplant.’
    â€˜There was no eggplant,’ the striped woman repeats.
    â€˜We’re not paying for any eggplant,’ the sleepless man insists.
    â€˜Whatever,’ Zosia says, which was her fourth English word. She turns back to Milo. He considers ordering a pizza but he is cash-poor due to Fennel’s advance. ‘You don’t have to order,’ she says.
    â€˜Oh, okay, well, I was just wondering if you’d made any progress on the job front?’
    â€˜Zilch. You?’
    â€˜My agent says I’m experiencing a renaissance as Everyman.’
    â€˜Good for you.’
    â€˜We’d like our bill, please,’ the striped woman says.
    â€˜Make sure you deduct the eggplant,’ the sleepless man adds.
    Milo forgot to buy a honey-I-love-you ring. How could he have come all this way and occupied a table for the price of one beer without a ring ? Where words have failed, a gesture might have spoken volumes. He shakes a fig leaf out of his hair. ‘You might want to water this tree,’ he says but she is gone.
    He knocks softly on the sliding doors. Tanis approaches, groggy, opening the doors only a crack. ‘What is it?’
    â€˜Robertson wanted to give Mrs. Bulgobin a spider plant.’ Milo holds the plant up to the light.
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜He doesn’t think she likes him.’
    â€˜She