Read Online Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald - Free Book Online Page B

I’m sorry, Theo. I’ll buy you more eggs. I’ll buy you a dozen. I’ll buy you a whole bunch of omelettes. I just couldn’t help myself.” She thought for a moment. “I have kind of a problem with impulse control. At least that’s what my mom’s shrink says.”
    But what Bodhi didn’t realize is that great guffaws welling up from my belly were sobs mixed with laughter, dislodging that pit of knots I’d lived with for the last month—for the last thirteen years, if I was honest. I was shocked at Bodhi’s sheer nerve; I was laughing at what Jack would think to see it; I was crying that he never would—and yes, I was mourning the loss of the eggs, too. And as I allowed myself to rest my head on Bodhi’s shoulder—imagine that, on a friend’s shoulder—I laughed and cried to think that I actually had someone to lean on.
    I wiped my sweaty, teary face on my sleeve. “I’ve always wanted to do it. But I could never spare the eggs.”
    Bodhi held up the egg in her palm. “There’s one left. You still have a chance.”
    I stood up and helped Bodhi up, too. “No. I know a better place for that egg. And you’ve earned the right to put it there.”
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    After a lunch of tomatoes, peppers, and one shared scrambled egg (we used the Egg of Honor we replaced with Bodhi’s more heroic one), we escaped the heat of the house at the Jefferson Market Library.
    I hadn’t been to the library since the day Jack died, and while I mourned the loss of my grandfather, the library came in a close second.
    The public library is the closest I’ll ever come to a shopping spree. Once, twice, sometimes three times a week, I’ll drop in, raid the stacks, wielding my library card like a socialite with a Bloomingdale’s charge account. I grab anything that looks interesting, flipping through a few pages before losing interest or devouring the whole thing in one sitting. And if I don’t like it, I can return it. It’s the only place where I can be wasteful with no consequences.
    As long as I return the books on time.
    The day Jack died was also the day Franny and Zooey went missing. A missing book meant not only late fines, but a replacement fee. That was a hit I couldn’t afford on $384—wait, $379. Every time I walked by the Jefferson Market branch, I could practically feel Ms. Costello, the ancient librarian, suspending the missing book over me with her liver-spotted hand.
    But now we needed the full catalog of the New York Public Library at our disposal. So I gathered up my entire collection of outstanding books—even the ones I hadn’t cracked yet—and hauled them back to the returns desk as a peace offering.
    I can’t remember the first day Jack brought me to the Jefferson Market Library; we were always just drawn there. “Now, this is my church,” Jack would say as we mounted the deliciously gloomy Gothic tower toward the stained-glass windows above. He always stopped to read “his creed” carved at the top of the stairway: “The precepts of the law are these: to live correctly, to do an injury to none, and to render to every one his own”—a holdover from the building’s original function as a jail and courthouse.
    Today Ms. Costello wasn’t at her usual perch, so we dumped my books in one of those anonymous returns boxes and went straight to the Information Desk. There we found a beefy . . . well, dude, for lack of a better word. With a shaved head, old-timey moustache, and a spiral of tattoos disappearing up his shirtsleeve, he whistled as he zipped around his desk, propelling his wheeled office chair with his shiny two-tone wingtips.
    Bodhi murmured, “Did the library hire a bouncer?” I shrugged. Sure, the library attracted its share of oddballs, but it wasn’t like a biker bar or anything.
    The desk chair stopped