“No,” I said solemnly. “It isn’t.” Norman ambled out of the kitchen, heading toward the storeroom. He came to a sudden, whiplash kind of stop when he saw the eggs.
“Hey!” he said. “Those deviled eggs?”
“Yes,” Morgan said quietly.
“With paprika?”
Morgan nodded.
Norman lifted up the edge of the cling wrap, examining the rows and rows of perfect half-eggs underneath. “Wow.”
They did smell good.
“Can I, uh, have one?” Norman asked Morgan, who just covered her eyes with her hand and nodded. He took his time picking one out, selecting it from the top left corner and cradling it in his palm as if it was precious. “Great,” he said happily, carefully replacing the cling wrap. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Morgan murmured. We watched him walk to the storeroom. He disappeared inside, came out with a bag of hamburger buns, and passed us again, the egg still cupped in his hand.
“Want to savor it,” he explained. He went back into the kitchen.
Morgan sighed. “I,” she announced, “am so pathetic.”
“You are not,” I said.
“I am.” She went over and straightened the cling wrap, corner to corner. “Do you know how many times I’ve brought in deviled eggs? This is, like, the only time I haven’t been sobbing and that’s only ’cause I cried all night. And Norman,” she said, her voice rising to a wail, “sweet Norman, always just acts so surprised to see the eggs, and pleased, and he never, once, has ever acted like he knew what they meant.”
I looked over at the eggs.
“I hate my life!” Morgan cried, breaking down completely, her shoulders shaking. Behind her, the spoons rattled.
“Oh, Morgan,” I said helplessly.
She kept crying. In the kitchen, Norman was slowly eating his egg, watching us solemnly.
“It’s so awful,” she sobbed. “I finally get to see him and he’s so distant, he doesn’t want to talk about the wedding at all. . . .”
“Oh, Morgan,” I said again. What was I supposed to do? In the movies women hugged and cried and held each other, but that was as foreign to me as another country. I decided to sort the Sweet’n Lows.
She kept crying. I ate an egg. And it probably would have kept up like that forever if Isabel hadn’t come through the door.
First she saw the eggs. Then she looked at Morgan.
“Morgan,” Isabel said softly, which just set her off again. Isabel came behind the counter and I knew to step out of the way. “Morgan, come on.”
Morgan was still crying, that blubbery bouncy kind of sobbing you can’t control. “It was bad,” she said. Her nose was running. “He didn’t even stay for breakfast.” The rest was lost in her sobs.
“Oh, honey,” Isabel said, stepping forward and putting her arms around Morgan. “What a jerk.”
I kept my head down and moved on to stocking straws.
“Don’t say you told me so,” Morgan said finally into Isabel’s shoulder, her voice muffled. “Please don’t.”
And Isabel shook her head, one hand smoothing Morgan’s hair. “I won’t.”
“Thank you,” Morgan sniffled. “I know you’re thinking it. . . .”
“I am,” Isabel agreed.
“But just don’t say it.” She pulled back; her eyes were puffy and red, her bangs stuck to her forehead.
“Oh, my God,” Isabel said suddenly. “What did you do to your bangs, Morgan?”
“I cut them,” Morgan said, bursting into another round of tears.
“What did I tell you about messing with your hair when you’re upset?”
“I know. I know . . .” Morgan tried to fluff them with her fingers but they were much too short. “I’m having a bad hair day, okay?”
“It’s all right,” Isabel decided. “We’ll fix them later.”
“Okay.” Morgan sniffled again. “Good.”
Isabel looked at the eggs. Then she reached under the cling wrap to slide one out, making a mess in the process. She popped it into her mouth, whole.
I could tell Morgan was itching to fix that plastic but she didn’t move.
“Come right home after work,” Isabel told her through the mouthful of egg. “We’ll do your hair and have a few beers and open the Columbia CD package I got last week.”
“A package?” Morgan said, blowing her nose in a napkin. “You didn’t tell me we’d gotten another one.”
“I,” Isabel said, dragging out another egg and putting on her sunglasses, “was saving it for a special occasion. See you later, okay?”
Now, finally, Morgan smiled. “All right. You don’t have a date for the fireworks already?”
Isabel chucked that egg in her mouth too, grinning the entire time. Then she shook her head. “Nah. These are good,” she said. Then she looked at me as she pushed the door open. “You come too, Colie. Okay?”
I was surprised. “Sure,” I said.
“Good. It’ll be Chick Night.” She stepped outside. “Later!”
We watched her walk over to the Rabbit, then make another one of her trademark gravel-scattering exits. As she pulled into traffic, someone speeding by in a pickup truck whooped and beeped at her. And then she was gone.
“Chick Night,” Morgan said slowly, walking over and lifting out two eggs. Then she wiped the back of the plastic wrap. “You know, I think that’s just what I need right now.”