Two Eggs in a Pot

In his apartment, her hot new boyfriend stands at the stove boiling two eggs for breakfast. He says she’ll love them, but from her perch on the kitchen stool, she tells him she hates eggs, has since she was a kid.

He says his eggs are different, his dead mom’s recipe resurrected, then gussied up with shredded cheddar, a fancier version of the sliced boiled egg on buttered toast she made for him every morning, a dish everyone, even egg-haters, loves, but this makes her wonder who this everyone is, settling on the girlfriends who came before, the egg-loving beauties who adored her new boyfriend’s gorgeousness, his light beam smile, his slashing intelligence, and also his mom-egg breakfast.

Eggs boil in a pot

A few minutes later, her new boyfriend snatches two slices of bread from the toaster, and with a slotted spoon, scoops the eggs from their bubbling hot water bath. Egg odor poisons the kitchen air, an old man’s fart. In her mind, the yolks slime the inside of her mouth, their spoiled milk taste lingering even after she’s brushed her teeth.

Now, she shifts on the stool, trying to get comfortable. Her phone’s weather app says freezing rain all day. Through the window, on the street below, she spies cars aquaplaning down the flooded street, and in the distance, a yolky light blinks from a skyscraper. It’s 6 AM in December, and dawn won’t arrive for an hour. Last night, when she slept at her new boyfriend’s place for the first time, he snored. She wants to go home and sleep. She craves a yogurt. On her phone, she scrolls to her Uber app.

Eggs crack in a pot

The boyfriend must not notice because he flashes her a smile and sets egg slices on toast, her shoulders crumpling, shattered shells. The phone goes back into her purse, and she considers a tiny taste, but when he smothers the egg with cheddar, the molten mess makes her stomach lurch, so she jumps down from the stool. He asks what she’s doing, where she’s going, then says, Please, please, would you sit down and try my eggs? I made them just for you.

She reconsiders his mom-memory meal. Back onto the stool she climbs on this stormy Sunday morning, the boyfriend’s ghost mother floating above the kitchen island.

The boyfriend says, Eat, and his mom says, Eat, and a spirit inside her whispers, Eat, so she tastes the whites, amoebas in her mouth, then spits the masticated mess onto her plate.

When the boyfriend says, What the hell are you doing? she clatters her plate into the kitchen sink, grabs her purse, and sprints towards the front door, egg odors seeming to explode all around like a dying star.

Her boyfriend, now standing astride the front door, says, Honest, I thought you’d love my eggs.

By Laura B. Weiss