Slightly Single by Wendy Markham Read Free Book Online Page B

salty enough, I can’t eat it,” I tell him with a shrug.
    There’s nothing worse than bland, under-salted food. My grandparents are supposed to be on a low-salt diet, and you never tasted anything more vile than the no-salt-added tomato sauce they tried to serve everyone one Sunday a few years back. We all agreed that it was disgusting, and my grandmother immediately switched back to making her usual sauce. The doctor keeps scolding them about their blood pressureor whatever it is they’re both supposed to be watching, but I don’t blame them for cheating. I would, too.
    “You’d get used to less after a while,” Will points out.
    “Maybe, but I don’t want to. It’s not like my health is in any danger.” I’m never comfortable discussing my eating habits with Will. I guess I’m afraid he might bring up my weight. So far he never has, but it’s not as though I think he isn’t aware that I could stand to lose a few pounds.
    Okay, thirty or forty pounds.
    Luckily, he’s never acknowledged it.
    And if my luck continues, he never will.
    “There are worse vices than salt,” I point out to him, still feeling defensive. “Like…”
    “Cigarettes?”
    I grin. “Exactly. Okay, salt and cigs. So I have two vices. Look at the bright side. At least I’m not a junkie.”
    He cracks a smile at that.
    “Why don’t you have any vices?” I ask, watching him take a bite of his toast. Whole grain. Unbuttered. No jelly.
    I half expect him to protest that he does have vices—not that I can think of any.
    But he doesn’t. He just shrugs, smiling and chewing his boring toast, confidently vice-free.
    “Listen…what if I came with you, Will?”
    Who said that?
    My God, did I say that?
    Apparently I did, because Will has stopped chewing and is looking at me, confused. “Came with me where?”
    What the hell was I thinking?
    I wasn’t thinking. I just blurted it out somehow, and now I can’t take it back.
    I frantically try to come up with something else to say. Something to add, something that would make sense…
    What if I came with you…
    What if I came with you…
    What if I came with you……to the bathroom the next time you go?
    No, there’s no way out of this.
    Now that I’ve started, I have to finish.
    I put down my fork, take a deep breath, then pick up my fork again, realizing that setting it down seemed too ceremonious, as though I’m about to make a major announcement.
    I am, but I don’t want it to come across that way to Will.
    That would only scare him off before he really has a chance to think about it.
    I stab a hunk of green pepper-dotted egg and pop it into my mouth. It’s always easier to sound casual when you’re munching something. “What if I came with you this summer?”
    So much for casual.
    I sound like I’m being strangled, and he looks horrified.
    “Come with me?” he echoes. “You can’t come with me!”
    I attempt to swallow the sodden hunk of chewed-up egg and almost gag. “I don’t mean with you, with you,” I say quickly, to reassure him. “I just mean, what if I found a place to live in North Mannfield and got a job waitressing or something for the summer? Then we wouldn’t have to be apart for three months.”
    “Tracey, we can’t be together this summer! I’m doing a different show every other week. I won’t have time to spend with you even if you’re two minutes away.”
    I feel a lump in my throat, trying to rise past the soggy wad of pepper and egg making its way down. I can’t speak.
    But that’s okay, because Will isn’t done yet. He’s put down his fork and is shaking his head. “I can’t believe you would spring something like this on me now. I mean, I thought we’d agreed that this summer stock thing is great for me. I have to do this for my career. You’ve known that all along, Tracey. Now you have a problem with it?”
    I finally gulp down the egg and the lump. “I didn’t say I have a problem with it, Will. I just said I want to come with