Boiled Down
Angela Townsend
I never have to eat a hard-boiled egg again. No adult of any species should even think these words. But you cannot betray yourself without philandering against language, and I have committed adultery.
It seemed reasonable at the time. Reason wears stain-resistant shirts. All I had to do was convince you that egg salad was not mandatory. I had logged enough years in Youth in Government to know the format:
Whereas, I am a thirty-six-year-old woman possessed of independent opinions;
Whereas, my senses, exceeding five (5), include one (1) colloquially known as “taste;”
Whereas, “taste” maintains in its employment a complex gastrointestinal system;
Whereas, the verdicts of “taste” are not subject to appeal;
Therefore, I am within my rights to dislike egg salad without further discussion.
But you are an obligate carnivore who cannot survive without the protein of further discussion. Unwilling to witness your demise, I went to market.
You had receipts. I had overcharged my account before we kissed, a single cheek, at the door. Did I remember the price of my RSVP? I showed up at family occasions with a cactus called Type 1 diabetes. No host wants that. Your mother had to find a place for it every time. The least I could do was eat what I could eat.
“Can Angie eat this?” Text messages came on eves, leering at holidays like buzzards. Your mother and sister sent screenshots of shredded meat. I could not determine the species. You would not recognize three decades of vegetarianism. A decision I’d made at age ten was inadmissible.
“It’s low carb. There is no reason you can’t eat it.”
My betrayal took time because I underestimated yours. “Every human being has preferences!” I bent my exclamation points into plowshares. “You think cilantro tastes like soap. My mother says coconut is an abomination. I’m a person, too. I don’t want meat. Just because something won’t harm me doesn’t mean I have to eat it.”
“It’s good for you.” You conjured concern. Very well, flesh could wait. There were eggs and their accomplices. You sat me at the counter to watch you whip ova to paste. “Look, it’s yellow.”
A color outweighed me. You reminded me I was too thin. Also, I had a pointy little nose. I took and ate. It tasted like illness at a garden party.
“Isn’t it good?”
“Sure!” It was the wrong word. Enraged, you added more mayonnaise. I cleaned my plate. I brushed my teeth, keeping the water running so you would not know.
I made mistakes, and your spreadsheets grew fat. It was insulting to share a clip of Jimmy Fallon’s repudiation of mayonnaise. It was irrelevant to note that my most Sicilian uncle allowed me to eat greens on the Night of the Seven Fishes. It was incendiary to allege, “I am not a child.”
My argument was invalid. I had Type 1 diabetes. On the night Mary found no room at the inn, I gnawed a rib your father made just for me.
Christmas Day, we saw my family, who saw no reason to waterboard me with gravy or sentence me to parmigiana. My mother made a salad deep enough for swimming. She included a half-jar of banana peppers, neon halos hired for my happiness. You explained that my mother was a dotard I had bamboozled long ago.
It is a fearsome thing to fall into your own hands if you have bound them yourself. One rib led to racks. I prayed for sinus infections before every summer holiday. The flesh of your flesh grew proud, crackling over the days when I “only ate coleslaw and banana peppers!”
You could not release your tenderness. There are mandatory minimum sentences for Type 1 diabetics caught impersonating adults.
If I made a veggie burger, you took my plate.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s not hot enough.”
“How do you know?”
“You never cook anything enough.”
You burned the roof of my mouth.
“Why are you just sitting there?”
“I just want it to cool down a little.”
“It’s dinner time. I’m not going to watch you sit there. Eat.”
I learned to live in a house with no ceiling. I learned to buy sugar-free fudgesicles when you were out. I contemplated hiding them at work, communing with chocolate in a public bathroom.
“Those are treats for a child.”
“Snacking is as snacking does.”
On Halloween, I wondered if I had earned your laugh for good behavior. I designed a salad around broccoli Frankensteins. I added a label: “The DisreGarden of Eden, featuring Rosemary’s Baby Carrots.” Nobody laughed. I slipped on banana peppers and spilled my bowl on your spreadsheet. I ate hot dogs your sister slashed to look like jagged fingers. I tested my blood glucose in the guest bathroom.
I suggested we split Thanksgiving. You were not opposed. Maybe you had a stitch in your rib.
My uncle had a turkey. He also had a mandolin, and paper crowns for all who desired to be crowned. He presented peas as green as Eden. He had set aside a ball pit of them for me before he added sugar or butter.
“I know I’m a pain,” I acknowledged.
My uncle leaked trans-Atlantic expletives. “We don’t listen to that talk in this house.” My uncle took me to the garage fridge, where Diet Cokes stood thirty strong.
“That’s a lot of them.”
“Your mother said they’re your favorite. I know you don’t drink wine.”
“I know that’s weird.”
My uncle pulled my aunt’s pink scarf from the wall and wrapped it around his head like a Tuareg herdsman. “It takes integrity to be weird.”
“I just realized something.”
He was pulling a balaclava over the scarf. “What’s that?”
“You look like the head of an international crime syndicate.”
“Thank you. What did you just realize?”
I opened a Diet Coke. “I don’t ever have to eat egg salad again.”
There is a time to shed headgear. My uncle became bald again. “Sweetheart, why would you ever have to eat egg salad in the first place?”
I didn’t have to answer. I didn’t have to partake in the bird. My uncle asked me to say the blessing anyway. I praised the God of peas and mothers. I felt my pointy little nose crack the wall. You can keep all your ribs.