Yolk(23)

She sighs, bumps her door open with her butt, and shuffles back inside. I hobble in after her, shoving all the frozen foods in the freezer, and leaving the fridge stuff in the cooler bags for the morning.

I take a long, hot shower, luxuriating in the water pressure, the steam, and how the tub isn’t blackened with mildew. She’s left her bedroom door ajar, so I get in beside her in the king-size bed. The sheets are cool and expansive, and I’m calmed by her steady breathing. I wake up six hours later.

“Have whatever,” she grumbles when I find her in the kitchen. June has never been a morning person. I open the fridge to finish putting away my things. The smell is so intense, it feels invasive. It has the piercing quality of ammonia. In the back there’s a jar of pickles that’s carpeted with a thick layer of fur, which I didn’t even know was a thing for brined foods. In the crisper drawer is a ballooned sack of mixed field greens that have matured into a sludge. There’s also a container from Domino’s Pizza. In New York. We live in the town with the best slices in the world and my sister is ordering Domino’s Pizza. If there were ever an indication that your sibling was unwell, it’s this.

Her uncovered bowl of mapo from last night sits front and center. Complete with stale rice and chopsticks still stuck in it. Behind it are stacks of takeout containers and a petrified slice of red velvet cake in a plastic clamshell that hasn’t been shut. It looks like a wax sculpture.

I locate eggs and check the expiration date. I pair my Hidden Valley ranch dressing with her bigger one in the fridge door. I also slot my soy sauce and fish sauce in the pantry. I love that we have two of mostly everything.

“I’ll sleep on the couch tonight,” I tell her, cracking two eggs and depositing the whites into a ramekin with a damp paper towel on top.

“What did you do with the yolks?” she asks.

I glance at her guiltily. Her face is puffy from sleep.

“I chucked them.”

June hits her trash can pedal with her foot to peer inside.

“Not the literal trash. I’m not a total monster. The sink.”

“That’s fucked up.”

I don’t tell her that what’s really fucked up is the elaborate ecosystem that’s going on in her refrigerator. Her hair’s tied in a sloppy ponytail, and I can’t believe she’s wearing the woolly blue pajamas with yellow roses that Mom gave us two Christmases ago. The temperature’s in the sixties today, but June’s favorite thing has always been to crank up her central air and wear winter clothes inside. I bite my tongue about how she can be wasteful too.

“Next time get your own eggs,” she says groggily. I don’t tell June she has sleep in her eyes, out of spite. Even though I’m the only one who has to look at the goo.

“Fine.” I put the eggs in the microwave silently. I can’t wait until the week is out. “You did say help yourself to whatever, though.”

Something softens in her expression.

In the hazy morning light, a corona of baby hairs dance around her face. “I got those eggs from the farmers’ market,” she says. “They’re nonconflict, organic, grass-fed eggs that cost nine bucks for a thing.”

“Jesus.” I’m genuinely taken aback. “I had no idea.”

I check the carton. They look like regular eggs. If a little hipster because the label is a tasteful line drawing of chickens. It looks like a wine label. Or a sixties animation where real shit pops off, like the farmer kills a character for food.

“Whatever,” she says, waving her hand. “Take them. I thought I should start eating better and then forgot about them.”

I look down at my shriveled breakfast. I could have kept the yolks. Pretended I was ever in my life going to make hollandaise. Or flan. “Damn, the farmers probably christened each one.”

She smiles at my stupid joke. “Are you a farmer if you have chickens? Or is that only for, I don’t know, crops? Can you be like ‘I’m a chicken farmer’?”

“Hi. I’m a ‘cow farmer.’?” I try it out and grin. “Are we stupid? Why don’t we know this? I think it’s right though.” I raise a hand. “Hi. I’m a pig farmer. See there, I feel like I’ve definitely heard of pig farmers. That’s a thing for sure.”

She starts laughing. “I don’t know why, but the ‘hi’ is the dumbest part.”

I start laughing. “Is it the ‘hi’ part or the fact that I keep waving each time?”

We both crack up. Then it dawns on me. What the eggs signify. June once told me that organic food was a scam.

“Yeah, you can stay for a few days.” She pulls out a Chinese food container from the fridge and sniffs it. “What’d the bastard do?” She pries off the metal handle of the cardboard Chinese food bucket, folds it shut, and sticks it in the microwave.

“He was just a fuckstick,” I tell the back of her head.

I study her while she watches the box spin in the microwave.

June is scared. There’s no way she’d go to the farmers’ market and get ripped off on eggs if she wasn’t.





chapter 14


“I’m going to my thing,” she announces as I’m rinsing our breakfast plates. I watch her pull her hair out from the back of her coat.