[[PROMPTuesday]]
It fell.
Or rather the egg was hurled, mightily and with great glee, if little foresight.
That’s not quite how Jeannette phrased it when she ran up the stairs to confront the egg tosser. Not in her head anyway. Due to an ill-timed trip at the top step her anger dissipated. That and the boyish grin she stared into when someone took her arm to help her up.
Early 30s, egg tosser. She’d never seen that in the classifieds, and to the best of her knowledge there was no InstantEggLove.com
Dave looked at her and winced inwardly as she looked like shit. Outwardly he offered, “I feel like shit. I’m sorry.”
In return that anything-but-bold statement got one of the strangest looks he’d ever seen. Lustful. Amused. Pathetic. Pissed. Yeah, mostly pissed. It was one of those looks usually received after months, if not years, of knowing.
So he said nothing else, because, after all, he was near the edge of the roof of his friend’s office. He’d been - and still was - waiting for Gail to finish her morning and head to lunch.
Jeannette was brushing her skirt off, though there was nothing there. She looked back and wondered what and why she had run up the stairs. She’d expected a child and had readied rightful wrath. But instead, trip and fall said it all.
She turned her back and walked away, if only to forestall the awkward silence she could already feel developing.
“Oh my god.”
Matted hair at the back, white and yellow goo on her red blouse made Dave instantly resolve to never throw eggs again. Not sure why he had today. They’d been in the refrigerator as he grabbed a soda. A compulsion that continued without thought until faced with the consequence.
His snort-laugh-gargle - what the hell was that sound? - spun her back around and she felt her hair, a sticky mess, slap her back.
Minutes later, she found herself in a store, looking at his wallet.
“Here, you’ll look bet. .um, good in this.”
And he was right. He’d just bought her clothes - with impressive acumen - and swept one shelf of hair care products; she’d spotted maybe one that she used.
Jeannette was late for where she’d been going. Now she had a new blouse on and was headed out the door. Where, on the threshold, she promptly tripped again.
“Motherfuck!”
Jeannette left with egg on her face - but he had her number.
