I didn’t find the story I was looking for (I suspect it’s on an external harddrive I put in storage for the summer), but I did find a scene I wrote for a creative writing class at around the same time, and I liked it, so I thought I’d polish it up and post it. The assignment, which I believe came from Writing Fiction: The Practical Guide from New York’s Acclaimed Creative Writing School, was to start a story with the line, “Sam didn’t know if it was a wonderful omen or a sign of disaster that…”
Sam didn’t know if it was a wonderful omen or a sign of disaster that the first two eggs she broke for her Sunday-morning, three-egg omelette were double-yolked. She stared at the four yellow orbs swimming at the bottom of the stainless-steel bowl. A white dot of membrane in the center of one made it look as though it stared back.
“So the question is,” she asked them, “do I cook the two of you, or risk cracking a third?” They didn’t answer. Four yolks and two whites meant an overly-rich, but not overly large, omelette. Six yolks would make a double omelette, and if she froze half of it, she wouldn’t have to cook next Sunday. Five yolks, though – she wasn’t sure what to do with five yolks.
“The sensible thing,” she said to the eggs, “would be to stop at four. Actually, no. The sensible thing would be to fish one of you out of there and feed it to the cat.” The eggs expressed no opinion. She looked around to see if Satin (Carl, damn him, insisted on calling her Satan) was in the kitchen, but the sleek black beast was nowhere to be seen. Of all the mornings for her to decide that she didn’t need to supervise in the kitchen!
Fine, then. If neither the eggs nor the cat would help her make up her mind… The creamy white shell rough between her nail-bitten fingers, Sam cracked another egg. One yolk. Of course. Glaring at it, she poured it into a bowl for the cat, then liberated another yolk from the threat of omelette and sent it to join its friend. That’d teach them. She set the bowl next to Satin’s water dish and picked up her whisk.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” she told the eggs. The gleaming steel of the whisk pierced the skin of the first golden yolk, and as it began to bleed into the white, Sam felt her stomach lurch and her mouth go dry. “It’s just an egg,” she whispered. “It’s just an egg, and you’re going to eat it, and you’ll be fine.” She drove the whisk firmly into another yolk, then dropped it on the counter and bolted to the sink.
Moments later, the ends of her hair trailing into her morning coffee, and what looked like part of last night’s sandwich, she started to cry. “Dammit.” Behind her, Satin had discovered the bowl of yolks. Sam pulled the roll of paper towels out from under the sink, blotted her hair, and went to put the rest of the eggs in the refrigerator. Satin would get those, too, but she shouldn’t have them all at once.
The purring cat didn’t look up when Sam stepped over her. Her glossy black feet tread the floor in rhythm as she ate. Sam cinched her robe tight and stumbled down the narrow hall to the living room, damp paper towels still clutched in her fist. The curtains were still drawn. She had been enjoying the sunshine in the kitchen, but she liked the cavelike feeling of the living room more. Her cellphone was on the end table, next to Carl’s key. She knocked it off the table when she picked up the phone.
“Deborah? Yes, I do know what time it is, but I don’t know who else to call.” Sam didn’t actually know what time it was, but it wasn’t important. Anything before noon on a Sunday was going to prompt Deb to ask that question. And the next question? “No, I’m not okay.” And the next. “I’m… Shit. Can you come over? No. Never mind. I shouldn’t ask you to come over. I just… Deb, I’m pregnant, and I don’t know what to do.”
The sleepy voice on the other end of the line suddenly snapped awake. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m nine days late and I have puke in my hair.” “Yes, it’s Carl’s, and no, I haven’t told him yet. I called you first.” “Because we broke up last week.” Not just awake now – upset. Maybe a little bit angry. “Because I was hoping everything would work out, but it hasn’t. I would have called you today anyway.”
Of course. Of course she was coming over. Shit. She was coming over. “Of course I want you to come over – I was just saying that because I didn’t want to put you to any trouble. You can let yourself in.”
The smell of her hair was roiling her stomach. And the paper towels. She dropped them on the floor, where they’d cover Carl’s key. “I should get up,” she thought. “And take a shower. Deb’ll make me take a shower, if I haven’t already. I should make more coffee. She’ll want coffee.” But coffee was even more nauseating than her sticky, damp hair. And she was so, so tired. “I’ll just wait for her here,” she thought. The robe gaped away from her legs and chest, but there was a blanket piled at the end of the couch, still imprinted with a warm hollow the size of a small black cat. Sam curled into a tight ball and pulled the blanket up to her neck. She was still there, half asleep and trembling, when Deborah arrived half an hour later.
“You look awful,” Deb said. She knelt beside the couch with her arms wide, then recoiled from the state of Sam’s hair. “And you smell worse. Come on, up. You’re getting in the shower, and I’ll make us some coffee.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” Sam mumbled. Moving as though she were more than five months pregnant, instead of just five weeks, she hoisted herself off the couch and stumbled to the bathroom, bumping into the wall twice on the way.
Wrinkling her nose, Deborah picked the crumpled paper towels up off the floor and carried them to the trash can in the kitchen. She left Carl’s key where it was. “I’m starving,” she announced, not sure whether Sam could hear her over the rattling groan of the pipes. She found the coffee above the sink, right where she and Sam had kept it in grad school, and started a fresh pot. Noticing the chopped green onions, ham, and bell peppers on the cutting board, she opened the refrigerator to find the three egg yolks in their stainless steel bowl. “I’m just going to finish this omelette you started,” she yelled.
Deb cracked another egg. It had two yolks. “Cool!” she yelled. “I got a double yolk!” She cracked one more. “If it’s got two yolks, too,” she told Satin, “I’ll give one to you.” Satin peered mournfully into her empty bowl, then stared up at Deb. “Poor kitty,” Deb said. “Sam didn’t feed you this morning, did she?” The next egg only had one yolk, though, so Deb rummaged through the cabinets until she found Satin’s dry food. Satin was unimpressed.
By the time Sam got out of the shower, pink and glistening and refreshingly free of vomit, Deb had set the table with matching plates and cups, laid out over a green and white floral print tablecloth she’d found wedged into a bottom drawer. It was creased and a bit musty, but pretty in the late-morning light. Sam shuddered, instinctively, when she saw the omelettes, but her treacherous stomach had no reservations about the eggs now. It wanted breakfast.
“Those omelettes are gorgeous,” she said. They were – perfectly browned and folded. Deb had always been a marvelous cook.
“Of course they are,” Deb said. “Now, sit down and tell me about our baby.”
