“I can’t believe
you put pineapple on your pizza,” Gage commented as he watched
Kathryn take a bite. “That’s unnatural,” he said,
shaking his head in disgust.
“Unnatural?” Kathryn
responded. “It’s tastes great. You want to know what’s
really unnatural? All those drugs you do. Your system must be
toxic.”
“Hey,” Gage said,
slightly offended, “I only put all natural stuff in my body.
It’s stuff that grows from the Earth. What could be more
natural than that? It’s not my fault that the government
hasn’t decided to legalize any of it.”
Shaking her head, Kathryn grew
silent for a moment. “I wonder what she wrote,” she
said.
“Who?” Gage questioned
after taking a bite from his slice of pizza. There was a bit
of sauce oozing down the side of his mouth.
“Julia,” Kathryn
explained as she reached for her napkin and wiped Gage’s
face. “I mean, she hid the diary under the floorboards,
right? So she must have written something that she didn’t
want anyone else to see, right?
Gage glanced at her for a moment.
“I guess,” he responded.
“So . . . what do you
think she wrote?” Kathryn questioned again.
“I don’t know,”
Gage said as he set his slice of pizza down on his paper plate.
“I guess she wrote all of her secrets.”
“Secrets,” Kathryn
repeated. “Do you think she had any secrets? I mean . .
. we’re talking about Julia,” Kathryn explained.
Gage tensed visibly for a moment,
then shook his head. “No, I don’t think she had any
real secrets,” he admitted. “Julia was pretty much
as honest as they come.”
“I suppose,” Kathryn
responded.
“What is that supposed
to mean?” Gage inquired.
“Nothing,” Kathryn
responded.
“Then why did you say
it?” Gage questioned.
“Well . . . I don’t
want to speak ill of the dead, but it’s been my experience
that the nice girls are the ones with the secrets to hide,”
she explained.
Gage stared at her in silence
for a moment. “You’re nice,” he said, changing
the subject from Julia to Kathryn. “What’s your secret?”
“I don’t have one,”
Kathryn responded, then took a bite of her pizza. |
