Orfe Read Online Free Page A

living.”
    â€œYou don’t look like a business major,” Orfe said.
    â€œWhat do I look like?”
    â€œWho’d have thought you’d turn out so lovely?”
    â€œNot me,” I admitted. “But I’m glad I did. I enjoy it.”
    â€œGood for you.” She studied me. “Not beautiful but—almost as if you are. People must look at you a second time and be disappointed.”
    I had forgotten Orfe’s way of saying exactly what she thought, rather than whatshe thought you wanted to hear. I had forgotten what it felt like to have something nobody seemed to understand understood. “Yeah,” I said, and felt the smile on my face. I couldn’t stop smiling. “It’s enough to make a person insecure, if she’s banking on her looks. But you too, you’ve turned out—” I stopped, because she wasn’t pretty, wasn’t even fine-looking, was only just barely not unattractive; except of course that there was something about Orfe that made you want to look at her and keep on looking. Arresting.
    â€œI wear myself naked,” Orfe said. “That makes it hard for people to figure out what it is about me. My friends get used to it. Are we still friends?”
    â€œI’d like that.”
    â€œMe too.” Orfe drank at her glass of tea. “I missed you.”
    â€œNo, you didn’t,” I told her.
    â€œDid too.”
    â€œBut you didn’t—but I didn’t miss you—”
    â€œThat’s who I am,” Orfe said, “and who you are.”
    â€œI figured you would have forgotten all about me. We were kids.”
    â€œHow could I forget? We were kids,” she said. “I guess a business degree justdoesn’t sound like you, Enny. Unless you’ve changed.”
    â€œOf course I’ve changed,” I told her. “You helped.”
    â€œJust at the beginning.”
    â€œOnce changes start, you know you can’t keep them from moving along.” I smiled again. “It feels, like, every year older I get the more I own myself. I like being older.”
    â€œWhy, because kids are so helpless?”
    â€œYou were never helpless. Were you?”
    She shrugged, lowered her head, raised her face to me. It had never crossed her mind to be helpless.
    I wanted her to understand. “I don’t see why commercial success can’t be . . . virtuous or . . . honorable. Do you? There are companies that are successful and also good employers, good corporate citizens too. You don’t have to be avaricious just because you’re making money, do you?”
    â€œI wouldn’t know,” she said.
    â€œLike Ben and Jerry’s,” I said. “Like the Body Shop, like—” I stopped myself. “Isn’t that what you wanted me to be like?”
    â€œDepends,” Orfe said.
    â€œDepends on what?” I was getting irritated. “Anyway, I don’t care,” I said. “It’s what I want for myself.”
    â€œWell, then,” Orfe said. She stopped the waitress and asked for a cup of coffee. I asked for the same. “Are you sure it’s okay if I stay with you? I don’t have any bad habits, in case you’re wondering—”
    It hadn’t crossed my mind.
    â€œThe school won’t object?”
    The school wouldn’t care, I assured her.
    â€œThen I’d be grateful. It would be a help, and fun too.”
    â€œGood.” I waited, feeling talked out. It was Orfe’s turn. “Aren’t you going to tell me?”
    â€œTell you what?”
    â€œHow do I know? All I know is, you said you’d tell me while we ate.”
    â€œOh.” She seemed abstracted, watching her fingers pick up potato chips.
    â€œAnd we’ve finished eating,” I said.
    â€œIt’s not much, nothing much, and I was thinking about something else—running into you again because—I heard on