Read Under the Egg for Free Online Page B

“What about friends?”
    Bodhi shrugged. “What about them?”
    â€œWell, how did you make them? Or keep them?” This wasn’t just a hypothetical question. I was looking to her for ideas, like a seminar in one of those free flyers around Manhattan: Making and Keeping Friends When You Have Nothing in Common with Your Peers (and Dress Weird).
    â€œEh, didn’t need ’em. I had my mom. I had my dad. Not usually both at the same time. But, y’know, I had the world. Tanzania! New Zealand! Hollywood movie sets of Tanzania and New Zealand!”
    â€œSure,” I said.
    â€œAnd there were always people around. Tutors, nannies, assistants, assistants to the assistants. There was always someone to take me where I wanted to go.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    The room was filled with the sound of munching cookies.
    â€œBut not always someone to go with .” Bodhi met my eyes again and seemed to search out something there. “Do you know what I mean?”
    I knew exactly what she meant. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”
    â€œAh, there you are, ladies.” Reverend Cecily appeared at the door. “Let me fix a cup of tea, and then come to my office. I think I may have solved your mystery.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    When we got to Reverend Cecily’s office, I saw that the painting was propped on the chair across from the reverend’s desk, as if she was offering it counseling.
    â€œWell, a nifty little piece your grandfather picked up here. Where did he get it?”
    Reverend Cecily’s stream of chatter rescued me from answering. “Now, I don’t know much about painting—styles, artists, that sort of thing—but religious iconography I know.”
    Bodhi perched herself on the corner of Reverend Cecily’s desk. “Ico-whattery?”
    â€œIt’s the symbols,” I jumped in. “What they mean, what they’re trying to say, sort of like a visual code. Like . . . a skull means mortality. Or a dog means fidelity.”
    â€œOr a mirror means vanity. Exactly!” Reverend Cecily clapped her hands again. “You are quite the art scholar.”
    â€œMy grandfather was a painter.”
    â€œHe taught you well, I see. Okay, we have ourselves a Madonna and Child, Mary and Jesus, that much you already know. My guess would be Renaissance in style, but to be fair, that’s not very realistic. One doesn’t find Leonardos rattling around the attic, despite what Antiques Roadshow might suggest!” She laughed at her own little joke. “No, I would guess some nineteenth-century painting in the Renaissance style.”
    â€œSo what does the poem say?” asked Bodhi.
    Reverend Cecily picked up a yellow legal pad. “Now, my background is more church Latin—not poetry—but here we go:
    Bread of life
    Risen yet unrisen
    Nourished the well-fed
    And healed the healing angel
    â€œUmmmm, okay. So what does that mean?” interjected Bodhi. I looked over and was surprised to see that Bodhi was staring at the painting intently.
    â€œWell, to be fair, it sounds better in Latin.” Reverend Cecily folded her hands over her robes. “But it’s basic Christian imagery, really,” she started. “In John 6:35, after the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes, Jesus says, ‘I am the—’”
    â€œâ€˜The bread of life,’” I finished, surprising myself. I guess something had sunk in during all those organ concerts.
    â€œYes! ‘He who comes to me will never go hungry.’ Spiritual hunger, you understand? Here, he foreshadows the Last Supper. You know the da Vinci painting, of course.”
    Even Bodhi nodded.
    â€œThis is where Christ shared bread and wine with his disciples, asking them to do this again in remembrance of Him after his death. That moment is repeated every week at Mass in what we call Communion. So in calling the Christ Child ‘the bread of