Again – me, too.
I asked, "Like what?"
"Almost anything," she said. "I like the way they talked back then. It was so beautiful."
"It wasn'tallbeautiful," I said.
"Yeah. But even the ugliness was beautiful in its own way. Like take 'Macbeth.' It was so ghastly, but the language was so profound." She leaned forward. "And the brutality of it all. It really makes you think."
"Youdorealize they all die in the end, right?"
"They don'talldie," she said. "And besides, I like happy stuff, too."
My lips twitched with the sudden urge to smile. "Well, that rules out my books."
"Hah!" she said. "Yours are happy."
I gave her a look. "Is that so?"
"Definitely." She grinned. "Like when Lord Brisbane was eaten by his own pigs, it was glorious."
My lips were still twitching. "Technically they weren'thispigs."
"Right," she said. "Because he stole them from that poor farmer. But theywerehis when they ate him." She paused, and her smile faded. "But I was kind of hoping they'd eat his wife, too."
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. "Yeah? Why the wife?"
"Oh, you know," she said. "Because she conspired with that magistrate to steal her cousin's inheritance." Becka's voice hardened. "Ihatecorruption, especially when it hurts regular people."
Huh. Me, too."Like the pig farmer."
"Exactly."
I just had to ask, "And what about pigs?"
She paused. "Well, Idolike bacon."
Oh yeah. Me, too.
But that was a given.
Into my silence, she said, "You know what I think?"
"What?"
"I think it's nice when bad people get what's coming to them."
I felt my fingers clench.Me, too.
And the wayIsaw it, if they didn't get it by chance, there were ways to help that process along. But this, like many things, was better left unmentioned.
I said, "So you know a lot of bad people, do you?"
"No." She hesitated. "Well, maybe just one."
Her stepfather, obviously.
I knew more of her history than she realized. Still, I asked, "Does that include your roommate?"
