Eat, Pray, Love

“Ever try the egg creams at Tick-Tock?”
He moans, “Oh my God, I know.. .”
I feel his longing for New York so deeply that for a moment I mistake it for my own. His
homesickness infects me so completely that I forget for an instant that I am actually free to go
back to Manhattan someday, though he is not. He fiddles a bit with the two sticks of the Twin
Towers, anchors them more solidly in the sand, then looks out at the hushed, blue ocean and
says, “I know it’s beautiful here... but do you think I’ll ever see America again?”
What can I tell him?
We slump into silence. Then he pops out of his mouth the yucky Indonesian hard candy
he’s been sucking on for the last hour and says, “Dude, this candy tastes like ass. Where’d
you get it?”
“From your mother, dude,” I say. “From your mother.”
Eat, Pray, Love