Milkrun

“Hellooo?” I say.

“Fern!” It’s my dad. “Are you still in bed?”

“No.” I always say I’m awake when I’m asleep. Don’t know why.

“But you’re wasting the day!”

“I’m awake.” Eyes…heavy. Mouth…can’t open.

“Good. What’s new?”

Uh. “I forget.”

“Do you want to call us back when you wake up?”

“No, now’s good. Nothing’s new.” Okay, okay. I’m sitting up. I’m awake. I’m going to have dark circles under my eyes and I’m practically out of concealer and no man will fall in love with me and it’ll all be your fault.

“If nothing’s new, why have you been too busy to call us back?”

Whoops. It’s not that I ignore them on purpose. I am just constantly forgetting that they exist and that I should call them. “I’ve been busy at work.”

“Work is good. What have you been editing?”

“A book.”

“A book about what?”

Did he wake me up to learn more about Millionaire Cowboy Dad? How come he’s not a millionaire daddy? “A romance, Dad. Same story as every other story.”

“What’s that?”

“Girl meets boy. Girl loves boy. Boy screws over girl.”

“That’s the story?”

I must really not be paying attention if that’s what I just told my father. Why is he calling me so early? This I don’t ask either, afraid to risk another lecture on how the early bird gets the worm. “No, that’s not the whole story. Boy apologizes and they get married and live happily ever after.”

“That’s nice, dear. But you know what they say, all work and no play makes for a dull life. And what about you? What’s happening with the boys? Are you still seeing Jeffery?”

“No, Dad. He’s screwing girls in Thailand right now.” I don’t really say that. I don’t want to give him a heart attack; he thinks I’m still a virgin. “It’s Jeremy. And no, I’m playing the field right now.”

“No rush, dear, no rush.”

Most parents would be bugging you to start thinking about getting married, or at least tell you to find a boyfriend by the time you’re twenty-four, but not my dad. He still thinks I’m fifteen. Whenever he goes on business trips, he still buys me those “Welcome to (insert name of visited state here)” T-shirts in children’s sizes. Janie, on the other hand, constantly reminds me that she does, in fact, “want to be called Gramma someday.” If I ever do have kids, I might insist they call her Janie. Just to annoy her.

“What’s new with you, Dad?”

“I joined a new jogging group.”

“That’s good. How’s work?”

“Good. I’m only working four days a week now.”

“How come?”

“I want some time for myself. Life’s not a dress rehearsal, you know. I have to live for the moment. I can’t waste all my time working.”

Definitely Bev’s influence. I may have even heard her use the exact phrase “Life’s not a dress rehearsal,” followed by “We only have one life to live.” My dad used to be a workaholic, especially after the divorce. Since Bev got him into psychoanalysis, he’s become more of the how-does-it-make-you-feel and listen-tome-recite-clichés type of guy.

I hear Bev’s voice in the background. “Tim, is that Fern? Can I talk to her?”

“Bev wants to say hello. Love you, bye.” He passes off the phone.

It’s far too early in the morning to talk to Bev. It’s not that I don’t like her. I do, really. I just have a few minor issues with her. Bev is a fanatic; she’s addicted to talk shows. Specifically Oprah. And instead of working like a modern woman in the twenty-first century, her calling herself a part-time travel agent is a euphemism for “she plans her own vacations.” When she’s not traveling, she spends all her time watching Oprah, doing Oprah makeovers, and cooking low-fat meals from Oprah’s recipe book. Verbs like share and discover are too often combined in her speech pattern with nouns like soul and self.

“Hi, Fern. How’s your spirit?”

“My spirit’s fine, thanks. How’s yours?”

“Wonderful, wonderful. Quite phenomenal. How’s therapy going?”

“Great.” Bev has convinced my father to give me seventy-five dollars a week for one-hour therapy sessions. She’s convinced that kids never get over divorce and that my sudden move to Boston might throw me over the edge. The money has been very therapeutic so far; I’ve bought new sunglasses and my hooker boots, and I’m saving up for a CD player for my car.

“So what have you learned about yourself this week?”

“Not much,” I answer. It’s way too early for psychoanalytical babble. “What’s up with you?”

“Oh, the usual. Power walking. Writing in my gratitude journal.”

I refuse to ask her what a gratitude journal is.

“And I just read the most amazing book last week,” she says. “I’m sure you’d love it.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, um…um. It’s about an underprivileged girl who was a victim of incest. Gosh, I don’t remember the name, but the story hit home.”

I don’t quite see the relation between the unidentified novel’s protagonist and my Manhattan-born stepmother, who spends Saturday at the hairdresser, Sunday at the manicurist, and Monday through Friday at the mall when not watching Oprah. However, we’ve never quite reached the level of intimacy that would allow me to point that out. “Let me know the name of the book when you remember it, and I’ll buy it, okay? I gotta go now.”

“Okay, bye. Remember your spirit.”

“Of course.” I hang up the phone and fall back asleep.

When I wake up at 1:30, I have my first coherent thought. It’s 1 A.B. (After Breakup), and I have already kindled a relationship with my future husband.

I may have a date. Soon.

Yay!

With Jonathan Gradinger. The thing is, once we get married, I’ll have to stop referring to him by his full name. I’d sound like a character in a Jane Austen novel: “Good morning, Mr. Gradinger. Please pass the newspaper, Mr. Gradinger.”

Why hasn’t he called yet?

I’ll admit I’m being a bit crazy. According to Swingers, he has to wait at least three days. Or is it five days? How am I going to wait five days?

I must call Wendy.

I dial her number at work. How pathetic is that? It’s Saturday afternoon and I don’t even bother trying her apartment.

“Wendy speaking.”

“Hi!”

“Hello,” she says. I hear her rummaging through some papers. “So? How was it?”

“Wonderful. I’m completely over Jeremy.”

“Sure you are,” she says. Do I detect sarcasm?

“I am. I ran into my future husband.”

“That’s good. Do I get to be the maid of honor?”

“No. You can be a bridesmaid. Iris made me swear she’d be the maid of honor. But you can plan the bachelorette party.”

“Seems fair. But you still have to be my maid of honor. If I ever have time to date again, that is.” Wendy has been unwillingly practicing abstinence since she started her job.

“Of course I’ll be your maid of honor! I’ve already written my maid of honor speech,” I tell her. Well, not all of it. But sometimes really funny things happen, and if I don’t write them down right away, I’ll never remember everything I should have said and then…fine. I’m a geek.

“I’m sure you have. So, who’s the future Mr. Norris?”

I pause for effect. “Jonathan Gradinger.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“My God! Where did you see him? Are you sure it wasn’t a dream?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” It wasn’t a dream. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a dream. Was it a dream? I look around my room for evidence of the Orgasm excursion. My black skirt is lying on the floor where I dropped it last night. I grab it. It smells like smoke and Sex on the Beach. P-hew.

“How did that happen?” she asks.

“He saw me at the bar.” I leave out how that came about. “We talked. He asked me for my number.”

“That’s amazing! Is he still a fox?”

“Of course. Maybe not the fox, but still foxy.”

“Has he called yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh.”

Oh? What does she mean, oh? “He wouldn’t have, Wen. What guy calls the next morning? He’ll probably call tomorrow night. At 8:30. After The Simpsons.”

“Not if he wants to go out tonight.”

“He’s not going to ask me out for tonight.”

“Why not?”

“Because then he would look desperate. Trust me, Wen, that’s not the way the game is played.” Dear sweet Wendy. Dear sweet, naive Wendy.

“How do you know how the game is played? You’ve been on the dating scene for one day.”

Hey, I can remember L.B.J. (Life Before Jer). I did have a life, you know. “He’ll call me on Sunday and ask me out for Tuesday, so he can see me on Tuesday and ask me out for next Saturday. See?”

“I see. Where do you think he’ll take you?”

“On Tuesday or Saturday?”

Wendy doesn’t answer. I can tell that all this is getting a little too complicated for her. Not dating in over a year has started to melt her brain.

“Sherri Burns is going to die,” she says.

“I know! Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Would she ever find out? Besides by reading the wedding announcement in the Times, of course.”

“I was thinking of taking a picture on our date and posting it on the Stapley Internet site.”

“Not a bad plan. Uh-oh. I have a meeting. Gotta go.”

“A meeting? Who else is in the office on Saturday?”

“Who’s not in the office?”

“Poor you. You sure you don’t want a normal job?”

“I am far from sure. We’ll chat later.”

“Bye.”

What should I do now? Probably get up. It’s already two.

“Hello?” I call from my bed. “Anyone home?”

“Hi!” Sam hollers. “I’m cleaning the bathroom.” I’m pretty sure she cleans her bathroom every day. I’ve seen her sneak into the bathroom with disinfectant after a guest uses it. She’s just as psycho with the fridge. She has a bit of an expiry fetish. She spills out her milk exactly three days after it’s been opened. It doesn’t matter what the expiration date says, either. For some reason I can’t seem to convince her that the expiration date refers to the date you buy the stuff, not when you have to throw it out. “You’re not really going to eat that?” she asked me yesterday, staring in disgust at my six-day-old package of sliced turkey. Um…I was. If I did things Sam’s way, everything I own would be in the trash can or down the toilet.

I throw off my duvet and slide my feet onto the floor. The cold floor. Where are my slippers? Do I have slippers? No, I do not have slippers. Why don’t I have slippers? Where are my socks?

I slip on some shorts. Not even Sam wants to see my Granny panties. I walk into her room. “Morning.”

“Afternoon,” she says. She is using some sort of contraption to scrub the tiles. “Late night?”

“Yeah. Very fun.”

“Good. I’m almost done. You can borrow my supplies if you want to clean your bathroom.”

I’m not sure, but I think that’s a hint. Oh, well, I have nothing else to do today, anyway. And my bathroom is pretty gross. The last time I cleaned it was…let me think. Have I ever cleaned it? “Thanks. I’ll do it right after breakfast. I mean lunch.”

I make myself a sandwich. A pretty lame sandwich because now that I have no turkey left, all I have left is lettuce. Okay, I’ll clean the bathroom right after lunch and an hour of TV.

What’s on? Click, click. A Cheers rerun! That Diane. So literary. I always kind of hoped she and Frasier would stay together. Lilith/Helen didn’t deserve him. As soon as I got to Boston, my first excursion was to the Cheers bar. Quite disappointing. No one screamed “Jack!” when I walked in. Okay. Three o’clock. Time to clean. But Blind Date is on. I love that show. Maybe I’ll just watch until the first commercial…

It’s five o’clock and I haven’t moved. My butt feels asleep. I really should get up. Sam left all the cleaning supplies on my bathroom floor.

Why hasn’t he called yet?

Six-thirty. I’m hungry. Macaroni and cheese? I have no milk left. I hate when it’s too margariney. I order a pizza. Extra pepperoni. What am I going to do tonight? Natalie mentioned The G-Spot. I should call her. At the next commercial.

Seven-fifteen. I’m still hungry. Where’s my pizza? What happened to thirty minutes, fast and free? I dial Natalie’s number.

“Hi, Jack,” she answers.

“What’s up?”

“Not much. I’m just getting dressed.”

“Where are you going?”

“For dinner. With E-reek.”

“Who’s Eric?”

“E-reek. The guy I was talking to last night.”

Wait a second. A guy she met yesterday has already called? “The guy in the Armani?”

“That’s him. He called this morning. I think he might be royalty, but I’m not sure.”

I ignore her latter comment and focus on the more surprising element of her declaration. “He called this morning?”

“Yup.”

This morning? “And he asked you out and you said yes? For tonight?”

“Yeah. Should I have said no? He actually asked me last night, and I said we’ll see, but he called me at eleven to confirm, so I said, Why not?”

Why not? What am I supposed to do tonight? “Didn’t we have plans?”

“Oh…did we? I didn’t think you’d care.”

“Well, I do.” Knowing quite well that if the situation were reversed, I’d do the same. Fashion Magazine Fun Fact # 1: let no man come between two best friends. And let no man come between two mediocre friends unless he’s really hot. I mean, let’s face it; why else would you go to a bar with a mediocre girlfriend on a Saturday night in the first place? To discuss politics? So, when a guy like my Jonathan calls, you expect your friend to be understanding, even if you don’t like it when she does it to you. Not that someone as cool as my Jonathan Gradinger would call so soon.

“You don’t want me to cancel, do you?”

Yes, I do. “No, go. Have fun.”

“You can still go to The G-Spot.”

Who goes to The G-Spot alone? I’d have to wait in line for three hours by myself. And then I’d have to talk to myself at the bar. “No. It’s okay. I’m tired, anyway.” Someone knocks on my door. “The pizza’s here. Gotta go.”

“Swear you’re not mad?”

I’m mad. “I’m not mad.”

“Good. Love ya, hon! Have fun!”

I was only going to eat half the pizza and save the rest for Monday’s lunch, but now that I don’t have to wear anything tight tonight, I’m going to eat the whole thing and stuff myself with misery. I hate my life. I’m spending an entire Saturday in front of the TV. Jeremy doesn’t love me. Jonathan Gradinger doesn’t want me. Natalie’s guy called the next day.

Sam walks into the living room. If she asks me if I’ve cleaned the bathroom yet, I’m going to take the pizza and rub it all over her toilet.

“What’s up?” she says.

“Nothing.”

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing.”

“Wanna come see the new James Bond movie with us tonight?”

“No.” Actually, I do want to go see the new James Bond movie with them tonight. “Well, maybe.”

“Come on! Why not? You haven’t moved in six hours.”

“Since when is a movie aerobic? Are we going to be fighting crime along with Jimmie?”

“At least you’ll have to get off the couch to walk to the car.”

This is true. Although at this particular moment it seems like more work than it’s worth. “Okay, I’ll come.”

Standing in the shower, I try to ignore the greenish-brown circles of dirt that sporadically appear on my tub. Tomorrow I’m definitely cleaning.

Marc pulls up at a quarter to nine. He rolls down the window of his brand-new two-door Civic, and Sam plants a kiss on his lips. If they’re going to be smooching all night, I’m sitting by myself.

I maneuver my way into the backseat, through the seat belt that is doubling as a limbo stick, recalling an earlier conversation overheard through paper-thin walls. “We weren’t arguing—we were discussing,” Sam told me later.

Sam: “Two-doors? We’re not sixteen.”

Marc: “A four-door? What am I, thirty-five?”

This went on all night—two doors or four, four doors or two—the same old thing over and over, keeping me awake (I was forced to sit in a rigid position, with my ear cupped to the wall) until I went to my desk to write Honda a letter begging the company to please produce a three-door vehicle so that Sam and Marc would just shut up already.

I step on a crumpled old burger bag on the floor of the backseat. It smells like rotten vegetables. Sam lets him get away with that?

“We should take your car for a wash,” Sam says, sniffing. She picks up an old Big Mac carton with her thumb and index finger as if she’s holding a soiled diaper, and folds it into a compact rectangle.

“Yes, Mom,” Marc says, and turns on the radio. There’s only so much nagging even he can take, I suppose. I wonder if he’s ever tempted to smear stale McDonald’s fry grease on her toilet seat?

“Don’t be rude,” she says.

I’m feeling a bit like their kid in the backseat. “Are we there yet?” I ask.

“Soon,” he says.

We pull into the twenty-four-theater multiplex parking lot, which is already crammed with at least a thousand cars. Apparently, we’re not the only ones with a let’s-go-to-the-movies-and-see-the-stars idea. Don’t any of these people have a real life? We pull into a tight spot at the back of the lot.

“Couldn’t you have let us off in front?” Sam asks.

“Sorry,” Marc says. “I forgot.”

A front drop-off would have been nice. Some sort of trolley would have been even nicer. Couldn’t you have built us a trolley, Marc?

Not a bad business proposal, actually. A trolley that runs up and down the parking lot, picking up and dropping off passengers like at Disney World. But people would constantly want to get on and off, the train would have to stop every few seconds, and it would take longer to get a lift back to the car than to actually walk.

“Hurry up, girls, we’re already late,” Marc tells us. Tells me actually, because I’m the one slowing us down. I’m a slow walker. Is it my fault that short people have short legs?

If he had dropped us off at the front door, like a gentleman, we’d have tickets by now.

The multicomplex looms in the distance like Cinderella’s castle. Three-D cartoon animals impressively swirl over the entranceway. The theme-park adventure continues with giant bats, which would have terrified a younger, less mature version of me, that hang threateningly from the ceiling. We buy tickets and then join the popcorn line. Sam and Marc buy jujubes and two Diet Cokes. Puh-lease! Not buying popcorn at the theater is like going to a baseball game and not buying a hot dog. Why else do you go to a baseball game?

“We’ll get seats,” Sam says, and they disappear hand in hand.

“One small popcorn with extra butter and a small Orange Crush, please,” I tell the eyebrow-pierced teenager with bleached-blond hair.

“Would you like to upgrade to a large, ma’am? Then you get free refills.”

Ma’am? Ma’am?? “No, thanks.” The smalls are already giant size.

“It’s only an extra thirty-five cents,” the pierced kid says.

“Well…okay.” For an extra thirty-five cents, why not?

“Would you like to upgrade your popcorn to a large, ma’am? It’s only an extra sixty-five cents.”

“No, thanks.”

“You get free refills, ma’am.”

I’m not sure when exactly I’m going to refill, considering that the movie is starting in about thirty seconds. But free is free. I can do the refill right after the movie. I can bring a snack to work.

The pierced kid hands me two huge cartons, a drink about the size of a two-gallon container of orange juice, and a popcorn the size of a water cooler.

Oooh! Sour berries! I love sour berries! “Can I have those, too?”

“Here you go, ma’am. That will be $15.50.” Fifteen-fifty? Why is my snack twice the price of the movie?

Uh-oh. I have to pee. Maybe if I go now, I won’t have to go in the middle of the movie. One can always hope. Only now I feel kind of like a kid in a snowsuit. How can I carry the tub of popcorn, a pack of sour berries, a gallon of soda, and a separate straw into the cubicle without spilling everywhere?

The first life-lesson Jeremy taught me was that I should never put my straw in my drink at a movie theater until after I sit down, in case of leakage. Seems like a simple enough strategy, except you’d be amazed at how many times I’d left the theater with orange stains on my jeans before I started dating him.

The last life-lesson I learned from him was to never date a backstabbing selfish bastard.

I can hold it in.

The theater is dark, and the please-turn-off-your-cell-phone-because-it’ll-really-piss-everyone-off-if-it-rings announcement flashes across the screen.

How the hell am I going to find them in here?

I walk down the aisle and peer. I feel like I’m looking for Waldo.

No.

No.

No.

I arrive at the screen amid a chorus of “Hey, sit down!” and “Get out of the way!” and “What’s the matter with you?” God forbid they should miss the ads. So where are Sam and Marc? They’re probably sitting in the back. I must have passed them.

They’re not in the back. I turn around again, and make my way back toward the screen.

Sam waves from the front row. “Sorry, I forgot my glasses,” she whispers. “Hope you don’t mind.”

I wonder if it’s rude to sit by myself, in the middle of the theater like a normal person. What if a potential date is in the theater and sees me sitting by myself and concludes that I’m a complete misanthrope who has to go to the movies alone on a Saturday night to try to pick up men, or maybe not even to pick up men but just to get out of a cat-infested apartment for a few measly hours? What then?

I sit down next to her in the front row. I tilt my head eighty degrees and try to get comfortable.

This isn’t going to work.

“I’m going to find a seat in the middle,” I whisper to Sam. I’m a big girl. I can sit at a movie by myself. I scout for an empty seat. I spot one next to a blond girl about ten rows back and push my way through.

“Hey, sit down!”

“Get out of the way!”

“What’s the matter with you?”

I slide into a seat, trying to make room for my industrialsize purchases.

Jeremy and I always sat on the aisle. Correction: Jeremy always sat on the aisle. He liked the leg room. Of course he never asked if I wanted to sit in the aisle seat. I always sat near the weirdo who left his arm on the seat rest. I was always the one who had to feel the weirdo’s arm hair brush against my skin. Let me ask you this: if there’s only one armrest between the two of you, why does the other person always assume it’s his right to take it?

Oh, well. At least the girl next to me is giving me a lot of space. She’s snuggling with her date. I can’t see his face, but she’s all blond and shiny and I’m really trying not to hate her.

I have to pee. I really should have gone before the movie started.

Wow. Pierce Brosnan is really hot. Natalie says he’s too pretty, too good-looking. What does this mean exactly, too good-looking? She says she could never go out with a guy prettier than she is. She says she hates going to a restaurant and everyone looks at the guy instead of her. Such problems I should have.

Look at that bod. Maybe I should suggest we do spy books at work.

I really have to go to the bathroom.

I try crossing and uncrossing my legs. I’m not sure why, but I drink more of my Orange Crush.

Maybe I can convince the marketing people at work to put Pierce on the cover of our new spy books. Of course, I won’t be invited to the shoot, but Pierce will hate the fake-blond bimbo chosen to model with him. I, of course, will happen to be passing through the room, and he’ll ask “What about her?” in his husky British voice. “Her?” Helen will say (although she is only an associate editor, not a senior editor, so she won’t have a fat chance of being there, either). “But she’s just a copy editor!” The whole scene will unfold with perfect timing and I’ll say, “Me?” And he’ll nod enthusiastically, beckoning me with his wonderfully strong hands, and I’ll join his pose. And while the wind machine blows my hair, he’ll turn to me and say, “Will you be my next Bond girl?” And I’ll play a DNA expert who runs around the hospital in a tight white tank top and silver stretch pants.