Milkrun (15 page)

I think of Sam and her ultimatum. My place might be a very bad scene. I kiss him again. “And I want to see your place.”

Putting his arm around me, he directs me right past the Platinum Towers. Maybe his apartment is messy, too. Maybe he doesn't want me to think he's a pig. How cute that he doesn't realize that I won't care. “We can't go to my place,” he says.

“Why not?” What guy would choose not having sex instead of letting a girl see his messy apartment?

“Because.”

And suddenly, I have an epiphany. I may have allowed my women's intuition to fall into cruise control, but now it's back in standard transmission.

I push his arm off my shoulder. “You live with your girlfriend.” Now I know how he can afford to live in such a place. She probably supports him while he “freelances.”

“I already told you, I'm looking for my own place. But a freelance salary isn't that great—”

“Go to hell.”

“Can't we go to your place?”

“No. I won't sleep with someone else's boyfriend.”

“I wasn't going to sleep with you.” He tries to replace his arm around my shoulder.

Excuse me? What does he mean, he wasn't going to sleep with me? “What were you going to do? Recite poetry all night?”

He looks into my eyes. “There's other stuff we can do that isn't considered cheating.”

Excuse me? “Are you…are you referring to oral sex?”

“Well…kind of.”

Who does this guy think he is? Somehow I don't think Andrew Marvell was attempting to convince his coy mistress that she should take her ball of sweetness and give him a blow job.

If I knew more Tae Kwon Do I would snap-kick him in the groin and damage him permanently.

“Fuck off,” I say and walk away. Not an original exit line, but effective nonetheless.

 

I call Wendy. “You're not going to believe this.” I tell her the evening's events.

“What number did he give you?” I recite the number. “That sounds like a cell number. You should have known that a guy who gives you his cell doesn't want you calling at home.” I don't know how a Connecticut girl who went to school in Philadelphia and lives in New York knows anything about Boston cell-phone numbers, but in Wendy I trust.

“I feel cheap.”

“Yeah well, think how much worse you'd feel if he'd given you his pager.”

At three in the morning I think I hear muffled groaning through the walls. I imagine Sam and Marc having wild makeup sex. At 3:30 I hear groaning in the living room. Gross. Why are they having sex on the couch? What if I'm hungry? Steps echo back and forth through the apartment. I fall back asleep.

At five the phone rings. Sobs echo through the receiver. Who is it? I don't think I said that out loud. “Hello?”

Sob.

Where's my call display?

“It's me,” a voice says. “Are you awake?”

“Yes.” Why do I always say that? I am
not
awake; I am very much asleep. “What's wrong?”

“I've already eaten all the chocolate chip ice cream and now I'm working on the cookie dough.” Sob.

“What happened?”

“He said he needs space. He doesn't want to live with me. He doesn't love me.”

“Who
is
this?”

“What?”

Oh—Sam. I've never spoken to her on the phone before. Her voice sounds much younger than she does in person.

“
City Girls
says that when a guy says he wants space it means he can't decide if he wants to fly the relationship into the next level or get off the runway—”

“Where are you?”

“In the living room. I'm on my cell.”

“I'll be right there.”

But first, a pit stop in the kitchen. Did Sam say something about chocolate chip ice cream? Right. All gone. Maybe I'll grab some cheesies. To even out the sweet/salt ratio. Better make that the whole bag. It could be a long night.

S
UNLIGHT GUSHES THROUGH THE CRACKS
in the living room blinds, illuminating the dust particles floating in the air. I'm lying on the couch in the pretzel position. Not the Fashion Magazine Fun Fact pretzel position, but the I-stayed-all-nighton-the-couch-because-I'm-a-really-nice-roommate position. Over myriad magazines and photos neatly piled on the counter that divides the living room from the kitchen, I can see Sam sitting at the table, staring up at the ceiling.

“Good morning,” I say hoarsely.

“Shitty morning,” she says, not blinking.

Oh, yeah. Space. Sam gave Marc the ultimatum, and she was not pleased with his response.

When I dragged myself into the living room last night, she was completely hysterical. Sobbing, she couldn't command her lips with enough control to form words. “He…sai-ai-aid…he-he-he…doesn't…kno-ow-ow…if…I'm the wo-wo—one.”

She continued sobbing until I was about halfway through the cheesies. Then she started screaming. “That stupid bastard says I'm not the one! He thinks he's going to find someone better than me! Better than me? Let him try to find someone who gives more of a shit than I do! Let him find someone else who's willing to put up with his shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Is it normal that he's so immature? Is it normal?”

After the cheesies, I finished the cereal, and then we just sat there at the kitchen table. We watched the sun eat the edge of the sky and turn it blue. I felt like a piece of gum chewed too long. Then I must have crawled back to the couch and fallen asleep.

“Have you been up long?” I ask.

“Since yesterday morning.”

I try to sit up. Omigod, I can't move. Parts of my body I don't even know I have hurt. Is it from falling asleep on the couch? From staying up too late? “Owwwww,” I whine. What's wrong with me? What if I have some kind of muscle disorder? Omigod, I heard about this: one minute you're fine and the next your muscles tense up and you have meningitis. I only have a few minutes left. My last breaths are being wasted in my living room instead of at a café in Paris or in bed with Jeremy. “I think I have meningitis.”

“You don't have meningitis,” she says flatly. “It's the karate.”

Oh, yeah. “Not karate. Tae Kwon Do.”

She doesn't answer. She's too busy looking at the kitchen table.

Something looks different. “Did you do something to the table?” I ask her.

“I Pledged it.” Pause. “I Pledged it? Why on earth would I Pledge a glass table? No wonder Marc doesn't want to live with me.”

I don't really know what she's talking about, but I do know that I should take a shower. My foot slides across the floor when I slide off the couch. Ow…hurts to stand…What's wrong with the floor? “Did you do something to the floor?”

“I polished it. It looked scruffy.”

I look around the living room and kitchen in awe. The counters are sparkling. I peek down the hall. My bathroom smells like bleach. “You cleaned my bathroom?”

“Don't worry, I wore gloves.”

“But didn't I just do it last week?”

“I know, but now it's clean.”

This calls for further investigation. I slide to my room and find that my bed is made, my floor swept. I open my closet door and discover that my sweaters are now organized by color. The unidentifiable object that was hanging over the edge of my hamper has been identified and laid to rest.

This is not normal.

 

I take Sam to the mall. I'm not sure what else to do with her. She has five hundred dollars put away for a rainy day. I tell her this is a rainy day. Thank God it's not really raining; the only parking spot left in the whole lot is so far from Macy's that we'd have to take a cab to the entrance. A couple holding hands push through the revolving door.

“I want to go home,” Sam says.

“No, you don't. We're going shopping. Don't you remember the breakup rules?”

“I'm just not a high-black-boot type of girl.”

“Shame on you! Search your soul. The black-boot girl buried inside will shine through.”

She sighs. “Okay. Whatever. I just don't want to think anymore. My head hurts.”

I steer us toward Macy's. Makeup and perfume counters make everyone feel better, don't they?

I paint silver nail polish on my left thumb. Pretty. Oooh. What's that? It smells nice. I spray a bit on the inside of my wrist. Janie once told me that women put perfume on the inside of their wrists because men used to kiss their hands. I actually believed it, too, until I read it was because of pulse points or something like that. This is a terrific red polish. Looks like blood. Pretty. I'll try it on my right hand. What's that perfume? Very nice.

Oooh. Brand-new winter colors! Funny, they look just like last year's winter colors. Three women in this year's brand-new winter colors smile at me from behind the
Jolie
counter. Suddenly I am struck with a brilliant idea: Sam will get a makeover, and it won't cost a thing. Everyone knows that makeovers are free—foundation, blush, eyes, everything but cellulite and hair. The implicit understanding is that you're going to buy the makeup afterward, but you don't have to buy a lot. (It's a good thing, too, because the price of all the products they use totals close to one month's rent).

However, you should probably buy
something,
just to be polite; think of it as a tip. But don't buy lipstick; this would be a waste since you'll probably get a gift package with whatever else you buy, kind of like the loot bag you used to get after a birthday party when you were a kid. Except that this loot bag will contain lipstick, though never in the color of your choice, and certainly never in a brand-new color for winter.

The only problem with makeovers are the technicians who perform them. They're scary. They're either chic women who have Nighttime Barbie perfectly painted faces and bookend pearl earrings, flamboyant drag queens whose faces also look like Nighttime Barbie, or middle-aged women with pencil-drawn eyebrows and lip-extended smiles.

For Sam, I choose Nighttime Barbie number one.

“Hi,” I say and smile. “My friend is looking to buy some makeup. Do you think you have time for a consultation?” Consultation is the euphemism for free makeover.

I push my lethargic roommate onto the stool. The crispy cosmetician tells her she has beautiful skin, although some coverage would definitely help.

“Okay,” Sam says, a twinge of hope creeping into her voice. I can picture her mind processing the quasi compliment: if I have perfect skin, then surely Marc will want to spend the rest of his life running his fingers over it! But if I don't buy this coverage, then some other woman will, and he'll fall in love with her and I'll be all alone with my beautiful skin that's really not so beautiful because Nighttime Barbie says it needs some help.

Oooh. Pretty gold eye shadow. I dip some on to my finger and dab it on my eyelids.

“Would you prefer foundation or powder?” Nighttime Barbie asks.

Sam stares at her as if she has just spoken in Korean.
Hanna twul zed ned?

Pretty blush. I put a bit on the apple of my cheeks. I love that phrase,
the apple.
Who thinks of this stuff? Why not
the orange?

The woman seems oblivious to Sam's vacant stare and continues her onslaught. “A stick? A compact? A liquid?”

My reflection in the mirror looks like a four-year-old who's rubbed her mother's lipstick all over her face. Where's the makeup remover? Don't they usually keep it right near the mirror? Oooh. What a gorgeous bronze nail polish. I paint my left pinkie. Now I look as though I dipped my hand in caramel.

“Hydrating lotion? Would you prefer an oil-free formula? What about a time-release system?”

Sam bursts into tears.

Uh-oh. I've let N.T.B. number one scare my roommate. Time for a quick getaway. “I'm sorry,” I say. “I don't think today's a good day for a consultation.” I grab Sam's arm and pull her off the chair. She's in full-sob mode. “Let's go.”

We walk slowly through the mall in silence. “What do you want to do?” I ask.

“Eat.”

“Okay, let's eat.”

Food: the dumpee's opiate.

Sam doesn't eat at food courts (germs, germs and more germs), so we find one of those fancy sandwich places in the corner of the mall. “I'm ordering a salad,” she says, pulling a plastic knife and fork set out of her purse.

“Salad? As a meal? You mean with chicken?”

“Just salad. Not only do I have awful skin, I'm obviously fat, and that's why he doesn't want me.”

“Obviously,” I say, rolling my eyes. “It's not because you have an obsessive-compulsive disorder or anything.”

“I worked in a restaurant one summer. Cutlery doesn't get cleaned.”

“You were a waitress?” Somehow I can't imagine Sam handling food all day.

“A hostess.”

That I can see.

I order a cheeseburger and she orders a green salad. “Can I get the dressing on the side, please?”

When the food comes, Sam takes one look at her plate and explodes. “What kind of lettuce is this? This isn't lettuce, these are frog flakes! This is sour. It doesn't taste good. Why do I want to eat something that doesn't taste good? Is it normal to charge a gazillion dollars for something inedible?” She calls over the waiter. “This is horrible. I want to exchange it.” I'm not sure what she was expecting when she ordered the salad, exactly.

Obviously intimidated, the waiter nods vehemently. “Okay, miss, what would you like?”

“Unfortunately, this poor excuse for a meal has made me lose my appetite for something substantial. I would like a piece of strawberry cheesecake, please. Want a piece?” she asks me.

“No, thanks.”

“For me. Please. Have a piece. My treat. We'll be like
The Golden Girls.
”

I nod. The cheesecake lover in me is not buried that deep.

“Jack?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you look as if a child drew all over your face?”

Right.

After lunch, Sam insists on going straight home, which should be quite easy, a no-brainer actually, if we can only find my car.

“I know I parked in the D section,” I insist. Unfortunately, we are standing in the D section and my car is not here. “Why don't we take one of these?” There is one BMW and two Mercedes, any of which I would like to be my car. My attempt at humor bombs; Sam doesn't laugh. A half hour later we find my car in the G section. “G rhymes with D,” I say.

Sam's too depressed to even bother rolling her eyes.

 

Later that afternoon, Andrew comes over with two screwdrivers. Unfortunately, they're tools, not vodka and orange juice. After I order a large pepperoni pizza, we spread the instructions to my soon-to-be-bookshelf over my bedroom floor.

“Where's Sam?” he asks, while rolling back the sleeves of his J-Crewish black sweater. He doesn't smell like Jer today, thank God. He smells like Irish Spring.

“Sleeping.” I say. Finally. She was tiring me out.

“I can't believe you've had this for four months and haven't put it together,” he says, shaking his head.

True. It's been lying in pieces in a box under my bed. Maybe my procrastination has something to do with me knowing that as soon as I build the bookshelf, I'll have to unpack my books, and the last time I saw my books was when I packed them, and the day I packed them was the day the whole Jeremy fiasco began. Or maybe I'm just lazy. Whatever.

We start building the shelf, or more accurately, Andrew starts building the shelf while I sit on the bed and watch. It's really nice of him to come over and help (“help” being a euphemism for “doing the whole job”). “Who put up your pictures?” he asks, staring at the two prints on my wall.
The Kiss
is hanging over my bed, and the print Janie bought me about a year after she and my dad split up—the “I know you're an obsessive reader and I think maybe it's because the divorce has screwed you up and you're trying to escape reality but that's okay” present—is hanging above where my not-yet-built bookshelf will go. Janie's painting,
Woman Reading in a Landscape,
is by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. When I first hung up Jeremy's present at my Penn apartment, I was taking an introductory art history course. I learned that while
The Kiss
was straight out of the Italian Romantic period, Corot was a French Realist. How ironic is that?

“Sam and I did. I'm not completely useless you know.”

“I never said you were.”

He tries to pay for the pizza when it comes, but I insist on taking care of it.