Milkrun (22 page)

Should I call him? I can't call him. But he wants to see me. He wants to show me pictures. He's home. Will the Dutch bimbo be in the pictures? Will he try to avoid hurting my feelings by removing all bimbo-related pictures from his album? Will he have two separate albums, one specifically bimbo-free for me, and one for his psychologically stable viewers? Would he put in that kind of effort for me? Does he love me that much? Is he still planning on moving to Boston to do his masters program? If so, he'll hang out at Orgasm. Will he live in Back Bay, also? Does he have an apartment already?

I'm going to lose five pounds for when I run into him at Orgasm. I'm going to have a gazillion men surrounding me, and he's going to spot me from across the bar, amazed at how fantastic I look. I'm going to be wearing my hooker boots and a slutty skirt and top, and he'll forget why he ever left me in the first place.

If he wants to talk to me so badly he could call. Or e-mail again. If he e-mails again, I'll write him back.

You know something? I haven't seen Wendy in a while. Maybe I should visit her in New York over Christmas. I'm sure she'd love to see me. We can have girl talks. I want to go to NewYork. To see Wendy. I want to go to NewYork because I haven't seen Wendy in months. I am going to New York because I miss Wendy.

“I'm thinking of coming to visit you,” I tell her that night.

“Now's really not a good time,” she tells me.

Don't say that. I'm coming. I have to come. “Why not?”

“I don't leave work until one in the morning. I won't be able to spend any time with you.”

“But it's Christmas!” Maybe she can just leave me the keys to her apartment?

“Which, being Jewish, I don't celebrate.”

“But your company does. They can't expect you to work when everyone else is off.”

“This is true. I suppose I can take one day off. A half day at least. Maybe.”

There is a God. “That's good.”

“You're going to come all the way to New York to see me for one day?” Uh-oh. I think she's suspicious.

“I miss you.”

“And your visit has nothing to do with Jer being in NewYork?”

Nailed. “How do you know he's back?”

“Our department was having its Christmas dinner at Katsura, the new trendy Japanese restaurant, and I ran into him at the bar.”

“You saw him and didn't tell me?”

“I didn't want to upset you. I know you're in dangerous Tim territory, and I thought that this tidbit of information would throw you off-balance.”

She saw him and didn't tell me? How could she do that? She should have phoned me immediately from the bar. “What do you mean, upset me? Who was he with? Was he with his Dutch bimbo? Tell me he wasn't with his Dutch bimbo. Is she pretty? Is she prettier than me?”

“I'm sure his Thailand fling didn't come home with him. He came to the bar with some Penners—Rob, Jon, and Crystal.”

Crystal, huh? He always liked Crystal. “Was he
with
Crystal or just with Crystal?”

“He was with a whole group. I didn't even see him talking to Crystal.”

He once told me that he thought Crystal Werner, who was on the student council with him, was cute. Like I wanted to hear that. He'd better not have been with Crystal.

“I don't care that he's back,” I say for no reason. No reason because I know I'm lying and Wendy knows I'm lying, too. The only reason you should lie is because you think someone is going to believe you, and if that someone is not the person you're lying to, it should at least be yourself.

“You can stay with me if you want,” Wendy says reluctantly.

Well, yeah. Where else would I stay? Does she really think I'd even consider staying with Jer? I mean, I can always hope, but I wouldn't go to New York without a backup place. Can you imagine the scene? Jer and I would be looking at a picture of a Thai temple, and then he'd say, “This reminds me, where are you staying?” As soon as he'd ask I'd know he wasn't expecting me to stay with him, so I'd have to lie and say at Wendy's because if I said a hotel he'd know I came just to see him, and then he'd say, “That's nice. I'll call you a taxi.” I'd have get out of the taxi on the next block because I can't afford to ride around in a cab all night, and I'd end up walking the streets of New York, late at night, searching for a cheap hotel, and probably get mugged.

“Thank you thank you thank you!”

“Are you going to call him?”

“No.
We're
going to run into him.”

“
We
don't know his schedule.”

“You ran into him once. I'm sure you can manage it again.”

 

Yay! Christmas in New York!

It's a good thing I'm going away. Everyone is deserting Boston. Sam and her two brothers are visiting her grandparents in Florida; Natalie and her parents are going on a Caribbean cruise; and Andrew, like me, will be in New York, though visiting his family, unlike me.

“Bev will be very disappointed.” My dad is not pleased with my change of plans.

“I know, but I just saw you Labor Day, and I haven't seen Iris and Janie since July.” Am I going to go to hell for lying about where I'm going for Christmas? I could be the worst daughter ever. My mother thinks I'm going to my dad's in Connecticut, and my dad thinks I'm going to my mother's in Virginia. Ah. I'm reaping the one benefit of having your parents treat each other like strangers—they don't check up on each other.

Tim, also, is not happy about me going away. “Why don't you spend Christmas with me?” he suggests. “I dress up as Santa at the orphanage.”

Hmm. For some reason, the thought of Tim in a costume turns me on. Maybe it has something to do with that man-in-a-uniform thing. Maybe it has something to do with me reading too many holiday romance novels. Should I give him one more chance? After all, a bird in the hand (Tim) is better than a bird in the bush (Jer). I refuse to take these bird/hand/bush puns any further.

Nah.

I think Santa could use a few more helpers. He just doesn't seem capable of ringing my sleigh bells.

Example 1: The other night he brought me a stuffed animal and a card that said, “I love you Bear-y much.” How many bad puns can one person make?

Example 2: After Jer e-mailed me, I lied and told Tim I had my period. I was amazed he wasn't disappointed that we couldn't have sex that night. Amazed he didn't remember that I had just finished my period last week. Shouldn't guys remember these things? If a guy is such a good boyfriend, shouldn't he keep track?

I must end the insanity.

I hate breaking up with people.

Can't I just not return his phone calls? Is that wrong?

Now that I think about it, we've never discussed our relationship as being a relationship. Since I've never referred to him as my boyfriend (to his face anyway—and that's what's relevant here) and he's never called me his girlfriend, technically we're not even a couple. So technically I don't have to dump him.

All right, then. We're broken up.

T
HE FIRST THING
I
SEE
when I get off the train is Wendy frantically waving.

“Hi, stranger.” I throw my arms around her, then step back. “You look fabulous!” I say and mean it. Her brown hair is tied back in a bun, and she's wearing a sophisticated pinstripe pantsuit with fancy black leather loafers. Very chic. And very skinny. Why is she so skinny? “Have you raided Ally McBeal's closet?”

“Hi!” she squeals. “Since I have no life, the only thing I have to spend my money on is ridiculously expensive clothes. Just one bag?”

“I'm here for only five days. How many bags do you want?” Maybe more than five days. Cupid closes down for the whole holiday, so I'm off work until the third. If Jer and I are getting along, maybe I can be convinced to stay over New Year's…

“Okay, here's the plan. It's three o'clock now. I'll take your bag with me to work, and you'll wander around the city for a few hours. Then you'll meet me back at my office at around nine. After that, it's up to you. Do you want to go out tonight? What about tomorrow? Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Do you want to do something special? I may have to work in the morning, even though I'm pretty sure the office will close down later.”

“Not really.”

Hmm. I wonder where Jeremy is? How am I going to find him? Why didn't I call him before I came? What if he's not even in the city for the holidays? If he just got back, he wouldn't leave again so soon. But what if he did?

I'm a complete idiot. Who comes all the way to New York City to see a guy she doesn't even know will be in town? Should I call him now to ask what his plans are for tonight? But then he'll know I'm here specifically to see him. I have to accidentally-on-purpose run into him. How difficult can that be? The characters from
Friends
run into each other all the time.

I won't call him. I'm not going to call him. I think I'll do some window-shopping this afternoon. I love New York. I should move to New York. It's a little scary, though. I don't want to have to worry about getting mugged or murdered every time I step outside. They'd probably leave my body in Central Park, with no identification and no clothes—I can't even think about moving here until I lose a few pounds—and it would take the N. Y.P.D. weeks to figure out who I was.

I definitely watch too much
Law and Order.

Speaking of losing weight, why is Wendy so thin? Is it all the walking? The hectic lifestyle? No time to eat? The city would go well with my new low-carb diet. I read about it in
City Girls.
No bread, no noodles, no fruit. The problem is that as soon as you start eating the stuff again, the diet is all over and back comes the weight. But that's fine, because it's only an I-haven't-seen-Jer-in-many-months-so-I-have-to-look-really-hot temporary diet. And it's working so far. I think. It's hard to tell. It's only been one day. Since breakfast, actually. After breakfast. And I had a salad for lunch. But no croutons.

My hands are cold. Why don't I have gloves? What happened to the pair I had last year? I think I lost them. The next time I buy gloves I should sew them to the sleeves of my jacket. But then I'd probably just lose the jacket.

 

By the time I meet Wendy at her office, my feet hurt, I'm starving, and my fingers are bloated and red. I change into a more appropriate going-out outfit—my high black boots and a little black dress—and we go to a trendy new Japanese restaurant for dinner. I order teriyaki salmon (low in carbs). Afterward, we go to a bar in Chelsea for a drink. Wendy sees some investment banker people she knows, but no Jeremy. “I told you we weren't going to run into him,” she says in her annoying I-told-you-so voice.

After an hour of me almost falling asleep at our table, we're on our way home. The good thing is that since I don't know anyone here, I can wear the same outfit tomorrow night.

We take a cab to Wendy's place in the Bronx. We're quiet when we open the door because her grandmother is already sleeping. I've pretty much known Bubbe Hannah as long as I've known Wendy, since she used to come to Danbury from New York to visit at least one weekend a month. She doesn't like me to call her Mrs. Teitelbaum. “It's Bubbe,” she says in her thick Yiddish accent. So I call her Bubbe Hannah. Normally she'd be in Florida this time of year, but Wendy's cousin is having his bar mitzvah in the middle of January, so Bubbe Hannah had to postpone her trip. Supposedly the timing of the bar mitzvah caused quite an uproar among the geriatric crowd, regarding the necessary changes in their yearly migration schedules.

I'm sleeping with Wendy in her room, since the couch in the living room is covered in protective plastic, kind of like the sticky plastic stuff we had to cover all our textbooks with in grade school. It's not comfortable to sit on, never mind sleep on.

“You're not going to hog the entire blanket?” Wendy asks, throwing an extra pillow on her double bed.

“I don't hog blankets.” Uh-oh. “I forgot to pack pajamas. Can I borrow?”

“Why am I not surprised?” She throws me long johns and a T-shirt. “And you
do
hog blankets. You roll yourself around in them like a roly-poly. Speaking of which, I'm going to get us some.”

She goes to the kitchen and returns with slices of a dough roll filled with jam, raisins, and nuts. Oh, well. I guess my diet officially starts tomorrow. We finish our snack, get washed and changed, close the blinds and the light, and crawl into bed.

“How many times do you think I stayed over at your house in Danbury?” I ask, rolling myself in the flower-patterned duvet. Just a little.

“At least once a week. How come you slept over at my place more than I stayed at yours?”

“You had brothers who would play with us. And better food.”

“True.” Wendy sighs. “I wish we still lived in the same city.”

“Maybe one day we will.”

“Maybe I'll quit my job and move to Boston.”

“Don't you like your job?”

“Not really. I mean, I guess the job's okay, sometimes, but I hate the hours. I really hate the hours. I'm usually there 'til eleven every night, sometimes past one. Is this a life?”

“But think of the money you're making! And you live rent-free! You're going to be filthy rich by the time you're thirty.”

“BythetimeI' mthirty! Areyoucrazy? I can't dot his for another six years! I'll go insane! I'll lose so much weight I'll disappear!”

“So what do you want to do? Go to business school?”

“Maybe. But I don't have time to write all the essays. Maybe I'll do something fun like copyedit.”

“Yeah, real fun—I'm bored to tears. Inserting commas is not my ideal job. And you couldn't afford your fancy suits on my salary.”

“Maybe I'll just quit and take off some time to figure out what I want to do.”

“But you've always wanted to be in business.”

“Have I? Maybe I should have been a doctor. At least then I'd feel as if I'm contributing something to society.”

“So go to medical school.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You know what your problem is, Wen? You've been focused for so long, you don't know how to be unfocused. You don't know how to just ease off and have a little fun. You know what I would do if I were you? I'd bum around the world for a while. Go to Italy, France, Greece. Just take off. No one to answer to. Just you and the unknown.”

“That's your style, Jack. Not mine. You're the one who just packed up and went to Boston. But you never know, maybe one day I'll do just that. Maybe one day I'll wake up and say, ‘Enough! Goodbye nine to five, or nine to eleven, or nine to one, I'm off to join the circus!'”

We have a moment of silence while Wendy, I assume, is contemplating how she would fit in with acrobats and clowns, what kind of wardrobe she would need, et cetera, et cetera…while my mind drifts to more immediate concerns.

“Should I call him?” I ask.

“Now?”

“Not now. Tomorrow.”

“Why bother discussing it? You know you're going to call him.”

“No I don't.” We both know this is not true, and laugh.

“Why do you miss him?” she asks.

“Why?” What kind of question is that? “I don't know. I just do.”

“So then call him.”

“I shouldn't.”

“So don't.”

I'll worry about this tomorrow. Right now I'm too tired to exert the kind of energy this decision requires. “Can we go to sleep now?”

“Yup. Good night.”

 

When the alarm goes off the next morning, I am quite pleased it's not for me. I fall back asleep and wake up at eleven to Bubbe Hannah knocking on the door.

“Vake up! Vake up, sleepyhead!”

“Hi, Bubbe Hannah,” I mumble, sitting up. She kisses me on the cheek.

“Are you hungry? I made lunch.” All her
U'
s sound like
O'
s, all her
W'
s like
V'
s.

“You really didn't have to,” I tell her.

“Vat you talking about? I made chicken soup and lokshin, broiled chicken, raisin kugel, and my roly-poly, of course.”

What are the chances these are all carb-free?

I sit down at the table as five dishes are brought to me at once. Hmm. The chicken looks fine. The soup smells great, but it has lokshin noodles in it. I guess I can eat around them. The raisin kugel and roly-poly are definite no-nos.

“Thank you so much for lunch,” I say.

“It's my pleasure. My Vendy doesn't eat. No time, she says. No time to eat? Vat kind of life is that? Maybe you vant something else? Bread? Let me get you some bread.”

“No, thank you.”

“No bread?”

“I'm on a special no-bread diet.”

“Vy are you on a diet? You're too skinny. You girls today are all too skinny. Eat, bubelah, eat.”

Too skinny? Me? I love this woman. Maybe I'll move in. Why can't I have a bubbe? “It's just a short-term diet. It's the new trend in diets these days. No bread or pasta.”

“I've heard of it,” Bubbe Hannah says, nodding. “It's called Passover.”

I eat in silence for a few minutes.

“So tell me about Boston,” she says.

“I like it.”

“Vat do you like?”

“I like my job.”

“Good. That's good. And your boyfriend? He's good, too? I'm happy you have a boyfriend. Vendy has no boyfriend. It's not good. It's not good for a girl so old to not have a boyfriend.”

“Ah, come on, Bubbe Hannah. Wendy's still young. There's plenty of time for her to meet someone and get married.”

“Time for her, maybe. But I'm not getting any younger. She vorks too hard. She comes home very late. She's not going to get married. Not like you. You I don't have to vorry about. So ven's the vedding?”

“Uh, we haven't decided, Bubbe Hannah. But soon. Real soon.”

“Good. Just leave the plates on the table ven you finish. Don't you like the lokshin? Vy did you leave the lokshin? Eat the lokshin, bubelah.” She leaves the kitchen to watch
Veel of Fortune.

I eat the lokshin. I don't want to be rude. The diet starts right after lunch.

After lunch I take the subway to Thirty-fourth Street to look at the Macy's window display and to do some last-minute holiday shopping. I stop in front of the store window and look at my reflection. Why do I go on letting Bubbe Hannah think I'm with someone? What if I never meet anyone I want to marry?

Every Cupid book is based on the premise that the heroine and hero were meant for each other right from the start. My dad always says, “There's a lid for every pot.” But this doesn't make sense. What if two people are perfectly matched but live in different countries? This would imply that luck plays a greater role in life than fate. I mean, what if the stars schedule you to meet your one true love at exactly three o'clock, but at one minute to three you sneeze and have to search through your handbag for a tissue? By the time you find one and are done with blowing your nose, the love of your life has rounded a corner and is out of your life forever. Is this what it all comes down to? A sneeze? No wonder we end up marrying whomever we happen to be dating in our mid-to-late twenties. We get desperate because we haven't met our soul mates. No wonder there are so many divorces.

My hands are cold. I need a new winter jacket, too. If I had gone to Danbury to visit my dad, I would have raided his company's coat inventory.

Should I call Jer? No, I'm not going to call him.

I could always call and hang up, just to see if he's home. He might not even be in town. He's probably not in town. I should check. Just to see if I'm wasting my time.