Milkrun (24 page)

 

We order kosher Chinese food for dinner (Bubbe Hannah wants to join us) and rent
Love Story, Titanic, The Other Side of the Mountain
and
Madame X.
I'm in the mood for a good cry.

“Jim called,” Bubbe Hannah says.

“Jim?” I ask.

“Who's Jim?” Wendy asks.

“Not for you. It was a boy for Jackie. A boy didn't call for
you.
Unfortunately.”

Wendy rolls her eyes. “Do you mean Tim?”

“Yes, Tim. I thought your boyfriend had another name. But I'm old. I forget.”

“You're not old, Bubbe. You're chronologically challenged.” Wendy pecks her grandmother on the cheek. “What did he say?”

“To call him.”

So not happening.

 

“I have a Hanukkah present for you,” I tell Wendy the next day. It's Christmas morning. I pull the present I purchased for her yesterday out of my bag. It's not wrapped or anything, and there's no card, but still, it's a present.

“You didn't have to buy me a Hanukkah present. Friends don't exchange presents on Hanukkah. Anyway, I've known you for over fifteen years, and you never bought me a Hanukkah present before.”

“I know, but I wanted to.” I hand her a copy of
Let's Go Guide to Europe.
“To inspire you.”

“This is fantastic,” she says flipping through it. “Oooh…Italy. One day for sure, I'm going to Italy.”

“I wouldn't care where I went,” I tell her, “as long as I don't ever have to come to New York again.” I hate New York. Maybe I'll create a new line of hats and T-shirts with that logo.

“I have a present for you, too,” Wendy says.

“You do?” Yay! A present! She hands me a box wrapped in shiny, green paper, tied with a swirled pink ribbon. She's included a card, one of those text-free ones with a pretty scenic picture of a couple holding hands next to a large Christmas tree—obviously purchased before the calamity. Inside, she wrote, “Happy holidays to a wonderful best friend. You are strong, brilliant, and beautiful. Anyone who doesn't realize this immediately does not deserve to be in your presence.” I assume this was written after. I sniffle.

Under the wrapping paper is a Bloomingdale's box with two pairs of identical fuzzy gray gloves.

“They're gorgeous!” I tell her. They really are. “But why two pairs?”

“You are to immediately place the second pair in a safekeeping drawer. They are for when you lose the first pair.”

So clever, that Wendy. How could I ask for a better friend? Someone who gives me a backup plan.

Instead of someone who makes me the backup plan.

I'
M READING IN
C
ITY
G
IRLS
ABOUT
how to lose those extra five Christmas pounds when the lights in the train go out and sparks start flying by my window. They kind of look like the tail of firecrackers before they explode. Then the window turns black and the train comes to a stop. Someone turns on a flashlight, and in the dim light I make out the silhouette of the woman sitting next to me. She's eating a ham and cheese sandwich. Instead of putting the sandwich down, which is what most people would do under the circumstances, she continues eating. What kind of person continues eating when the train might be exploding? Say you have one more minute of life—do you finish your sandwich? I, on the other hand, choose to reflect. Not on my own life, mind you, but on the eating habits of the woman sitting next to me.

We'd better not be stopped for long. I've already spent far too much time on this train, which for some reason, has taken the most convoluted route from New York to Boston. Hmm. What's the fastest way to get from A to B? I know, take a side trip to C, stop a little at F, and then pop over to U. Ridiculous.

My head hurts. I shouldn't have been reading without my contacts. I took them out as soon as I sat down on the train because I figured I'd take a nap to try avoid thinking about the misery of Christmas, and I hate napping with my contacts in because then I wake up with dry and sticky lenses. I should get that eye laser surgery, but it probably costs more than I make in a year. An image of a peeled mandarin springs into my mind every time I think of it. I don't like mandarins, especially when they remind me of eyes.

Suddenly everyone around me begins whispering and laughing nervously. More flashlights are turned on, and I squint and look around. An old woman donning a round hair-sprayed nest is standing up on her seat. She appears to be wearing a long red raincoat, and in my contact-less vision looks like the devil getting ready to flash. In the row behind her, a man wearing a gray and black checkered suit stands up, too. “I'm a lifeguard,” he says. “Does anyone needs assistance?”

Why, is someone drowning? Weirdo. Two kids across the aisle from him apparently also find this declaration amusing, because they start to flap their arms up and down in their seats as if performing some kind of ritual dance, something that reminds me of what Dad nostalgically refers to as “the swim.”

Do I smell smoke? I smell smoke. Isn't this wonderful? I'm going to burn to death on a train the day after Christmas. At age twenty-four. Alone. I'm going to die a nobody. No one will care because no one but Wendy even knows I'm on this train, and she won't find out about me for weeks because she never leaves the office. My parents each think I'm in different cities, and Sam will assume I decided to stay longer.

If I go to sleep, will I wake up in Boston?

Where are my glasses? I can't find my glasses. It's too dark to put in my contacts. My glasses are in my bag. I need to get my bag.

A woman at the back stands up. “Can everyone please sit down?” she yells.

A man in a striped uniform opens the sliding doors to our car and tells us to get off the train, adding that we should take whatever belongings we have at hand and not to worry about our bags stacked at the front. I only have my purse and a magazine with me. All my stuff is packed in my bag. I must save my black boots! Who am I without my black boots?

I wait in line to disembark. A woman who smells like antiseptic talks to the lifeguard, and I eavesdrop. I wonder if they know each other from before or if this quasi tragedy has brought them together. I am never traveling alone again. I am never going to pack my boots again. Traveling rule number one: always carry or wear anything you consider important, which in my case, is everything. If it isn't important, why bring it at all? Traveling rule number two: always carry a pair of running shoes; you never know when you'll have to run from a burning train.

 

I'm sitting on a layer of snow, my legs pulled into my arms. The first car of the train is on fire, and the second one is in immediate danger of being chewed by the flames.

“Jackie?” a voice says. Is someone talking to me? Was there another Jackie on the train?

“Yes?” I call out into the darkness.

“I can't believe you were on this train, too.”

Andrew! It's Andrew! Andrew was on my train! Thank God. Thank God thank God thank God. I jump up from the snow and throw my arms around him. “I am so glad to see you, you have no idea.”

He hugs me, and sits down beside me. “Didn't you see me waving at you? Were you sleeping with your eyes open?”

Great. He thinks I'm a freak. “I took my contacts out in case I fell asleep, and I haven't had a chance to put them back in. Aren't you supposed to be off for another week? Why are you coming home now?”

“Too much to do in Boston.”

Hmm. Running back to a warm woman's embrace, maybe? “Can't wait to get back to Jess?”

“No. I took your advice and ended it. There was no point. Well, there was a
point,
but you'd just call me a pig again.”

He doesn't elaborate and I don't ask.

People are clustered in twos and threes, clutching whatever belongings they had at their seats, watching the train burn. If only we had marshmallows. The woman who smells like antiseptic is still talking to the lifeguard, and the she-devil in the raincoat is talking to herself. The firemen are on their way, I hear the lifeguard say, but apparently they'll be a while. It's not like it's an emergency or anything.

Don't worry about us. It's only a twenty-car-train-burning catastrophe. No rush here. It's not as though we're stuck in a void somewhere between nowhere and nowhere, thank you very much.

I give Andrew half the muffin I bought at Penn Station. He thinks it's blueberry until he looks closely and realizes it's chocolate. “I'm lactose intolerant,” he says and gives it back. Why is everyone these days lactose intolerant? Maybe I should be lactose intolerant, too. That seems like a better diet than the nocarb one. No chocolate, no ice cream…but no cheese? Never mind. I don't want to be lactose intolerant.

I reach into my purse and hand him my only package of sour berries. “Save me a couple, they're my favorite.”

The sky is layered with stars. We lie our heads down on his knapsack and stare up. “My head hurts,” I say, and I think he thinks I mean against the ground when I really mean I wish I had an aspirin. He removes a sweatshirt from his knapsack and rolls it into a pillow for me. It smells like Bounce dryer sheets—a dead giveaway he went home for the weekend.

“The sky looks like art class,” he says.

“You take art class?” He takes art class? What guy takes art class? Business and art? Is this permissible? Doesn't the registration office block this kind of combination to protect the Alpha A-type man from becoming Alpha B?

“Yeah. I'm kind of artistic. When I was a kid, I used to dip toothbrushes into white paint, and tap them with Popsicle sticks to make stars.” He sits up suddenly. “Hey, doesn't the sky kind of look like an Impressionist painting?”

A thick gray cloud of smoke spreads across the sky, threatening to obliterate the so-called painting. In my blurry vision, the flames look more like smeared red and orange finger paints.

Can I like Andrew?

His eyes seem lighter, as though bleached by the fire. He lies down again, this time on his side, and leans on his elbow. What do I do if he leans over and kisses me? Do I want him to? Will it be good? Why do I want him to kiss me? How can I get him to kiss me? Will he taste the chocolate on my lips? Will he need to take a lactose pill?

“I'm assuming you went to see Jeremy.”

Oh, right. New York. I don't answer at first. “Kind of,” I say reluctantly.

Can I like Andrew? I think I like Andrew. Does Andrew like me? I can't tell. Why do I always have to like someone? How can I tell if I really like Andrew or if I just like him this second because of the stars, the fire, the bleached eyes, the clean sweatshirt?

A man who seems to be in charge—he's wearing fluorescent—directs the waiting crowd to a farmhouse where buses are waiting to take us back to Boston. I remove my jacket and make a show of putting on Andrew's sweatshirt. I put my jacket back on, but leave the zipper undone. In my contact-less, surrealistic condition, I imagine this is supposed to be suggestive. We trudge through a path in the forest, tripping over broken tree roots and scraping our shoes against the jagged edges. Maybe it's a good thing I'm not wearing the black boots. I heard the she-devil say that a path was cleared to enable us to reach the road, but my feet are arguing otherwise. And I don't remember seeing any bulldozers.

Andrew's ungloved hands are freezing; they look as if they're about to turn blue. I squish one of his artistic hands next to mine inside my glove. (I'd have given him the other pair if they weren't in my bag.) I tell him the reason I'm taking his hand is to reduce the chances of my walking off into a tree. Which, given my eyesight and the darkness in the woods, is not exactly a lie. Also, at least one of his hands will be kept warm. Of course, he can always shove his hands into his pockets, but this I don't suggest. Our feet move at the same time as we try to walk in rhythm. Left right, left right, one foot, the other foot.

“I feel like I'm a character in
The X-Files
,” he says.

The lifeguard, who happens to be walking in front of us, turns around. “They say some kids put rods on the tracks, and that's what caused the fire.” Why are people always blaming kids? My dad does that, too. Anytime he hears about some act of vandalism, he says, “Those damn kids!” I hate that. When I'm an adult I'm never going to blame kids. I'll say, “Those damn adults!” instead. Oh, right. I
am
an adult.

The woman walking with the lifeguard turns to us and says, “We also heard that the first car filled up with smoke so fast, the passengers had to break the windows and climb through the broken glass to safety. I heard there are TV reporters here too.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Andrew asks.

“No, thank God. A few people have been taken to the hospital as a precaution, though.”

That certainly makes the story less exciting. Wow, that's a really awful thing to think. Am I an awful person? I am an awful person. I deserve to lose my boots; it's instant karma all over again.

Wait just a minute. I could be on TV! Am I going to be on TV? I've only been on TV once, and it was during a school assembly for a Christmas/Hanukkah show. Except I was dressed as a tree and was totally unrecognizable.

“There's the bus,” Andrew tells me. Does he think I'm blind? Oh, yeah, I am blind, sort of. Ah, we are finally out of the woods—literally speaking. He helps me climb aboard. (I might as well milk this blind thing for all it's worth.) We take two seats in the back. He sits near the window, and puts his arm around my neck. Aha! He
does
like me. Maybe. The bus driver puts on the movie
Speed,
which we think is a very strange thing to do, considering the movie is about an exploding mode of transportation. The red glow of the screen provides the only light in the pitch-black bus.

He smells yummy. And not like Jer anymore. “You smell good.”

“Thanks. My parents bought me a new cologne for Christmas.”

“I like it. What time is it?” I ask.

“Almost midnight.”

“We were supposed to arrive in Boston at nine.” I feel his breath on my cheek. Should I turn to face him, or should I continue staring ahead at the mesh seat pouch directly in front? Why am I staring at the mesh seat pouch directly in front?

If I turn around we are going to kiss. It's going to happen, I just know it. Is it going to happen? I think maybe. I'm not sure.

He's not moving. His arm is still on my neck. Still. On. My. Neck.

Is he going to make a move? Should I make a move? Should I do the lean? Do I want this to happen?

It's happening. Why is it two hundred degrees inside a freezing bus?

I turn toward him.

His face is less than two inches away from mine. Omigod omigod omigod.

“I don't mind,” he says without moving.

What? What? He doesn't mind being late or the fact that we're about to kiss? “I guess I don't mind, either.”

Lips. So. Close. This is ridiculous. Why doesn't he just do it already?

“It's not like I'm in a rush or anything,” he says.

“Yeah, I'm not in a rush, either,” I answer.

Lips. Right. There.

This is stupid.

I do the lean and kiss him.

I can't believe I did that.

Not that he seemed to mind.

A few strobe lights of screen color later, I pull away.

A perfect kiss.

I fall asleep against his shoulder.