Milkrun (4 page)

He smells very,
very
good.

He smells like
.

I absolutely cannot have a wild affair with anyone who wears
cologne. You see, the whole point is to be with someone who does not remind me of
, who will in fact make me forget him. For a little while, anyway. Here's the plan:
will be so devastated that I have fallen for someone else, he'll realize I am his true love and ask me to get back together. And then we'll live happily ever after.

I'm not supposed to think that out loud, am I?

I know I'm supposed to want to meet someone else with whom I can have a healthy relationship, but in all reality, I would be perfectly content to use the other person to get Jeremy to want me back.

Sigh. I know. I'm hopeless.

I pull myself away from Andrew. “I'm really sorry. I should go fix myself up.” A wet stain is smack in the center of his shirt.

“No problem.” He scribbles something down on a matchbook. “Call me if you ever want to talk, okay?”

“Thanks.” I am becoming increasingly mortified by this entire experience.

What a nice guy.

I push the washroom door open to ten women unreservedly checking themselves out in the overhead mirrors. I'm not sure what it is about ladies' rooms at bars, but women become animals. They fiddle with their breasts and wedgies, and line up their makeup like ammunition along the sink. Case in point: a woman in a short snakeskin skirt pulls a full cosmetic bag out of her purse, empties it along the porcelain, and retrieves her eyelash curler.

I look at myself in the mirror. Instead of appearing smoky, my
Cosmo
eyes look as if someone rubbed a dirty ashtray around them.

“Excuse me,” I ask the snake-woman. “Any chance you have any eye-makeup remover?”

“Of course, honey,” she says. (She's a lot older: hence the “honey.” There is a distinct difference between “hon,” which Natalie likes to use, and “honey.”) “Here's a cotton ball, too, honey.”

“Thanks.” I practice smiling into the mirror. I smile again and again until it looks fake and evil. Maybe I'll become the bitch. Guys love the bitch.

I push my way back out the door and head back to the bar.

“One Sex on the Beach, please.” Sitting on a stool, I try to stop myself from swerving back and forth with annoyance. A blow-dried blonde twirls her hair and bends over so that the suit she's talking to has to look down her shirt. The three men on the other side of me call out numbers, rating the women as they walk by. A man with sagging skin vocally calculates a nine and a half for the brunette sitting four stools down. She's wearing a long skirt with a slit up to her armpit. His face looks like a rotting peeled grape; his eyes are like raisins. When he says eight, I think he might be referring to me. I'd like to pour my drink over his head, drama-queen-like, but I decide to stare him down instead. After all, a drink's a drink, not to be wasted, but to get us wasted. I stare at him until his skin turns into dots of brown and then into specks of orange, as if I've been sitting too close to the TV.

Why am I here? Why am I not at home watching TV? It's almost eleven and I could be watching “L and O” with Sam. The blow-dried blonde's giggles sound like recorded sitcom laughter. I hate Orgasm, I hate Boston, and I hate Natalie. Where
is
Natalie?

Wait.

Is that who I think it is?

Jonathan Gradinger?

Foxy Jonathan Gradinger?

Foxy Jonathan Gradinger who grew up in Danbury and played Danny Zukoe in our high school's rendition of
Grease
when he was a foxy senior and I was an eager freshman? I sat in the front row for three nights straight because he was such a fox. Jonathan Gradinger's picture, cut out from the playbill, was taped to the inside of my locker, right up there beside my poster of Kirk Cameron. My five-section binder was covered with sprawls of Jackie Gradinger, Jacquelyn Gradinger, Fern Gradinger, Fern Jacqueline Gradinger, and Fern Jacquelyn Norris Gradinger. I knew Jonathan's schedule by heart and would casually happen to be walking behind him on the fourth floor staircase between second and third period, just as he was going from chemistry to trig. So what if my English class was in the basement? Thankfully he had been way too cool to notice some crazed groupie trailing after him.

It's getting hot in here. My chills are multiplying!
Grease
lyrics hurl through my head. I sip my Sex on the Beach and think of lightning.

From the back it looks like him. He's wearing a button-down shirt that looks like the type of shirt Jonathan Gradinger the fox would wear.

I'd know the back of that head anywhere.

He just needs to turn a bit to the left…a bit more…a
little
bit more…why is that wench distracting him? He's walking away! Stop! Stop!

I try sending him telepathic messages. “Turn around. Turn around right now. Turn around right now, foxy Jonathan Gradinger. Fall madly in love with me.”

My telepathy is not working. Drastic measures are called for.

I accidentally let go of my glass. Better to waste a drink than an opportunity.

Smash.

It
is
him. It's foxy Jonathan Gradinger from our senior/freshman year! And he's looking at me! He's looking right at
me!

Okay, I know. Everyone's looking at me. I think Raisin-Eyes has demoted me to a six.

“Are you all right?” the breasted bartender asks.

“Yeah, fine. I'm sorry about that. I really don't know how this happened.” Yes, I do. I know exactly how this happened. And I know that it worked, because Jonathan Gradinger is coming over.

Omigod.

He's coming over.

I've never actually spoken to Jonathan Gradinger.

What can I say to Jonathan Gradinger?

I need a drink. Where's my drink?

Oh, yeah. Damn.

Breathe. Calm. Damn. Think calm thoughts. Hot bath with vanilla-smelling bubbles. The two-hour massage I used to get from Iris in exchange for two dollars in coins (but look how much silver it is!). A couch, my duvet, the
cchhhhh
of background TV…

Mmm.
I'm getting…
mmm
…sleeeepy.

“Hey,” a very foxy voice pleasantly intrudes upon my reverie. “I recognize you. Are you from Danbury?”

Jonathan Gradinger is talking to me.

Jonathan Gradinger
is talking to me.

Jonathan Gradinger is
talking
to me.

Jonathan Gradinger is talking to
me.

Wendy is not going to believe this.

Calm. I can do this.

“Shfjkd sjsydhd jksav jasdadgaj dghykg.”

“Excuse me?” he asks, which is a perfectly logical question considering I'm not sure what I just said. Or what I was even trying to say.

“Hi.” One syllable at a time. No problem. “Yeah.” There, I've said two words to Jonathan Gradinger. I now have something to tell my grandchildren.

“Did you go to Stapley High?” he asks.

More? Oh, my—he wants to have a
conversation.

“Yeah.” I nod. I'm doing it! I'm conversing!

“Were you in my grade?” He's running his hand through his gorgeous, thick hair—thin hair now, actually. What happened to his gorgeous, thick hair?

“Actually I was a few grades behind you.” If I don't think and just say all my words in one motion, gosh darnit, I think I can do this.

“Wait a second,” he says and smiles his still very foxy smile. “I remember you. Weren't you that girl who used to follow me around? Jackie something?”

Oh. My. God. He knows my name. Danny Zukoe knows my name.

I nod. I can't speak. My tongue has been sewn to the roof of my mouth.

“Do you want a drink?” he asks.

Jonathan Gradinger is offering to buy me a drink. I nod again. Actually, I don't think I actually stopped nodding. It's not that I expect myself to suddenly sound like a loquaciously articulate
Dawson's Creek
character, but this is getting old.

“It appears,” he looks at the floor, “that you like Sex on the Beach.”

“Especially if it's with you,” I say. Just kidding, I didn't really say that. I continue nodding.

“So, how are you liking Boston?”

“Now that I'm talking to you, I'm liking it a lot.” Wait—this time I really did say that. That
so
wasn't supposed to be out loud. But what's this? He's laughing! He thinks I'm being funny. He thinks I'm flirting with him. I
am
flirting with him. I'm flirting with Jonathan Gradinger.

“Actually, I do like it here,” I say seriously. “What about you?” Okay maybe not a witty or sexy response, but two full sentences, one that requires a response. Give me a break here.

“I've been here awhile already. I like it. I'm used to it.”

“When did you move here?” That makes two questions. I'm on a roll.

“About eight years ago.”