Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,10

two years.

Ofer began repping Jace before he had an agent. He managed to secure him the part without agency representation, which was rare. Jace’s agents, two heat-seeking sheep named Josh and Josh, had “joined the team” just in time to do the contract. They never would have touched Jace without a pilot, but now they acted like they’d birthed him.

“My duuudes!” grunted Ofer, rising to greet Jace and the Joshes.

He secretly hated the Joshes, claiming they lacked a moral compass, but I knew the real reason for his animosity was because they thought he couldn’t hack it in the agency world. I was happy the Joshes were in attendance. The more people at the table, the less anyone paid attention to what I ate.

I was there to take notes on my phone. Mostly, I googled calorie counts and tried not to stare at Jace. I couldn’t decide if I was attracted to him. His hair was exhausting, a shaved undercut with a skyward floof on top. The floof was straining to stay erect, while the overall look struggled to find itself: punk or pompadour, skinhead or sculpture, it didn’t know what it was. Jace clearly invested a lot of time and money in his hair, though I didn’t imagine any salons survived the zombie apocalypse.

Jace was the type of dude who always seemed like he was wearing a fedora—even when he wasn’t. He wore two rosaries around his neck, which I assumed were from Fred Segal. His motorcycle jacket appeared new, yet pre-distressed, and the stacks of leather and metal bracelets on his wrists suggested he was headed off to battle in an ancient war right after lunch. On his left hand, he had a freckle the size of a pencil eraser. I decided it was ugly.

“I’m concerned about Liam’s love triangle going into next season,” said Jace, caressing his own jaw with his freckle hand. “I hope the writers don’t make it the central conflict of the show.”

I typed the words central conflict in my notes. I was surprised he knew what that was.

“Agreed, it’s a show about survival, not love,” said Josh.

I typed: survival not love.

“Ofer, let’s find a constructive way to express Jace’s concern to the network,” said the other Josh.

“On it,” said Ofer. “Though I think the tone change is flattering. When Jace was cast, no one had any idea what a star he would become. Except me, of course.”

I would not have called Jace a star. A glow-in-the-dark sticker, maybe.

“We just have to make sure the world of the show stays authentic,” said Jace.

I typed: authentic. It was a show about zombies. How authentic could the world be?

I could never tell if other people genuinely believed their own bullshit or not. I felt genuinely perplexed about it—especially at work lunches, but frequently in my nonlunch life too. At times like this, I longed to break the fourth wall, to whisper, Hey, just between us: Is this a performance or is it really what you believe?

I decided that Jace was objectively attractive. I didn’t necessarily want our genitals to touch, but there was a certain place in my mind, or maybe in my solar plexus, where I liked him. I felt programmed, like a drug-sniffing dog, to seek his approval.

What I wanted most was for this certified hot person to see a hotness in me, thereby verifying, once and for all, that I was hot. It wasn’t that civilians didn’t find me attractive. But for a licensed hot person to verify me? That was the real shit.

“Maybe we need to remind the network that Jace has fans elsewhere,” said Josh.

I typed: fans.

“He’s got fans at Netflix, fans at Universal,” said the other Josh. “Big fans at Universal, and on the movie side too.”

I typed: fans fans. big fans.

Jace turned to me.

“Thanks for taking notes,” he said.

He acted like I was doing this voluntarily. Still, he seemed nice. But he could afford to be nice. All of the attention was on him. If he were in my position, if he weren’t the one being feted, would he be so nice?

“No prob,” I said, looking at the word BEEF printed on the back wall over his head.

Last Crush had a farm-to-hell look that always made me think of death by hanging: wooden beams, lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling like ligatures. There were enough upcycled bulbs to illuminate a stadium. Nobody needed that much light.

“Bread?” asked Jace, extending a basket of carbs threateningly close to my head.

I imagined a