Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,34

the garage and gradually eat the whole dozen. I would also buy an extra box for the office. Everyone would love that.

At Dunkin’ Donuts, I selected two Boston cream, two chocolate glazed, two chocolate crème-filled, a cruller, a blueberry, two chocolate frosted, a plain cake donut, and a cinnamon for my box. For the office dozen, I told them just to pick out a variety, what normal office people ate. I only managed to gag down two and a half of my donuts on the drive in: the blueberry, the cruller, and the pudding from the Boston cream, which I dug out with my hand and licked in traffic. The rest of my box I shoved under the seat.

Everyone was excited to see the donuts. As with all office food, they went quickly. Only a pink iced donut and a coffee cake thingy remained. Around 11:30, I made my way into the kitchen to snatch up the pink. When Ana came in, I felt like I’d been caught masturbating.

“The receptionist just left,” she said. “Her kid ate a fun-size Snickers. Peanut allergy. Now I’m answering the phones alone all day.”

I was glad her focus was on a deadly Snickers and not my donut.

“At least it wasn’t king-size,” I said. “She’d be out the whole week.”

“These allergies seem a little too trendy,” she said. “Before 9/11, I don’t remember a peanut ever hurting anybody.”

“Jace Evans came to my show last night,” I said.

I hadn’t planned on telling her. But now that it was out, I wanted her to be impressed.

“To see you perform?”

“No. He just happened to be there. But he said he liked my set.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Then he asked me to go get dinner with him after. I didn’t go.”

“Good,” said Ana, washing her hands in the sink. “You’ll be the only woman this side of the 405 he doesn’t sleep with.”

I figured that she meant this as a compliment. She was saying I was strong, sharp, not easily fooled. But it didn’t feel like a compliment, not entirely. It was a reminder that I wasn’t special. She was saying he flirted with everybody. I should not consider myself a prize just because he’d paid attention to me.

I wanted more acknowledgment from her. I wanted her to say, Of course he was into you. Of course he was, my beautiful daughter. My thin and beautiful daughter. My funny, thin, beautiful, smart, and talented daughter.

“I don’t think he would have tried anything with me,” I said. “He probably knows I’d get in trouble if I hooked up with a client.”

Now I was trying to change the tone of the story—from braggy to skeptical—as if to say, I knew all along he didn’t want me.

“I don’t see what the big deal is about him,” I went on. “He’s not even that good-looking.”

“Oh, he’s good-looking,” said Ana, turning off the sink. “At least until he starts talking.”

CHAPTER 32

At lunchtime, I went over to Yo!Good to see if Miriam might be working. There was no way I could eat any yogurt, or any more food at all. I realized that this meant I was only going there to see her.

“Hi,” she said. “I was wondering if I was going to see you again.”

“Hi.” I grinned.

“Do you want me to make you something special?”

“No,” I said. “I just came here to see you.”

“Ah,” she said, smiling and tapping a plastic spoon against the counter.

I couldn’t tell if this was a nervous gesture or if she was drumming out a celebratory beat—tap tap, tap tap! I am glad you have come to see me Rachel! Here is my staccato indication of that! And what did glad even mean? There was such a wide range of glads, from platonic amusement to amorous hysteria. Would I ever decipher the precise timbre of her gladness, the origin from which it sprang, whether it was an I think you’re cool, or, if I were blessed, an I want you so bad? I felt like I would die if I didn’t find out soon. I also wasn’t sure what I would do if I did find out. I knew that I wanted to be around her—a lot. I knew that I wanted to taste each of her moles: the caramel one on her cheek, the dark chocolate drop on her Adam’s apple, the two milk chocolate drops on the left.

“What song is that?” I asked her.

“What?”

“The spoon,” I said.

“Oh.”

She hadn’t known she was drumming. She put the spoon down on the counter.