Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,47

more than the animals could possibly eat, the squirrels kept stealing the chipmunks’ nuts right out of their hands. The chipmunks were bigger than the squirrels. They could have easily retaliated. But none of them seemed to get angry or upset by the theft. When a squirrel snuck up behind a chipmunk and grabbed a nut, the chipmunk would simply surrender the nut—then go pick up another nut off the ground and nibble through its shell.

Under the evergreens I saw one chipmunk that looked a lot like Miriam. The chipmunk had three white spots on its brown, furry neck. A shower of nuts rained down gently on its head, as though it were in a cartoon and being followed by a nut cloud. When I looked up to see where the nuts were coming from, I saw a gigantic wood-carved elephant—as tall as the tops of the evergreens—towering over the chipmunk. Seated on the elephant’s back, tossing out nuts from a blue-and-yellow cloth bag, was Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel.

“Shalom!” called the rabbi.

His beard was long and gray like in the picture I’d seen online, and he was wearing a flowy robe. The robe was made out of the comforter from the Schwebels’ basement.

“Shalom,” I said.

“Care for a nut?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Would it kill you to have a cashew?” he asked, smiling.

“It might,” I said, smiling back.

“Little Rachel,” he said. “Tell me. How are your roots feeling? Have you been going deep?”

He tossed a pistachio my way.

“To be honest, Rabbi, I feel scared,” I said, catching it.

“What’s to be scared of?” he asked.

I opened the pistachio like a tiny door. But it was empty, no nut, just a shell. I tossed the shell onto the grass.

“Spreading,” I said. “Not so much vertically but horizontally.”

“What’s so scary about the horizontal?” he asked, chucking me another pistachio.

I caught it and opened it, like a second door. This one was empty too. Now I really wanted a pistachio.

“I don’t want to spread out into some crazy far outer reaches,” I said. “What if I can’t get back?”

“Eh,” he said. “What’s to get back to?”

It was a good question. I didn’t know what to say.

The rabbi, clearly pleased with himself, winked and tossed me a third pistachio. This shell was tighter than the first two, and I had to open it with my teeth, like a squirrel or a chipmunk might. When I cracked open the shell, I found, inside, a lovely nut—perfectly ovular, glowing green, almost chartreuse. I put the nut on my tongue and sucked. It was creamy, salty, exquisite. I chewed it up and swallowed.

“Just because it feels good doesn’t mean it’s wrong,” said the rabbi.

CHAPTER 40

Monday at work felt like hell. I’d packed my gym bag and my breakfast: the yogurt and the low-calorie muffin, though it all seemed futile now. My pants were tight on my ass and dug into my butt crack. They rubbed a pink ring around my stomach. I craved an alternate universe, to be some other Rachel who only wore clothing with elastic waistbands, sweatpants and parachute pants. In that world, I could inhale and exhale freely. In that world, I would cut my hair short, wear red Air Jordans and custom gold Air Force 1s, hooded sweatshirts, blazers and skinny ties, backward baseball caps. I would reflect casual confidence and power, a bit of nastiness, still Jewy. I’d be like a Beastie Boy circa 1989.

At noon, I looked up from an Internet image search of King Ad-Rock and was surprised to see Jace Evans walking toward my desk.

“What are you doing?” asked Jace, touching the floof part of his hair and then scratching the skinhead part, a one-two aesthetic check.

“Working,” I said. “You?”

“I need to talk to Ofer about some problems I’m having with the writers of the show. They want to put Liam in a coma.”

“Oh,” I said.

Across from me, NPR Andrew was pretending to code Ofer’s client newsletter—this week’s topic: Auditions and Toxic Masculinity. I could see him peeping out from behind his computer. Jace was too commercial for NPR Andrew’s tastes, but fame was fame. Jace’s attention had to make me more intriguing in Andrew’s eyes.

I still disliked NPR Andrew and his eyes. But they were eyes. Any gaze that increased in its esteem of me made me feel validated: like I was earning my existence. What I didn’t want was for Ofer to see Jace and me talking.

“I had a burger the other day at Cassell’s,” said