Milk Fed - Melissa Broder Page 0,73

thought.

“Yep,” I said, tucking the clay figure under my chair. “Feeling mighty.”

I’d brought the figure into the office with me and kept it on my lap, touching it with my left hand while my right hand typed. I felt attached to it now—like a kid’s blankie, or the way people talked about their relationship to crystals. As long as I was touching the figure, I felt like I could keep from crying.

NPR Andrew didn’t address my hair directly. But I could see that it won me some points with him—made me look more indie, I guess.

“Ever seen Salmon Jelly?” he asked. “Danish youth movement film from the seventies. Watched it this weekend. Tragicomic exploration of pornography, melancholia, and nationalistic conformity.”

Then Ana walked by.

“Rachel! What on earth have you done to your hair?” She made a noise that sounded like a cackle.

“Cut it,” I said casually.

“I see,” she said. “Well, it is a rather… interesting look.”

“Interesting how?” I asked.

She moved closer to my desk.

“You look a little bit like—well, between the hair and the suit, it makes you look a little…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, then she whispered, “Gay.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Not that it’s a bad thing. But is that the look you’re going for?”

I wished I could cry to her. I wanted to be held by her, comforted, seated on her knee and rocked against her breast, transported into that white floral scent. I wanted kindness, wisdom, infinite understanding. I wanted to be mommied by a woman who was kind only to me. I wanted her to be a completely different woman than she was.

CHAPTER 67

“I feel okay about being intimacy avoidant when it comes to my death,” I said into the microphone.

I’d returned to This Show Sucks to try to get a little serotonin going by way of natural disasters. The show was now being held two nights a week, and in my absence I’d been cordoned off into the inferior Wednesday slot. I hoped that if I could really nail the annihilation piece of my mudslide bit, I might be re-promoted to Thursdays. With the way I was feeling, I had plenty to say about obliteration.

“Anyone else here hoping for a quick and painless death?” I asked.

Only a few takers. A quick and painless death was less popular than asking if anyone came from the East Coast.

“I think it’s fucked that there are mean people who get to die peacefully in their sleep and nice people who end up suffering for years,” I said. “It’s like, check your death privilege.”

“Check your death privilege!” someone called out.

It was Jace.

Later, he found me at the bar. I was drinking a beer, a regular one—Guinness—not even light, when he tapped me on the shoulder.

“Oh, hello,” I said.

“You were really great tonight,” he said. “Best I’ve seen you.”

“Thanks. It wasn’t me up there. Just almost-me.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’m surprised you’re here. I thought you were shooting the second season up in Vancouver.”

“They put Liam in a coma,” he said.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Nah, it’s okay, just for two episodes. When did you cut your hair?”

“A few days ago.”

“It’s cool. I like it. You look really intense or something.”

“Thanks?”

“No, I mean it really looks good. It’s a totally different look for you. It’s probably your soul aesthetic.”

“My soul aesthetic?”

“Yeah, that’s what my acting coach calls it. It’s when your look and your soul align.”

“Oh.”

“Like this,” he said, pointing to his leather jacket and his rosaries. “This is my soul aesthetic.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course, my stylist is trying to rebrand me. She thinks I need to go more nineties, like an early Luke Perry vibe, may he rest in peace. But I see myself as more of an… eclectic. A little James Dean, a little gothic, a little spiritual—that’s me. A hybrid. That’s my soul aesthetic.”

“Right.”

“Everyone is always trying to change you in this town.”

“I think that’s part of the job,” I said. “It comes with celebrity and getting shit for free and making lots of money and getting to have people look at you all the time and tell you how great you are.”

“I don’t even care about people looking at me.”

“If they weren’t looking, you’d care.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m just interested in making good art.”

Was he really referring to Breathers as art?

“You’re a real artist,” he said. “I can tell.”

He reached out and chucked me under the chin. Why was he touching me?

“It’s all about the craft for you,” he said. “Not that you aren’t ridiculously adorable too. So cute.”

He moved