Milkrun

“Where are you going?”

“For dinner. With E-reek.”

“Who’s Eric?”

“E-reek. The guy I was talking to last night.”

Wait a second. A guy she met yesterday has already called? “The guy in the Armani?”

“That’s him. He called this morning. I think he might be royalty, but I’m not sure.”

I ignore her latter comment and focus on the more surprising element of her declaration. “He called this morning?”

“Yup.”

This morning? “And he asked you out and you said yes? For tonight?”

“Yeah. Should I have said no? He actually asked me last night, and I said we’ll see, but he called me at eleven to confirm, so I said, Why not?”

Why not? What am I supposed to do tonight? “Didn’t we have plans?”

“Oh…did we? I didn’t think you’d care.”

“Well, I do.” Knowing quite well that if the situation were reversed, I’d do the same. Fashion Magazine Fun Fact # 1: let no man come between two best friends. And let no man come between two mediocre friends unless he’s really hot. I mean, let’s face it; why else would you go to a bar with a mediocre girlfriend on a Saturday night in the first place? To discuss politics? So, when a guy like my Jonathan calls, you expect your friend to be understanding, even if you don’t like it when she does it to you. Not that someone as cool as my Jonathan Gradinger would call so soon.

“You don’t want me to cancel, do you?”

Yes, I do. “No, go. Have fun.”

“You can still go to The G-Spot.”

Who goes to The G-Spot alone? I’d have to wait in line for three hours by myself. And then I’d have to talk to myself at the bar. “No. It’s okay. I’m tired, anyway.” Someone knocks on my door. “The pizza’s here. Gotta go.”

“Swear you’re not mad?”

I’m mad. “I’m not mad.”

“Good. Love ya, hon! Have fun!”

I was only going to eat half the pizza and save the rest for Monday’s lunch, but now that I don’t have to wear anything tight tonight, I’m going to eat the whole thing and stuff myself with misery. I hate my life. I’m spending an entire Saturday in front of the TV. Jeremy doesn’t love me. Jonathan Gradinger doesn’t want me. Natalie’s guy called the next day.

Sam walks into the living room. If she asks me if I’ve cleaned the bathroom yet, I’m going to take the pizza and rub it all over her toilet.

“What’s up?” she says.

“Nothing.”

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing.”

“Wanna come see the new James Bond movie with us tonight?”

“No.” Actually, I do want to go see the new James Bond movie with them tonight. “Well, maybe.”

“Come on! Why not? You haven’t moved in six hours.”

“Since when is a movie aerobic? Are we going to be fighting crime along with Jimmie?”

“At least you’ll have to get off the couch to walk to the car.”

This is true. Although at this particular moment it seems like more work than it’s worth. “Okay, I’ll come.”

Standing in the shower, I try to ignore the greenish-brown circles of dirt that sporadically appear on my tub. Tomorrow I’m definitely cleaning.

Marc pulls up at a quarter to nine. He rolls down the window of his brand-new two-door Civic, and Sam plants a kiss on his lips. If they’re going to be smooching all night, I’m sitting by myself.

I maneuver my way into the backseat, through the seat belt that is doubling as a limbo stick, recalling an earlier conversation overheard through paper-thin walls. “We weren’t arguing—we were discussing,” Sam told me later.

Sam: “Two-doors? We’re not sixteen.”

Marc: “A four-door? What am I, thirty-five?”

This went on all night—two doors or four, four doors or two—the same old thing over and over, keeping me awake (I was forced to sit in a rigid position, with my ear cupped to the wall) until I went to my desk to write Honda a letter begging the company to please produce a three-door vehicle so that Sam and Marc would just shut up already.

I step on a crumpled old burger bag on the floor of the backseat. It smells like rotten vegetables. Sam lets him get away with that?

“We should take your car for a wash,” Sam says, sniffing. She picks up an old Big Mac carton with her thumb and index finger as if she’s holding a soiled diaper, and folds it into a compact rectangle.

“Yes, Mom,” Marc says, and turns on the radio. There’s only so much nagging even he can take, I suppose. I wonder if he’s ever tempted to smear stale McDonald’s fry grease on her toilet seat?

“Don’t be rude,” she says.

I’m feeling a bit like their kid in the backseat. “Are we there yet?” I ask.

“Soon,” he says.

We pull into the twenty-four-theater multiplex parking lot, which is already crammed with at least a thousand cars. Apparently, we’re not the only ones with a let’s-go-to-the-movies-and-see-the-stars idea. Don’t any of these people have a real life? We pull into a tight spot at the back of the lot.

“Couldn’t you have let us off in front?” Sam asks.

“Sorry,” Marc says. “I forgot.”

A front drop-off would have been nice. Some sort of trolley would have been even nicer. Couldn’t you have built us a trolley, Marc?

Not a bad business proposal, actually. A trolley that runs up and down the parking lot, picking up and dropping off passengers like at Disney World. But people would constantly want to get on and off, the train would have to stop every few seconds, and it would take longer to get a lift back to the car than to actually walk.

“Hurry up, girls, we’re already late,” Marc tells us. Tells me actually, because I’m the one slowing us down. I’m a slow walker. Is it my fault that short people have short legs?