Milkrun

If he had dropped us off at the front door, like a gentleman, we’d have tickets by now.

The multicomplex looms in the distance like Cinderella’s castle. Three-D cartoon animals impressively swirl over the entranceway. The theme-park adventure continues with giant bats, which would have terrified a younger, less mature version of me, that hang threateningly from the ceiling. We buy tickets and then join the popcorn line. Sam and Marc buy jujubes and two Diet Cokes. Puh-lease! Not buying popcorn at the theater is like going to a baseball game and not buying a hot dog. Why else do you go to a baseball game?

“We’ll get seats,” Sam says, and they disappear hand in hand.

“One small popcorn with extra butter and a small Orange Crush, please,” I tell the eyebrow-pierced teenager with bleached-blond hair.

“Would you like to upgrade to a large, ma’am? Then you get free refills.”

Ma’am? Ma’am?? “No, thanks.” The smalls are already giant size.

“It’s only an extra thirty-five cents,” the pierced kid says.

“Well…okay.” For an extra thirty-five cents, why not?

“Would you like to upgrade your popcorn to a large, ma’am? It’s only an extra sixty-five cents.”

“No, thanks.”

“You get free refills, ma’am.”

I’m not sure when exactly I’m going to refill, considering that the movie is starting in about thirty seconds. But free is free. I can do the refill right after the movie. I can bring a snack to work.

The pierced kid hands me two huge cartons, a drink about the size of a two-gallon container of orange juice, and a popcorn the size of a water cooler.

Oooh! Sour berries! I love sour berries! “Can I have those, too?”

“Here you go, ma’am. That will be $15.50.” Fifteen-fifty? Why is my snack twice the price of the movie?

Uh-oh. I have to pee. Maybe if I go now, I won’t have to go in the middle of the movie. One can always hope. Only now I feel kind of like a kid in a snowsuit. How can I carry the tub of popcorn, a pack of sour berries, a gallon of soda, and a separate straw into the cubicle without spilling everywhere?

The first life-lesson Jeremy taught me was that I should never put my straw in my drink at a movie theater until after I sit down, in case of leakage. Seems like a simple enough strategy, except you’d be amazed at how many times I’d left the theater with orange stains on my jeans before I started dating him.

The last life-lesson I learned from him was to never date a backstabbing selfish bastard.

I can hold it in.

The theater is dark, and the please-turn-off-your-cell-phone-because-it’ll-really-piss-everyone-off-if-it-rings announcement flashes across the screen.

How the hell am I going to find them in here?

I walk down the aisle and peer. I feel like I’m looking for Waldo.

No.

No.

No.

I arrive at the screen amid a chorus of “Hey, sit down!” and “Get out of the way!” and “What’s the matter with you?” God forbid they should miss the ads. So where are Sam and Marc? They’re probably sitting in the back. I must have passed them.

They’re not in the back. I turn around again, and make my way back toward the screen.

Sam waves from the front row. “Sorry, I forgot my glasses,” she whispers. “Hope you don’t mind.”

I wonder if it’s rude to sit by myself, in the middle of the theater like a normal person. What if a potential date is in the theater and sees me sitting by myself and concludes that I’m a complete misanthrope who has to go to the movies alone on a Saturday night to try to pick up men, or maybe not even to pick up men but just to get out of a cat-infested apartment for a few measly hours? What then?

I sit down next to her in the front row. I tilt my head eighty degrees and try to get comfortable.

This isn’t going to work.

“I’m going to find a seat in the middle,” I whisper to Sam. I’m a big girl. I can sit at a movie by myself. I scout for an empty seat. I spot one next to a blond girl about ten rows back and push my way through.

“Hey, sit down!”

“Get out of the way!”

“What’s the matter with you?”

I slide into a seat, trying to make room for my industrialsize purchases.

Jeremy and I always sat on the aisle. Correction: Jeremy always sat on the aisle. He liked the leg room. Of course he never asked if I wanted to sit in the aisle seat. I always sat near the weirdo who left his arm on the seat rest. I was always the one who had to feel the weirdo’s arm hair brush against my skin. Let me ask you this: if there’s only one armrest between the two of you, why does the other person always assume it’s his right to take it?

Oh, well. At least the girl next to me is giving me a lot of space. She’s snuggling with her date. I can’t see his face, but she’s all blond and shiny and I’m really trying not to hate her.

I have to pee. I really should have gone before the movie started.

Wow. Pierce Brosnan is really hot. Natalie says he’s too pretty, too good-looking. What does this mean exactly, too good-looking? She says she could never go out with a guy prettier than she is. She says she hates going to a restaurant and everyone looks at the guy instead of her. Such problems I should have.

Look at that bod. Maybe I should suggest we do spy books at work.

I really have to go to the bathroom.

I try crossing and uncrossing my legs. I’m not sure why, but I drink more of my Orange Crush.

Maybe I can convince the marketing people at work to put Pierce on the cover of our new spy books. Of course, I won’t be invited to the shoot, but Pierce will hate the fake-blond bimbo chosen to model with him. I, of course, will happen to be passing through the room, and he’ll ask “What about her?” in his husky British voice. “Her?” Helen will say (although she is only an associate editor, not a senior editor, so she won’t have a fat chance of being there, either). “But she’s just a copy editor!” The whole scene will unfold with perfect timing and I’ll say, “Me?” And he’ll nod enthusiastically, beckoning me with his wonderfully strong hands, and I’ll join his pose. And while the wind machine blows my hair, he’ll turn to me and say, “Will you be my next Bond girl?” And I’ll play a DNA expert who runs around the hospital in a tight white tank top and silver stretch pants.

Oh, God. It’s a waterfall scene. This isn’t going to work.

I have to use the washroom. Now.

“Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me…”

“Hey, sit down!”

“Get out of the way!”

“What’s the matter with you?”