Milkrun Read Online Free PDF

anything, but I pass the bar at least twice a day. So does Natalie. True, Boston’s not the easiest city to navigate; streets tend to inexplicably change names from Court to State, from Winter to Summer, and then disappear altogether. I’m no stranger to getting lost-induced panic attacks (I will never find my way home, I will end up in a bad neighborhood, I will get robbed and killed and no one will notice until months later when they find my decomposed body still strapped to my ten-year-old Toyota in the river—for the love of God, why don’t I have a cell phone like everyone else?), but Back Bay is pretty much a grid.
    â€œTonight I can have three shots,” she says.
    Sobriety is not Nat’s concern. She is a self-admitted obsessive calorie counter. She carries a yellow spiral notebook with a picture of grapes on the cover, a purple felt pen, and a highlighter everywhere she goes. She writes down everything she eats. She even highlights her “boo-boos” (her word choice, not mine).
    â€œYou know,” she continues, “one shot of vodka has sixty-two calories.”
    No, I don’t know. Or care. This week, anyway. One hundred and twenty-four calories down. Six zillion to go.
    Today, Natalie does not in fact look fat. She looks exactly the same as she always does—very, very skinny and very, very tall. Well, not very, very tall, but tall compared to me (everyone is tall compared to me, since I measure about three inches over five feet). Natalie is probably only five foot six, but standing next to me I tend to think of Michael Jordan.
    Actually, she looks more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, except that Nat has brown hair. Though she’d never admit it, according to Sam, Natalie paid a visit to Dr. Harvey Gold, one of Boston’s top nose-job specialists, as a combined high school graduation/birthday present from her parents (Nat, that is, not Buffy). The first time I was at her house in Beacon Hill, I examined every photograph, searching for a before-picture. Of the thirty-five frames prominently featured throughout the huge house, not one featured her before the age of eighteen. Suspicious?
    And she dresses just like Buffy (sort of). Her Dolce and Gabbana black tube top and tight red pants must have cost more than my month’s rent. Luckily, she’s the type of person who can pull that outfit off—financially and aesthetically. As for myself, I tend to camouflage instead of highlight.
    Nat volunteers at various mental-health clinics. One day she plans on doing her master’s degree in psych. One day mentally disturbed people might go to her for help. Scary. Even the remote possibility that she actually gets in to one of these programs terrifies me.
    Eight minutes later, as promised, we arrive to find twenty fidgeting people lined up by the door, huddled under the metallic silhouette of a woman’s head thrown back in complete orgasmic abandon.
    Natalie walks to the front. “George!” she squeals to the intimidating six-foot, very bald bouncer whose wraparound sunglasses remind me of the Terminator.
    â€œHey, sexy,” he says. Kiss, kiss. Kiss, kiss.
    â€œGeorge, I want you to meet Jackie. She’s one of my best friends.”
    â€œHi,” I say meekly, and into the bar we walk.
    Â 
    â€œHow’s the sky?” Natalie says, raising her head. That’s her code phrase for “Do I have snot in my nose?”
    â€œClear,” I answer.
    â€œAnd the street?” That’s the code for “Do I have anything in my teeth?” What could possibly be in her teeth escapes me, considering I’m pretty sure she doesn’t eat. Her smile gleams the way I’m sure capped teeth should.
    â€œClean. Me?” I ask just in case. I go for the two-in-one: I smile and tilt my head simultaneously.
    On our left is the coat check. I’m thankful that this late September weather has allowed me to get away without wearing any