Milk Fed

by Melissa Broder

  When she caught me staring at her, she said, “What can I get for you?” She said it nicely and briskly, as though she didn’t care that I’d been staring.

  “I’ll have the sugar-free, fat-free cappuccino swirled with the sugar-free, fat-free cheesecake,” I said. “Medium.”

  She reached for a large cup.

  “No,” I said. “Medium. The sixteen-ounce one.”

  She put the large cup back and picked up a medium cup.

  “Oh,” I said. “Also, I—only want it filled to the top of the cup. Like, not over the lip.”

  She nodded that she understood. Then she pulled the lever and I heard the whirr of the machine. I watched closely as she rotated the cup under the swirling yogurt. She was good, precise, leaving no pockets of air, just how I liked it. But as the yogurt approached the top of the cup, she showed no signs of slowing down.

  “That’s enough,” I said softly.

  She didn’t stop. The yogurt took a full lap above the rim.

  “That’s enough!” I called out, loudly this time.

  She released the lever on the machine, halting the flow of yogurt. Then she turned to me.

  “It’s priced by cup size, not by weight. We won’t charge you for the extra.”

  “Oh,” I said casually. “Okay.”

  She pulled the lever again and the flow of yogurt resumed. The swirls piled higher and higher, forming a creamy, glistening castle that towered high above the cup.

  “What toppings do you want?” she asked, clearly not yet finished with destroying my life.

  “Um, none. That’s okay as it is,” I said.

  “Nothing?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I like it plain.”

  She looked at me incredulously, but I couldn’t worry about what she thought, because I had other problems. There were 32 ounces of yogurt in my 16-ounce cup. I needed a strategy.

  I could eat the Northern Hemisphere of the yogurt down to the rim, then throw the southern half away. But that seemed sad to me. Who wanted to stop? It would be much more pleasant to lop off the top half and then have the rest of the cup to enjoy. But where could I get rid of it? I couldn’t just throw the offending portion away in front of her. I was going to have to go outside to do surgery on the yogurt.

  I found a trash can by the curb and was then met with another problem: it had no hole. It was one of those California-architectural sanitation masterpieces with a puny slot. There was no way to dump out the offending portion of yogurt all at once. I could scoop off small spoonfuls gradually, but then I needed leverage—something upon which to tap the spoon and release the blobs of yogurt into the slot. I wasn’t about to touch the spoon to the can.

  I scooped a small spoonful of yogurt out of the cup. Then I rapped the spoon against my phone, just over the slot. This rapping motion provided enough friction to dislodge the yogurt. I scooped again. Then rapped. Scooped. Rapped. I became so focused in my work that I didn’t see NPR Andrew walking right by me.

  “Hi, Rachel,” he said.

  I looked up, mid-rap. He was wearing earbuds and sunglasses. He had a smirk on his tiny face. He continued walking.

  So the little shit had witnessed my process. I felt violated, disgraced. I prayed that he couldn’t fully comprehend what he had seen. At the very least, he knew it was something freaky.

  Well, my yogurt was ready. I could eat in self-disgust and peace. I stood in the sunlight, licking the melty parts first, then transitioning into the ritual of spooning and squishing it against my teeth. Coffee and cheesecake was a good combo. Sublime, really.

  CHAPTER 12

  The trash can incident marked the beginning of a new phase: the era of yogurt interruptus. In the days that followed, the Orthodox boy never returned to work. In his place was always the zaftig girl, and there was no controlling her.

  Each time she reached the lip of the cup, I’d call out, “Okay!” or “All good!” or “Whoa Nelly!”

  But my Mayday cries only inspired her to hit the accelerator. Then she’d bring me my heaping yogurt and remind me, “We charge by cup size, not by weight.”

  I tried going to Yogurt World instead. The cup was the size of a fucking thimble.

  An amuse-bouche, I said to myself. Petit, chic, just a taste, lovely in a Parisian way. But I was no Parisian.

  I returned to Yo!Good with a new plan. After my yogurt was served, I would go around to the alley behind the store and eliminate the surplus in their spacious dumpster. Then I could enjoy my dessert blissfully, surrounded by flies and the stench of hot trash.

  It was a vile, genius solution, and it worked as anticipated—until I got busted decapitating a peanut-butter-and-cake-batter swirl.

  “The yogurt isn’t good today?” asked the zaftig girl.

  She was carrying two big bags of garbage.

  “No,” I said quickly. “Guess I should have stuck with coffee-cheesecake.”

  She nodded, then pulled out a cigarette and put it in her mouth. It was strange to see someone smoking in LA. The cigarette was a clove, which was always one of my favorites. In my anorexia heyday, I’d smoked clove cigarettes with diet hot chocolate and counted it as a meal. But this woman probably wasn’t smoking as a meal. She was smoking because—she liked it.

  I stared at the smoke moving in and out of her mouth. It looked as though she were exhaling a tree shape, one thick stream like a trunk and then little streams blowing off of it like branches.

  “Do you want one?” she offered.

  I did want one and said yes. She lit the cigarette for me, and I thought about the fact that she was always giving me things to put in my mouth. Was this girl my worst nightmare?

  My eyes went to the three moles on her neck. I felt a strange desire to suck on them.

  As a kid I’d had three moles just like that. They’d lived on the inside of my right arm, below the inner elbow crease. Her moles were bigger than mine had been, but both hers and mine—if connected with a pen—formed a shape like the Big Dipper.

  I’d hated those moles: their prominence, their strangeness, the way I felt they called attention to my arm chub. I always wished they were on the outside of my arm instead. The inside was such a soft, vulnerable place, more shameful than the outside.

  It hurt when the dermatologist shot me with novocaine, then lopped them off with something that looked like a hole puncher. But I felt elated to have them gone, free. Now, on the inside of my arm, there were three little white scars—each a tiny cloud. I hadn’t noticed them in years.

  “You’re working here full-time now?” I asked her, trying to suss out the situation.

  “I’m filling in for my brother Adiv,” she said. “He’s traveling in Israel.”

  That was all she said about that: He’s traveling in Israel. She issued no disclaimers. There was no: He has mixed feelings about the political situation or He’s not on Birthright or anything or I’m personally for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.

  “My family owns this place,” she said. “All of the Yo!Good shops. I fill in whenever they need me. I’m Miriam, by the way.”

  That was my Hebrew middle name. I was Rachel Meredith, and in Hebrew, Rachel Miriam. I didn’t tell her.

  “I’m Rachel,” I said. “I’m surprised you smoke.”

  “Because I’m religious?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And because it’s LA. It’s nice to see someone who isn’t afraid of cancer. I mean, life is long enough.”

  “You’re funny,” she said without laughing. “Orthodox people smoke. And drink. I love to drink. Mai tais.”

  “Mai tais?”

  “They’re tropical.”

  “I know what they are. It’s just an interesting choice.”

  “Are you Jewish?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “But bad. I’m a very, very bad Jew.”

  “Me too.” She laughed. “But you keep kosher?”

  “No,” I said, taking a puff of clove: warm, sweet, and cinnamon-y.

  “Oh,”
she said. “I do.”

  When she said she was a bad Jew, she definitely did not mean it in the way I meant it.

  “There’s a kosher Chinese restaurant on Fairfax that makes the best mai tais. The Golden Dragon. Ever been there?”

  I shook my head no. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be her: drinking and eating her way through a smorgasbord. I wondered if she got egg rolls, scallion pancakes, all that good fried shit. I bet she did.

  “Do you drink?” she asked.

  “Definitely,” I said, even though I didn’t really, because I didn’t want the extra calories.

  “I love it,” she said. “Especially getting drunk with my family. There are eight of us, six kids. It’s a lot of fun.”

  I’d never thought of Orthodox Judaism as fun—more as sexism and rules.

  “Sounds fun,” I said.

  “It’s total mishigas.” She laughed.

  Then she exhaled another smoke tree.

  “So,” she said. “You’re close with your family?”

  CHAPTER 13

  On day 13 of the detox, my father called.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked.

  I was standing in my bathroom with wet hair, having just finished Breakfast One in the shower.

  “Rachel, I don’t know what this is about a ‘detox,’ but you better call your mother immediately.”

  If she was bringing my father into this, she had to be desperate.

  “Tell her I’m fine,” I said.

  “I’m glad you’re fine. That’s not the point. The point is that now she’s calling me every day and I have to hear about it.”

  Displeasing my father was painful. He rarely expressed disapproval about anything. When my parents were together, he never confronted my mother about the way she policed my food. Instead, he would sneak me out for all-you-can-eat junk food benders to compensate. When they divorced, he remarried a ceramicist named Christina (not a Jew) and moved to the Berkshires. I only saw him a few times a year, but I had no real daddy issues to speak of. Even in his absence, I at least knew where I stood.

  When he’d come to town on my birthday or for Chanukah, we would gorge all day. We’d do lunch and dinner out: the diner and the Chinese restaurant, or a farm place in a real barn where they served plate after plate of creamed spinach, creamed corn, waffles. Then we’d go to the candy store and the 7-Eleven to load me up with bags of junk food. My mother gave me 24 hours to keep my stash before it all got thrown out. I wished I could hide my riches, but she took an inventory of all of it when I walked in the door.

  The only time I remember feeling sad about my father’s absence was on my tenth birthday. After he dropped me off back at home, I changed into my pajamas and went down to the kitchen for a round of junk food. I had 23 hours left to eat, and I was determined to get in as much as I could.

  Rifling through the 7-Eleven bag, I found a box I hadn’t seen him buy. It was one of those packages that contains all different little bags of chips: Cheetos, Doritos, pretzels. On the box, in big red and yellow letters was printed: VARIETY PACK.

  What was this? It seemed he’d chosen a special, secret box just for me. While I’d been busy with the Slurpee machine, he must have been inspecting the shelves, his glasses falling down his nose, ruminating on the question: What’s something Rachel would really like?

  Suddenly, his Dad eyes had spotted it: Variety Pack. With his Dad hand, he reached out and touched it. Variety Pack! Maybe he’d even whispered out loud, “The Variety Pack—yes, she might really enjoy that.”

  “Variety Pack, Variety Pack,” I said, as I stood in the kitchen, eating and crying.

  The words were beautiful to me. Also devastating.

  “Rachel, am I on speaker? Can you hear me?” asked my father.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Water was dripping from my hair onto the screen, and I knew it would fuck up my swiping for days.

  “Please talk to her,” he said. “As a favor to me. For my sake.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “No more hardware store.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  I looked at my wet face in the mirror. Was my face getting more annoying? My neck looked like it had somehow gotten thicker.

  “This isn’t easy for me either,” I said.

  “So then—”

  “But listen. Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

  “Huh,” said my father. “Who said that? Benjamin Franklin?”

  CHAPTER 14

  A great miracle occurred. Adiv returned.

  “Shalom!” I called out when I saw him behind the counter.

  “Shalom,” he said, looking confused.

  Never, I was sure, had any customer been so happy to see Adiv back at it. This was my burning bush, my Noah and the Ark and the dove. I was to be captain of my dessert realm again: no more peer-pressured extras or yogurt in conversation.

  I wondered how his experience in Israel had been, what his views were. But a food-service interaction seemed an inopportune time to say, Hey, any thoughts on a two-state solution?

  “I’ll have the cheesecake,” I said, omitting any discourse on land disputes.

  Then Miriam emerged from the back.

  “Hey, Rachel!” she said, signaling that she’d handle me.

  “Oh, hi,” I said.

  “Be useful and go unbox the pretzel cones,” she said to Adiv.

  Adiv complied. I watched her grab a 16-ounce cup and pull the lever on the machine.

  The yogurt began its ascent, swirling upward until it overtook the brim, entering the unsafe space above it. But then it transcended that realm, soaring to a new, unthinkable altitude before reaching a summit that was miles above where she began. Even for Miriam’s style, the serving was absurd.

  “I want to give you a free topping,” she said. “Because you didn’t like your last yogurt.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t want one.”

  “Come on,” she said. “There has to be something you like. What about sprinkles? I’m just going to put sprinkles on it, just a little.”

  “Rainbow,” I said instinctively, then thought, Fuck.

  I watched her spooning on the sprinkles and noticed, for the first time, that she had lovely fingernails: smooth and egg-shaped, trimmed neatly. She wasn’t a biter like me, a compulsive habit that began in childhood as something of a snack. Now I painted my nails red as a deterrent, but I only ended up biting off the polish too—spitting flakes of crimson.

  When she handed me the yogurt, every inch of that mammoth peak was covered in rainbow sprinkles. It was gorgeous, seamless, as though the yogurt were a rainbow itself: no separation between dessert and topping. Its beauty made me think for a moment that it should have always been this way.

  I stared at the sculptural masterpiece in my hand. I wanted to kiss it, to make out with it, to touch it with my tongue and lips and explore what those tiny textures felt like. Simply holding the cup, I was rocketed back to sprinkles past. I remembered that they were actually made of tiny bits of dried frosting, and the way you could dissolve them in your mouth, suck until they softened back to frosting once again, completing one of life’s great cycles of transformation.

  “See?” said Miriam. “Everybody loves a topping.”

  I smiled at her and felt weak. Then, as though compelled by an otherworldly force, I brought that majestic mountain to my mouth, licked it, and took a bite.

  “Mmmmmmm,” I said with my mouth full. “Thanks.”

  I closed my eyes. The sprinkles were so delicious, melting there on my tongue, that my throat began to call out for them.

  What would be the harm? What would be the harm? said my throat. What would be so bad about just swallowing?

  Of course, I knew what the harm would be. Sprinkles were loaded with sugar, and there was no way of knowing how many of them were packed into any given mouthful. From one bite to the next, it would be i
mpossible to calculate a caloric load.

  Panicking, I spun on my heel and headed for the door. I hoped that I could keep the concoction in my mouth long enough without swallowing to get to the trash can on the curb. But when I reached the can, my lips would not open to relinquish the mouthful. I stood there and swallowed it down my gullet.

  Then, to my horror, I found myself sticking my tongue into a crevice between yogurt and cup, where a small pile of naked sprinkles had fallen. I licked them out. I didn’t stop, but pressed on to where the sprinkles and some drips of melted yogurt had formed a viscous union. I chewed these bites up quickly and swallowed again and again, as though this were the fastest way to get rid of them.

  While I ate, I watched myself—like I was hovering up above, split into two beings. One of me was the one doing the eating. The other observed myself in shock as I continued to devour it all. Stop! Stop! called out the observer me, but it was no use.

  I was consumed by the yogurt, all five senses bathing in its drips and swirls, as though I had entered some yogurt door, no thought, no vision or sound but the yogurt and its sprinkles, any fear or hesitation fully eclipsed by sensation, the crunch, the slurp, the melt, the heavenly feeling of cleaning each side evenly with my tongue—hardness and softness, sweetness and more sweetness—a prism of beauty on Earth and above it, and me, the me on the ground, nothing but a giant mouth and tongue, eating and eating for nothing, not one thing, except sheer pleasure alone.

  I don’t know how long I stood there in front of the trash can: devouring, licking, swallowing. I only knew that when my mind and body were finally united again, the first thing I noticed was the sour smell of trash in the warm sun. I felt afraid, then a hot shame. It had really happened. I’d eaten the whole thing. All that remained was a dribble at the bottom with two sprinkles floating in it: one pink and one blue. I dug them out with my spoon and put that last little bite in my mouth.

  Something had taken me over, possessed me, some phantom transmitted from Miriam to me, or a demon lurking latent all these years, now suddenly awakened. I had not lost control like that with food since I was sixteen. I’d thought the demon was dead.