she just moved to LA
Jeremy Martin

I want a strawberry milkshake.

It is 1:00 in the morning on a Saturday night, I am in a UCLA In-N-Out Burger, and I want a strawberry milkshake. I’m going to get a #3 combo (raw onions, hold the tomato) and I want a strawberry milkshake. I want the line to move faster and I want to light myself on fire; I want everyone here to watch my physical form disappear forever into a plume of gorgeous, awesome smoke, seeping out the kitchen ventilation hoods, one with the Westwood sky. I want to go home and sleep until my head stops buzzing and I want to stay here forever. 

Ava wants a strawberry milkshake.

Ava’s hair is impossibly blond, her eyes impossibly blue, her teeth impossibly white, her dress impossibly short. Ava is a ballerina. Mid-performance right now, she looks right through me, eyes glassy, the fourth wall ever-so-delicately preserved. It’s a pas de deux - her danseur is Luke from Sigma Chi or Sigma Ep or Sigma Nu. He’s intentional in his nonchalance, shoulders slouched, mouth hanging open, sneaking indulgent glances at the other girls in line. He lifts her high into the air. They glide across tables, awash in neon red, lurching with drunken fluidity between napkin dispensers and bad spray tans, almost falling, never falling, spinning and spinning and spinning, throwing her, catching her, placing her delicately in front of the register, buying her a strawberry milkshake. I feel my face get hot. I want a strawberry milkshake. I want Luke to buy me a strawberry milkshake.

Luke wants a soda.

Luke gets a soda. I get a soda. It comes with the combo meal (raw onions, hold the tomato) so it costs less money and it takes less time for the kitchen to make. I fill my cup with Coca-Cola. I drink a lot of Coca-Cola. Always have. It’s my dad’s favorite. 

Annie wants a coffee.

Annie has sat next to me and is telling me that she doesn’t go to UCLA but that she actually goes to LMU which is right next to the beach and she really loves it there but also loves going to UCLA becauses she loves pretending to be someone else for a bit so she came here for the surf club party but that she left after a little while because nobody there was really interested in surfing and it was actually mostly just random guys trying over and over again to kiss her. I tell her I can relate. No I can’t. Yes I can. No I can’t. No I can’t. She goes back to her friends and I blink and I can’t find her anymore because everybody here has her face. I didn’t know In-N-Out had coffee.

I want a coffee.
 
I step back in line. I need a coffee. I need a strawberry milkshake. I step back out of line.

I want a strawberry milkshake.

One day I’ll be back. One day I’ll be back here and I’ll get a coffee and a strawberry milkshake and Luke will buy them for me and while he’s ordering my drinks everyone will be staring at me because I’ll be dancing like a fool in a fast-food restaurant but it’s okay because that’s a thing you can do when you’re drunk and you’re beautiful like me and maybe I’ll drink them both or neither because it doesn’t really matter because I’m young and pretty and I’m in LA so I’ll already have left the restaurant and I will be running up and down frat row and I don’t look both ways when I cross the street because I know that cars will stop for me and I go to parties and I dance and dance and dance and dance and dance and dance until my legs give out and I will go outside into the brisk winter air and though I’m wearing a tube top I am not cold, I am on fire, I am on fire.

Jeremy Martin (Pomona '25) is from Aspen, Colorado. He likes 70s R&B, wearing bright colors, and staying up too late.