Fishbowl

Somehow I had always been under the impression that when I finally did offer my virginity to a guy (Would you like some tea with this virginity, sir? Or would you prefer it to go?), it would be something he’d want. Apparently this is not the case. It FREAKS guys out. His you-know-what turned as soft as a decaying banana. And then Ronald left, saying he had an eight o’clock class in the morning. (Funny, his eight o’clock class was the last thing on his mind five minutes ago, when his banana wasn’t overripe.) He ignored me for the next week in the cafeteria, and when I saw him at a dorm party that weekend, he drunkenly admitted that he felt there would be too much commitment involved if we were to get intimate.

Who wants to have sex with a guy whose name is Ronald, anyway?

Who wants to have sex with a guy who uses the word intimate?

Is it possible I haven’t had sex with anyone because I’ve been subconsciously saving myself for Clint? No…maybe…but what if it never happens? Will I stay a virgin forever?

The clock on the VCR, which even when it was connected to a TV refused to play videos, says 6:10, which actually means that it’s 7:10, because it’s still on eastern standard time. In a few months it will be right again.

Fifty minutes till Clint-time. It has to happen.

Time to prepare the body and make it sexable.

Tonight’s shower requires many props. Got the loofah. Got the razor. Got the pear body wash. Got the citrus face wash. Got the watermelon-fortified shampoo. Got the avocado leave-in conditioner that was stuck through the mailbox and because it’s just me picking up the mail, it’s mine, all mine! (The girls and I used to rock-paper-scissors for these mini treasures.)

I place my glasses on the sink. I know I should put them into their case, because if I don’t, I’ll never remember where they are and spend a minimum of twenty-five minutes frantically searching for them tomorrow morning. But I don’t know where the case is.

Fab! So much hot water! No one flushing the toilet while I’m trying to cleanse myself! The apartment has two bathrooms. One has a shower and toilet, and the other one has just a toilet. I’m in the one with the shower and toilet, obviously. The other bathroom is off the smallest bedroom, soon to be Emma’s room, once Rebecca’s room. Isn’t that weird? Why build an apartment like that, where the master bedroom, mine, has no bathroom, and the smallest one does? It must be built for students—to make it fair. If a family moved in here, the kid would have its own bathroom and the parents would have to share!

I’d need my own bathroom if I lived with a boy. When I’m with Clint, I leave the water running when I pee so he doesn’t realize what I’m doing in there.

Melissa let me use her bathroom if someone was using the shower in the main bathroom. I hope that Emma won’t mind the same rule.

That felt great. Why don’t I ever remember to keep my towel next to the shower? Thirty minutes until he’s here. The skin around my thumbnail is bleeding. I reach over to the toilet paper roll and rip off a few squares, and bandage my injured finger and apply pressure. Why do I do that? And when did I do that? Why don’t I even notice when I’m biting anymore?

Post-shower is really prime biting time. The skin gets all pruned. There are so many little pieces and layers for teeth to grab on to. That sounded disgusting. That’s it. It’s over. I’m stopping. No more biting. How can I make ecstatic nail marks on Clint’s back if I have no nails?

“What are you doing?” he asked me earlier today. When I realized it was him on the phone, I got into my Phone Concentration position. This is basically lying down on my unmade bed in a right-angle position, my feet up against the wall above my pillow. I love my bed. I have a yellow daisy-covered duvet cover and six soft throw pillows in varying shades of yellow. I love my bed most when it’s made. Which only happens on sheet-changing day or when a guy comes over, the latter not being too often. The former being less often than I should admit. What can I say? I hate doing laundry.

“Not much,” I answered. “You?”

“Maybe I’ll come by later to watch Korpics.” Korpics is that new let’s-hang-out-at-the-water-cooler-to-talk-about-lives-that-aren’t-ours detective show. The fact that it’s only available on the Extra channel—Canada’s version of HBO—only increases its water-cooler coolness factor since only select people are capable of chiming into the conversation.

Luckily, I’m part of the select few.

I know he doesn’t get Korpics at his place, but he could have gone to see it at a bar if what he was really interested in doing was “watching.” It’s an excuse. It has to be. He’s never asked to watch TV here before.

Hemorrhage averted. I throw the soiled toilet paper into the slightly overflowing garbage, leave the towels discarded on the tiled floor (I will remember to pick those up before he gets here. I will, I will, I will…) and wander naked to my closet, something I would never do if anyone else were home. What to wear…It can’t be something that looks like I want action. I need a hangout outfit. Not too Victoria’s Secret, because why would I be wearing anything sexy if I’m just sitting around the apartment? I have to look like I don’t care what I look like, right? That’s the rule with guys. They want what they can’t have. So if I look like I’m not interested in the slightest, he’ll be interested. The grosser I look the more he’ll want me.

Decision made. I’ll wear my old camp overalls, the ones with the tear on the left knee from when I tripped on the bench in the rec hall. Which killed.

A cattle rancher stares back at me from my reflection in the mirror. What if being this extreme on the gross-a-meter repulses him? Maybe I should go casual. Gap modelesque. And makeup that doesn’t look like makeup. Natural makeup with no lipstick. No lipstick looks more natural.

The truth is I hate wearing lipstick because I’m perpetually afraid of getting it on my teeth. I have a tiny overbite and I’m always convinced that I’ll spend half the day walking around with red-stained front teeth.

Jeans and a little T-shirt?

Modrobes (look like doctor scrub pants but in funky orange) and a tank?

A wrap skirt?

Why would I be wearing a skirt to sit around in my apartment?

The buzzer sounds.

Oh, God. He’s here! I’m going for the true natural look, then. Jeans and a tank top it is. Why is he so early? He couldn’t wait to see me? He couldn’t wait to see me!

The buckle digs into my stomach. I hope it’s because I put my jeans in the dryer by mistake, and has nothing to do with that cheesecake I polished off last night.

Mmm. Cheesecake.

They’ll stretch, right?

Note to self—hold in stomach. And butt.

Can you hold in your butt?

“Coming!” I holler. I certainly hope I’ll get the chance to say that again later.

My reflection catches me off guard in the mirror next to the door. Yuck. I got deodorant on the sides of my tank top. Why does that happen? The bottle says “Clear!” So why are there white tire tracks on all my shirts?

“Hold on!” I scream (I hope I won’t have to say that later tonight) while running to my room. I throw my tank into my laundry basket and squeeze into a white T-shirt.

“Who is it?” I ask. You never know. I don’t want to let an ax murderer into my house.

“It’s Em,” replies a voice that does not belong to a yummy-smelling hard body. Em? Who’s Em? Oh, Emma.

“Hi!” I say, opening the door.

“Hey. I just came by to drop some shit off. Hope that’s all right.” She’s holding a fancy-looking metallic-green box.

“Sure, no problem. Come in.”

She leans toward me and air-kisses me near the right cheek. I pull my head back just as she heads in for a double, and I end up smashing her in the face.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to kill you there,” I say.

“It’s the Montreal double-kiss. You’ll get used to it. It’s addictive.”

I don’t think I’m a double-kiss type of girl, but you never know. “Aren’t the movers bringing over your stuff?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want them touching my perfume collection. They’ll help themselves to a present for their girlfriends or mothers or whomever. I thought I’d drop them off myself on my way out. Is that cool?”

“Of course. Cool. Do you need any help?”

“No, I got it. Thanks.”

As she walks toward her new room, her gold hair swishes below her shoulders. Why can’t I have gold hair? What are you if you have gold hair? A golde? I don’t think I could pull it off. I couldn’t pull off the Uma Thurman Pulp Fiction bangs that frame her face, either. Or the perfectly arched eyebrows. They look like they stepped right off a McDonald’s sign.

“So how are you?” she asks, flashing her head back at me.

“Fine. Thanks. How are you?” The chunky silver belt around her hips scratches her size-zero silver jeans as she walks. How do I get pants that make my butt look like that? And a top that makes my boobs look like that? She’s wearing a black cotton V-neck, the perfect sexy hangout shirt.

I follow her into her recently painted red room. Her father sent a man named Harry over to paint the walls, install new silver blinds and disinfect the bathroom. Emma pulls the blinds open, exposing the black sky and our reflections in the window. Emma glitters.

“I like your belt,” I say. Ooh, I hope she lets me borrow her clothes. I wonder how long it’ll take me to get down to a size zero? I must stop staring. She’ll think I’m a creep.

Must not look. Pretend she’s an eclipse.

Where does she buy belts like that?

“Thanks.”

“Nick didn’t want to come with you?” I met Nick when Emma came to see the apartment last month.

“That fuckhead? It’s over. What an idiot.”

But he was so hot! “What happened?”

She closes her eyes as if the scene is unfolding in her head. “He called me a slut.” Her eyes flutter open.

“No!”

She scrunches her lips as if she’s just swallowed a French fry soaked in vinegar. “He’s absurdly controlling. I shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

“Of course not!”

Her eyelids slam shut. “He wanted me to change my clothes. Do you believe?”

I shake my head to show that no, I do not believe (despite the fact in the past twenty minutes I’ve tried on about a gazillion outfits, but those were without Clint ever knowing, so it doesn’t count). But she can’t see my reaction because her eyes are still closed. Hello?

“And then he drove off. Do you believe that?”

I pointlessly shake my head again.

“Then he went out with his friends and didn’t call me until the next day. Do you believe that?”

I shake my head again, this time adding a little sigh for emphasis and audio concurrence.

“Of course I told him to go jerk himself off when he finally had the decency to apologize. Obviously.”

Yes. Obviously. Now I’m picturing a masturbating Nick. I wonder if that’s what she’s seeing behind her eyelids, too.

“I’m exorcising my life of shit-suckers.”

I don’t know exactly what a shit-sucker is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not something I want to be.

“No more dickheads telling me what to do.” She opens her eyes and places the green box in the corner of the room.

Why didn’t I ever paint my walls red? Now I can never do it because I’ll look like a copycat. Why didn’t I think of that first? Why why why? She’s officially moving in the day after tomorrow. Maybe I can have my room painted purple by then. No can do. Jodine is moving in tomorrow.

“New apartment, new frame of mind,” she says. “So what’s Jodine like?”

Oh my God. She practically read my mind! Is that a sign we’re going to make good roommates or what?

“I haven’t met her. We spoke on the phone a couple of times, though,” I say.

“I hope she’s normal.”

“I’m sure she’s normal. I met her brother and he seemed nice. And we’ve been e-mailing back and forth for about a month.”

“If she’s freakish we’ll keep her locked in her room,” she says, revealing a perfectly white tooth-bleach commercial smile. She’s wearing a brownish lipstick and of course none of it has smeared onto her teeth. “I wonder what she looks like.”

“She’s tall with long brown hair.”

“How do you know? She sent you a picture?”

“What? Oh, no.” Hmm. I have absolutely no reason to think she’s tall with long brown hair. That’s how I pictured her looking, because she sounded exactly like Christine Torrins on the phone, a girl I went to college with, and I had brilliantly deduced that they must look exactly alike as well. “I don’t know, actually.”

“She hasn’t seen the place? What kind of a person rents an apartment without seeing it first? I bet she’s a flake.”

I suddenly feel defensive for Jodine. “Her brother took some digital pictures for her.”

“Don’t judge an apartment by its pictures. That’s how you know her? You know her brother?”

“Yeah. My brother is a friend of her brother.”

“Is he hot?”

“Her brother or my brother?”

“Either,” she answers, and laughs.

“I don’t know.” How do I answer that? First of all, I can’t tell if my brother’s cute. He’s my brother. He looks like me. Second, no I don’t think Jodine’s brother is cute—he has a unibrow and a big head, but I’m not going to start making fun of my new roomie’s family, am I? Besides, maybe Emma will like him, I don’t know. How cool would it be if Emma started dating Jodine’s brother?

“Are they single?”

“My brother isn’t. I don’t know about Jodine’s. We can ask her tomorrow.”

“Shit. I gotta go. I’m meeting some friends in Yorkville. What are you up to tonight? Wanna join us?”

I almost regret having made plans. Almost. “A friend is coming over to watch Korpics. I get Extra and he doesn’t.”

“We get Extra?”

“Yeah. We get movies and most of the HBO shows, and it’s only a few extra dollars a month.”

Emma’s lips scrunch back into their just-ate-vinegar position.

Uh-oh. “Unless you guys want to—to cancel it,” I stammer. Please don’t want to cancel it. I really, really like it and I keep forgetting to fix the VCR.

“No, we shouldn’t cancel it. Do you think we can splice the cable into my room? I’m bringing a TV.”

“Oh, definitely. I splice it into my room.”

“Who do you have plans with? You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

“Not a boyfriend exactly…”

She smiles knowingly. “I get it. A ‘special’ friend.”

“You could say that.” Very, very special. “Do you think this looks okay?” I twirl.

She eyes me up and down. “Your hair is so long.”

I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. “But what about the outfit?”

“It’s cute.”

Cute? Is that good? It doesn’t sound good. A younger cousin with spaghetti sauce on his chin is cute. “I wish I had a shirt like yours. Where did you get it?”

“Some store on Queen Street. I’ll take you. Do you want to wear mine?”

“The one you have on?” Is it possible? Is she so awesome that she’ll not only help me shop for a new wardrobe but she’ll lend me the shirt off her back (literally) in the interim? It’s a good thing the material is stretchy—not that she’s lacking anything up front. There’s just more to me on the sides. “But what are you going to wear?”

“I’ll borrow a sweatshirt. Don’t worry—I know where you live.”

She follows me into my oh-so-boring white-walled but maybe soon-to-be-purple room. Unfortunately I haven’t yet cleaned it for Clint’s visit. I was supposed to be doing that now, instead of chatting. She was inevitably going to find out I was messy, but it didn’t have to be before she even moved in, did it?

I pull a semiwrinkled blue Champions sweatshirt out of a pile and hand it to her. What should I do now? Should I leave my room and let her change? Apparently not. My new roomie is not as conscious of public nudity as I am. She whips off her shirt in a fluid stripperlike motion and sits on my bed, wearing a see-through beige bra. She has huge nipples. I shouldn’t stare at her nipples. What is wrong with me? I don’t mean to be staring at her nipples. Did she see me staring at her nipples? It’s just that women hardly ever see each other naked. Really. Men see each other’s private parts every time they use a urinal. Women see breasts on TV, of course, but these aren’t real breasts, they’re Hollywood-perfect breasts, which are far from the real thing. Far from my real thing, anyway.

How does she manage to look like a Victoria’s Secret model even in my five-year-old safe-to-paint-a-garage sweatshirt?

She hands me her cleavage-revealing shirt.

She doesn’t expect me to try this on in front of her, does she?

Apparently she does. I’d like to turn around while I take off my shirt. Will she think I’m weird if I turn around while I take off my shirt? It’s not that I think she really cares what my boobs look like or anything. Can I turn around when she didn’t turn around? Is that bad-mannered? Is she entitled to see my bra now that I’ve seen hers? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours? At least I’m wearing a good bra for Chrissake (or Clint’s sake).

I try the trick we used to use in camp when you had to change in front of the whole cabin. I put on the cleavage shirt before taking off the old shirt. It doesn’t work. Now both shirts are tangled around my neck and I feel like a five-year-old struggling to take off her snowsuit.

I remove my top from my neck and slip on her shirt. The armpit material has an already-been-worn aroma, but nothing that a little extra spritzes of perfume won’t fix. (Maybe a few extra spritzes of her perfume? Am I becoming Single, White Female?) Hmm. Maybe she doesn’t wear deodorant and that’s why there are no white marks on her shirt.

“What do you think?” I ask, catching a glimpse of my new sexy-yet-casual self in the mirror over my bureau.

“Very hot.”

Hot? Hot is good. Much better than cute. Yes, I think I like my new roomie.

After Emma leaves, I run around my room and bathroom, trying to make it look Clint-presentable. And then I stumble upon an additional dilemma. Do I move the TV in my room into the living room, or keep it in the bedroom? The only place to sit in my room is on the bed. Unless he wants to sit on my lone computer chair. Into the living room the TV must go. Hea-vy. Arms hurt. How can something so small be so heavy?

Hmm. Do I just plug it in and turn it on? Where’s the cable? Do I use the red cable or the yellow cable? Red or yellow? Five minutes until he’s here…I feel like I’m in a Lethal Weapon and I’m about to cut the yellow wire and there are only three seconds left, and what should I do? Yellow, red, yellow red yellowredyellow…red. Definitely red. I plug in the red.

Nope.

Yellow?

Nope.

Okay. TV goes back to my bedroom. He’d have to sit on the floor in the living room, anyway. Thank God Emma will be here soon with couches.

Heavy heavy heavy.

Korpics starts in three minutes. Where is he?

I sit on my bed.

It smells good in here, right?

Maybe I should open the window.

Should I spray perfume on the bedspread?

It’s starting!

I should fluff up the pillows so they look more inviting.

Fluff-fluff.

Fluff.

One minute into Korpics.

Where is he?

Two minutes into Korpics. People are already dying and he’s not even here. He’s going to come in the middle and I’m going to have to miss some of the show and I hate missing parts of shows.

Hah! The fact that he’s late proves that he doesn’t care about watching the show, because if he cared he wouldn’t be even a minute late for it, right? If he were coming all the way here to watch it, then he would certainly be on time for it, right?

Unless he changed his mind and found somewhere else to watch it. And he’s not coming. And I’ll be staring at the television not absorbing anything that goes on, sitting here wallflower-like as the minutes turn into hours, the hours into days.

The doorbell buzzes.

Finally! I speed through the hallway and throw open the door.

“Hey,” he says. And smiles. He has a big smile. A big, beautiful smile exposing big, beautiful teeth. (All the better to eat you with, my dear, I think. Now that’s sick. Why do I always start having perverted thoughts when he’s around?) His smile finally looks proportioned. His face has filled out since he put on about twenty pounds last summer, but the good kind of twenty pounds. The muscle kind. He used to be a bit too skinny and his smile looked kind of out of place. Now he’s completely gorgeous. Of course, I thought he was completely gorgeous before, even when he wasn’t really, you know?

Did his eyes just sneak a peek at my cleavage? I think they did! Hah! It’s working! He’s falling in love! Or in lust. I’ll take lust. He already loves me as a friend, so all I need really is to provoke a little lust. If he feels lust, then there’s nothing missing. I might as well start ordering the wedding invitations immediately. Kidding!

Kind of.

“You’re missing it!” I tell him, impossibly trying to pout but too happy to see him to be angry with him. “It started five minutes ago.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He kisses me on the cheek. “You smell like a fruit salad.”

Who doesn’t like fruit salad? He’s slightly more casual than I am. Not that I expected him to dress up. He’s not one of those dress-up guys at all. Not that he dresses badly or anything. He’s more of a sporty dresser. He wears a lot of baseball caps and those bubble shirts. You know, the kind of shirt that has tiny indented squares patterned all over it—but in one color. He’s wearing a white one now, a white bubble shirt with tiny white bubbles. And snap pants—the blue nylon pants that have snaps all down the sides. They’d be so easy to just rip right off.

“I had the craziest day. Troy Cobrint wants to do the Cobras.”

I try not to stare blankly. Apparently I should be aware of who Troy Cobrint and the Cobras are. “What are the Cobras again?” I figure pleading ignorance to a probable brand name is better than pleading ignorance to a probable Toronto athlete.

“Our new basketball shoes.” Aha! Troy Cobrint must be a basketball player! Brilliant deductive reasoning, Nancy Drew!

“He walked into the office at around ten-thirty. He was supposed to be there for nine, but I guess when you’re that crazy rich and famous you can come and go whenever the hell you want. Anyway, he agreed to endorse the shoes. He said he tried them and liked them. My VP is loving my ass for coming up with the idea to create a shoe for him called Cobra. Get it? Cobrint—Cobra?”

“Got it.”

“I bet I get a crazy raise.” Clint’s favorite adjective is crazy. He sprinkles it in every sentence he can.

“Didn’t you just get a raise?”

He started his marketing job right after we graduated and is already some kind of office hotshot. “Yeah. But since I come up with the craziest ideas, I should be compensated, huh?”

“I’m shocked you’re not VP by now. Maybe next week they’ll make you CEO.”

This whole “attitude” thing is pretty new for Clint. He struggled to keep a B average at school, and was always better at criticizing other people’s athletic abilities than showcasing any of his own. He dated a bit, but not the girls he talked about. And then out of nowhere he got a prime marketing job (possibly through one of his dad’s connections, but that doesn’t mean he’s not qualified), and he now has this whole “big man on campus” attitude going on.

“C’mon.” I grab the piece of his shirt near his wrist (there’s not too much spare material around the chest area anymore) and pull him into my room. How many girls dream about walking into their bedrooms with a guy who looks like this? Hah! And he’s here!

He picks up the freshly arranged yellow pillows one by one and drops them onto the floor. Then he kicks off his shoes and sprawls across my bed. Reaching over, he picks up one of the pillows and squashes it against the wall to prop up his head.