Fishbowl

“Don’t worry, it won’t take us that long. We’ll do one box at a time. We should start with your bed stuff. Then, if we don’t finish everything today you’ll be all ready for tonight. Of course, if you want to paint the walls or something, you can always sleep with me in my room. Whatever you want.”

What was all this “we” talk? What “we”? This stranger is not going to rummage through my stuff. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I can take care of it. I’m sure you have better things to do than be stuck in my room all day unpacking crusty boxes.”

“Umm…not really.” She giggles again. I will have to throttle her if she doesn’t lose that giggle. Or start calling her Hyena. “I guess I shouldn’t say that, eh? You’ll think I’m a big loser and you just met me.”

“Why don’t you do the dishes and I’ll start unpacking?”

Her eyes widen the way they did when I chastised her for calling me Jo, only this time it’s because I’ve brought about a concept utterly alien to her, the concept of cleaning the kitchen. “Don’t worry about the dishes,” she says. “I’ll do them later. First, I want to set you up. That’s what roomies are for, right?”

My definition of roommate is someone who shares a kitchen and a bathroom—although from the present chaotic state of this kitchen I probably should have negotiated my own bathroom.

In order to avoid crushing her obviously frail feelings, I allow her to help me unpack my bed (“What nice green-colored sheets! They match your eyes! I love them! They’re gorge!”), my shampoo and conditioner (“You use Thermasilk? Does it work? Can I smell it? Wow! It smells awes!”), and my clothes (“Too bad you’re so much taller than me! These pants are fab!”), until I can no longer handle any more abbreviated acclamations and need to take a pizza break. Anyway, all that remains is building a dresser, putting away clothes and hanging a few posters.

I realize that I am a complete freeloader—I have nothing to contribute to the rest of the apartment. Wait! Not true. I have a salad spinner. My parents had two for some inexplicable reason, so I took one.

I’m hoping to finish organizing when Allie is asleep. I’m going to try and fake her out. You know, pretend I’m going to sleep but then continue working? She’s sweet, really, just as Adam said. It’s just that she has so many questions and comments and I’m tired because I was up all night packing and I don’t feel like revealing my life story at this particular moment.

At ten she invites me to watch TV in her room, but I decline. “I think I’ll just read a magazine in bed.”

“Okay. We don’t have to watch TV. Let’s read. I’ll get my book and we’ll read together.”

Haven’t we spent enough time together? Is she ever going to leave me alone? Will we have to get bunk beds? “You know what? I’m exhausted. I don’t think I can even keep my eyes open. I’m going to go to sleep.” I can leave my light on for a bit to read without getting caught, can’t I?

“Okay. Tell me when you’re ready for bed and I’ll tuck you in.”

She has got to be kidding.

“Nightie-night,” she says ten minutes later as I climb under the covers. She pulls the sheets up to my chin and turns off the lights. “What do you want for breakfast?” she asks, popping her head back in the doorway.

Breakfast? She’s already thinking about breakfast? “Whatever.”

I hear her muffled voice speaking on the phone, and although I want to tell her to keep it down, I decide to turn on my recently unpacked stereo and try to drown her out.

A knock on my door awakens me. The sun pours into the room because of my lack of curtains, the glare blinding me from seeing the numbers on my alarm clock.

“Jodine? Are you awake?”

“Mmm.”

“Can I come in?”

“Mmm.”

Allie opens the door with her right hand while balancing a tray with her left. “You’re up?”

A little late for that question, isn’t she? “I am now.”

She strides into my room. “I made you breakfast in bed!”

I am somewhat surprised, as no one has ever made me breakfast in bed. Even lovesick Manny never made me breakfast in bed.

Using my elbows, I prop myself up into a half-stomach-crunch position. Allie gently places the silver tray onto my lap and then sits cross-legged on my bed.

This disturbs me for four reasons: 1. She will now proceed to watch me eat. It is always odd when a person is eating and another one isn’t.

2. No one is allowed to eat in my room, for fear of lingering odors, unsightly crumbs and potential spillage. Perhaps this rule would be expunged during emergency circumstances such as…I can’t think of one at this moment, but I will concede that possible situations could arise.

3. More significant, no one is ever allowed to eat in/on my bed. Ever. No emergency could ever require food to be eaten in/on my bed, including but not exclusive to whipped cream and/or edible food paint. I’ll admit that I’ve indulged in these sumptuous delicacies from time to time, but we were on Manny’s bed, thereby leaving no sticky lactose residue on my sheets.

4. Allie is sitting on my bed without socks. And she did not wipe her feet prior to sitting on my bed. She walked, walked, walked along the floor, accumulating the germs and dust bunnies and whatever other bacteria ferment amid the crevices, and has now contributed these germs to my chosen area of rest. Instead, she should have worn slippers, removing them prior to sitting on the bed, or at the very least, used some sort of excess material to wipe clean her polluted body parts. (I really, really want to ask her to wipe, but I don’t want to embarrass her for her barnyard behavior.)

She uses her left big toe to scratch her right ankle. Scratch, scratch. I can taste the food I haven’t even eaten yet regurgitate in my throat. She is spreading germs all over my bed. I can’t take it any longer, and so I say, “Thank you so much for the breakfast. One favor?”

She nods continuously as though the top of her head is attached to an elastic band built into the ceiling. “Sure, spill it.”

Which is precisely what I wish to avoid (the regurgitation of breakfast). “I have this anal obsession about clean feet in or on my bed. Can you wipe them? Just use the newspaper that’s on my chair.”

The look she gives me makes me think I just told her that Santa was really her dad in a rented costume. There is about a thirty-five-percent chance that she will start to cry.

But no! She leans off the bed, picks up the newspaper that only hours ago was in charge of protecting a family picture in the U-Haul. “Oh, sure. No prob. Sorry,” she says, wiping her feet.

Where’s the catch? Why is this girl so damn nice? I look at her feet. They’re now stained with black newspaper ink. This, I admit, is my fault. What could I have been thinking, suggesting a newspaper? (This is how I sometimes get when faced with a dilemma concerning other people’s hygiene habits. Flustered. Irrational.) I can’t ask her to clean them again, can I? I’ll just have to rewash the linen when she isn’t around, so she doesn’t get offended.

When is she not around?

The blue clay bowl on my lap is filled with Rice Krispies and strawberries. Cut-up strawberries. Who has the time or the patience to cut fruit into tiny cubes for the sheer purpose of improving my breakfast experience?

“I didn’t want to wake you, but Emma will be here soon.”

“What time is she coming?”

“Noon.”

“What time is it now?”

Allie looks at her watch. “Eleven-thirty.”

Already? “I want to take a shower before she gets here.”

“Finish your breakfast first.” Yes, Mom. “I can’t wait for you to meet her. Did I tell you she looks like a model?”

Wonderful—a model. Isn’t that number one on the roommate checklist right before nonsmoker and no pets? When I finish eating, I lay my breakfast dishes on top of yesterday’s omelette dishes in the kitchen sink. Apparently not having a dishwasher will be more of a liability than I originally anticipated.

Emma is going to think she’s living with two pigs. “Can you wash up while I shower?” I ask.

“Oh! Good idea. No prob.”

After an in-and-out shower, I find Allie on the phone and the dishes still in the sink. Terrific.

I get dressed and search for my favorite scrunchie to tie my hair back. Where is it? I always leave it beside my bed. Apparently, in my confusion of living in a new environment I’ve misplaced it.

I head to the kitchen and begin washing the dishes. A yellow sponge is leaning against the side of the sink. At least it used to be yellow; it is presently part yellow and part decayed brown.

“No, don’t do them! I was just getting off the phone. Mom, I’ll call you later.” She hangs up and rushes over to the sink. “You wash, I’ll dry?”

“Sounds fair.” Although since she originally offered to do it all, it’s not completely fair. “Do we have any extra sponges? This one is pretty grungy.”

“Let’s see.” She pulls out a crisp new one from the cupboard under the sink. “Here you go.”

Interesting. Why would one continue using a disgusting sponge when there was a new, clean one under the sink? And what other germs are living on this counter? The thought that we’re sharing a bathroom returns, this time frightening me. We’re going to require some serious disinfectant.

The buzzer sounds.

“She’s here! She’s here! I can’t wait for you to meet her. You’re going to love her!”

Allie leaps to the front door, unlocks it and disappears into the hallway. “Hi!” I hear her say. I walk toward them just as they kiss each other on two cheeks. Double-kiss? Are we movie stars?

Emma pushes her bronzed sunglasses on top of her gold head as she walks into the apartment. Is she Rapunzel? What’s with the gold? She couldn’t pick a more natural, normal color?

“Emma, this is Jodine. Jodine, Emma.” She pronounces Emma’s name with a flourish. I almost expect her to give a little hand twirl and bow.

“Hello,” I say. Emma is at least five-seven. Maybe not quite five-seven. Her brown boots add at least two inches to her.

“Nice to meet you.” She saunters into the living room and ogles my head. “You have gorgeous hair. Is that color natural? It’s so black!”

“It’s natural,” I answer, pleased with her flattery regarding my hair yet at the same time exasperated with how willing I am to prostitute my opinions of someone in exchange for a hair compliment.

She reaches out her hand and touches a strand. “And it’s so shiny.”

“Thanks, I, uh, like yours, too.” Okay, so I’m a prostitute.

“Thanks.”

Allie claps her hands. “I love it down, too! You should wear it down all the time, Jodine. It’s so gorge!”

“I might have to, Allie,” I say, and point to the black scrunchie that is perched on the bottom of a braid extending from Allie’s head. “If you keep stealing my elastics.”

Allie blushes. “Whoops. Is this yours?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want it back?”

Yes. “You can use it today.”

“Thanks, Jodine!” Allie’s smile widens. “I’m so happy!” she squeals. “I have two roomies again. This is totally fab!”

Emma’s eyebrows rise, I’m assuming, in amazement of what a cheese ball her new roommate is.

My neck is getting itchy. I want my scrunchie back.

“So what should we do now? When are your movers coming?” Allie asks with a jump. She’s back on her imaginary trampoline.

“In about an hour.”

“Should we play get-to-know-you games?” Allie asks.

What does she want to play? Pictionary? Hide-and-seek? I’m sure my eyebrows are raised as high as Emma’s. (Or at least one of them. That’s my one party trick—I can raise each eyebrow separately.)

I visualize the upcoming year as clearly as if I am remembering it: Emma and I hanging out in her room, rolling our eyes at each other every time Allie says something ridiculously cheesy or abbreviates a word. Two’s company and three’s a crowd, correct? When three people live together, inevitably two will bond and one will end up the odd woman out. It makes sense.

Emma opens her purse, pulls out a hard-shelled sunglasses case, replaces her sunglasses, then slams the case shut. “I have to shit.” She throws her purse onto a table and heads toward the bathroom.

Thanks for sharing.

She opens the bathroom door and disappears inside. The door remains open.

She is using the bathroom while leaving the door open.

She has left the door open. Open, the opposite of closed. (Actually, wouldn’t the opposite of closed be opened with an “ed” tacked on? I mean, you wouldn’t describe a door as being close unless it was in near proximity, or unless you were emotionally attached to it, would you?)

A pack of du Maurier Light cigarettes have slipped out of her purse and onto the kitchen table.

She smokes, and she leaves the door open when she defecates. I feel mildly vomitous, as in full of vomit.

Okay, I volunteer to be the odd woman out. I wish Allie and Emma a blissfully happy life together. I am living with a munchkin and a truck driver.

6

EMMA GETS ATTENTION

EMMA

My first thought when I wake up is that I’m on the wrong side of the bed. I normally sleep on the right side and now I’m on the left. Even though I’m in the same queen-size bed I slept in at my dad’s, it feels different because I’ve had to readjust my sleeping position so that I can sleep facing the window.

How long does it take for a new apartment to stop feeling like I have a new guy’s tongue in my mouth? How long does it take for the angle the sunlight spills through the blinds, the post-wakeup walk to the bathroom, and my butt imprint in the couch to feel as natural as pulling on my favorite pair of jeans?

My second thought is that my apartment smells like a funeral home. Fortunately not the decaying, rotting, flesh odor (although I’ve never actually been a witness to that particular experience), but sweet-smelling because of the abundance of useless flowers.

Face it, if the guy is dead, flowers won’t help.

Speaking about corpses, I start to think about Nick, my controlling, obsessive deadbeat of an ex-boyfriend. “Allie! Allie!” I shout.

“Yeah?” she yells back.

“C’mere for a sec!”

Two seconds later, Allie knocks on my door.

“One second,” I answer for no real apparent reason. She could have just come in, but the fact that she knocked makes me wonder how long she’ll wait for me to give her permission to open the door. Two minutes? Five minutes? Will she kill time, twiddling her thumbs or picking her nose, more likely biting her nails, for ten minutes?

Okay. Enough. “Enter,” I say.

She opens the door and sticks her head in. “Morning. Do you want some juice?”

“No, thanks. Did Nick have flowers delivered again?”

“Yup. You’re not going to believe this. Twenty-one roses.”

“What color?”

“Red.”

Week one post breakup, he sent seven red roses. Week two post breakup, he left fourteen. Week three, today, his present is about as surprising as my feet hurting after a night of dancing in three-inch-heel boots. So the asshole knows how to multiply, whoopee-do. And red…again? Couldn’t he be a little creative with the colors? Why not, say six red, six white, six pink, and what’s left? Three? Three purple? Are there purple roses? What about purple hearts? No, wait. I’m the one who’s wounded. Forget purple. Seven red, seven pink, seven white. It’s not the eighties anymore; he can mix red and pink. He won’t get arrested for clashing.

I roll myself in my cream satin sheets like tobacco and weed in a crisp sheet of rolling paper. “I didn’t hear the bell.”

“Me, neither, I was asleep. I found them outside the door. Our door, not the outside door. I guess the delivery boy rang Janet and she brought them inside.”

“Is there a card?”

“As always. Here.” She skips toward my bed, hands me the card, and then sits down carefully.

“Love you…miss you…” I read aloud. Blah blah blah. Cry me a river. He should have thought of that three weeks ago. Before I spent twenty minutes doing tongue Pilates with some hot, anonymous bar stud who showered me with compliments and cosmopolitans.

You can’t do that when you have a boyfriend, can you?

Maybe you can. It’s just not nice.

“Where’s the birthday girl?” I ask.

“She went to the gym this morning, came home, and now she’s at the library.”

“That’s the way I spend my birthday, too,” I say. “What time is it?”

Allie giggles. “One-ish.”

That giggling is going to put me over the edge. It sounds like urine chiming against toilet water at high speed. Be fair, I reprimand myself. Allie’s not so bad. I mean, how bad can she possibly be? She admires me, for fuck’s sake. She thinks I’m the shit. Just look at her, carefully perched on my bedspread as if she’s afraid her ass will wear the bedspread out. She’s treating it like it’s a shrine, which is totally strange considering what kind of slob she is. I wish I had a couch in here. But there’s barely room for me to walk in here. My room is all bed.

“You have the coolest job ever,” she says, flipping through next month’s copy of Stiletto, which put me to sleep last night. I reach across my nightstand for a cigarette. For a moment I consider asking her to open the window, but then I do it myself. Then I wonder if she would have done it, just because I tell her to do it.

I take a deep drag. I wonder what would happen if I told her to get off my bed. Would she ask why? Would she start crying and think I was mad at her?

Can I tell her to get off the couch in the living room if I want to? It’s mine.

I certainly did my duty in adding ambience to the apartment—a purple shaggy throw rug under a glass coffee table, purple-and-gray throw pillows to match my purple suede couch and leather purple recliner. All courtesy of AJ’s basement. And of course, the dried flowers, gifts from Nick, which I later attached to a metal hanger and hung upside down to dry them out. And dishes. And framed photographs that I “borrowed” from Stiletto.

Is there anything in this place that isn’t mine?

The table, I suppose. Although that’s just a tablecloth covering milk crates. And Allie rolled her computer chair beside it to pass for a kitchen chair. Since I brought everything else, you’d think Jodine could just go and buy a table and chairs.

I exhale toward the window. “My job’s not that exciting. It’s Stiletto, not Cosmo. Sure, I get to see celebrities when they come to the office, but they’re Canadian celebrities. How’s that for an oxymoron?”

“Yeah, but you’re a fashion editor,” she says, emphasizing the word fashion as though it was some sort of golden calf.

“A fashion editor’s assistant.”

She’s now lying flat out on my bed, all reverence forgotten. Maybe she’s trying to duck beneath the smoke. “You can’t start as the editor in chief,” she says to console me.

Apparently not. “I don’t expect to be promoted after only two months, but how long do I have to search through model cards, trying to find the perfect five-foot-eight, one-hundred-ten-pound brunette with that ‘little extra something’? And why does Amanda, my Aren’t-I-Crafty-I-Make-My-Own-Jewelry boss, get all the party invites? Last week, she wet her pants because page six of The Talker mentioned her as one of the guests at a restaurant opening in Yorkville,” I say, getting all worked up. Not that the bar scene in this city is worth the effort it takes me to put on a thong. It’s only Toronto. But Aren’t-I-Crafty acts like every party invite she gets is an invite to the damn Oscars. She acts like my high-school friends who spent years pillaging fashion magazines for the perfect prom dress and then felt devastated when the guys they had their eyes on asked someone else. I used to say it’s only high school, dammit, get a hold of yourself.

I need another cigarette.

My cigarette intake has multiplied exponentially since I’ve moved out on my own. Awful, really, but now that I can smoke without being banished outside, I can’t find any reason not to smoke constantly. Besides the whole lung cancer-emphysema thing, of course. And as a plus it drives Jodine crazy.

When I first moved in and pulled out a cigarette, I thought she was going to detonate. But I told Allie from the get-go that I was a smoker, so it’s Jodine’s tough luck. She tried to be all rational about it, saying I could light up as long as I blew the smoke out the window so as not to pollute the entire apartment.

And she punctuated her suggestion with a cough.

Still, it seems like a fair agreement. But I’ve decided that the smoking-near-the-window policy will only be followed when Jodine is home. Except for in my room—I can’t have it smelling bad, can I?

“Can I have one?” comes a whisper from the horizontal side of the bed.

“One what?”

“Cigarette.” Giggle, giggle.

I nearly fall out of bed from shock. The last time I felt this way was when Nick asked me if we could not smoke up one night because he wanted to be able to concentrate on a presentation he had the next day. I hand Allie a cigarette and try not to gawk. “Since when do you smoke?”

She looks like a child smeared in her mother’s red lipstick. She doesn’t inhale, just puffs in and out like she’s sucking on the smoke. “I don’t (cough, cough). Just sometimes.” She smiles and sucks again.

Halfway through our cigarettes, I hear Jodine’s key jingling in the door lock. Allie turns white and stubs out her cigarette in an empty water glass.

We’re both laughing when Jodine knocks on my door. She doesn’t wait for a “come in.” She just enters.

“You’re still in bed?” she asks. “Do you know what time it is?”

“One-ish,” I say, stretching lazily.

The best part about not being in school anymore is lazy weekends. Spread-eagle days stuffed with omelettes and bacon and home fries and pillows and TV and shopping and restaurants and dancing and Cosmos. I’m capable of sleeping past three on weekends, if left uninterrupted. Which makes me hate my job even more Monday mornings, because I end up falling asleep at 3:00 a.m. on Sunday nights.

Usually, anyway.

Fuck.

I’m supposed to work on a presentation today about shoes for a Monday morning meeting. Is that fair? Why does my boss feel that she’s entitled to my weekend time?

Forget it. I’ll do it tomorrow. I have too much to do today.

“How about bringing me some juice?” I ask Jodine.

“What, are you crippled?”

“I’ll get it,” Allie says, and smiles at me. “I need some myself.”

Allie has a mild problem with orange juice. If there were an OJA (Orange Juice Anonymous) chapter in Toronto, she’d be its most frequent patron. She drinks it all the time. At lunch. At dinner. With a snack. I’m trying to figure out why she’s offered to bring me a glass. Does she really need some juice for herself, to wash away the smoke-stink in her throat? Or is she really the suck I think she is? Or is it possible she’s just plain nice?

She scurries into the kitchen and I throw the covers off my body.

“Where are you?” Allie asks, five minutes later.

How can it take five minutes to get a glass of orange juice? I mean, what can possibly happen on the way from my room to the kitchen? “In here!” I call from the toilet.

She walks through my room, into the bathroom, holding a small glass of orange juice. She blushes when she sees me and wraps a strand of her way-too-long hair around her thumb and puts the split ends in her mouth. That girl is always eating various parts of her body. I wouldn’t want to be left on a deserted island with her. We run low on food and I’m a goner.

She seems to be debating her next move. Should she leave? Ignore my position on the throne and continue talking to me?

Allie is working out quite well as a roommate, in spite of her obvious flaws. I even let her use my bathroom when Jodine is showering in theirs. And she’s a riot. A few days ago, when she was brushing her teeth, I couldn’t figure out why she said, “I still have my retainer, too!” Then I realized she must have thought my diaphragm was some sort of orthodontic contraption. It’s a good thing she didn’t find my vibrator—I wouldn’t want the poor girl to start singing into it or anything like that. Or what if she thought it was a hand blender?