Fishbowl

This time, he ignores me. “How’s Marc?” he asks Allie. I deduce that Marc is Allie’s brother. Adam and Allie’s brother were friends in university.

“He’s great. He and Jen just bought their own place. It’s in Belleville, about five blocks from where I live.”

Interesting the way she says where I “live,” not “lived” or where “her parents live.” She obviously considers her Belleville house her home. My parents’ house is just that—my parents’ house. And I’ve been on my own for less than ten minutes.

“His umbilical cord was always sewn on too tight,” Adam says. “At school he drove home every week to see his parents and Jen.” Incredulity is written all over his face, as though he has just realized that Marc’s preferred mode of transportation was his unicycle, or that he ate only food that was beige. My brother, unlike his family-oriented friend, came back maybe at Christmas, if we were lucky enough to be blessed with his company. As soon as he graduated, he moved back to Toronto and rented a place downtown.

I suppose I could have rented my own place, too, rather than have to put up with roommates. Except for one small factor: I can’t afford it. My parents can’t afford to subsidize me, either, not that I would have asked them. As for Adam, he can’t really afford his own two-bedroom apartment downtown, but he took out loans, which is something I would never do. Presently, he owes his life to the bank.

Still, even though I have roommates, at least I have a place I can call almost my own. And I can afford it. And unlike Allie, I consider this to be my main residence. My parents, however, don’t agree with me on this. For example, they refused to let me take my bed, dresser and night table with me, claiming they want me to have a place to sleep and unpack when I come “home.” They tried to placate me by surprising me with a new double futon and a box filled with pieces of a put-together-yourself dresser. Yes, of course I was thankful for their thoughtfulness and monetary help, but letting other people pick out my furniture is about as pleasant as rubbing bug repellant into a skin irritation. Why not surprise me with money and allow me to do my own choosing? Your bed is where you spend—in an ideal world eight hours but in reality you’re lucky if you get six—a large portion of your time. Having one’s bed chosen by someone else is too personal. And by your parents, unthinkable. What could be worse than having someone else pick out your bed?

“I can’t believe you haven’t even seen the place yet!” Allie gushes as she hoists a duffel bag of my clothes over her shoulder, and unknowingly sparks a far greater concern in my mind and stomach: an apartment. An apartment is far more personal than a bed. It’s where one spends all of one’s pre-school/post-gym waking and nonwaking hours. Someone else picking your apartment is far more invasive than having someone else picking one’s bed.

Terrific. What have I done? Why did I let my brother convince me to take this apartment sight unseen? I would not even purchase a dictionary sight unseen! What if it contains hyphenated words that have since become closed compound nouns? Unthinkable.

How did I let this happen? I suppose, like the evolution of language, some things are unavoidable. I think back to the e-mail my brother forwarded me in New York. Dappled with exclamation marks, it was accompanied with pictures of this supposedly huge, too-good-a-deal-to-pass-up apartment at only five hundred a month. I wasn’t planning on moving out of my parents’ place in Toronto, but the more I tossed the idea around in my head, the more agreeable it became. I e-mailed Adam, asking him to take a look at it, knowing I was making his day—he’d been harassing me for years to move out on my own. His e-mail reply said that the apartment was solid, and that although Allie was a sweetheart, she needed to know right away. Suddenly I got cryogenic feet. I told him I’d think about it. I needed to see it for myself, which was not feasible, considering that I was in New York.

Adam e-mailed that some other girl was interested, and it had to be a yea or nay immediately. He also said I’d be an idiot to go with the latter. “Are you actually going to give up one of the nicest and cheapest apartments I’ve ever seen in this city, in one of the coolest areas for a twenty-something to be living in, right off Little Italy, to spend at least a year on the subway and having to listen to dinner stories about our father’s hangnails?”

It’s true. My father repeatedly refers to his hangnails.

“Be spontaneous,” Adam said. “It’s good for you.”

I’m not the spontaneous type. For instance, at coffee shops I always order regular black coffee with one Sweet’n Low. But in spite of this character flaw—or strength, depending how you view it—I found myself answering, “Okay. I’ll take it”—and then immediately questioning my rash decision. What did I do? Sight unseen, I fully put the fate of my happiness into the hands of my big brother.

From inside the truck, he hands me a box and then lets out an elongated burp.

Terrific. Why did I listen to him? He has no concept of refinement. I’ve seen his apartment. He has beer cans overflowing in the garbage. My apartment is going to look like a smelly, rat-infested frat house.

“Let’s go inside! I can’t wait for you to see!” Allie says. I am afraid that at any minute she will break out into a chorus of “Follow the Yellow Brick Road.” The street is pretty, I admit, although there are no yellow bricks. Impressive maple trees line the one-way road, dwarfing the small homes that look like white-and-red Lego houses.

Allie turns the handle of the unlocked front door, and Adam and I enter the foyer to face two additional doors.

“Is it 56A or 56B?” Adam asks. For some inexplicable reason, I find myself rooting for 56A.

Allie takes her key chain from her pocket and opens 56B. I deem this as a bad omen.

Welcome to hell. Here it comes.

The first thing I notice is the brightness. The door leads into a small entranceway off a sun-drenched den. The white blinds are pulled up and the windows are open. Soft air wafts through the room.

“We’re lucky there’s a breeze outside right now. It gets hot here in the summer,” she says.

Terrific. I’m going to have permanent sweat marks. Mercifully I’ll be moving out before next summer.

“My last roomie sponge-painted the walls yellow. We can repaint if you don’t like it.”

If she starts referring to me as her “roomie,” I may have to throttle her. The word itself makes me think of “goomie”—the colored rubber bracelets I was obsessed with in grade school. I used to have over a hundred of them, and I would choose my colors meticulously every morning to match my outfits. We’re not sharing a room, anyway. It’s more of a flat. Flatmate sounds too British. “Housemate”? What about “floormate”? No, it sounds too much like “floor mat.”

“I like the yellow,” I say, surprising myself. “The room looks sort of sun-kissed.” Amazingly, my brother was right about this place. It is solid. It’s fabulous. The ceilings are high, the floors polished wood. The kitchen, which is self-contained and to the left of the living room/dining room area, is white-walled and filled with silver appliances. “I’m impressed.”

“See? You should always listen to me,” Adam says, heading back out the door. “I’m getting more boxes.”

I follow Allie down the corridor. “That’s Em’s room,” she says, pointing to the room on the right. She’s already Em? When did Emma become Em? “And here’s yours,” she says, pointing to a bedroom that’s only slightly larger than Em’s. It’s not as large as my room at my parents, but it’s big enough. I think everything will fit.

This is it. My new home.

I exhale the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

After we finish unloading the boxes, we escort Adam back to the truck. “You sure you didn’t forget anything?” he asks as he climbs into the driver’s seat. “Should we consult your seven hundred lists?”

Allie giggles.

Wonderful. My new roommate, who hasn’t even known me an hour, is already aware of my neuroses.

“She’s slightly sensitive,” Adam tells Allie. “Especially about the lists. Eh, Jo?”

“I like my lists. Get over it. And stop calling me Jo.”

Allie giggles again. Quite the giggler, this girl. Although I’m not quite sure what it is that’s so giggle-worthy. And I wish Adam would wipe that patronizing smile off his face.

“Okay, Jo,” he says. “If you say so.”

“Why do you call her Jo if she hates it?” Allie asks him.

“Excellent question,” I add.

“My sister was supposed to be a boy.”

I can tell by her wrinkled nose that Allie needs further explanation. “He wanted to name me after Joe Namath,” I offer, sighing.

“Who’s Joe Namath?”

“He was a quarterback for the New York Jets,” Adam says.

“My parents attempted to appease him by naming me Jodine. He decided to ignore the Y-chromosome factor in my DNA and refer to me as Jo.”

Allie giggles again. “That’s cute.”

“No, not really. He told his friends he had a brother. They used to make fun of me for looking like a girl. I’d appreciate it if you stick with Jodine.”

Allie’s eyes widen as if her shower just ran out of hot water. “I’m sorry.”

Am I a bitch? “I’m sorry if I sometimes come across too abruptly, but on this particular issue regarding my identity, I’m a little sensitive.”

Adam smirks and starts the engine. “Enjoy her, Al,” he says. “Jo, remember, if you make her cry she’s going to ask you to go back to our parents.” He drives off.

“Sorry,” I say, forcing a big smile to reassure her that, no, I am not Psycho Bitch. “I just hate when he teases me.”