Fishbowl

“Orange okay?”

“Fab. I’ll have a large, please.”

When the waitress delivers our fajitas and drinks simultaneously, I laugh at Allie’s huge glass of orange pulp. “What is it with you and juice? Don’t you ever have soft drinks?”

“No. Pop burns my mouth,” she explains, spreading at least a gallon of sour cream over the tortilla. Next, she carefully places the pieces of chicken on the cream, lays out another layer of sour cream, then the salsa, then the cheese, then another large glob of cream. Her meal looks like strawberry pudding. Jodine makes her fajita with a thin film of salsa, a few strategically placed pieces of chicken and a pound of lettuce. I try to keep the ingredients in proportion.

“What does that mean, soft drinks burn your mouth?” Jodine asks. “They’re supposed to be cold. You do know that, right?”

Allie giggles. “Yes, I know.”

I would have been offended by Jodine’s comment, but Allie doesn’t seem to care when Jodine talks to her like she’s missing a few keys on her keyboard.

“I don’t like the bubbles,” Allie says. “They burn.”

Jodine rolls her eyes. “You’re not supposed to gargle the pop,” she says. “You sip and swallow.”

“Sounds masochistic.” Giggle, giggle.

“You get used to it. You stop noticing the bubbles.”

“What about the first time you tried it?”

“The first time I tried pop? I can’t recall the first time I tried pop, Allie.” She takes a small bite out of her fajita. She eats everything in small bites. Eating takes her hours. “It’s like riding a bike,” she says. “Once you do it, it becomes habit.”

“I don’t know how to ride a bike.”

Both Jodine’s and my jaws drop in shock. “Unbelievable,” Jodine says.

“I don’t, really,” Allie repeats.

Jodine takes another sip of her Diet Coke. “Didn’t your father run behind you, pretending to hold the back of your seat, telling you he would never let go and then let go?”

My father never did that. He bought me a two-thousand-dollar bike and told me to figure it out. Bastard.

“My father tried to teach me, but I was afraid to take off the training wheels.”

Jodine looks at Allie with disbelief. “That’s absurd. I’ll teach you how to ride.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What uh-huh?”

“Everyone says they’re going to teach me when I tell them I don’t know how, but no one ever does.”

“Do you ever ask them about it again?”

“No.”

“Then don’t expect them to teach you. Your bike-riding skills aren’t everyone’s top priority. If you want me to teach you, then ask me. Biking is great exercise.”

Not exactly a selling point for Allie. While she seems to have an abundance of energy, she prefers to spend her free time lying in bed reading or watching TV. “Have you ever actually tried Coke?” I ask.

“I don’t think so.”

Impossible! “You’ve never tried Coke? What do you drink with your Jack Daniel’s? What do you have at barbecues?”

Allie stares at me blankly. “Uh, orange juice?”

“If there is no orange juice?”

She appears deep in thought. “Sometimes I pick an orange soda and wait for it to get flat. Then it tastes like that orange drink at McDonald’s. They call it a drink but it has no bubbles, did you know? I used to order the small orange juice cartons, but they cost a fortune and they’re not always included in the trio meals. Getting orange juice at movie theaters used to be a problem, too, but ever since the whole Snapple craze, they almost always sell juice, any flavor.”

Apparently an entire carbonated-free world exists that I am unaware of. Jodine meets my gaze across the table and we both start laughing. “Try it,” she says, pushing her glass toward Allie.

“Why? I know I won’t like it.”

“Just try it. I want to see.”

“See what?”

I reach over and take a sip from Jodine’s glass. “All the cool kids are doing it,” I say.

“Fine, I’ll try if it’ll amuse you. But, Jodine, you have to try a cigarette.”

I almost choke on the so-called offensive bubbles.

“Terrific,” Jodine says, squinting her eyes. “But why?”

“Just try one. I want to see.”

“But you don’t even smoke.”

“I’ll have one, too. We’ll all have a drink, and we’ll all have a smoke.”

“I feel left out,” I say. “What do I have to do?”

“You have to close the door the next time you’re in the main bathroom,” Jodine says, passing Allie her glass.

Allie puckers her lips and sips the Coke as if drinking a glass of straight tequila. And then the three of us crowd by the restaurant bar as I hand out cigarettes.

“You look like a freak, smoking,” Jodine says to Allie. “Are you on the Stair Master? Why are you breathing like that?”

Allie blows out the smoke she was holding in her mouth—the smoke she should have been inhaling but was keeping prisoner inside her cheeks—into Jodine’s face. “Can you teach us to French inhale?” she asks me.

“That’s why they call me Frenchy, you know.”

“Sure it is.”