Fishbowl

25 EMMA’S ILLICIT PHONE CALL

26 JODINE COUNTS DOWN

27 PAY ATTENTION, ALLIE!

28 OMNISCIENT NARRATOR RINGS IN THE NEW YEAR

29 JODINE HAS A HANGOVER

30 ALLIE IS OBLIVIOUS

31 EMMA TAKES A PILL

32 JODINE GETS CHOKED UP

33 DID YOU HAVE TO KEEP LEFTOVERS, EMMA?

34 ‘TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE VALENTINE’S DAY, AND THINGS GOT A LITTLE GORY, SO POUR YOURSELF SOME CHARDONNAY, WHILE THE ANNOYING OMNISCIENT NARRATOR RECOUNTS THE STORY

35 WHEN HARRY MET ALLIE

36 JODINE LETS GO

EPILOGUE: THE OMNISCIENT NARRATOR TELLS YOU WHAT HAPPENS TWO AND A HALF MONTHS LATER

Prologue

A TINY BIT OF FORESHADOWING

Allison, Jodine and Emma are going to set their apartment on fire. No, they’re not going to do it on purpose. What kind of lunatics do you think they are?

Now, don’t go worrying. No one will get hurt. There will be no heart-stopping da-da-da E.R. music in the background, no one in white yelling Stat!, no George Clooney look-a-like climbing aboard a gurney to thump life back into someone’s heart, and no artificial respiration of any kind, including the mouth-to-mouth variety.

And we’re all thankful for that, of course. Although when Janet, the substitute teacher who lives in the apartment upstairs, tells the story, she’ll kind of wish something slightly more significant will have happened, like maybe the girls get trapped in the bathroom while the flames lick the closed door, and they stand sweating and shivering under the running shower, and they see smoke creeping in from the hallway, and just as they’re about to pass out…No, wait! Maybe one of them will pass out. She’ll faint away just as the cute fireman throws open the door and tosses all three girls over his muscle-rippled shoulders. He’ll look as if he stepped right off a Chippendales calendar (except his fireman’s getup is done up) to carry them into the midnight air to safety. And then he’ll give the passed-out girl resuscitation (yes! yes! the mouth-to-mouth variety) and she’s breathing! She’s going to make it! Isn’t it wonderful to be alive!

But this isn’t going to happen. This is Janet’s fantasy, and Janet is not an important player in this story.

Sorry, Janet.

Anyway, the girls will have to go to the E.R., but it’ll be more of a formality than because of any real concern. Something about sucking in too much carbon monoxide and needing oxygen. They’ll also need to shower. When they get out of that burning apartment, they won’t exactly be making a fashion statement, although they’d make excellent “before” or “fashion don’t” pictures, if any glossy magazine decides to snap their pictures. Which, of course, isn’t going to happen, either, because why would a fashion photographer be sitting in the waiting room of the E.R.? Be serious. The girls’ faces are going to look as if they’ve been rubbed with black chalk, if black chalk even exists, as there are no white blackboards. And their hair…if their mothers were to see their hair in that rat’s-nest sooty condition, they’d probably cover their eyes and scream, “Cut it off! Just cut it all off!” while flashing back to incidents of pink chewing gum. Mothers can sometimes get a wee bit overdramatic.

These girls ain’t going to be a pretty sight.

But do you know what they’re going to need? Even more than a shower?

Insurance. Sounds kind of superfluous next to oxygen and water, but when you don’t have protection, things tend to get a little messy.

Anyway, you don’t have to worry about all this fire mumbo jumbo right at this moment. The girls haven’t even met yet. So relax. Have a cup of coffee. Never mind, there’s no need to stimulate any heart-stopping da-da-da E.R.-beat hyperactivity. Have a cup of herbal tea instead. And pay attention to the first name in each chapter title or you’re not going to have a clue who’s talking. Oh, and forget you ever heard about the “burning down” of any “apartment.”

So did you hear about the fire at 56B Blake?

(Fire? What fire? Insert your blank stare here.)

Well done!

1

ALLIE’S MISTAKE

ALLIE

Eeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Shut. Up.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Shut. Up. Pause.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Shut! Up! I’m trying to mind my own business while I stir my instant coffee (my brewer has gone back to Vancouver with its owner, one of my former roommates. My other college roommate, most furniture, all forms of cutlery and the living-room TV have also deserted me for the rainy city of Vancouver), but this teeth-scratching eeeeeeeeeeeeep keeps interrupting me. It’s like when you bite your lip by accident and it gets all puffy, and because it’s puffy, you keep biting it—you know?

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Please, please, please stop.

Three minutes and ten seconds later: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Time to detonate the smoke detector. I’ve lived in this apartment for over two years and in all that time, not once have the batteries run out. But isn’t that always the case? They had to wait for Rebecca and Melissa to move out before they decided to kick the bucket. My ex-roommates are each at least half a foot taller than my five-foot frame (I prefer to be called petite, not short, and none of that vertically challenged crap, thank you very much) and could have reached it by standing on a stool without the aid of a phone book. Both could have easily, without breaking a glow, popped out the offending batteries, making the eeeeeeeeeeeeep go away. Go figure.

The beeping offends my ears yet again, and I examine my right thumb for a piece of stray nail to chew on. Gross? Yes. A bad habit I picked up from my mom.

Maybe this eeeeeeeeeeeeeping is a sign. A sign for me to get dressed, walk to the nearest Starbucks and order a cappuccino before going to work. Maybe while I’m there I will meet someone capable of stopping this eeeeeeeeeeeeeping. Maybe I will make new friends. I need new friends. Now that my former roomies have left town, I have only one friend left in Toronto, Clint, but secretly, I’m a little in love with Clint, so I don’t think he counts. I’ve tried not to be in love with him, because he’s not in love with me. I realized this last year (me loving him and him not loving me). I had a little too much Mike’s Hard Lemonade (Canadian girl beer) and said, “I love you, Clint.” And he got as pale as loose-leaf paper and said, “Thank you.”

Thank you? What is thank you? Thank you for making me a turkey sandwich, Allie, maybe. Thank you for taping TWIB (that’s This Week in Baseball for all those not in love with Blue Jays–obsessed men) while I was out sleeping with the slut from my economics class. Worst-case scenario, obviously, but still applicable. But thank you for the “I love you”? What does that mean? He started stammering all boylike that he had to go, he had an early class (as if he ever went to class), and I realized what a mistake, what a huge mistake I had just made, and I said, “As a friend, I mean. I love you as a friend. You’re my best friend.”

So technically I don’t know for sure he doesn’t love me. It’s certainly possible that he believed me about me not loving him that way. And if he doesn’t think I’m in love with him, he probably doesn’t want to risk potential embarrassment and disappointment by admitting his true feelings for me. He’s probably afraid of making the first move, because of his fear of rejection. Not that he’s ever been afraid of being rejected by other girls.

But I’m different from other girls. I am. Clint says no one appreciates him the way I do.

So you see, I’m having a bit of a current living-in-Toronto friend drought. Obviously, I’ll have two built-in friends when my two new roomies arrive in a couple weeks, but who should I talk to until then? I wish I had a dog. I’ve always wanted a dog. A dog that will sleep on my pillow. A dog that I can take for walks and feed snacks and teach to roll over and walk on two legs and do other fun tricks, and maybe one day I can present him on David Letterman’s Stupid Pet Tricks. But shouldn’t I ask my new roomies if I want to get a dog? In case they’re allergic? Is it the ethical thing to do? Could I hide the dog? It could sleep in my room. I have the biggest one.

But if I can call them to ask them this, that means I have someone to talk to. And if I have someone to talk to, then I really don’t need a dog, now do I?

Eeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Maybe by the time I get back from coffee and work the eeeeeeeeeeeeeping will have stopped. Sometimes you wish for something and it actually does happen. Really. Like in fourth grade. I went to sleep crying because in the morning I had to take the Monday multiplication test and I was stuck on table nine. For five weeks, Mrs. Tupper (who probably never used Bounce, because her skirt always stuck to the inside of her thighs) had been making me stand up in front of the class and answer, “Allison, what is nine times two?” And when I answered eighteen, she’d ask, “What is nine times five?” She’d ask me six questions in all, assuring me that if I passed the test, I could move on to the tenth table, but if I answered even one wrong, I’d have to repeat table nine again the next Monday.