Fishbowl

Lift left knee. Hold to fifteen. Release left knee.

Lift right knee. Hold to fifteen. Release right knee.

Too bad there is not enough room for sit-ups. Would Annoying-Lying-Drooling-Snoring-Businessman notice if I lifted the seat divider and used his lap as a headrest?

Not worth his potential consciousness. Then I might have to talk to him.

3

EMMA GETS PISSED

EMMA

“You’re not wearing that. Go back inside and change.”

Why is Nick so full of shit? Was he a toilet in his last life? “I most certainly am wearing this. I bought it today. It’s gorgeous.” It is a soft, luscious, red silk tank top with a plunging neckline. It cost a fortune. It could be the most stunning tank top ever designed. It feels like lotion against my skin. Like my favorite thirty-dollar lip gloss against my lips. I love it. If he makes me choose between the tank top and him, he’s not going to get off on my decision.

He pounds his fists against the steering wheel. “Why do you want to wear something that makes you look like a slut?”

I don’t understand the question. Because I like looking like a slut? “Funny that you hate when I look like a whore, but love when I act like one.”

He scrunches his face as though he just swallowed a shot of tequila. “Fuck off,” he swears.

“You fuck off.”

Another lovely night out with Nick. Best thing about Nick: he’s amazing in bed. And I mean fucking incredible. It’s always all about me. He won’t settle for anything less than two orgasms every time. Even if I tell him it’s okay, tonight can be a blow job night, he still insists on making me come. Worst thing about Nick: he’s more stubborn than a TV remote control without batteries.

“Go change,” he says, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Big baby. He didn’t mind my cleavage-revealing tops when we started dating last year. Lately, he’s like a pig-in-shit whenever I wear a sweatshirt and sweatpants. In his ideal world I’d be wearing a full-piece snowsuit twenty-four hours a day. Or fourteen hours a day. The other ten hours he’s happy to have me parading in front of him in the cheesy-ass lingerie he buys me. Red, lace, crotch-less panties. Feather garters. Snakeskin teddies. Could he want me to look any more like a porn star? He even likes when I design my pubic hair so that I look like a twelve-year-old. I think he’s been watching too much Playboy TV. For his eyes only there’s no such thing as too tarted up, but when he takes me out in public, it’s like we live in Iraq. Other men aren’t entitled to catch a glimpse of my ankles or neck or whatever else they’re not allowed to see in foreign countries. Talk about your Madonna-whore complex.

“I am not changing.” Why should I change? I have a great body. I’m not one of those fake-modest do-I-look-fat? does-my-ass-look-big? girls. I do not look fat. My ass does not look big. My bras are 34Ds. I look forward to bikini shopping come spring. That may sound conceited, but aren’t magazines always telling women to be proud of what they have? Judging from my mother’s chronology of old pictures, I have about eight years, tops, to flaunt my looks before everything starts to go. At thirty-three my mother’s size-five pants were a little too snug. At thirty-six, her husband was sleeping with someone my age. My age now, not my age then—I’ll give him credit for that, at least. The window of opportunity to have men salivate at my scantily clothed perfect breasts exists for just a limited while; it is therefore my sacred duty to use them at full capacity.

“Then we’re not going anywhere,” Nick says, his lips pouting. Ironic, really. He was first attracted to my breasts, and I was first attracted to his stubbornness. We were at a club on Richmond and he kept staring at my black negligee with no back and barely any front. He repeatedly sent me vodka martinis and I repeatedly sent them back to him. We ended up in his bed—where I’ve been pretty much ever since, except for the four times I’ve broken up with him. And then got back together once he proved his undivided love and desire.

By now he should be trained not to pull this bullshit with me. Who does he think he is, dictating what I get to wear? I will wear whatever I want. I am in charge of my own body. I am in charge of what parts of my body will be flaunted and what parts will be kept under snowsuits. Not that I even have a snowsuit. I have a ski suit, which is too trendy and too tight and too lacking in protective layers to be appropriate for anything but the chalet. I haven’t worn it since I moved to Toronto, because the skiing is shit in this city. Compared to Montreal, anyway. Not to mention lacking in the nightlife, restaurants and men department.

“Fine!” I yell, throwing the door open and swinging my feet out of the car, feet dressed in gorgeous new patent leather red sandals purchased last week. “If you’re going to behave like a fresh piece of shit, I’m going home.”

Why must I play this game? He’s in love with me. He can’t live without me. It’s now his turn to proclaim that I’m being silly, I can wear whatever I want, I look beautiful, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…

“Em…” He leans toward the open window.

“Yes?”

“Don’t wait up,” he says, and drives off.

“Go to hell!” I scream and give the finger to the tail of his Mustang as it tears down my street. “If you don’t stop that car, don’t ever bother calling me again!”

His car slows down…and then turns the corner.

Bastard. Pervert-bastard. This time it’s over-over.

“I thought you were going out?” my father asks as I slam the front door, post breakup cigarette. He and the stepbitch are sitting at the kitchen table, probably involved in one of their many discussions about how fucked up I am. I’m their favorite topic of conversation. If it weren’t for all my supposed screwups, I bet they’d be divorced for lack of a common interest.

“You sound disappointed. Don’t stop discussing me just because I’m here.”

“Of course we’re not disappointed, dear,” AJ says, patting my father on the arm and speaking extremely slowly. “Don’t be silly. Stephen and I just thought you were going out, that’s all.”

Blah, blah, blah. I ask you, is AJ an appropriate name for a stepmother? What happened to Marge? Or Stella? AJ sounds like a boy I pinned down at recess in the fifth grade during an episode of kissing tag. I’m pretty sure AJ stands for Annoying Jerk-off. First of all, she’s only thirty-six. That’s ten years older than I am and eighteen years younger than my cradle-snatching father. AJ has the annoying habit of speaking for my father, and my father has the annoying habit of letting AJ speak for him. She also tends to speak to me in the identical voice she uses while speaking to her six-year-old daughter.

“Spare me the bullshit, please,” I say. “You’re counting the seconds until I’m out of the house.”

AJ, aka Stepbitch, rolls her eyes at my father.

I am moving out in eight days. AJ found me a room in an apartment with two complete strangers. She works with one of the girls, Allison, but unlike Allison, she’s a volunteer. They do something for Ontario University a few times a week. AJ acts like I should be grateful, as if she’s doing me a favor, but she only set it up to get me out of the house, away from her precious daughter, Barbie. I’m not kidding. Her name is Barbie. Not that she’s ever going to look like a Barbie. She’s a chunky, short kid. And let’s not forget her big nose and glasses. I guess conniving ol’ AJ (actually, young AJ) will manipulate my father into spending my inheritance on a nose job and laser eye surgery.

Apparently I have a bad attitude and I’m negatively influencing Barbie’s development.

Fuck that.

Barbie is not really a bad kid. When I baby-sit, I let her watch music videos and I teach her how to do the moves. She might be a pretty good dancer one day, that is, if her legs ever get long enough to reach the floor from a sitting position.

I even let her play with my hair. I’m amazed at how long it took that kid to learn how to make a braid. Of course, she uses only two strands, which is kind of like juggling with two balls instead of three.

I brought back some of my old clothes, after visiting my mother in Montreal. Too bad AJ feeds her so much, because poor Barbie couldn’t even get one of her bloated thighs into one of my dresses.

I’m trying to get her to dance the weight off.

I try to pretend to like AJ in front of the kid so I don’t add to her list of things she’s going to need to talk about in therapy one day.

“I’m not going to listen to this abuse,” AJ whines, and leaves the kitchen.

Silence.

I pour myself a glass of juice and sit down in her deserted seat. It’s hot. She probably farted in it.

“Why do you insist on upsetting her?”

I’m upsetting her? Let’s tally up, shall we? She had an affair with my father. She convinced him to desert my mother and me, move to Toronto and marry her. As far as I’m concerned, I’m entitled to blame her for every messed-up thing I do. I have problems maintaining relationships? AJ’s fault. I don’t trust people? AJ’s to blame. I killed someone? AJ. I haven’t actually killed anyone, but if I did she would have driven me to it. How can anything I do possibly equal her actions? She drove a clearing truck right through the soft patch of snow that was my life.

“Fighting with your boyfriend does not give you the right to take out your anger on us,” my father says.

“Nick and I aren’t fighting.” I hate when he blames Nick for everything. It’s like when Nick says I’m being a bitch because I’m on my period, which is a dumb expression because how can someone be on her period? Are they straddling it? And just because I’m being a bitch doesn’t mean I have my period. It may mean that I have PMS, mind you, but that Nick doesn’t need to know.

“Does AJ ever ask you for a thank-you? For letting you live here for the past two years? No. For getting you a job at Stiletto? For finding you an apartment? No. For lending you her basement furniture for your apartment? No. All she asks is that you treat her decently. And can you even do that? No.”

First of all, why was she “letting” me live here? Isn’t part of a father’s responsibility to take care of his kid? I wanted to do the two-year design program at the Toronto School of Art. I would have been happy to live on my own and let them foot the bill, but my father thought all of us living together would be a good opportunity for us to get to know one another. Apparently AJ has now changed her mind.