Fishbowl

“Then he went out with his friends and didn’t call me until the next day. Do you believe that?”

I shake my head again, this time adding a little sigh for emphasis and audio concurrence.

“Of course I told him to go jerk himself off when he finally had the decency to apologize. Obviously.”

Yes. Obviously. Now I’m picturing a masturbating Nick. I wonder if that’s what she’s seeing behind her eyelids, too.

“I’m exorcising my life of shit-suckers.”

I don’t know exactly what a shit-sucker is, but I’m pretty sure it’s not something I want to be.

“No more dickheads telling me what to do.” She opens her eyes and places the green box in the corner of the room.

Why didn’t I ever paint my walls red? Now I can never do it because I’ll look like a copycat. Why didn’t I think of that first? Why why why? She’s officially moving in the day after tomorrow. Maybe I can have my room painted purple by then. No can do. Jodine is moving in tomorrow.

“New apartment, new frame of mind,” she says. “So what’s Jodine like?”

Oh my God. She practically read my mind! Is that a sign we’re going to make good roommates or what?

“I haven’t met her. We spoke on the phone a couple of times, though,” I say.

“I hope she’s normal.”

“I’m sure she’s normal. I met her brother and he seemed nice. And we’ve been e-mailing back and forth for about a month.”

“If she’s freakish we’ll keep her locked in her room,” she says, revealing a perfectly white tooth-bleach commercial smile. She’s wearing a brownish lipstick and of course none of it has smeared onto her teeth. “I wonder what she looks like.”

“She’s tall with long brown hair.”

“How do you know? She sent you a picture?”

“What? Oh, no.” Hmm. I have absolutely no reason to think she’s tall with long brown hair. That’s how I pictured her looking, because she sounded exactly like Christine Torrins on the phone, a girl I went to college with, and I had brilliantly deduced that they must look exactly alike as well. “I don’t know, actually.”

“She hasn’t seen the place? What kind of a person rents an apartment without seeing it first? I bet she’s a flake.”

I suddenly feel defensive for Jodine. “Her brother took some digital pictures for her.”

“Don’t judge an apartment by its pictures. That’s how you know her? You know her brother?”

“Yeah. My brother is a friend of her brother.”

“Is he hot?”

“Her brother or my brother?”

“Either,” she answers, and laughs.

“I don’t know.” How do I answer that? First of all, I can’t tell if my brother’s cute. He’s my brother. He looks like me. Second, no I don’t think Jodine’s brother is cute—he has a unibrow and a big head, but I’m not going to start making fun of my new roomie’s family, am I? Besides, maybe Emma will like him, I don’t know. How cool would it be if Emma started dating Jodine’s brother?

“Are they single?”

“My brother isn’t. I don’t know about Jodine’s. We can ask her tomorrow.”

“Shit. I gotta go. I’m meeting some friends in Yorkville. What are you up to tonight? Wanna join us?”

I almost regret having made plans. Almost. “A friend is coming over to watch Korpics. I get Extra and he doesn’t.”

“We get Extra?”

“Yeah. We get movies and most of the HBO shows, and it’s only a few extra dollars a month.”

Emma’s lips scrunch back into their just-ate-vinegar position.

Uh-oh. “Unless you guys want to—to cancel it,” I stammer. Please don’t want to cancel it. I really, really like it and I keep forgetting to fix the VCR.

“No, we shouldn’t cancel it. Do you think we can splice the cable into my room? I’m bringing a TV.”

“Oh, definitely. I splice it into my room.”

“Who do you have plans with? You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

“Not a boyfriend exactly…”

She smiles knowingly. “I get it. A ‘special’ friend.”

“You could say that.” Very, very special. “Do you think this looks okay?” I twirl.

She eyes me up and down. “Your hair is so long.”

I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. “But what about the outfit?”

“It’s cute.”

Cute? Is that good? It doesn’t sound good. A younger cousin with spaghetti sauce on his chin is cute. “I wish I had a shirt like yours. Where did you get it?”

“Some store on Queen Street. I’ll take you. Do you want to wear mine?”

“The one you have on?” Is it possible? Is she so awesome that she’ll not only help me shop for a new wardrobe but she’ll lend me the shirt off her back (literally) in the interim? It’s a good thing the material is stretchy—not that she’s lacking anything up front. There’s just more to me on the sides. “But what are you going to wear?”

“I’ll borrow a sweatshirt. Don’t worry—I know where you live.”

She follows me into my oh-so-boring white-walled but maybe soon-to-be-purple room. Unfortunately I haven’t yet cleaned it for Clint’s visit. I was supposed to be doing that now, instead of chatting. She was inevitably going to find out I was messy, but it didn’t have to be before she even moved in, did it?

I pull a semiwrinkled blue Champions sweatshirt out of a pile and hand it to her. What should I do now? Should I leave my room and let her change? Apparently not. My new roomie is not as conscious of public nudity as I am. She whips off her shirt in a fluid stripperlike motion and sits on my bed, wearing a see-through beige bra. She has huge nipples. I shouldn’t stare at her nipples. What is wrong with me? I don’t mean to be staring at her nipples. Did she see me staring at her nipples? It’s just that women hardly ever see each other naked. Really. Men see each other’s private parts every time they use a urinal. Women see breasts on TV, of course, but these aren’t real breasts, they’re Hollywood-perfect breasts, which are far from the real thing. Far from my real thing, anyway.

How does she manage to look like a Victoria’s Secret model even in my five-year-old safe-to-paint-a-garage sweatshirt?

She hands me her cleavage-revealing shirt.