Fishbowl. Sarah Mlynowski

I, uh, like yours, too.” Okay, so I’m a prostitute.

      “Thanks.”

      Allie claps her hands. “I love it down, too! You should wear it down all the time, Jodine. It’s so gorge!”

      “I might have to, Allie,” I say, and point to the black scrunchie that is perched on the bottom of a braid extending from Allie’s head. “If you keep stealing my elastics.”

      Allie blushes. “Whoops. Is this yours?”

      “Yes.”

      “Do you want it back?”

      Yes. “You can use it today.”

      “Thanks, Jodine!” Allie’s smile widens. “I’m so happy!” she squeals. “I have two roomies again. This is totally fab!”

      Emma’s eyebrows rise, I’m assuming, in amazement of what a cheese ball her new roommate is.

      My neck is getting itchy. I want my scrunchie back.

      “So what should we do now? When are your movers coming?” Allie asks with a jump. She’s back on her imaginary trampoline.

      “In about an hour.”

      “Should we play get-to-know-you games?” Allie asks.

      What does she want to play? Pictionary? Hide-and-seek? I’m sure my eyebrows are raised as high as Emma’s. (Or at least one of them. That’s my one party trick—I can raise each eyebrow separately.)

      I visualize the upcoming year as clearly as if I am remembering it: Emma and I hanging out in her room, rolling our eyes at each other every time Allie says something ridiculously cheesy or abbreviates a word. Two’s company and three’s a crowd, correct? When three people live together, inevitably two will bond and one will end up the odd woman out. It makes sense.

      Emma opens her purse, pulls out a hard-shelled sunglasses case, replaces her sunglasses, then slams the case shut. “I have to shit.” She throws her purse onto a table and heads toward the bathroom.

      Thanks for sharing.

      She opens the bathroom door and disappears inside. The door remains open.

      She is using the bathroom while leaving the door open.

      She has left the door open. Open, the opposite of closed. (Actually, wouldn’t the opposite of closed be opened with an “ed” tacked on? I mean, you wouldn’t describe a door as being close unless it was in near proximity, or unless you were emotionally attached to it, would you?)

      A pack of du Maurier Light cigarettes have slipped out of her purse and onto the kitchen table.

      She smokes, and she leaves the door open when she defecates. I feel mildly vomitous, as in full of vomit.

      Okay, I volunteer to be the odd woman out. I wish Allie and Emma a blissfully happy life together. I am living with a munchkin and a truck driver.

      6

      EMMA GETS ATTENTION

      EMMA

      My first thought when I wake up is that I’m on the wrong side of the bed. I normally sleep on the right side and now I’m on the left. Even though I’m in the same queen-size bed I slept in at my dad’s, it feels different because I’ve had to readjust my sleeping position so that I can sleep facing the window.

      How long does it take for a new apartment to stop feeling like I have a new guy’s tongue in my mouth? How long does it take for the angle the sunlight spills through the blinds, the post-wakeup walk to the bathroom, and my butt imprint in the couch to feel as natural as pulling on my favorite pair of jeans?

      My second thought is that my apartment smells like a funeral home. Fortunately not the decaying, rotting, flesh odor (although I’ve never actually been a witness to that particular experience), but sweet-smelling because of the abundance of useless flowers.

      Face it, if the guy is dead, flowers won’t help.

      Speaking about corpses, I start to think about Nick, my controlling, obsessive deadbeat of an ex-boyfriend. “Allie! Allie!” I shout.

      “Yeah?” she yells back.

      “C’mere for a sec!”

      Two seconds later, Allie knocks on my door.

      “One second,” I answer for no real apparent reason. She could have just come in, but the fact that she knocked makes me wonder how long she’ll wait for me to give her permission to open the door. Two minutes? Five minutes? Will she kill time, twiddling her thumbs or picking her nose, more likely biting her nails, for ten minutes?

      Okay. Enough. “Enter,” I say.

      She opens the door and sticks her head in. “Morning. Do you want some juice?”

      “No, thanks. Did Nick have flowers delivered again?”

      “Yup. You’re not going to believe this. Twenty-one roses.”

      “What color?”

      “Red.”

      Week one post breakup, he sent seven red roses. Week two post breakup, he left fourteen. Week three, today, his present is about as surprising as my feet hurting after a night of dancing in three-inch-heel boots. So the asshole knows how to multiply, whoopee-do. And red…again? Couldn’t he be a little creative with the colors? Why not, say six red, six white, six pink, and what’s left? Three? Three purple? Are there purple roses? What about purple hearts? No, wait. I’m the one who’s wounded. Forget purple. Seven red, seven pink, seven white. It’s not the eighties anymore; he can mix red and pink. He won’t get arrested for clashing.

      I roll myself in my cream satin sheets like tobacco and weed in a crisp sheet of rolling paper. “I didn’t hear the bell.”

      “Me, neither, I was asleep. I found them outside the door. Our door, not the outside door. I guess the delivery boy rang Janet and she brought them inside.”

      “Is there a card?”

      “As always. Here.” She skips toward my bed, hands me the card, and then sits down carefully.

      “Love you…miss you…” I read aloud. Blah blah blah. Cry me a river. He should have thought of that three weeks ago. Before I spent twenty minutes doing tongue Pilates with some hot, anonymous bar stud who showered me with compliments and cosmopolitans.

      You can’t do that when you have a boyfriend, can you?

      Maybe you can. It’s just not nice.

      “Where’s the birthday girl?” I ask.

      “She went to the gym this morning, came home, and now she’s at the library.”

      “That’s the way I spend my birthday, too,” I say. “What time is it?”

      Allie giggles. “One-ish.”

      That giggling is going to put me over the edge. It sounds like urine chiming against toilet water at high speed. Be fair, I reprimand myself. Allie’s not so bad. I mean, how bad can she possibly be? She admires me, for fuck’s sake. She thinks I’m the shit. Just look at her, carefully perched on my bedspread as if she’s afraid her ass will wear the bedspread out. She’s treating it like it’s a shrine, which is totally strange considering what kind of slob she is. I wish I had a couch in here. But there’s barely room for me to walk in here. My room is all bed.

      “You have the coolest job ever,” she says, flipping through next month’s copy of Stiletto, which put me to sleep last night. I reach across my nightstand for a cigarette. For a moment I consider asking her to open the window, but then I do it myself. Then I wonder if she would have done it, just because I tell her to do it.

      I take a deep drag. I wonder what would happen if I told her to get off my bed. Would she ask why? Would she start crying and think I was mad at her?