Fishbowl. Sarah Mlynowski

it is. Why is he so early? He couldn’t wait to see me? He couldn’t wait to see me!

      The buckle digs into my stomach. I hope it’s because I put my jeans in the dryer by mistake, and has nothing to do with that cheesecake I polished off last night.

      Mmm. Cheesecake.

      They’ll stretch, right?

      Note to self—hold in stomach. And butt.

      Can you hold in your butt?

      “Coming!” I holler. I certainly hope I’ll get the chance to say that again later.

      My reflection catches me off guard in the mirror next to the door. Yuck. I got deodorant on the sides of my tank top. Why does that happen? The bottle says “Clear!” So why are there white tire tracks on all my shirts?

      “Hold on!” I scream (I hope I won’t have to say that later tonight) while running to my room. I throw my tank into my laundry basket and squeeze into a white T-shirt.

      “Who is it?” I ask. You never know. I don’t want to let an ax murderer into my house.

      “It’s Em,” replies a voice that does not belong to a yummy-smelling hard body. Em? Who’s Em? Oh, Emma.

      “Hi!” I say, opening the door.

      “Hey. I just came by to drop some shit off. Hope that’s all right.” She’s holding a fancy-looking metallic-green box.

      “Sure, no problem. Come in.”

      She leans toward me and air-kisses me near the right cheek. I pull my head back just as she heads in for a double, and I end up smashing her in the face.

      “Sorry. Didn’t mean to kill you there,” I say.

      “It’s the Montreal double-kiss. You’ll get used to it. It’s addictive.”

      I don’t think I’m a double-kiss type of girl, but you never know. “Aren’t the movers bringing over your stuff?”

      “Yeah, but I don’t want them touching my perfume collection. They’ll help themselves to a present for their girlfriends or mothers or whomever. I thought I’d drop them off myself on my way out. Is that cool?”

      “Of course. Cool. Do you need any help?”

      “No, I got it. Thanks.”

      As she walks toward her new room, her gold hair swishes below her shoulders. Why can’t I have gold hair? What are you if you have gold hair? A golde? I don’t think I could pull it off. I couldn’t pull off the Uma Thurman Pulp Fiction bangs that frame her face, either. Or the perfectly arched eyebrows. They look like they stepped right off a McDonald’s sign.

      “So how are you?” she asks, flashing her head back at me.

      “Fine. Thanks. How are you?” The chunky silver belt around her hips scratches her size-zero silver jeans as she walks. How do I get pants that make my butt look like that? And a top that makes my boobs look like that? She’s wearing a black cotton V-neck, the perfect sexy hangout shirt.

      I follow her into her recently painted red room. Her father sent a man named Harry over to paint the walls, install new silver blinds and disinfect the bathroom. Emma pulls the blinds open, exposing the black sky and our reflections in the window. Emma glitters.

      “I like your belt,” I say. Ooh, I hope she lets me borrow her clothes. I wonder how long it’ll take me to get down to a size zero? I must stop staring. She’ll think I’m a creep.

      Must not look. Pretend she’s an eclipse.

      Where does she buy belts like that?

      “Thanks.”

      “Nick didn’t want to come with you?” I met Nick when Emma came to see the apartment last month.

      “That fuckhead? It’s over. What an idiot.”

      But he was so hot! “What happened?”

      She closes her eyes as if the scene is unfolding in her head. “He called me a slut.” Her eyes flutter open.

      “No!”

      She scrunches her lips as if she’s just swallowed a French fry soaked in vinegar. “He’s absurdly controlling. I shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

      “Of course not!”

      Her eyelids slam shut. “He wanted me to change my clothes. Do you believe?”

      I shake my head to show that no, I do not believe (despite the fact in the past twenty minutes I’ve tried on about a gazillion outfits, but those were without Clint ever knowing, so it doesn’t count). But she can’t see my reaction because her eyes are still closed. Hello?

      “And then he drove off. Do you believe that?”

      I pointlessly shake my head again.

      “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.