Fishbowl. Sarah Mlynowski

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.

      She doesn’t expect me to try this on in front of her, does she?

      Apparently she does. I’d like to turn around while I take off my shirt. Will she think I’m weird if I turn around while I take off my shirt? It’s not that I think she really cares what my boobs look like or anything. Can I turn around when she didn’t turn around? Is that bad-mannered? Is she entitled to see my bra now that I’ve seen hers? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours? At least I’m wearing a good bra for Chrissake (or Clint’s sake).

      I try the trick we used to use in camp when you had to change in front of the whole cabin. I put on the cleavage shirt before taking off the old shirt. It doesn’t work. Now both shirts are tangled around my neck and I feel like a five-year-old struggling to take off her snowsuit.

      I remove my top from my neck and slip on her shirt. The armpit material has an already-been-worn aroma, but nothing that a little extra spritzes of perfume won’t fix. (Maybe a few extra spritzes of her perfume? Am I becoming Single, White Female?) Hmm. Maybe she doesn’t wear deodorant and that’s why there are no white marks on her shirt.

      “What do you think?” I ask, catching a glimpse of my new sexy-yet-casual self in the mirror over my bureau.

      “Very hot.”

      Hot? Hot is good. Much better than cute. Yes, I think I like my new roomie.

      

      After Emma leaves, I run around my room and bathroom, trying to make it look Clint-presentable. And then I stumble upon an additional dilemma. Do I move the TV in my room into the living room, or keep it in the bedroom? The only place to sit in my room is on the bed. Unless he wants to sit on my lone computer chair. Into the living room the TV must go. Hea-vy. Arms hurt. How can something so small be so heavy?

      Hmm. Do I just plug it in and turn it on? Where’s the cable? Do I use the red cable or the yellow cable? Red or yellow? Five minutes until he’s here…I feel like I’m in a Lethal Weapon and I’m about to cut the yellow wire and there are only three seconds left, and what should I do? Yellow, red, yellow red yellowredyellow…red. Definitely red. I plug in the red.

      Nope.

      Yellow?

      Nope.

      Okay. TV goes back to my bedroom. He’d have to sit on the floor in the living room, anyway. Thank God Emma will be here soon with couches.

      Heavy heavy heavy.

      Korpics starts in three minutes. Where is he?

      I sit on my bed.

      It smells good in here, right?

      Maybe I should open the window.

      Should I spray perfume on the bedspread?

      It’s starting!

      I should fluff up the pillows so they look more inviting.

      Fluff-fluff.

      Fluff.

      One minute into Korpics.

      Where is he?

      Two minutes into Korpics. People are already dying and he’s not even here. He’s going to come in the middle and I’m going to have to miss some of the show and I hate missing parts of shows.

      Hah! The fact that he’s late proves that he doesn’t care about watching the show, because if he cared he wouldn’t be even a minute late for it, right? If he were coming all the way here to watch it, then he would certainly be on time for it, right?

      Unless he changed his mind and found somewhere else to watch it. And he’s not coming. And I’ll be staring at the television not absorbing anything that goes on, sitting here wallflower-like as the minutes turn into hours, the hours into days.

      The doorbell buzzes.

      Finally! I speed through the hallway and throw open the door.

      “Hey,” he says. And smiles. He has a big smile. A big, beautiful smile exposing big, beautiful teeth. (All the better to eat you with, my dear, I think. Now that’s sick. Why do I always start having perverted thoughts when he’s around?) His smile finally