Fishbowl, page 15
This is absolutely revolting. “I don’t see anything, Al. I’m not even sure what I’m looking for. Why don’t you let it sit for a few minutes and then maybe it will go back to normal.”
“You think?”
“What do I know about contacts? I have perfect vision.”
“It will come out by itself,” Emma says with authority. “I once lost a condom inside. I swear I thought it had disintegrated, but the next morning, plop, there it was, on my inner thigh.”
“You think it’s the same thing?” Allie asks.
“I can sell old clothes,” Emma says, returning us to the more pressing issue. “Clothes I don’t wear anymore. Jodine?”
I don’t have extra clothes. I can’t just start giving stuff away. Maybe my parents have some extra stuff. I shrug. “We can sell Fish. I don’t know. Let me look through my parents’ house.”
The buzzer rings.
“Pizza!” Allie jumps off the couch, her right hand over her eye. What if she needs to get an eye patch? Will men find it sexy? It would certainly dilute her innocent look. It would match with the tongue ring. “Ten bucks each, please,” she says.
A thirty-dollar pizza? Is the crust laced with caviar? We exchange money for food and place the pizza box beside the microwave.
I unsuccessfully try to locate a source of napkins. I run into the bathroom for toilet paper. I pick up a slice of plain and blot the pizza.
“What are you doing?” Emma asks.
Blot, blot. “It’s too oily.” The blotting isn’t working. I remove the cheese and deposit it on my napkin.
“Really? I think it’s de-lish,” Allie says.
At least she’s eating something besides her fingers.
“What’s our next idea?” I ask, attempting not to make oil fingerprints on the paper. “Come on. Let’s brainstorm. No idea is a bad idea,” I say, mimicking Mr. Polanski, my tenth-grade English teacher, who wore thick blue undershirts under his translucent white shirts, which was most definitely a bad idea.
“We should start a delivery service,” Allie says, still playing with her eye.
“We only have one car. We wouldn’t get a lot of business,” I remark.
I pull a wrapped chocolate pumpkin from the pizza bag and an idea hits me. “Maybe we can carve Halloween pumpkins?” I toss the pumpkin at Emma’s lap. “You’re an arty person. You can come up with the creative designs.”
“I’m allergic to pumpkins,” she says. “Pumpkins and the cold.”
Pumpkins and the cold? What kind of person is allergic to pumpkins and the cold? How is one allergic to the cold? We live in Canada. What does that mean? She’s a walking hive from November to March? Sorry, October to May? “Speaking of which, it’s boiling in here,” I say. “Can we open the window? Maybe we can get rid of the smoke smell.”
Allie jumps up and opens the window. “What if we offer to take kids trick-or-treating? Like a baby-sitting service for Halloween?”
“Speaking of tricks, what if we become call girls? We can turn our apartment into a brothel,” Emma says.
Allie and I are silent. We stare at her openmouthed.
“Relax, I’m kidding.”
I don’t truly believe her.
“Although we could make about three hundred dollars a pop. How are you girls at lap dances?”
“No,” I say.
“Bikini car washes?” Emma suggests.
“Next idea?” I say.
“I thought no idea was a bad idea.”
“None except that one. Anything else we can do for Halloween?”
“I know!” Allie says, her left hand fluttering above her and her right hand pushing on the inside of her eye. “A Halloween party!”
“I love it!” Emma squeals.
Not a bad idea. Everyone likes a good party. I write “Halloween party” and underline it in red in my notebook. “Where? Here?”
“Here? No. Think big or get out of the kitchen,” Emma says. Allie laughs.
Is that even an expression? “How much can we make? If we can get two hundred people to come and we charge five dollars a head, we’ll only make a thousand.”
Emma starts snapping her fingers in excitement. “So we’ll charge seven dollars a head. And get four hundred people to come.”
“That’s less than three thousand dollars. We need at least twelve thousand.”
Emma’s beat is getting faster. “So we’ll have four parties. One at Halloween, one at Christmas, one at New Year’s and one on Valentine’s Day. And maybe one on April Fools. We can use that money to go to Greece or something.”
“I’m not sure if April Fools is a national holiday,” I comment.
Allie claps her hands. “Who cares! Think of the crazy decorations. We can hang everything upside down.”
Are they starting a band here? Should I start humming? “Who do we suppose is going to pay to come to our party?” I ask.
Allie picks up another piece of pizza. She’s eaten more than both Emma and I put together. “Our friends,” she says, exposing chewed cheese and tomato sauce.
“What friends? You’re going to charge Clint a hundred and thirty-three times?” I ask slightly viciously, and then feel responsible for the wounded expression on her face.
“I have other friends,” Allie answers, looks at Emma and rolls her eyes.
Are they rolling their eyes at me? I’m exasperating them?
“Don’t be a bitch,” Emma says to me.
My neck muscles tense. I need a massage. Where’s Manny when I need him? “Fine. I’m speaking solely for myself,” I say. “I don’t think I have a hundred and thirty-three friends to invite.”
Emma squints at me. “How many people are at your law school?”
I see where she’s going and I don’t like it one bit. They’re going to make me invite people I go to school with to this party. “I don’t know.”
“Over four hundred?”
“I suppose so. I’d estimate the total count at around four hundred and fifty.”
“Then all you need is to convince a third of the students to come. And if that third each brings a date or a friend, we meet most of our goal.”
Allie takes another bite of her pizza and claps with the slice still in her hand. “And you know what? If the undergrads hear that the law school kids are going, they’ll for sure want to come.”
Did she just say law school kids? Should we ask our parents to sign permission slips before attending as well? Will there be milk and cookies?
“Okay. Tomorrow we need to find a bar to hold these parties. Who’s coming with me?” Emma asks.
Allie bounces in her seat. “Me! Me! What time?”
“I’d say the best time is around seven. The manager of the place I have in mind will be there, but there won’t be any customers, so he can talk to us. We have to find a cool place that will let us keep the cover.”
Disappointment clouds Allie’s face. “I’m working. Can’t we go tonight?”
“I don’t feel like going tonight,” Emma says.
I shake my head in disbelief. “You’re going to convince a manager to let us take the entire cover?”
“I’m an excellent presenter. Yesterday I somehow convinced the editors to do a two-page spread on thigh-high boots.”
“Was that your presentation?” Allie asks, blinking frantically. “How were you?”
“Brilliant, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I say. But I’ve seen some of Emma’s techniques for persuasion and they are often borderline whorish. “I’d better go with you.”
Allie fidgets with the corner of her eye. “I think I’m going blind.”
“You’re not going blind,” I tell her. “If that’s it for tonight, let’s meet again tomorrow. I want to finish my workout.”
“I’m going out for a bit,” Emma says. “Anyone wanna come?”
“I do.” Allie frowns. “But I can’t put in another contact until I get this one out. And my glasses are hideous.”
“Okay. See you guys later.” Emma rolls off the couch.
“Wait, guys?” Allie whines.
“Yes?” I ask.
“So you’re sure we’re not going to get kicked out of here, right?”
“Stop being annoying, Allie,” Emma says, kisses Allie on the forehead and then disappears into her room.
I decide to ignore her as well. “It’s freezing in here,” I say. “Allie, can you close the window?”
“Why don’t you just start the microwave? That should warm us up.”
An appliance that heats up a room and makes popcorn simultaneously? It should, for two hundred and fifty dollars.
14
ALLIE GOES NUTS
ALLIE
It’s eleven-thirty and I’ve been standing in front of the bathroom mirror, my neck awkwardly tilted toward my reflection, my butt sticking out behind me, trying to get this stupid, frustrating contact out of my eye for the past two hours. I can feel it in the right corner, thick and jarring, and what if I can never get it out, what if I have to feel this horrible annoyance forever and can never put in another pair of contacts? My eye is blotchy from the constant prodding and I’m trying to squeeze it out as though it’s the last drop of conditioner in the bottle and I’ve already left it upside down for ten minutes and still nothing is coming out. I’m squeezing my eye I’m squeezing I’m squeezing, and is that it? Did I get it? I think I see something! Rats. It’s gone. I lost it. I want to go to sleep. But what if closing my eyes drives it to the back of my brain? What if it pierces important veins and makes me blind and I wake up feeling like I’m wearing one of those eye masks people wear on airplanes, except I’m not on an airplane, I’m blind in my bed and I can’t ever watch TV again and I have to read books that have been translated into braille? Why did I rub my eyes when I’m wearing contacts? Why, why, why? Is that it? Did I feel it? I think I felt it. I think it was some sort of bump in the left corner. It’s moved! It’s migrated! This is it! This is not it.
My neck hurts, my arms hurt, my back hurts and my head hurts from being able to see only out of one eye and I’m getting dizzy. Can’t one of my roommates help? Or at least watch to make sure I don’t fall down from dizziness, knock my head on the corner of the counter and bleed to death? Is this ever going to end? Am I going insane? Why can’t I find it? I want to sleep. I hate this. Where is it?
Is that it? I think it is. Careful…don’t want to scare it. I’m touching it. Got it. Moving it to the left. Gently. Gentle. There it is, a thin piece of plastic-ish material all squashed and mangled in my eye. I pick it out with my thumb and index finger and drop it into my hand. It un-crumples as I squeeze solution on it, like the white wrapper that comes on fast-food restaurant straws that I squish off and then watch expand as I aim a drop of orange juice on it.
I dump the offensive contact in its case.
Thank God Clint won’t have to see me in my glasses. Although he was wearing his glasses when I went for dinner yesterday. And sweatpants and an old sweatshirt. But he still looked cute. He looked like he was ready to cuddle. But his roommate hung out with us the entire night, so there couldn’t be any cuddling. I bet he was planning a night alone for us, and then his roommate showed up unexpectedly and ruined everything. Oh, well. Next time.
Bedtime!
I tiptoe into my room because Jodine is already asleep and she gets really pissed off when I wake her up and—
A small gray blob scurries a long the hallway, into the burnt kitchen.
Could it be I’ve damaged my eye and now it’s playing tricks?
The small gray blob is squeaking.
Ewwwwwwwwww.
15
EMMA DEALS
EMMA
“Do you know what a blind spot is?” Miss Know-it-all asks after a blue BMW honks when I cut him off.
I’m going to kill Jodine. Fuck. I’m afraid I may swerve into a brick wall in order to squash my passenger side. I wish I had a James Bond car and could eject her. She’s been at this all day: “I don’t think that stop sign was a suggestion” or “Are you aware that there’s a speed limit here?” Blah blah blah.
“Yes, I know what a blind spot is,” I say.
“Do you know you’re supposed to look at it? To make sure there are no other cars coming?”
“We should have taken the subway,” I tell her.
She purses her lips, looks like she’s about to say something and changes her mind.
Good idea. It’s the first smart thing she’s said all day.
Five minutes of beautiful, peaceful, pleasurable silence pass and then she shatters the quiet like a fist through a window. “You’re right. We should have taken the subway. We’re going to have to pay for parking.”
Eject. “We might.”
“It’s impossible to find parking around Jergen Street. We’re going to circle for hours.”
Blah blah blah. Nothing is more annoying than someone who whines about parking and doesn’t even drive. It’s worse than a Torontonian who says how decrepit Montreal has become when she hasn’t been there for two years.
I turn onto Queen Street, and two blocks later pull into an empty spot.
“Lucky,” Jodine mumbles.
I snort. “Ready? You’re going to let me talk, right?”
“If you say so. But I do study litigation, you know.”
I can just see her jumping in with an objection and screwing everything up. “Just don’t say anything.”
The wind blows through the sweater jacket I’m wearing as we walk toward the bar. It’s almost time to buy a new winter coat. I’m thinking about something in brown leather.
The bar is called 411. Not because it gives out information but because its address is 411. My friends and I used to hang out here on Thursday nights. I open the heavy metal door and Jodine follows me inside.
And here goes nothing.
“Hi, is Steve in?” I ask the back of a young girl with cropped red hair, black leather pants and a silver tube top. She’s standing behind the coat check, seemingly organizing leftover jackets.
She turns to face us. “Yeah, he’s in.”
The question wasn’t meant to be rhetorical. “Can I speak to him?” I ask.
“One sec.”
She disappears behind the coats and returns with the tall, goateed Steve, who looks like Mr. Clean.
“Yes?” His eyes scan my plunging neckline. “Can I help you?”
“Hopefully,” I say. “Do you remember me? I used to hang out here.”
His eyes slowly scan upward, slowly…and rest on my face. “Hey! How the hell are you? Where’ve you been hiding?”
I hear Jodine gasp. Hah! She didn’t think he’d recognize me!
“You know. Been busy. I have a business proposition for you.”
“What sort of business do you have in mind?” He smiles, exposing the space between his two front teeth.
“I’d like to organize a party for the Saturday night before Halloween. This is my friend and business partner, Jodine.” I motion to Jodine.
“Hi,” she says, a bit awkwardly.
Steve nods in her direction. I wish she’d worn the tighter shirt I suggested.
“Halloween Saturday? That’s a busy night,” he comments, yielding his head from side to side as though it’s a seesaw.
“It will be a busy party,” I say, trying to sound overly convincing.
“How many people can you bring in?”
“At least four hundred.”
Jodine gasps again. At least Steve’s not paying attention to her.
He rubs the top of his shiny bald head with the palm of his hand. “How? Is this a group thing?”
“Yes. We’re from Pi Alpha Pi. It’s one of the OU sororities.”
“A sorority, eh?” He laughs. “You girls going to be dressed in nighties when you throw around your pillows?”
Ha ha. Hilarious. “If you comp us enough booze, we will.”
He smiles, seeming to like that idea. Perv. “What do you want, part of the door?”
“Yes. You charge five on Saturday, right? How many people do you normally bring in?”
“About two hundred. I’d say an extra hundred on Halloween weekend.”
He’s completely full of shit. I’ve been to this bar on a Saturday night and the only way he’d pull in two hundred people was if all the bathrooms in the city were blocked and someone slipped Ex-Lax into everyone’s margaritas.
“How about we’ll do all the promoting, and charge ten at the door, which we get to keep. You make the bar.”
He laughs. “That’s quite a risk for us. What if you girls can’t get anyone to come? Why should we take a loss? Maybe, and I mean maybe, we’ll consider letting you charge five over our five. And we keep the bar.”
Aha! He’s interested! Jodine’s eyes widen in an I-can’t-believehe’s-giving-us-shit-all expression. I’d agree with the option, but the thing is, if it was his suggestion, it can’t be good for us. I shake my head. “I don’t think that’s worth our while. How about this—the cover is ten, we keep seven and you get three? And you still keep the bar.”
Jodine cringes.
Steve muses it over. “What if our regulars don’t want to mix with your guests?”
“Even if that happens, which it won’t, it is a sorority party—” I enunciate the word sorority with extra tongue so he’ll create visions in his head of breast-flashing crazy coeds licking tequila salt off his bare chest “—we’ll still bring in two hundred more people than you count on. So even if all your regulars for some completely improbable reason decide to veto your bar, you’ll still make twelve hundred dollars, which is two hundred dollars more than you would make. Not including the booze. And that’s if none of your regulars come. And I think you have a bit more faith in your loyal customers than that, don’t you, Steve?”
He crosses his arms across his chest. “Maybe.”
“It’s a win-win situation. You’re going to make a killing.”
He nods. “We’re an eighties bar, eh? Only eighties music.”
“Bring on the Michael Jacksons.”
