Fishbowl. Sarah Mlynowski

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СКАЧАТЬ AJ ever ask you for a thank-you? For letting you live here for the past two years? No. For getting you a job at Stiletto? For finding you an apartment? No. For lending you her basement furniture for your apartment? No. All she asks is that you treat her decently. And can you even do that? No.”

      First of all, why was she “letting” me live here? Isn’t part of a father’s responsibility to take care of his kid? I wanted to do the two-year design program at the Toronto School of Art. I would have been happy to live on my own and let them foot the bill, but my father thought all of us living together would be a good opportunity for us to get to know one another. Apparently AJ has now changed her mind.

      Second, she didn’t get me the job at Stiletto to help me. She used employment as an excuse for exiling me from her Rosedale palace. Is it my fault that she happens to know someone in the industry of my dreams? What does she expect from me? It’s not even a high-paying job. If my salary were a shirt, it would barely be enough material to cover my nipples.

      “Thank you, Daddy,” I say in a Popsicle-sweet voice. “I truly appreciate everything AJ has done to make my life more successful. If she hadn’t fucked you while you were married to my mother, I might not have ended up right here at this kitchen table, drinking juice.”

      So I’m a big baby. Shoot me.

      My father gets up and leaves the kitchen. He’s always taking off. Maybe he was an airplane in his last life.

      The moonlight spills into the kitchen and my body glitter dances.

      Maybe I’ll play dress-up with Barbie.

      Maybe I’ll take her shopping tomorrow.

      Things could be worse. Daddy dear hasn’t taken back his credit card.

      Another breakup equals another shopping spree.

      4

      ALLIE GETS EXCITED

      ALLIE

      One hour till Clint comes. Well, not comes exactly, but comes over. Maybe comes.

      So that’s it, then. I’ll organize for potential coming. I’ll take the vodka out of the cupboard and put it into the freezer. Hea-vy. Why did I buy the supersize bottle? Was I planning on bathing in it? How much vodka can two people drink?

      Ditto for the cranberry juice. Supersize? Puh-lease. But it will make a perfect vodka diluter later and a fab dry-mouth remedy immediately. Mmm, good. Back into the fridge. Whoops…cranberry juice leakage. Why can’t I ever remember to screw the top back on properly?

      Will cranberry juice make me have to pee? It’s supposed to cure bladder infections, but I don’t want to be running to the bathroom every five seconds, do I? Talk about ruining the mood. Although I read you have a better orgasm when you have to pee. I think that’s just for women. I don’t think guys can have to pee and be hard at the same time. I also read that if you’re about to have a G-spot orgasm you feel like you have to pee.

      I’ve never had a G-spot orgasm. I’ve never had an orgasm during sex. I’ve never had sex.

      I’m a twenty-two-year-old virgin.

      Is that crazy? It’s not like I have a third eye or a missing front tooth or anything. There are other virgins. Thousands of them, probably. It’s just that the others are either waiting for marriage, religious or ugly.

      Or thirteen years old.

      I’m pathetic.

      But I’m waiting to meet a man I’m utterly in love with! Or a little in love with. Or, at least, a man I like.

      Or, at least, a man who likes me.

      Okay, fine. I’m waiting for a man, any man, as long as I like him and want to sleep with him, and as long as he likes me and wants to sleep with me. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, is it?

      Open mouth. Insert nail of left ring finger. Mmm.

      I almost did it in high school. With Gordon. God knows he wanted to. He asked me pretty much every day: “When are you going to be ready? Are you ready yet? How come everyone else is doing it? How come everyone else is ready?” I wanted to, but for some mind-numbing, inexplicable reason, I felt it was my duty to say no. We’re too young. We’re not ready. Why is that exactly? Someone remind me, please. Teenage girls want to do it as much as guys do. We daydream about doing it, we imagine ourselves doing it, but we believe it is our duty not to do it. Except for the girls who actually do it. They’re the ones we call sluts when their backs are turned. They’re the ones we pretended to be when our eyes were closed.

      Is it possible I waited too long and now it won’t even work? Does that happen? Can a hymen ferment?

      Gordon dumped me and slept with Stephanie Miller. “Thank God I didn’t sleep with him,” I said, crying into the purple bedspread of my then best friend, Jennifer (while wishing I had slept with him and that he still loved me).

      You’d think I would have done it at least once over the next four years, but I haven’t had a boyfriend since Gordon. I’ve dated, of course, and I’ve fooled around a lot (everything but), but I feel gross about losing my virginity on a one-night stand. I don’t have to marry the guy, but I should be dating him for at least three months. Is an entire season too prudish? Maybe six weeks. Reality TV shows take place in under six weeks and look how complex those relationships become.

      Okay, how about four weeks? I can accept that. I don’t think it’s crazy to plan on being with someone for four measly weeks. A lot can happen in four weeks. For example, you get your period at least once. Most people, anyway. For some inexplicable reason, I’m on the “Surprise! It’ll come whenever you’re wearing white pants!” cycle, which is sometimes every four months, sometimes every two weeks. But at least it comes. (Not that I’ve ever had to agonize about it not coming. Nope, I’ve never been in that particular predicament.) By the time I got it for the first time, I was already geriatric enough for my parents, my brother, my friends, my teachers and even the grocery deliveryman to be repeatedly harassing me with “So? Are you a woman yet? What’s taking so long?” type comments.

      Apparently I’m a late bloomer.

      In college, I would have slept with Ronald. Yes, I admit it. I dated a guy named Ronald, although I always tried to call him Ron. (“I prefer Ronald, thanks.” Why, why, why? Why would anyone except for the nerd-turned-cool-guy in Can’t Buy Me Love prefer Ronald?) We dated for two weeks in junior year, and one night, when we were fooling around, I told him “the truth.” Big mistake. Huge. (That’s a line from Pretty Woman—you know, when she walks into the snobby store that wouldn’t let her shop there before, to show them how much she spent in the other store? I love that movie. I’ve seen it forty-six times. Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting that, either.)

      Somehow I had always been under the impression that when I finally did offer my virginity to a guy (Would you like some tea with this virginity, sir? Or would you prefer it to go?), it would be something he’d want. Apparently this is not the case. It FREAKS guys out. His you-know-what turned as soft as a decaying banana. And then Ronald left, saying he had an eight o’clock class in the morning. (Funny, his eight o’clock class was the last thing on his mind five minutes ago, when his banana wasn’t overripe.) He ignored me for the next week in the cafeteria, and when I saw him at a dorm party that weekend, he drunkenly admitted that he felt there would СКАЧАТЬ