Chapter 34 1230 PM Sasha #3
“Okay, so, bowls aren’t actually big enough for betta fish?” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“At minimum you’ll need a thirty-gallon tank.”
“Thirty gallons?”
“That’s right.”
“Those jars they’re in right now aren’t thirty gallons.”
“No, but we know that it’s temporary housing until they find their forever homes.”
In her pocket, Sasha’s phone rattled against the Volvo’s keys, and a moment later rattled again.
She retrieved it and looked at its screen, where there were two texts from Mia.
The first said, We’re here! and the second, No rush but Adam has to pee.
After she picked them all up from the train station, she would need to fill the cauldron in the foyer with dry ice, and slip a tray of cupcakes into the oven.
They—the cupcakes—were chocolate, with orange buttercream frosting that she had made this morning before cleaning up the house.
Half of them were gluten-free; all of them would be decorated with toothpicks that had on their ends tiny paper ghosts; and because they weren’t white, her own son wouldn’t touch them.
She also needed to peel the stickers off all the apples she’d bought for bobbing, and make sure the bathrooms were stocked with fresh rolls of toilet paper, and cue up a Kidz Bop Halloween Dance Party on the inside speaker system that Theo had insisted they install throughout the house.
Sasha read Mia’s texts again, then returned her phone to her pocket without responding.
Sasha was no longer breathing shallowly. Sasha was not breathing at all.
“You’ll also need these.” The man held up two bottles, one white and the other blue. “Three drops of this one, and then a capful of this one. You don’t want ionized water. Ionized water is Bad News Bears. Oh! Are you going to be using a filter? If not, you’ll need an aerator too.”
“We’re talking about a fish here.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Whatever happened to keeping goldfish in bowls?”
“This isn’t a goldfish.”
“Whatever, a betta fish.”
“Well, ma’am, let me ask you this: Would you like to live in a bowl?”
Prudence let out a single, ragged cry. Sasha felt something crack inside of her, something break in her brain.
Later she would consider that any number of things could have caused it—it could have been Mia’s text, or Theo’s refusal to go to Whole Foods, or the national attack on reproductive rights, or the traffic in northern New Jersey, or the slow decay of her own marriage, or her oppressive, asphyxiating guilt, or the fact that she hadn’t bought enough dry ice, or this, or that, or anything, or nothing.
It wasn’t, though. It was a goldfish. It was a small, simple thing that was supposed to be easy, and that instead, over the course of the last five minutes, had come to represent every hopeless problem in her life.
Prudence cried again, and Sasha’s breath returned to her, flooding her lungs in hot bursts.
She tightened her ponytail and took a step toward the man.
“My son won’t eat pasta because it’s too brown,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“He’ll only eat mac and cheese if the cheese isn’t orange, and he can tell the difference between eight different kinds of white bread that are all the exact same color.”
“I don’t follow—”
“My point is that he’s going to be able to distinguish between a goldfish and whatever the fuck it is you’re holding in your hand.”
The man looked at the betta fish, then back at Sasha. The color had drained from his face.
Sasha said, “I have eighty-five people coming to my house in ninety minutes, half of whom are under the age of twelve. Before that happens, I have to change the batteries in an animatronic witch, put on a full-body red leotard that doesn’t totally fit, fill a plastic cauldron with dry ice, bleach the toilets in all the bathrooms, make four cheese plates look presentable enough so everyone won’t talk shit about them later, verify that there are absolutely no peanuts anywhere in the house, and pick up three people from the train station.
You may be thinking to yourself: this looks like a capable woman—why did she leave all of this stuff to do to the last minute, especially if she has eighty-five people coming to her house?
The answer is because up until now I have been cutting crusts off sandwiches, and making T-shirts for a Bruce Springsteen cover band, and driving to pediatrician appointments, and dentist appointments, and parent-teacher conferences, and running an art gallery next to a gay club in Chelsea, and cleaning spilled yogurt from under the seats in my car.
I was supposed to get my first mammogram this year, but I can’t find the time, and next year’s not looking great either.
I’ve slept seven hours over the last three nights, and have been watching episodes of Bluey since five o’clock this morning, and if I don’t get my way right now, there is a strong possibility that I will get very, very violent.
So I want you to listen closely to what I’m about to tell you. Are you listening?”
The man looked to either side of him. He nodded.
“There is a goldfish somewhere in this store.” Sasha unlocked her phone and showed the man the picture she had taken of Tuna, floating belly-up in his bowl.
“One that looks like this. You are going to find it for me, and you are going to bring it to me in a small, manageable plastic bag. I will not be buying a thirty-gallon tank, or an aerator, or any special drops. I will be buying a goldfish, and that is all. And if that goldfish dies because of my own negligence, then that will be for Saint Peter and me to discuss when I reach his pearly fucking gates. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sasha leaned down and kissed Prudence’s head.
She smiled as widely as she could and said, “Good.”