Ch…Ch…Ch…Changes
Amy pulled her gray Nissan Sentra into the driveway and parked behind Jeremy’s enormous gas-guzzling Buick. She turned off the car but didn't turn off the radio. She sat for a moment, listening to NPR. She looked at the house. She looked at her car. She looked at her clothes. She looked at her fingernails with the clear nail polish. She looked in the rear view mirror at her lightly applied make-up.
She didn't recognize this woman, the one she had become. When did she turn into this person? The Amy of old used to be daring – she’d gotten a tattoo after all. Admittedly, she was a weekend rebel – one didn’t get through med school without a effort, but she went to Nirvana concerts, wore high heels, a leather bomber jacket and groovy sunglasses. When did she morph into this person who lived in the burbs, drove a sensible car, had a sensible job, wore sensible clothes and sensible make-up? She even listened to NPR! And now her exciting Friday night was coming home to a dinner cooked by her best friend and after dinner she would force herself to pretzel her body through a yoga video, then curl up in bed with a book.
And now she wasn’t even going to get to do that because her boyfriend she didn’t like was coming over to see her all gussied up. Was this how women ended up getting married? They settled or were bullied into the matrimonial state? If that was her future, Amy didn’t want anything to do with it.
Amy opened the front door and was assaulted by smells coming from the kitchen. She didn't realize how hungry she was until her mouth began to water. Then so did her eyes.
Meet Isabel Craig. Amy’s other roommate. Isabel is the product of an upper middle class family. She is a middle child and used to being ignored – not in a bad way, but in the way of middle children who don’t cause trouble. Her parents have no aspirations for her other than “being happy.”
But happiness is elusive. It is especially elusive when the person seeking it isn’t particularly good at any one thing. Isabel had, by her own count, held over seventy-three jobs in the last ten years. Right now, she was training to be an Extreme Chef.
Extreme chef-ing is a relatively new occupation. It involves creating absolutely never before seen or smelled recipes. There is a lot of trial and error and guinea pigs are necessary; not the cute furry rodent kind, but the human kind. This is the reason the independently wealthy Isabel has roommates when she could afford her own apartment.
Amy entered the kitchen. Isabel looked up from the stove and smiled. Isabel even looked like an aspiring chef. She was short, round, pleasant, and bubbly. She had dark hair cut in a no nonsense bob tucked behind her ears, glasses that were always fogged up from steam off the stove, and cheeks always red from the heat of the oven. Amy even thought of Isabel's body in terms of food: Her breasts were plump dinner rolls, her butt was pork tenderloin and her stomach was pudding.
Isabel and Amy had been best friends for three years. They had met when they showed up at the same time in answer to an ad Jeremy had placed in the paper for a roommate. They had all three hit it off immediately – in a Three's Company sort of way – and Jeremy had rented out a bedroom to them both.
Over time, they had each staked out their own personal space in the large house. Isabel was in charge of the kitchen and dining room, Jeremy was in charge of entertainment and the living room and Amy was in charge of… Well, she was in charge of staying out of their way.
Amy put the paper bag down on the counter and Isabel's eyes brightened. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Pinto Gris. Two bottles."
"Two? And I think you mean Pinot Gris."
"They had a two for one sale," Amy said.
"Start pouring, girlfriend, start pouring."
Amy pulled two wine glasses out of the cupboard.
Isabel did a double take on the second glass. "Since when do you drink wine?"
"I'm going to change," Amy said.
"I hope so," Isabel said. "It's hard to eat dinner when a doctor is sitting across the table from you in blood-splattered clothes."
"No." Amy laughed as she poured. "I'm not changing clothes. I mean, I am. But I'm going to change myself. I’ve decided that I’m boring and consistent and I need to put a stop to it before it’s too late."
"Oh yeah?" Isabel raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah."
Amy handed over a glass of wine. They toasted to nothing and sipped.
Isabel went back to stirring the pot with a long-handled wooden spoon. Amy downed her entire glass, poured another and giggled.
"What’s so funny?" Isabel asked.
"You look like one of those witches. You know in that Shakespeare play. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble."
"That was Shakespeare?" Isabel asked. "I thought it was from a cartoon."
Amy laughed and poured herself more wine. Isabel put the lid back on the pot and turned to her. "Okay," she said, "what's all this about wanting to change? Are you having an early mid-life crisis?"
Any hoisted herself up onto the bar and swung her legs. "I'm too plain. I'm plain and planned and… pained." She was thinking of her heart. Her heart hurt. It wanted someone to love. It wanted to have a companion – not like an extra heart in her chest, but a heart lying next to her, one she could hear beating and know that it beat for her. She didn’t think these thoughts in words, of course, but in feelings.
"So, you want to spice it up?"
"Exactly," Amy said. She drank down half her glass of wine.
"What're you thinking about changing into?"
"I don't know yet," Amy said. "Anything, I guess. It's got to be more exciting than what I am now."
"Well, you came to the right place. I’m the queen of changing your life. Look at all the different people I’ve been.”
That was true. Just since Amy had known her, Isabel had been a stockbroker, a pizza delivery girl, a locksmith apprentice, a member of the Geek Squad (even though she didn’t know squat about computers), and had even gone to clown school. She had botched the balloon-animals class and dropped out.
Isabel stirred, thinking hard. “You could be a gypsy.”
"Gypsy? Where'd that come from?"
Isabel shrugged. "I just think you'd look good in flowing scarves and bangles."
"I'm not talking about dressing up for Halloween. I'm talking about my life." She drank the rest of her wine and poured another.
"You better go easy on that," Isabel said. "I don't think making important life decisions while you're drunk is a good idea."
"Au contraire, ma frère," Amy said with a giggle. "It might give me the boost I need to take action."
Isabel took the lid off the boiling pot, dipped up a spoon of the brownish pulp and held it out to Amy to taste. "Tell me what you think."
Amy blew on the spoon and tasted. It took everything she had not to spit it back out.
Isabel asked, "So? More salt? More cumin?"
"You know what it needs?"
"What?"
Amy dumped her glass of wine in the pot. "More wine."
"You ruined it!" Isabel said, madly stirring the pot like that was going to somehow help. "I can't believe you did that! My God, it's all ruined." She whined and whimpered and cursed and stirred.
"Isabel?" Amy whispered.
Isabel looked at her.
"It was really kind of bad."
"It was?"
Amy nodded.
"Real bad?" Isabel asked.
Amy nodded again. "Foul, in fact."
Isabel looked back at the pot. She turned off the burner and said mournfully, "I wanted to come up with a new recipe, something with zing and pep that would make a good gravy for those tiny Italian noodles."