Stressed Spelled Backwards

Chapter 2

My parents called at six-thirty in the morning. I slept talking through the whole conversation. I yawned out that everything was perfectly fine. We got the nicest and safest place to stay. The last part was still in question, but I wouldn't tell them that.

Then it was Elise and Karmen's parents calling. They weren't too happy to be woken up at this hour either, and after the reporting time was all over, we agreed that it was wise to go back to sleep.

When we woke up again, it was one-thirty in the afternoon.

Karmen let out a huge yawn as she stretched.

"I dreamed about my mom calling me this morning," she said.

"Everyone's mother called, Karmen," I said. "In real life."

"Oh." she shrugged. "Can't remember what I said. I hope I didn't tell her I took her new handbag with me."

Elise blindly felt her way to the bathroom. After a moment later, we heard a piercing scream. Karmen and I ran into the bathroom. Elise was in her towel and a plastic cap, still wet.

"What's wrong?" Karmen said.

Elise just pulled open the shower curtain. There was water surging out from the pipe. It spilled over the edges of the bathtub, spreading everywhere.

"The damn showerhead broke," Elise said, looking pissed. "It hit me right in the forehead."

We called the landlady to inform her about the shower incident. The woman told us that the plumber would come in half an hour later. We couldn't even wash our face since they turned off the water.

"Great," Elise said, dabbing her face with the bottled water from the fridge. "I'm not going out looking like this."

I followed her example and brushed my teeth.

Karmen was staring at her laptop on the couch. Suddenly, she sprang to her feet with a shocked face.

"Oh my god!" she cried. "My account has been hacked!"

We gathered around her and gawked. It was her bank statement.

"Wait," Elise said. "Those are all your purchases."

As usual, she was right on the target. Between designer's clothes and haircuts and a number of expensive cosmetic products, she had blown about $690.99 in total. I ran off to check mine and felt like I just received a virtual slap in the face.

"We spent that much? How?" I said in disbelief. And that was only on the first day. So much for not squandering our life-savings.

"Well, let's just start spending wisely then," Karmen said.

The plumber showed up in the middle of it. We decided to brush it aside. None of us looked the least presentable. Even so, after he was done, the plumber didn't charge us a cent, saying it was a pleasure the help.

"Oh thank you, you are so kind," Karmen said with a sugary charm in her voice that made Elise silently gagged. The man smiled at us with a salute before leaving through the door.

We took turns taking a shower then went down to the deli for brunch. It was packed. The people there stared at us.

"Just smile and wave, girls, smile and wave," Karmen instructed us.

"What are we? The penguins of Madagascar?" Elise scoffed.

"Hey, why can't you think of something nicer like Miss. Universes or something?" Karmen gave her a look.

I couldn't help giggling at these two. At last, we found a table by the window and settled down.

A waitress appeared. We had to look all the way up to see her face at the top. She stood like a mountain wearing an apron with a notepad. Her frizzy red hair escaped her white cape, which made her look more like a nurse in the nuthouse than a waitress. She was waiting for our order with a bored look. We tried to act normal.

Elise was scanning through the menu while Karmen and I still couldn't shake the fact that we were both now $1,000 poorer.

"When are you going to order, Miss. Dollface?" The waitress said. "I have other customers to serve."

"Hey, that's not nice, Ms...." Karmen said and paused to look at her name tag. "....that's not nice, Ms. McHuge."

"It's McHugh!" the big woman corrected. "Do you even speak English? Are you ordering or not?"

"Yes yes, we are!" I said, giving desperate signals to my best friends to just shut up.

"You don't have vegetarian foods here," Elise complained. "No low-carbs, no non-cholesterol. Everything is so fattening."

The waitress narrowed her eyes at us. I felt the color drained from my face.

"Look, honey, you're not in a five-star restaurant," Ms. McHugh said.

"Elise, just order something or we'll start having bad luck," I hissed under my breath.

No sooner had the words left my mouth than the deli's kitchen door flew open, and out stormed Celia, our landlady hidden behind a greasy white apron.

Celia shook a spatula at us.

"Are you crazy? What crazy world without carbs and crispy bacon?"

"Well, Ms. Celia," I said. "We just want to watch our diet. Our profession requires us to be fit and healthy."

"What are you, movie stars or Russian spies?" Celia squinted her eyes at us in suspicion.

"No, but you might see us on a magazine cover one day," Karmen told her proudly. "We're here to be models."

"Ha!" Celia said. Her generous breasts bobbed and the apron jiggled. "You all might as well be walking twigs to me. Just order the food already."

Well, we might be stick-thin in her opinion, obviously. If only she knew Karmen and I actually ate like a horse, except Elise. She was the pickiest eater.

"And oh," Celia said. "You have to pay me for the broken shower. It cost $50."

"What?" I said. "But the plumber told us it was free of charge."

"For the service, mind you," Celia said. "I don't know what witchcraft you did to that man, but he changed the showerhead with six different spray modes for you so that you can shower your shapely limbs like some naiads, and that's not free."

"But it wasn't our fault!" Karmen said. "It broke by itself."

"I don't know whose fault it was, but it wasn't mine," the landlady said then whizzed back into the kitchen.

We grumbled about it among ourselves for a while as we had our American breakfast for three, which cost us $9.50 each. It was just plain bagels with avocados, chips, cheese omelet and orange juice. Karmen were checking out the place as she ate. Elise nibbled on her toast with jam and a hard-boiled egg with jasmine tea like an English lady.

"We're going to find an agency today, ladies," Karmen said. "We can't let this ruin our day."

We all agreed to that. So after breakfast, we went back to our apartment. Karmen flopped down on the couch and began searching for some famous fashion agency using the only detective tool she'd got: the Internet.

I was working out how to save up. Scratching all the impulsive expenses, like the designer's clothes and the hair and taking away all the stuff we did just because it was our first day, the things we got bewitched to buy, but not again, and voila! We could survive longer in New York City if we ate at McDonald and go to everything that was either cheap or free.

Let's hope we could land a job contract soon.

"Done it!" Karmen exclaimed. "I've already sent out our portfolios. I bet once they see it, they will contact us in no time."

"Since when do we have portfolios, Karmen?" I asked, surprised. I didn't remember creating one.

"I just sent the links to our i********: profiles," Karmen said.

"What? Are you sure it's that easy?" I asked.

"What's to worry about?" she said. "Everyone wants a Russian model these days."

"Yes, just trust the universe," Elise said. She was meant to be sarcastic, but Karmen didn't find it that way. She only nodded.

"Right," Karmen said. "Now, we can continue our tour as swinging city gals! Let's celebrate!"

Before we knew it, an Uber was called, and we went through the traffic of Manhattan. Each of us all dressed up as we were told to.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"We're going to drown ourselves in loud music," Karmen said. "We're going to bath ourselves in colored lights and hot babes."

Elise laughed in her face. "Hot babes? What do you know about women?"

"Shut up, Elise," snapped Karman and turned to me. "I'm feeling good tonight. Let's get some action, Azra. Don't you think it's time to look for a new girlfriend? How long has it been since you broke up with old what's-her-face?"

My cheeks reddened. Olesya was my high school sweetheart. She dumped me for a guy who she claimed was easier to be with than a girl. Since then I'd sworn off closeted straight girls. And for four years in college, I still hadn't bumped into a girl with our books falling to the ground then looking into each other's eyes as we picked them up. Even Elise had a few girlfriends she liked but didn't love.

"What about you?" I countered. "What was the logic behind you ditching Veronika last month?"

Veronika was everyone's dream girl. She was pretty and smart and had trouble deciding whether to be a high-fashion model or a nuclear physicist. Veronika chose the latter.

Karmen just smiled. "There was no reason. I ended it so that everyone else would think I had high standards. I meant, even Veronika got dumped by me. Surely other girls would want to be with me. Girls want what everyone else wants."

"Actually, I think you lowered your standards by losing her," Elise said.

"No one asked for your opinion." Then Karmen turned to me again. "What's the key to hooking up with a chick, Azra?"

"Er..." I wasn't prepared for the quiz. "I guess if she thinks you're nice..."

"Wrong, wrong, wrong," interrupted Karmen with a disappointed look. "Gay girls, straight girls, they all want bad girls."

Elise and I looked at each other in confusion.

The car stopped in front of the giant neon sign that blazed: Bunny Moon Club.

"The first impression is the most important thing," whispered Karmen as we paid our admission. "So watch what you do, how you walk, what you say. Take medium-sized steps, and try not to smile so much."

I took a mental note. Bunny Moon Club was an oasis for dancing-crazed lesbians. The dancing hadn't started yet. They were still serving dinner. We got a booth and ordered three burgers. Elise and I wanted pizza, but Karmen insisted that it would do too much damage to our breath.

"As soon as a girl steps into a place like this," she told us as we sipped our martinis, "she divides all the other girls into groups. You haven't even said 'Hi' to her yet, and it could be all over if she already sorted you out into the wrong category."

Elis signaled for the waitress. "Excuse me, do you know if these napkins are made of recycled papers?"

Karmen gave her a disgusted look then turned to me and said, "Azra, that's what I'm talking about. And if you look up the bimbo in the dictionary, there's probably an illustration of Eliska Novikova there."

As we were eating, the place was steadily filling up. By the time the music started, it was wall-to-wall people. The beat was bone-jarring, and the colored lights and lasers electrified the dance floor. We stood there for a long time, soaking up the atmosphere. There were older women in their thirties and late twenties winking at us and giggling to each other. But Karmen told us to keep our high standards.

After a while, we decided to mingle with the other dancing girls. While Karmen and I tried to dance, Elise looked at every girl in the place, and I mean every girl. It was like she was shopping for a house. She would walk ten steps and stopped, looked then walked ten steps and looked again. She did that for half an hour before she came to us and said she was bored and wanted to go back to our table and read a book.

I hadn't found anyone eye-catchy enough to dance with yet. Besides Karmen said, "The big fish will come to us by themselves."

Who was I to argue with the girl who dumped Veronika Mirsky? We headed to the counter and asked the bartender for our drinks. Karmen ordered the most expensive drink in the place.

"I guess it's not our night," I began. "We should leave."

"Are you crazy?" Karmen gasped.

"Well, we don't have all night scouting for every human female in the building."

"We've just started," she said with a grin into a distance. "Now watch and learn."

She got her drink and put two straws into the glass and walked off to share with...who?

But I had to give her some credit because, after a few minutes, a very attractive girl showed up just in time to face her. I swear the girl looked like an Elven Princess or something. Karmen didn't even say a word. She just pushed a straw in her direction and grinned an invitation.

I watched the whole scene played out. Two thirsty girls and a glass of expensive drink. The girl smiled brightly back and lunged at her straw, and Karmen also lunged at hers. It would have been sweet and charming if their foreheads did meet- way too hard.

Karmen staggered back after the headbutt, but the girl crumpled to the floor, unconscious. The fancy drink slipped out of my best friend's hand and plopped down right on the girl's blonde head.

There was a lot of screaming and scrambling, and suddenly, Karmen was at my side again with a panicky look.

"Okay, we'd better get out of here," she said. "I think I just killed that girl."