Madness In Literature

Three

Mel laughed then, because it sounded completely ridiculous yet it was something she could see Em doing.

“Right, so now I know what not to do then. So are we on for Friday night?”

“Oh baby, we’re so on that no one will be able to turn out the lights around the city because we destroyed all the off-switches with our on-ness.”

Mel hung up.

***

Friday was a rough affair. Mel had only one class on Friday, which was terrible because she needed something to get her mind off the boy and the bar and the terrible nails-on-a-chalkboard band. She spent her morning after class doing leftover assignments, and by mid-afternoon she was done with most of them. Emily was coming over at six to help her get ready, because according to Emily, Mel’s idea of dressing up was to look like a ‘librarian on tea break’. Emily’s words, not hers.

Mel looked at the clock. Six o’clock was three hours away. She tried to revise last week’s lectures, but her mind had wandered too far away to ever return to a set on notes on the Principles of Communication, so she gave up and popped in a yoga dvd into her player. Mel was a yoga rookie – rookie being a generous description of her ability to contort herself into pretzels and doughnuts and other painful positions that were featured on the cover of the dvd, which had been a present from her mom. Back home in Long Island, Mel had intended to sign up for a yoga class for the longest time, but had never really gotten round to it so her mom had given her this home practice series. It took Mel about ten minutes of watching the instructor before she realised she was terrible at it. She could never get the position or the balance right, much less do it with grace. Her legs, which had always been skinny, stuck out awkwardly like a flamingo trying to do a head stand.

Still, Mel liked the idea of yoga and zen, so whenever she wanted to calm down, she would watch the yogo series and follow the really simple steps. Like the restorative position. All she had to do was to lie down on the floor. That’s it. Restorative. It had made Emily laugh, because according to Emily, the restorative position made Mel look like a really bored sex partner. (Emily wasn’t very big on zen; she believed that the universe only came about through chaotic and violent evolutions – the wiping out the weaker species, predator chomping on prey, etc.) And Mel had to admit, although it had helped during other times, yoga wasn’t much when you wanted to kill time. As she got into the restorative position, all Mel could think about was how blue his eyes were and the way he asked her out. We’re terrible…would you come see us?

By the time Emily came over (forty-five minutes late), Mel had showered, done her laundry, dusted and mopped her already clean room, and finished two episodes of Supernatural. It was amazing how efficient she could be when she didn’t put her heart into doing things. Half way through the third episode Emily had rushed in, a whirlwind of curls and floral perfume, complaining about the traffic and the terrible Mercedes driver who cut in front of her.

“Get dressed, get dressed, we’re behind schedule. I told Kenny we’d be there by seven thirty.”

“We’d be on time if someone hadn’t been late.”

Emily scowled and threw a black dress at her.

“Quiet, peasant! I’m not paying you to be a potty mouth!”

“You’re not paying me anything,” Mel replied lightly, but her voice was muffled by the dress she was slipping over her head. As soon as she put it on and looked in the mirror, she knew she couldn’t wear it.

“It’s too tight. And look at the neckline! Em, I can’t wear this!”

“Hush!” Emily threw a pair of sheer stockings at her, and pulled open her make up kit. Mel began to pull off her dress.