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fish.” I feel like I’m talking to someone else. Fish?
    “Why?”
    She’s staring at me. Metamorphic rocks, did she say?
     
    “Well, don’t you want to know what kind of fish?”
    “Sure.” It’s like somebody else has come along and usurped my friend’s body. I struggle to keep my voice regular. “What kind?”
    “Goldfish!”
    “Uh huh. . . . Why’s that?”
    “Is this the game? Because they’re not going to end up dead on some hook. Virginia, did you ever see a goldfish that wasn’t in a bowl? They’re completely safe.”
     
    I don’t think it’s the ideal moment to mention that goldfish are actually carp. Carp are freshwater fish that do not always end up trapped in aquariums. I just say, “I guess so.”
    “And they’re so pretty.”
    “Same color as your hair.”
    “Nice attitude, V. I thought this was a game.”
    “That was a compliment.” It’s like there are now two people inside her—the one I know, and this twisted, sarcastic one who is possessing her. I can’t stand it anymore. “It’s like there’s something eating at your brain, Eileen. What is it?”
    “Nothing, just nothing, all right? Is that the end of the game? So let’s get out of here.”
     
    I follow. “No.” And no, it’s not all right. “What’s your favorite color?”
    “You don’t know?” She sighs. “Oh, I don’t know, there’s too many.” Eileen walks faster. I guess we’re race-walking now.
    “Body of water?” Something has to give. I know what will happen—finally she’ll explode and tell me everything.
    “What?”
    “Your favorite.” Your problem, I think.

    “Oh . . . a stream, I guess. Why? Because it’s gentle, doesn’t go very far. Anything else?”
    I laugh before I can stop. She can’t imagine what she’s admitting, because she doesn’t know what the questions mean.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “You have to wait. Last one: You’re in a white room with a curved ceiling. No windows. No doors. How do you feel?”
    “How do I feel? Like I’m suffocating, the same experience I’m having with these questions. Anyone ever tell you you’re a real pain? ”
     
    I blink. A Baby Teeth remark enters my mind: Let the wind in. Even though we’re outside, surrounded only by space, the air seems to have vanished. I mean the air inside too. Eileen might as well have socked me, the way my stomach feels, clobbered and hollow. That was so unbelievably mean, and why? I can only look at Eileen. The back of her, anyway, since she’s already several steps ahead.
     
    Instead of turning around to look at me, Eileen eyes her watch. “I really have to go, right now.” She walks faster.
    My feet feel numb, like they’re asleep—I can’t go that fast. “Wait.” What’s going on? She’s possessed.
    “So hurry up, I gotta get home. Nothing!”
    “You don’t eat dinner this early. It can’t even be six o’clock.” I try to catch up, but then I realize I don’t want to.
    “If you must know, I’m expecting a phone call, and would you please stop asking so many questions?”
    A phone call? Something’s wrong, but she’s not telling me what. This is not like Eileen—she tells me everything. The fact that she’s not is burning the edges of my eyes. What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with her? “From who?” I finally ask.
     
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    But she doesn’t answer. I want to forget everything else and tell her what the game really means, that the first answer is supposedly who she really is, and the second, what somebody shows to the world instead. The third one is how somebody feels about sex, and the last, about death. Look at all the stuff you’re missing about yourself, I want to yell. Don’t you want to know?
     
    But when I open my mouth, no sound follows. Like yesterday when we stood outside the vet’s. My new mode of expression. I shut my mouth. Out of the silence looms an unusual thought. It blurs the street below my feet. As I walk behind her, she begins to