Not the first straw, but the last (13-15)

The first straw was probably when I noticed how she would yawn when looking at herself in the mirror. If she were putting makeup on or just gazing at herself, suddenly she’d launch this modest, puckered yawn, always the same, and somewhat disturbing, as if she were trying to freeze a portrait of herself in a certain pose.

Then there was the time she made out with my boyfriend while I was on vacation. She confessed to me later, saying it was because I was so pretty and she was so jealous of me and I knew this was bullshit but I took my mother’s advice and put the friend over the boyfriend. She was a voluptuous girl, really.

For example, once she asked me: If a man broke into your house and you were naked but had a small towel, would you cover up up top or down below? Without hesitating I answered down below. But she looked at me meaningfully, and said very slowly, I would cover up up top. As if she were a sage, or had just thought a lot –for better or worse- about what drives men wild.

Whenever we would play at being our favorite band, she was always the female singer, and I sat behind her at the imaginary keyboard. She was pushy, but also outgoing and daring, and I liked that about her.

But the last straw was this. One day we were on the phone, and it hit me that she was speaking with some kind of weird Jersey or even Brooklyn accent, her vowels gone all raunchy. I wasn’t sure if it had been a gradual acquisition, or she had just woken up one day and decided it was fetching.

In any case, it was clear to me we’d arrived at the fork in the road.