But I learned, and I will live.
“Do you stil want to come out tomorrow tonight?” Ash asked, his eyes staying on me and not on the customer who just walked in the shop. He had very nice, bright hazel eyes. They didn’t appeal to me in a romantic way but they reminded me of a brother I never had.
“Definitely,” I told him. I pointed to the washrooms. “I’m fine. I think I just need to splash cold water on my face.”
He nodded and took care of the customer as I escaped to the safety of the washroom. I was lucky to have someone like Ash. I was only working part-time, but I desperately wanted to move onto ful -time and then hopeful y shift supervisor. As you can imagine, I made minimum wage and if I were to ever get out of my parents’ house, I needed a lot more dough. Feeling sick and occasional y trying to fight back tears when Bil y Joel comes on the stereo doesn’t make me look like the best employee, someone Shay would want to eventually promote, but Ash has been the only one who has caught on that not all is right with me and he’s been doing a pretty good job of covering up.
Of course, everyone else knows I’m not entirely normal – hence my nickname “Scary Perry.” They all know about the Experiment in Terror show (as does the occasional customer who comes in) and they love to tease me about it.
Shay believes in ghosts, so at least my manager doesn’t think I’m crazy, but I can tel the others don’t know what to do with me sometimes. Stil , they invite me out to the bars after work and to local band showcases (which is where I was planning to go with Ash tomorrow night), so I’m slowly feeling like a regular girl.
Very slowly.
I locked the bathroom door behind me and scrunched up my nose at the smel . I knew it was up to me to clean the bathrooms most of the time, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get rid of this foul, rank odor that emanated from the wal s. It wasn’t that it smel ed like piss and shit or anything like a normal washroom. Rather, it smel ed like something was rotting away. Sharp and acrid, almost tangy in a revolting way, like spoiled meat.
I stopped breathing through my nose and ran the tap until it was cold enough and began dabbing a wad of paper towels on my forehead, cheeks and eyelids, careful not to smudge my makeup. I was wearing a lot of it these days, feeling uglier than normal thanks to the purple rings under my eyes and a strangely grey complexion. Though. I wondered how much of it was actual y a manifestation of how I felt. Did I look like crap because I felt like crap, or did I feel like crap because I looked like crap? Ah, the mysteries of life.
I took in a deep breath through my mouth, the smel penetrating slightly, and I tossed the paper towels into the wastebasket behind me. I leaned forward and looked closer at myself in the mirror. I felt like I had changed so much in the past few months, Iike I’d gotten older or something. I had faint crow’s lines now. Wrinkles at the corner of my eyes! I was only 23 - what the hel !
A breeze blew at me from the side, tickling my bare arms and flipping up the bottom of my apron. I looked behind me at the closed door, not sure where the wind was coming from. It was chil y and moving fast enough to make the paper towels wave back and forth from the dispenser.
I frowned, confused. But we were in a drafty old building in downtown Portland. Too bad the breeze wasn’t clearing the terrible smel away.
I looked back at myself in the mirror, strands of my hair flying in my face. I pushed them behind my ears, just in time to hear a small poof from behind me.
I spun around.
The garbage can was on fire.
Yel ow flames were rising out of the mound of crumpled paper towels, moving in the wind, reaching for the ceiling with mesmerizing fingers.
I was stunned but not for long.
Fire!
I let out a small , awkward cry and looked around me for the closest thing to put it out. There was nothing, just me, the paper towels, the sink and the toilet.
I didn’t want to run out of the washroom and cause an alarm, though. The last thing I needed was a coffee shop ful of panicked people.
Think, Perry, think.
I had an idea.
I turned on the tap, took off my right shoe and fil ed it with water.
It wasn’t my first choice, but in the name of saving face, it was my only choice.
It only took two refil s before the fire was out and the garbage can was reduced to a wet, smoldering pile. I peered down at it, afraid to touch the mess, wondering how the hel the fire got started in the first place. It’s not like I threw a cigarette into the bin. It had been a paper towel, and a wet one at that.
It was beyond weird but I couldn’t devote too much time to worrying about it. There was a knock at the door and I was holding a toilet-water soaked shoe in my hand. I had bigger issues here.
“Just a minute,” I cal ed out, trying to sound calm, like everything was fine in bathroom land, and stuck my shoe under the dryer while I soaked up the inside with more paper towels. When it wasn’t as sopping wet, I put the shoe back on my foot, wincing at the cold, squishy dampness.
Ugh.
I took a step, the water seeping into my sock. Double ugh.
I unlocked and opened the door to see a patron looking at me strangely. She eyed the bathroom suspiciously before stepping inside. I must have been making some pretty odd noises in there. Also, there was a trail of water dripping behind me.
I walked careful y back to the counter, trying to lessen the squish, squish, squish of my footsteps. I smiled broadly at Ash and took my place beside him, ready to man the machines.
“Perry, what, uh…”
“Don’t ask,” I told him, and turned to face the rest of my shift.
The next morning was grey, dreary and mild, as per usual for the Pacific Northwest. I didn’t have to work, so I laced up my running shoes and hit the trails down by the Columbia River. Aside from the first few weeks of December, when I gorged myself on Christmas cookies and eggnog in order to restore some feeling of happiness in my body, I’d actual y been pretty active and working out almost every day.
Stil , the weight that I had shed from my bootcamp sessions in November came back on. It was only about five pounds or so, but on a short body like mine, I could tel the difference. My ex-trainer and one-date wonder, Brock the jock, cal ed me a few times wanting to go out again, but aside from my heart and mind being too fragile, I felt like I would have just disappointed him if he saw me. It’s such a girl thing to do, to not be interested in a guy but stil want them to be interested, but it’s the truth.