I watched him anxiously, rubbing the edges of my fingernails. He eventually lifted his head and a small, tired smile tugged at his lips and the corners of his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be,” I told him, trying to sound cool, like I was an impartial friend and not at all invested in the decline of his relationship. “Couples fight all the time.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. Then sighed, sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin, his eyes unfocused.
“Am I making things worse?” I asked.
“Worse? No, kiddo. Things aren’t worse. This is just the way it is sometimes.”
What I think he meant to say was that “this is just the way it is all the time” but he was trying to save face. I didn’t know why. Why did he bother with her? Why did he bother moving with her? Why did he bother getting a dog with her? I didn’t understand any of it. Did he love her? Was that it? Did he actually truly love her and was too afraid to let go?
I could have gone on with these questions, as I often did, but I stopped myself and forced myself to think about something else. This was the only way I was going to get over him. Get over him as he sat across from me. I turned my attention to the other people in the restaurant, trying to focus on something, anything else. I picked up on a group of girls my age who were giggling with each other over a Smartphone they were passing around the table. I envied them. It was working.
Jenn came back to table after her phone call was over. She stopped in front of us, leaned over to Dex, moved his face over to hers and kissed him passionately on the lips. There were tongue and slobbering sounds involved. My eyes widened, watching them, unable to look away.
When she pulled back, he looked dumbstruck, while she gave me a quick, sly wink. It either said, men are simple or it said, oh no you don’t. I’d put bets on the latter.
“Excuse me,” I blurted out, quickly getting out of my chair, which rattled loudly against the tiled floor, and hurried my way over to the restaurant’s bathroom before I burst into tears.
I entered the washroom, which was thankfully empty, and ran the tap, splashing an endless amount of cold water on my face. I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t cry. I was going to get out of the damn city without a single tear leaving my face.
When I calmed down a bit, I gently patted my face with a paper towel and leaned against the mirror. I needed to get a hold of myself. I was tired of being fine and tough one minute and then losing it the next. What the hell was wrong with me? Jenn, Dex, they both had way too much power over me and my emotions. This had to stop. Now.
I breathed in a few times through my nose until I felt under control and then went into the stall to pee. I thought about this Bradley fellow. Maybe I’d ask Rebecca tomorrow about setting me up with him. Maybe he was just the distraction I needed from this whole Dex and Jenn business. Plus, the fact that both of them seemed totally against it, was finally sounding intriguing.
As I pondered this exciting diversion, I heard the door to the washroom open and a woman enter, her heels slowly making their way down toward the mirrors. She absolutely reeked of gin, the tangy scent of juniper flooding the bathroom. That, coupled with the slight unevenness of her gait, made me think that this girl was pissed off her gourd.
I slowly reached over for the toilet paper, not wanting to make too much noise in case she thought she was alone.
But the person giggled.
I paused, listening. There it was again. A high, strange, sloppy giggle. She had to be wasted.
The giggles continued until it was full-out laughter, her loud, braying laugh echoing in the room.
I quickly finished my business and was about to get up off the toilet seat when the laughter died down and the girl spoke.
“He said he loved me,” the mystery drunk said in a mild Minnesotan accent. It reminded me of Frances McDormand’s character in Fargo. Who was she talking to? Was she on the phone?
I got up, pulling on my jeans and tried to peer through the crack in the stall door. I couldn’t see anyone. The sink in front of my closed door looked empty.
“He said he loved me. I love you. And the next time he saw me, he told me, ‘I’ll kill you.’” She laughed in surprise. “He said he’d kill me. Can you believe that?”
I waited for someone to respond, straining my ears to hear the crackle of a voice on the other end of a line.
“Can you believe that?” she repeated, this time her voice lower, edgier. Perhaps she was talking on a Bluetooth. I had no idea. It didn’t matter.
I turned, about to flush the toilet.
“Perry, can you believe that?”
My eyes flew to the door. Did she just say my name? I swallowed my breath and kept still, arm frozen in mid-reach. Was she…talking to me?
I didn’t know what to say. Who was this person? What did she want?
I heard the shoes move, closer to me now, and I had a terrible flashback to the time I was in the Seattle airport washroom and Creepy Clown Lady appeared. But this wasn’t her. Not this time.
“Perry…” The voice now buzzed, like it vibrated on the wings of a bee. It filled my head and tickled the insides of my cheeks.
A slow tide of blood appeared at the bottom of the stall door and crept forward toward my feet, a sticky crimson blanket spreading out on top of the black marble.
I gasped, shocked, aghast, unable to process this. Was this actually happening?
It kept coming, a never-ending flow of shiny blood and it wasn’t until I saw several wasps, living, breathing wasps, riding the swells toward me like yellow, wriggling surfers, that I finally moved.
I grabbed the door and tried to unlock it. It was stuck. The latch wouldn’t turn. The blood kept flowing and the door wouldn’t open. I was stuck in the f**king bathroom stall.
Hopelessly, I rattled it back and forth for a few seconds; then, just before the blood kissed the tips of my Docs, I stepped up onto the toilet seat.
I balanced precariously on the porcelain edge, crouched down briefly and leaped up for the side of the stall. My arms caught the metal edge and I hoisted myself up, kicking at the steel sides for support and momentum, the clanging noise banging out across the room. I pulled myself over to the other side, the edge digging into my ribs, dangling like Agent Starling scaling a wall, and then quickly dropped down onto the toilet in the next stall.
One foot caught the seat while the other went straight in the toilet with a cold splash.