Crawl(6)

“So sorry, child.” It was as he said this that she realized he was dressed like a priest. No… Not a priest, exactly. His slacks and shirt were a deep crimson, but the requisite white clerical collar was unmistakable.

She scanned his face; his coal-colored eyes couldn’t actually be black… could they? No. Just a deep (hell-deep?) brown. Had to be. His silver hair came to a widow’s peak that could surely have pierced stone. Ruby cheeks offset a bloodless face, making him look like a corpse all made up and ready for his wake. His thin, purple lips arched perpetually downward, and, when he smiled at her, stretched into a flat line you could balance a level on.

“Jesus saves…” she heard herself mutter.

He smiled, “…and I do not.”

She pointed down the short hallway. “I’m… I have to piss.” As unladylike as her statement was, it burst from her nonetheless.

“Do wash your hands afterward, young lady. Cleanliness is next to godliness. I suggest running the water before using the commode, though, as the water takes a while to warm up. Have a good night.”

A silly need to ask him what his ominous “I do not” meant caught in her throat and she coughed.

Forget that shit, she thought as she retreated down the cramped hallway to the ladies’ room.

She rushed into the first of two stalls, shoved the door in, spun, and slammed it closed. She yanked the chrome lever into the clasp and backed up until the back of her jean-clad legs bumped into the lip of the toilet. Her heart, a wild animal in her chest, scrabbled at her ribs. It was hard to breathe. A cloying antiseptic odor hung in the air. She filled her lungs to the point of bursting with that smell. She tasted cigarettes, and was not surprised to see a fine, gray haze clinging to the ceiling above the cubicles.

In the stall beside her, someone coughed.

A raspy female voice, sounding an awful lot like Kathleen Turner with throat cancer, said, “I’ll be done in a minute.”

“No rush,” Juliet managed.

She undid her button-down fly and sat on the cold porcelain. She made water like a busted fire hydrant.

“They don’t let us have a smoke break,” Deathbed Kathleen Turner said.

This isn’t happening, Juliet thought. I am not having a conversation with some unseen soul while I’m emptying my bladder.

Obviously DKT hadn’t gotten that memo, for she continued with, “Takin’ a crap’s the only time I get to have a butt.”

“That’s… unfortunate,” said Juliet, and instantly regretted it.

“Don’t worry, though. I wash up real good ’fore goin’ back to work. Say, where you headin’? No one comes in here—” DKT paused and made a sucking sound Juliet assumed was her taking another puff off her cancer stick, “—at this time ah night unless they’s travelin’.”

Do not answer. Ignore her.

Juliet heeded her inner voice’s advice. Instead of playing twenty questions with DKT, Juliet wiped, flushed, and stood up.

“You okay in there?”

Quietly, Juliet undid the chrome latch.

“Eh, didja have a stroke or somethin’?”

As she pulled the door inward, the hinge squeaked. She cussed it, her lips moving but not adding sound to the expletive.

“Fine, then. I’s just makin’ conversation. Sheesh…”

A half-smoked cigarette cartwheeled over DKT’s stall door and landed in the sink. Juliet wanted to wash her hands, badly—

(Cleanliness is next to godliness)

—but she didn’t want to spend another minute in this carnival sideshow, with attractions like red priests and Kathleen Turner impersonators.

When she stepped back into the hall, she caught a glimpse of Colton as he disappeared into the men’s room. She quick-stepped in that direction, hugging the wall, and backed into the restroom after him.

When she faced him, Colton already had his fly down and his pelvis thrust into the urinal.

He craned his neck to look at her. “Whoa, what’s wrong with you?”

“Weird, weird, weirdy-type people.” Her heart continued to race. She couldn’t remember if it had calmed in between the red priest and Deathbed Kathleen Turner, but she didn’t think so.

Now, standing in the men’s room of a Waffle House and watching her hubby piss into a wall, she began to laugh. Whether her sudden joviality was a nervous outburst, the realization that a chatty restaurant employee on an illegitimate smoke break was nothing to be worried about, or the insanity of the situation truly setting in, she didn’t know.

“You’re the only weirdo I’m seeing right now. Get out of here before some stranger comes walking in. We guys are infamous for whipping out our hoses before we get to the fire.”

“Nope. Nu-huh. I’m bound to stumble upon Laurel and Hardy running away from the Wolfman out there.”

“What’s gotten into you?” He shook off, flushed, and went to the sink—

(Cleanliness is next to godliness)

—to wash his hands.

Juliet felt faint. The way her pulse was throbbing in her temples, her blood pressure had to be through the roof.

You’ve gone crazy. Deathbed Kathleen Turner was nothing to worry about, and neither was that priest. You’re acting foolish. This situation with Colton’s infidelity has you mistrusting people and jumping at shadows.