S-Project - Writing On the Wall

This is my latest submission for the Sheherazade Project. As always, comments and critique are welcome!

“I’ll be just a minute,” she yelled as she darted into the girls’ bathroom. “I’m serious,” she continued, “don’t you dare go on that ride without me!”

She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she entered an empty stall. She wasn’t fastidious about cleanliness or anything, but even her slob of a fifteen year old brother would have thought the bathroom needed some work. The stalls were painted avocado green and were covered with graffiti detailing the love lives of numerous past inhabitants. Grace and Andrew equaled tru love 4-ever, while Cindy clearly no longer loved Jimmy as his name had been scratched out so vociferously it almost wasn’t legible.

Hmmm, she thought, wonder what he did. Probably cheated on her with some cute freshman with more boobs than brain. Probably someone named Lindsey or Sherri or some other cutesy-dumb name. If she’d had the time for self-reflection, she would have supposed her grapes were just a little sour, having recently gone through a similar experience. But amusement park bathrooms weren’t exactly an ideal spot for self-reflection, and truth be told, she was kind of in a hurry.

She reached for the bathroom tissue and was dismayed to find the roll empty.
“Hello?” she said tentatively. “Anyone here? Anyone at all?” She trailed off. Of all the times for the bathroom to be empty. I’ll wait a minute, she thought. This is a busy park. Someone’s bound to come in any moment now.

To her left, a conversation had been scratched into the wall. Someone had written “Metallica RULZ.” Another someone had helpfully scratched out “rulz” and offered a correction, “rules.” Below that, someone else forcefully exclaimed “F*&% you, you stoopid whore!!!!!!!!!!!!” She laughed in spite of herself. How like some illiterate jackass to call someone she doesn’t even know a whore. Idiot. Sure did spend a lot of time scratching in those exclamation marks.

She noted that Charlotte loved Gary. Charlotte also loved Christopher, Bill, Brad, Kenneth, and Mike. Wow. Charlotte’s prolific.

And then she noticed it written in one of those shiny gold metallic ink pens. “Lindsey Anderson will do anything and anyone.” And the phone number was written below. Lindsey. She smirked. She totally deserves it. I hate her. She wondered if that really was Lindsey’s phone number. She reached up and pulled her purse off the hook, found her cell phone and dialed the number.

“Hello,” said a female voice on the other end. She didn’t respond.

“Hello,” Lindsey said again. “Is anyone there? Please? Stop it!! Stop calling me and hanging up. It isn’t funny” She sounded near tears.

Just then April and Gail bounded into the restroom. “Did you fall in?? What’s the deal?”

She hung up on Lindsey and answered her friends. “There’s no toilet paper in here-get some for me, okay.”

“Oh, you are so lucky I am your friend,” said April as she passed her some toilet paper from the neighboring stall. “I could so totally strand you in here.”

She laughed. “Someone else would eventually come and rescue me. Go on outside with the others. I’ll be out in just a sec.”

“Okay,” said April. “Hurry up, okay? Man, this place stinks.”

Halleluiah, she thought. I am SO glad they came in here. She finished up, washed her hands, and met her friends outside. They hadn’t gone 20 feet before she realized she’d left her purse in the bathroom.

“Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

Luckily the purse was right on the hook where she’d left it. She grabbed it and started to leave the stall, but stopped suddenly. Very deliberately, she pulled out her nail file and scratched over the metallic writing so it was no longer legible.

“I still hate you and I still think you’re a bitch,” she whispered. “Just so you know.”