It must have been the fish cake balls.
After work, she popped by her co-worker’s going away party in K-Town and stayed forty-five minutes, giving herself time to make the 6:37 p.m. train out of Penn. And then, freedom from the daily grind into the city for a month. The start of remote August. Thank God, she said to herself.
But here she was. 7:15 p.m. and praying for mercy for whatever wrongs she had done in life—the ninth-floor women’s restroom, her confessional—at Macy’s Herald Square. Her blouse soaked through with sweat. Intestines twisted like the end of a balloon.
The first grumble hit as she paced down Sixth Ave., nearing 37th Street. The kind that stops you in your tracks in a brief panic. She moderated her pace in guarded denial. But by 35th Street, she doubled over, lunging for any lamp post or scaffolding to steady herself. The dizzying lights. Droning horns. And droves of people. Her surroundings, warping like a funhouse mirror.
Bile gathered in her gullet. She staggered to the nearest planter, bending over to hose it with stomach acid and half-digested kimchi. Some splattered on a loose M&M’s wrapper resting on the soil. A putrid, cheesy smell, mixed with garbage stew held thick in the humidity. A wafting breeze hit her like a recoil, pulling her in for a second emptying. She gagged, her diaphragm spasming.
To her left stood a corgi, lifting its leg to dribble on another planter, its owner absorbed in their phone. In this moment, she appreciated how New Yorkers are practiced in the art of minding their own damn business. She then looked to the right, beyond the cluster of folding chairs and pop-up umbrellas, and saw Macy’s. A true miracle on 34th St, with bathrooms on multiple floors. Pale faced, she wiped her mouth with her shirt, stood about eighty percent upright, and clutched her stomach toward its red marquee, its logo like her North Star.
Finding the ninth-floor restroom calm and devoid of people, she whipped the stall door open and locked it in a fury, hoping no one would come into her sonic and olfactory shit-phony. Her legs tingled, asleep from over an hour on the seat, tuning in and out of people’s attempts to enter. Some leaving with, “Aw hell naw.”
By 8:30 p.m. came the distant announcement the store would be closing in thirty minutes. The door opened again, the rolling of wheels alongside it and the jingling of keys. She braced for a knock. Instead, a boot appeared under the stall to her left, pushing a paper bag to her side. Unrolling the folds, she pulled out Pepto-Bismol in its classic pink bottle and some Pedialyte. Also, a note. We close at 9pm. Feel better.
Thank God, she said to herself.
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