“What did I just tell you about making a lot of noise in restaurants?” Susan growled. She took him by the arm and pulled him up. She tried not to drop her purse, the bag of food, and her Diet Coke. With her hip she pushed open the women’s bathroom door, and then she peeked inside. “No one’s in there, honey,” she said with a sigh. “C’mon, the coast is clear. Let’s go….”
“NOOOOOOOO!” he screeched, resisting.
A shadow swept over the alcove, and Susan glanced up to see the stranger coming at them. “So—Mattie, you don’t want to go in the ladies’ bathroom?” he was saying. “Well, I don’t blame you, sport.” He grinned at Susan and started to reach out his hand for Mattie—his big, grown-up hand. “I’ll take him into the men’s room for you—”
“Would you please just…no, thank you!” Susan snapped at him. “We’re fine here!” She yanked Mattie into the lavatory, and felt cold Diet Coke spilling down the front of her sweater. It seeped through her T-shirt to her stomach. Mattie let out another wail of protest, but in he went. With her shoulder, Susan quickly pushed the door shut behind her—right in the man’s face.
She still had a firm grip on Mattie’s hand. Whining, he twisted around and tried to sit down on the restroom floor. He kept Woody firmly tucked under his other arm.
“That’s enough out of you, young man,” Susan barked, pulling him up. “Now, get in here….” Guiding him toward the open door to a toilet stall, she made sure the toilet was flushed. Why in the world some people didn’t flush after using a public toilet was beyond her. This one was clean. “Do you think you might have to go number two?” she asked.
Pouting, he shook his head.
Susan took his Woody doll and then lifted the toilet seat for him. “All right, you know what to do,” she said briskly. She left him standing in front of the toilet. “And I don’t want any more screaming or crying. I’ve just about had it, mister.”
“You’re mean!” Mattie retorted.
“Yes, you have the meanest mother in the world,” Susan shot back. She retreated toward the sink and unloaded Woody, her wet purse, and the wet bag of food on the orange Formica countertop. The half-crushed drink container was only a quarter-full now, and the plastic lid had come undone. “Shit,” she muttered.
“You said a swear!” Mattie called from the stall.
Someone knocked on the women’s room door. “Hey, you know,” the man said loudly. “I was just trying to help!”
Leaning over the sink, Susan took a deep breath. “Yes, thank you!” she called back. “We’re fine in here! You can go now, thank you!”
She waited for a response. But there was none. She tossed the soggy bag of food and what was left of her drink into the trash. With a paper towel, she dabbed the front of her pullover. Then she shoved Woody inside her purse. Maybe she’d overreacted with that man. But the guy had unnerved her. And she wasn’t about to entrust her son to this stranger. Her older sister, Judy, claimed she was way overprotective with Matt. Maybe that was true, but she had good reason to be—considering what had happened eighteen months ago. Susan still hadn’t completely recovered from it. She doubted that she ever would.
She paused to listen for a tinkling noise in the stall. Nothing.
“Sweetheart?” she said, eying the dirty mirror over the sink. Behind her, Susan could only see Mattie’s red Converse All Stars and the cuffs of his jeans beneath the stall’s partition. It looked like he was still standing in front of the toilet. But obviously, nothing was happening.
“Honey, can’t you tinkle?” she said. “C’mon, I know you can’t rush these things, but give it a try. We still have a long drive ahead.” She turned the water on full blast in the sink. It was a trick she’d picked up in nursing school. She always used to turn on the faucet in the bathroom when a bladder-shy patient had a problem providing a urine sample. There was something about the sound of running water that helped prod them along. In her early twenties, Susan had been on the staff at Harborview Medical Center, a very stressful job. After she’d married and had Mattie’s older brother, Michael, she’d kept up her nursing credentials part-time, consulting for an insurance company. She’d been able to work out of her home—and look after her babies. Of course, Susan hadn’t realized it then, but that was the best time of her life. She should have savored every minute.
Now Susan was a single mother with one child, and working full time again—for a dermatologist in Ballard. Fridays at Dr. Chang’s office were half days. She usually spent those free afternoons at home, grabbing a nap or just doing absolutely nothing (and loving it) for those two hours alone before picking up Mattie at Yellowbrick Road Day Care. She cherished her Friday afternoon routine and had been a bit reluctant to give it up today. But Allen had been so insistent they take this weekend getaway to Cullen.
So—instead of napping on the sofa right now with the soft Pottery Barn throw blanket over her and Joni Mitchell on the CD player, she was in an Arby’s bathroom, seventy miles from home, doused with Diet Coke and despised by her toddler son. No doubt, she’d also offended that slightly creepy wannabe Good Samaritan, too. Well, tough.
Susan stepped over to the stall and found Mattie standing in front of the toilet with his pants up and fastened. He was idly playing with the toilet paper dispenser. All this time, Susan had thought he’d had a shy bladder. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she muttered, leaning over him. “You aren’t even trying!” Susan unfastened his jeans and yanked them down; then she pulled down his underpants. “Now, tinkle, okay?”
Nothing.
Susan hovered behind him with the stall door open. “C’mon, sweetie, give it a try,” she said, more gently. “Listen to the water in the sink. I know you hate being in the ladies’ room. As soon as you go, we’ll get out of here.” But nothing was happening. At times like this, the kid really needed his dad.
Susan was about to throw in the towel and pull up his pants. That was when she heard the restroom door yawn open. A woman with her little girl had just stepped into the lavatory. Mattie saw them, too. He let out a shriek, and then so did the frightened little girl. Their screams reverberated within the tiled walls of the small bathroom. Mattie kept crying—screeching angrily—while Susan fastened his pants back up and led him toward the restroom door. All the while, she apologized to the woman and her startled daughter. Mattie continued to scream and squirm as she hustled him toward the restaurant exit. Susan figured everyone in the Arby’s probably thought she was kidnapping him.
She half expected to see her wannabe Good Samaritan among the patrons, sitting at another table—perhaps trying to hit on another woman, some young mother.
But Susan didn’t see him at all. There was no sign of him in the parking lot either.
She strapped Mattie in his booster seat on the back passenger side of her old-as-the-hills but reliable red Toyota. It had a bent antenna, and the indicator handle easily screwed off the steering column—a discovery she’d made while nervously twisting it during a traffic jam. But the old car got her around just fine. Besides, she couldn’t afford a new one.
She gave Mattie his Woody doll, and he started to calm down. He let her wipe away his tears with a Kleenex from her purse.
“Is he coming with us?” Mattie asked.
“Is who coming with us?” Susan was crouched down by the open back door of her car.
“The man we ate lunch with,” Mattie said. “Is he coming, too?”
She shook her head. “No, he’s not coming with us, sweetheart,” she said. “I don’t even know him. We won’t be seeing him again…. God willing.” The last part, she muttered