“Well—”
Kyung spots the sign on the wall and jumps out of his seat without waiting for an answer. When he opens the door to the men’s room, he’s almost knocked over by the smell of piss, bleach, and urinal cakes. He enters tentatively, scanning the bathroom from floor to ceiling, certain he’ll find something filthy to account for the stench. The room, however, actually seems clean. His only real complaint is the long, shatterproof mirror hanging over the bank of sinks. It’s almost like a circus mirror, the kind that stretches out people’s reflections when viewed from a distance. Kyung takes a few steps toward it, waiting for his appearance to become less distorted. His nose is barely inches from the glass when he can finally see himself clearly. His eyes are bloodshot and he desperately needs a shave, a toothbrush, and a comb. But above all, he looks worried. The wrinkle between his brows where the skin usually creases into a frown—it seems permanent now, as if every fear he’s ever experienced has burrowed into that space. How does he make it stop? All this worrying about other people, worrying about himself, worrying about things that might happen before they even do—what did any of that get him except a life he wants to leave? He washes his face, scrubbing off the grime with flowery pink hand soap. Then he dunks his head under the tap, letting the cold water run over him. He tries not to think about baptisms and the new beginnings they promise, but maybe that’s just what he needs. A baptism in a truck stop bathroom.
When Kyung returns to his seat, his foil-wrapped sandwich is sitting on the counter beside his check, and the man is gone. He isn’t sure why he expected a formal good-bye—they didn’t even exchange names—but he’s sorry that he didn’t get a chance to thank him for the directions. Not hearing another person’s voice would have felt like a gift to him a few weeks ago, but now it seems like all he has. He pays for his food and goes outside, looking up at the sky, which is lighter than it was before. There’s a moody sliver of purple inching up along the horizon, promising sun or rain—he’s not sure. As he walks to his car, he hears someone call out, “Hey, buddy. Buddy.” He turns and sees the man jogging toward him from behind the gas station, zipping up his pants while his unbuckled belt dangles noisily from his waist.
Kyung backs up several steps, not certain where this is headed anymore. “What were you just doing?”
“I tried to warn you, but you got out of your seat so fast. None of us regulars use that bathroom. It smells like a goddamn litter box. We just piss in that field over there.”
“Oh.” He watches the man buckle his belt again, relieved that he isn’t coming on to him. Kyung actually enjoyed their conversation, the relative ease of it. It would have disappointed him if it ended with some sort of awkward proposition in the parking lot.
“Any chance you’d let me bum one of those?” the man asks, pointing at the cigarettes in Kyung’s shirt pocket.
“Okay, sure.” He unwraps the pack and hands him one, not certain if he should stay and smoke with him. He never quite learned the etiquette of smokers, having picked up the habit for a brief period in med school and only starting back up today. Despite smoking a full pack in the car, Kyung still doesn’t know how to hold the cigarette correctly; it feels like an awkward sixth finger that gets in the way. He studies the man for a second as he takes a drag, and then lights one for himself.
“Jesus, these are awful.”
“You mean the brand?”
“No. Cigarettes in general,” the man says, even though he’s smiling. “I quit buying them years ago. Doctor’s orders. Only time I have one now is if I meet a friendly stranger on the road. It’s kind of a love–hate thing.”
Kyung has never heard anyone describe him as “friendly” before. What little effort he made to meet new friends or keep up with his old ones ended when he began dating Gillian. He was content to live in their little cocoon, and after the baby, she was too. From time to time, they went to a party hosted by one of his colleagues from school, but they usually arrived late and left early, citing Ethan as the excuse on both ends. Marriage made them both lazy this way. It was easier to be with someone predictable than to invest the time in figuring out someone new.
“So what’s in L.A.?” the man asks. “You got a job there or something?”
“Yes,” he says. “I’m a doctor.”
“A doctor who smokes—I’ve never seen that before. What kind of medicine you practice?”
“Radiology.”
The fictions keep spilling from his mouth, an alternate reality in which he undoes the choices of his past and imagines what might have been. It doesn’t feel like lying so much as wishing.
“Do you go to L.A. a lot?” Kyung asks.
“I usually head out there about two or three times a year. Seems like a pretty nice city if you don’t mind the traffic.”