“Murphy?”
My throat closes up. Am I allergic to forgetting people’s names? “I’m so sorry, you’re…?”
“Ellie?” There’s a quiet hope in her voice. I study her smile, her pale cheeks dotted with a spray of freckles. My brain starts to whir, placing her face in memories of art and gym class. Right. Ellie. I think she was a year or two older. She was ultra-quiet, usually rocking heavy eyeliner and brown hair down to her butt. Now, her white-blonde bangs barely skim her forehead, and her silver septum ring looks like it belonged there all along.
“Ellie. From art.” My eyes slip down to her blue fingernails. “And from the stall over.”
“Oh yeah, thanks for the toilet paper.” She laughs softly, and I hang on to the hint of a dimple on her left cheek. I don’t remember her having a dimple, but I guess I don’t remember her much at all. She was always a friend of convenience, someone I talked to if we had a class together but never saw outside of school.
“So where’d you end up after high school?” She asks, slouching out of the way of the sink so I can step up and wash my hands.
“Uh, here. I go to community college.” I aim my words toward the drain, praying they’ll rinse away. “But hopefully transferring to U of I next semester.”
“That’s where I go! Great school for softball.” She hesitates, then adds. “I mean, do you still play softball?”
“Not since I got injured junior year.”
“Oh.” Ellie winces. “My bad.”
“You’re fine,” I say. “College sports are tough anyway. It’s like, you dedicate your whole schedule to it and then you graduate and then what?” I look up from the sink, and Ellie blinks back at me, smiling politely, but without much recognition in her eyes. Wrong audience for this conversation, I guess. I try something else. “Do you still do art?”
“Yeah, I’ll graduate with an art degree this spring. What about you? What’s your major?”
“I’m just doing gen eds right now, but I do social media stuff for work, so I’m thinking maybe marketing.”
“Cool,” she says. “U of I is perfect for you, then.”
“Anything would be an upgrade from where I’m at.”
Ellie pulls a fistful of those scratchy brown paper towels from the dispenser and hands them off to me, her eyes flashing from my lips to my hips and back up again. It’s over so quickly that I nearly miss it. “I don’t know, community college seems to be treating you all right.”
“Not as well as U of I seems to be treating you.” A smile pulls at the corner of my lips, and when she meets my eyes again, she winks, sending me into a minor spiral. Is this flirting or just an overly friendly drunk bathroom moment? Either way, I don’t have much interest in loitering in here any longer than I already have. It smells like someone puked and rallied a little too early.
“Well, I should get back to my friend,” I say, tipping my head toward the door. “Kat Fleming? Do you know her? She was in my grade.”
Ellie’s laugh is louder this time, bouncier. “Yeah, we used to walk the mile together! Do you mind if I say hi?”
I shrug. “Sure. Our table is up near the front.”
“Daaaamn, you got a table?” Ellie crumples her paper towel and sets it on top of the overflowing trash can. “You’re lucky.”
“Do you want to tell your friends where you’re going?”
“Nah.” Her nose scrunches as she shakes her head, whipping her bangs back and forth. “I just came here with some AP art kids, but we’re not really close. Half of them never even showed up.” She picks a chip of blue nail polish off her thumb and flicks it onto the black-and-white tile floor. “They won’t miss me. Let’s go.”
With Ellie following close behind, I cut through the crowd shoulder first, avoiding a run-in with a former student teacher and my freshman year homecoming date. Memory lane is too crowded. It’d be better off as a one-way street.
Back at the table, Kat and Daniel are practically licking each other, so they don’t notice my return. “Hellooooooo.” My voice carries over whatever forgotten radio hit is currently shaking the walls, but it’s still not enough to pry them apart, so I wave my hands like I’m trying to startle off a wild animal. “Hey! Lovebirds! We have company!”
Daniel jolts back, nearly toppling off his barstool. “H-hey, welcome back,” he sputters, turning a pale shade of pink. Kat, on the other hand, looks a little proud of herself.
“Murph, I got you another…” She gestures toward what looks to be another vodka soda waiting at my seat, but her hand freezes in midair when she spots my new plus-one. “Wait.” Kat chews her cheek. “I’m so sorry. You look familiar.”
Ellie introduces herself the same way she did to me—wide-eyed and hoping to be remembered. Kat’s memory jogs quicker than mine did.
“Oh my god! Ellie from GYM!” Kat leaps off her stool and straight to Ellie’s side, grabbing her new-old friend’s forearm in a way that has me betting she finished her second round a little fast. “I looooooove your hair! And wait, don’t you go to U of I too? I just transferred there.”
“Yeah, I’m in the art school. You?”
