Come on Down! by Julia Strayer

My ex doesn’t know he’s my ex. I just packed and left. Headed east for an hour.

It’s close to midnight and I’m cruising through a one-light town in his old Crown Vic on the way from nowhere to someplace better and I spot a coin laundry—all its lights blazing. The laundromat is elevated four steps from the sidewalk like it’s a fancy retail store or fine restaurant. Ornate handrails. The whole of it thinking it’s something special. Big calligraphy sign spotlighted out front and old-style hand-crank washers in the windows. How nice to elevate the everyday.

My ex won’t know until stars fade and the sun rises. He works the night shift at the carbon plant because it pays more than day shifts and he says we’ll need money for babies, but I’m too young for all that nonsense.

I parallel park in front of the laundromat, behind a Chrysler LeBaron with doors a different color from the body. The rest of the street is asleep. I check the ashtray for quarters. My ex keeps them stocked for me.

The moon is bright white, hanging high in the sky. The air is still and cold, and off in the distance, a dog barks. But I’m too tired to argue. I pull the garbage bag of dirty clothes from the ocean of trunk.

Laundromats are the night owls of stores, attracting the kind of people who want to be near people, but don’t want to interact with them. Boundaries for those of us who believe in relationships as transactions. Like a coin in a machine for wash and dry, candy bar, cigarettes, bag of chips and a root beer. Things I can consume in a short time with no obligation. They don’t stick around forever. My whole life’s been that way. Nothing’s permanent.

I drag the laundry up the steps, anticipating humid air, the smell of bleach and dryer sheets, the music of tumbling drums, but the door is locked. I peer through the window and it’s not a laundromat at all. It’s a goddamn furniture store. What am I supposed to do with that?

I survey the quiet street, the car engine pinging as it cools in the night air. Nothing there for me in that town, so I sit on the top step and exhale rings into the night air until I’m dizzy from too much oxygen. Pull a hair pin from my purse, long and thin, bite off the plastic tips, and wriggle it in the door lock until it clicks open—a skill I wish I didn’t have—and I’m staring at recliners and sofas and hearing the tick of a wall clock.

I pass two desks with nameplates on my way to a small bathroom in the back. On the way back, I switch Fred with Nancy and wonder how long it will take them to notice in the morning. Maybe they’re married. Maybe it’ll spice things up for them.

I sit on a couch facing a blank television, picturing my ex next to me reaching for my hand, asking what channel even though he knows I’m going to say the one with game shows.

We moved to a small cape, got married and pregnant and it was all so fast. Nothing’s ever what you think it’ll be. Like buying a new dress and loving it until you’ve worn it and washed it a few times and the fabric pills or it turns common like everything else in your life and all you’re doing is washing dishes day after day. Until you’re watching The Price is Right and you hear the front door open and close, and you look over and it’s him, and he can’t compete with Alice who laughs too much when she spins the big wheel of numbers and is close to winning a new washer dryer set and I want to see someone win something they don’t expect. Maybe it’s me, but that’s how things go when you stay too long.

I wasn’t pregnant for long. Long enough to hope things would work out, thinking this time I would stay, but not long enough to grow a complete human. I guess even my baby agreed it’s best to leave while you can. I blame myself, but I don’t have proof.

My ex said, “These things happen. We’ll try again.”

As if that changes anything.

I can’t see that far. I want to sleep. I want to fit into clothes I’ll never fit into again. I want to be the kind of person who stays. The kind of person other people talk about because of the way my husband still watches when I leave the room. But I only know how to get that with someone new. Like how clean laundry smells like anything can happen.

People don’t always win on game shows, but they still jump around happy as if spinning the wheel is enough. And what about all those people in the audience who aren’t called to Come on down!; they don’t get to win or lose.

In the morning, my ex will be spitting mad about the missing car. One of the guys will drop him off at home after work and the driveway will be naked. He’ll think the car was stolen. He’ll think I’m still warm and asleep in bed. He’ll be grateful that whoever stole the car didn’t harm me. He’ll think we still have time.

The store is stifling and dry and smells of fabric chemicals. I can’t stay. I stand on the top step and breathe in clean air, and heft my laundry back into the trunk. I restock the quarters, just as my ex had done, and I imagine what it must be like to hear your own name called out loud and clear.

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JULIA STRAYER — Julia has stories in Glimmer Train, Kenyon Review Online, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, Jellyfish Review, Wigleaf, Atticus Review, and others, including The Wigleaf Top 50 and The Best Small Fictions. She teaches creative writing at New York University. https://juliastrayer.com

Art by ALAINA HAMMOND — Alaina is a poet, playwright, fiction writer, and visual artist. Her poems, plays, short stories, philosophical essays, creative nonfiction, paintings, drawings and photographs have been published both online and in print. Publications include Spinozablue, Paddler Press, Fowl Feathered Review, Synchronized Chaos, Well Read Magazine, Concision Poetry Journal, New World Writing Quarterly, Lowlife Lit Press, Flash Phantoms, New Limestone Review, L’Esprit Literary Review, Rock Salt Journal, and Havik.  @alainaheidelberger on Instagram.