The Guild At Norma Bay

Gas Station Greetings

Bernadette Ocampo had never seen a more disgusting public restroom in her life.

Toilet paper clung to the walls of the stall. The floor was covered in scuff marks and unidentifiable substances of varying viscosities. The smell was putrid and the toilets were practically falling apart.

Though Bernadette was in sheer, unadulterated misery as she washed her hands under the lukewarm tap water of the gas station bathroom, she knew this was fitting. It was the perfect representation of the way her life would go from now.

Crap. Her life from now would be absolute, steaming, gas station restroom crap.

She exited the restroom and trudged between the aisles of lighters and packs of gum. Just as she was about to go outside, she stopped next to a display of postcards that caught her eye. One in particular near the top of the display caught her interest; a teal and orange card with a watercolor painting of a sailboat docked to a wharf, the sun fading in the background. In white, cursive writing, were the words, "Greetings from Norma Bay!" and in smaller font below, "Where the water is blue and the people are true." Bernadette scoffed.

"Give me a break," she muttered to herself. Or, at least she thought it was to herself, until the cashier waiting behind her barked for her to buy the postcard or move out of the way of paying customers. She ducked her head and scurried out through the automatic sliding doors.

It was raining, because of course it was. What had been a slight sprinkle when they had first arrived at the gas station had become a full-on downpour. Bernadette's thin jacket was no match for the weather, but luckily her father had parked close enough to the entrance. Once she reached her dad's Sedan, she pulled on the passenger side door handle, but to no luck.

"Dad, unlock the door!" she yelled through the window. Her dad, Jorge, merely giggled and pressed the unlock button before quickly locking the door again. Bernadette began to bang on the window. "You're not funny!"

He relented and finally allowed his daughter to come inside. "I'm sorry, but you looked like the little wet rat we found hiding from the rain in our backyard once. Remember him?"

"Dad," began Bernadette as she plopped into the car seat and shook her soaked jacket off. "I would very much not like to think about that, or anything relating to rats right now."

He nodded and started on his way back to the highway. "Understandable." He took a quick look at his drowned rat daughter and smiled. "Thanks for being cool about this."

Bernadette wiped damp, dark brown locks from off her forehead. "Cool about what? You leaving me outside to catch pneumonia? Or you stopping at the grossest gas station possibly in the entire east coast for my bathroom break? Because, I'm not sure I'm cool about either of those things," she said, though her words lacked any real bite to them. She enjoyed having a father she could sass to with little repercussions.

"Well...no. I'm not even sorry about the last one because I told you to use the bathroom when we were driving through Richmond. The bathrooms at the Love's were very clean."

"Your definition of clean and my definition of clean are two very different things," she deadpanned. Jorge laughed.

"Anyway, what I was saying was, I'm proud of you for accepting all of these...changes." His thick eyebrows furrowed in discomfort. "I know this was a lot to put on you so suddenly. You've been really cool about this and I--" his voice grew thick with emotion for only a second, before swallowing it down. "I just really appreciate it."

Bernadette sighed, and looked away from her father to watch the scenery as they crossed over yet another bridge. If she had her earbuds in, she could pretend she was in some emo music video circa 2007. Hell, her life was practically an emo music video at this point. "It's not like I really had a choice," she responded, cringing at how bratty she sounded, but not electing to correct herself either. "This is like the fourth bridge we've been on. What's the ETA?"

"About 25 minutes. Most of Norma Bay is bridges and waterways. I remember, there was this old joke about how if you drove in any direction for about five minutes, you'd end up on a bridge. In fact, most of my formative memories took place on bridges. I got into my first car accident on a bridge--"

"Hopefully not this one..." interrupted Bernadette, as she craned her neck to look down into the cold, dark depths below them.

"--Had my first kiss on a bridge, got into my first fist-fight on a bridge, jumped off a bridge for the first time..." Jorge's facial features relaxed for the first time in months from what Bernadette could tell. "A lot of good memories here."

Bernadette blinked. "So...you're just not gonna elaborate on why you jumped off a bridge?"

"It was a high school right of passage. All the senior guys did it the weekend before graduation. My best friend at the time ended up breaking his arm." He shook his head. "Good times, though. Definitely good times."

I'll take your word for it, Bernadette thought. The closest thing considered a senior rite of passage at her old performing arts school in Boston was doing a line of coke after the big, spring semester showcase. Not all the seniors did it, but it was said that if you did, you'd be accepted into some of the most elite musical and drama programs at top-tier schools in the country. It was also a very top-secret tradition that Bernadette only knew about because her ex-boyfriend had told her he would be doing it his senior year.

But, she would never tell her dad about that. The tradition and the ex-boyfriend, that is.

Bernadette dug up her phone and earbuds from out of her backpack. Once she had a song from the Frozen 2 soundtrack selected, she gave into her melodramatic desires and pressed her head against the cool window. She let Idina Menzel's voice lull her to sleep.