Just Another New York Story

The Wall of Toilets

Veronica crosses Broadway to the dark little hardware store with all its sundries jammed together on warped shelves—a stationary junk wagon, owned by Khaled who greets you with a bow. The air smells of cleaners and glues. Veronica watches Khaled's assistant Ernesto operate the old, screechy key-cutting machine. He doesn't flinch as sparks shoot out into the dusty air.

She stares at the busy wall behind him, an accidental folk art museum—the old wood paneling on the walls; the faded poster with a handy-looking chipmunk in overalls that says "Ask me about insulation!"; the wooden wall shelf displaying a bespectacled cobbler doll in an apron, his plastic hand holding a hammer over a doll's black boot on his workshop table of miniature tools; an ancient-looking framed dollar bill; a paint sampler poster that once showed spectrums of purples and blues that have since turned to grays, owing to its position in the eye of the sun that lasers through the window in the afternoon.

Behind her at the back wall toilet seat display, Khaled and some men stand in a semi-circle, chatting over each other about the latest lottery jackpot. In the midst of a particularly animated moment, one voice soars above the rest, determined to get his punchline heard.

"Yeah, and you wanna know what I say to that? You know what I say? Give that shit to me, I'll spin it into gold!"

Hearty laughter erupts from the circle of men. Veronica snaps around, squarely meeting his eyes, which are dark and brown, although it isn't his eyes she remembers...

"Hey speaking of shit, look who it is! Ya lookin' out for those pretty shoes?"

"Pardon your French!" Khaled says and elbows him. "I'm very sorry, miss."

Veronica gives them a quiet smile, and self-consciously turns back to the counter. ("I can't help it," she hears him say. "I'm a potty mouth—why do you think I hang out by the great wall of toilets?" More laughter...)

"Twelve dollars," Ernesto says, startling her.

Veronica fumbles in her purse for the credit card. Khaled charges almost double the price of the national chain home goods store that recently set up shop across an entire block of retail space two avenues over, but she avoids those "stores from home" that seem to be popping up every other week in the city, even if it means paying with money she doesn't yet have. On the way out, she thanks Khaled and gives a quick nod to the group of men as she pushes open the door laden with shopkeeper's bells and steps out into the street.

She has barely passed the store before she hears the bells again.

"Hey! Pretty shoe girl!" He's standing halfway out of the hardware store, his smooth-jazz voice flowing richly downtown.

"I'm feeling bad about my behavior in there. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?"

He points across his chest to the diner next door.

"I'll be done here in a minute," he says. "If you have time."

She hasn't seen him smile yet, she thinks, as she smiles at him.

He goes back in the hardware store; she goes into the diner.