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Sol pulled her jeans down slowly as she scanned the walls around her. The bathroom was covered top to bottom in magazine cutouts of flowers. Daffodils, tulips, roses, daisies, sunflowers (or girasoles). The fluorescent ceiling light reflected off the shiny patchwork as she bobbed her head around the room, reminding her of Tinkerbell zipping around breathlessly.
She sat on the old porcelain toilet, admired the cluster of pink and red roses near her feet. Behind the curling edges, she could see the concrete crumbling where it met the floor.
This old bathroom… she exhaled unsteadily and tears started forming in her eyes. She washed her hands with a thick coating of the salty sad between her and the ancient mirror. She looked up just once, her eyes red and skin patchy as always in this unflattering light. She would miss it when it closed.
Her uncle Romeo worked in the business attached to this bathroom, Stewart Boot Company, for 35 years. His uncle worked here 40 years before that. Everything about this place was old– the bathroom, the machines, the logo on the boot boxes that lined the walls… not to mention Tio Romeo and his boss, Victor. Victor was ready to retire and nobody had the drive to take it over. Anyway, people didn’t care as much about buying shoes that last a lifetime anymore.
Sol looked down at her own boots, a nutty brown with embroidery of the cheerful yellow girasol (after which she was named) lining the side, that her uncle had made for her when she turned 18. At least these would last forever.
