Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood [44]
The laundromat was just along the street from the entrance to the subway station. When I was actually standing in front of one of the large machines I discovered I had forgotten the soap.
“Oh fiddlesticks!” I said out loud.
The person stuffing clothes into the machine next to mine turned towards me.
He looked at me without expression. “You can have some of mine,” he said, handing me the box.
“Thank you. I wish they’d put in a vending machine, you’d think they’d have the sense to.” Then I recognized him: it was the young man from the beer interview. I stood there holding the box. How had he known I’d forgotten my soap? I hadn’t said it out loud.
He was scrutinizing me more closely. “Oh,” he said, “now I know who you are. I didn’t place you at first. Without that official shell you look sort of – exposed.” He bent over his machine again.
Exposed. Was that good or bad? I checked quickly to make sure no seams were split or zippers undone; then I began to cram the clothes hastily into the machines, putting darks in one and lights in the other. I didn’t want him to be finished before I was so that he would be able to watch me, but he was done in time to observe several of Ainsley’s lacy frivolities being flung through the door.
“Those yours?” he asked with interest.
“No,” I said, flushing.
“Didn’t think so. They didn’t look like you.”
Had that been a compliment or an insult? Judging by his uninflected voice it had been merely a comment; and as a comment it was accurate enough, I thought wryly.
I shut the two thick glass doors and put the quarters in the slots, paused till the familiar sloshing sound informed me that all was well, then went over to the line of chairs provided by the management and sat down in one of them. I’d have to wait it out, I realized; there was nothing else to do in that area on Sundays. I could have gone to a movie, but I didn’t have enough money with me. I’d even forgotten to bring a paperback to read. What could I have been thinking of when I left the apartment? I don’t usually forget things.
He sat down next to me. “The only thing about laundromats,” he said, “is that you’re always finding other people’s pubic hairs in the washers. Not that I mind particularly. I’m not picky about germs or anything. It’s just rather gross. Have some chocolate?”
I glanced around to see if anyone had heard, but we were alone in the laundromat. “No thanks,” I said.
“I don’t like it much either but I’m trying to quit smoking.” He peeled the chocolate bar and slowly devoured it. We both stared at the long line of gleaming white machines, and especially at those three glass windows, like portholes or aquaria, where our clothes were going round and around, different shapes and colours appearing, mingling, disappearing, appearing again out of a fog of suds. He finished his chocolate bar, licked his fingers, smoothed and folded the silver wrapper neatly and put it in one of his pockets, and took out a cigarette.
“I sort of like watching them,” he said; “I watch laundromat washers the way other people watch television, it’s soothing because you always know what to expect and you don’t have to think about it. Except I can vary my programmes a little; if I get tired of watching the same stuff I can always put in a pair of green socks or something colourful like that.” He was talking in a monotone, sitting hunched forward, his elbows on his knees, his head drawn down into the neck of his dark sweater like a turtle’s into its shell.