Sans Newt now, Wheeler was testing out more locals and taking more notes while also trying out new outfits, this one called Fern (dress) with kind of matching shoes I suppose.
“Excuse me, ma’am. The bathroom’s locked with no one inside. Do you have the key?”
“Bathroom’s *broke*,” exuded Gertrude Witherspoon from Grapeseed, a person dying on the vine.
“Well can you tell me where the nearest public restroom is? My husband and I were just passing through on the way to Chilbo (she lies).”
“Mmmmmmmmm. I *said*…. hmmmm…. let me…. think… ummmmm.”
“Well, never mind,” said Wheeler. We’ll just do it in the grass beside the road.”
“That sounds best,” the woman said with no irony in her voice. Did she really think this was the best solution? Would *she* resort to that?
Wheeler was about to walk through the front door in a huff when…
“Oh wait, young person.” Young person! Wheeler thought. The old hag had just redeemed herself, ha. “Bert’s in his office today for a change. Bert has an extra set of keys. Just knock on the door — ’round the poster there.” As if she couldn’t be bothered, Wheeler thought, watching her continue to just stand there and pose in various ways. Provocatively? Could be if she were, say, 60 years younger, Wheeler thought, and then also thought that’s not a very nice thought. *She’s*… well, she always says she’s 25 working on 39. But those days had passed. Just call it a Jack Bennyism vanity.
Going past Gertrude again — bathroom’s broke *pheh* — she gently knocks on the door.
Bert, or who she presumes is Bert, calls back in a pleasant enough voice to come in. She goes in.
But not before noticing what appeared to be Gertrude prominently appearing in that poster. Queer! she thought.
Then the same poster inside along with another surprise.
“You!”
And just like that she was gone.
Sunklands 