The stale air in the bathroom smelled of shit, the toilet seat lay broken and abandoned on the floor, and someone had drawn an impressive array of boobs and dicks of every shape and size all over the piss-colored walls. The words Peter sucks and for free along with a phone number, all in three different sets of handwriting, had been scrawled above the hazy, scratch-covered mirror. I cupped my hands under the water and splashed some on my face, gazing at myself as I observed my short brown hair and the dark circles under my eyes.

I didn’t know my name, didn’t know how old I was, either, and if asked to guess, I’d have said somewhere in my thirties. Looking at myself in the mirror was as if I were meeting an old acquaintance—someone from my past I may have known well once, but who I no longer quite recognized. I lowered my gaze, splashed more water onto my hands and ran damp paper towels under my armpits, over my chest and the back of my neck, wishing for a hot shower. Barely any cleaner, and not feeling much better, I walked back to the store. I was about to pull the door open when I noticed the pay phone, and as I stared at it, the sequence of numbers I’d remembered in the trailer flashed through my mind again.

At the counter, I handed over the bathroom key, and pulled the rest of my money from my pocket. “Can I have some change for the pay phone?”

“Cool accent,” the cashier said as he handed me the coins. “Australian? Or English?”

I stared at him and opened my mouth but didn’t know how to answer. Up to that point my nationality hadn’t crossed my mind. I was in the US. Didn’t that make me American? And if not, why the hell did I feel such a strong connection to Maine? Without offering a reply I went back outside, where I piled the money in neat stacks on top of the phone box. Taking a deep breath, I pulled the note from my pocket, picked up the receiver and dialed the combination. Fingers unsteady, I hesitated before adding a one.

“Hello?” It was a man’s voice I didn’t recognize, which meant precisely bugger all.

“Hello.” I hesitated, unsure what to say next. I hadn’t thought this through.

“Who’s this?”

“Uh...do you, ah, recognize my voice?”

“What? Who is this?”

“Are you sure you don’t know who I am?”