Love and Other Train Wrecks Read online

  I hope she’s happy, and I hope she does enjoy Bard if that’s where she’s going.

  I hope she gets all that she wants out of this trip.

  I hope we both do.

  I’m about to sit down when a little kid scurries by, kicking my shins as he does. The magic of the moment dissipates quickly. I look up to see a Brooklyn mom in loose, billowy clothes. She shrugs instead of apologizing, but I try not to let it get to me.

  I sit down; watch as the kid’s drooling little brother runs by. The cellophane around the sandwiches crinkles in my hand, and the girl is still looking out the window.

  All of a sudden, I feel stupid for doing something so weirdly generous.

  Rina’s words flash through my head, the day before we broke up:

  Why does everything have to be so difficult with you?

  I briefly think about keeping both for myself, but that would shoot all my karma straight to hell, and so I clear my throat. “Uh, I hope you’re not a vegetarian,” I say.

  “Huh?” She turns to me, stares at the wrap I’m holding out to her. She doesn’t say anything, and I know that Rina was right. Giving someone a sandwich shouldn’t be this difficult.

  Why can’t you ever just do something without thinking of every possible outcome?

  Rina wasn’t trying to change me, like Bryson was always insisting. Rina was trying to help me.

  “I got you a wrap,” I say, trying to infuse as much confidence into my voice as possible.

  Her eyebrows arch, and her eyes seem to grow a size or two bigger. She looks for a second like that indie movie star with the brother. The brother who was in Brokeback Mountain, but not the actor who died. I’m horrible with names.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she says hesitantly.

  My fingers tighten around the sandwich, crinkling the cellophane again. She doesn’t want it. This is awkward. This is what I was afraid of.

  “I’m sure it’s not very good anyway, and if you don’t want it, I can eat both. Take one for the team.” I deliver my best smile, a forced laugh that I hope doesn’t sound as weird to her as it does to me.

  The girl takes a short breath, hesitating.

  “It’s for you, really. I would eat it if you really aren’t hungry, or if you think someone you don’t know buying you a sandwich is weird, but I got it for you. It’s turkey and bacon.” I push it farther toward her. “Here, just take it.”

  I’m so eager for her to just grab the damn wrap and put me out of my misery that my hand nearly shakes. I curse myself for being so awkward. For believing in things like karma, for getting on this damn train at all . . .

  “Thank you, I’m starving,” she says, interrupting my thoughts. She takes it, rips off the cellophane viciously, and shoves it in her mouth, taking an extra-large first bite. Relief washes over me like the first dip in a pool on a hot day, the feeling I always get when the pressure is off.

  “Damn, you were hungry,” I say.

  Her cheeks get all chipmunky, but after a minute, she swallows. “I couldn’t find food before.”

  “When did you get on the train?” I ask.

  “Baltimore,” she says, before taking another bite. “After driving an hour from Virginia.” She points ahead. “I went three cars up, past the bathrooms and everything, but I didn’t see anything. I was going to ask someone, but everyone looked so intent on their iPads. And then I didn’t want to leave my suitcase alone for too long, so I came back. I figured maybe this train just didn’t have food or something.”

  “You have to go two cars behind,” I say. “The dining car is always in the back. The conductor is supposed to tell you, but sometimes they forget. You should have said something. I would have pointed you in the right direction.”

  She smiles and takes another bite. “I was too busy being in a bad mood.”

  That gets me laughing, really laughing this time.

  I open my wrap, and for a few minutes, everything is simple. The sound of crinkling cellophane. The crunch of romaine. The taste of basic, no-frills turkey. The subtle vibrations of the train on the tracks. The vision of snow through the window. It’s nice, almost. One of those little moments that people are always talking about in novels and movies and such. Perhaps this is one of the moments that changes the course of your life. Maybe this is the right thing to do to prove to the universe that Rina and I should be us again. Something about it feels special.

  My seatmate crumples up her trash when she’s done, forming it into a tight ball that she shoves into her purse. I do the same with mine, tucking it in the oversized pocket of my messenger bag, which is full of Altoids, extra-long CVS receipts, and that strip of pictures of me and Rina. The only pictures I have left.

  I zip the bag shut and turn to my neighbor. “Uh, I’m Noah, by the way. Noah Adler.” I stick out my hand.

  She takes it, and hers is surprisingly cool, even though it’s warm in here. “Ammy.” She doesn’t offer a last name, like she’s some kind of one-name performer.

  Or maybe I’m the weirdo for telling her both. Rina always said it was strange to be so formal with people.

  “Ammy?” I ask. “Not Amy?”

  She shakes her head, a hint of exasperation creeping its way onto her face. I’m willing to bet she’s had this convo before. “Like Sammy without the S. It’s short for Amarantha. It’s from a poem or something. My parents are freaks.”

  “‘Amarantha sweet and fair, ah, braid no more that shining hair!’” I recite it without thinking.

  She narrows her eyes at me, and I pick at the skin around my thumb, worried I sound insane.

  But after a second, she nods at me, kind of like she’s impressed. “Not many people know that,” she says.

  I take a deep breath, steady my hand on the seat in front of me as the train goes around a slight curve. I feel that relief again. “I may or may not be studying comparative literature.” I raise my hand to stop her. “I know what you’re going to say: it’s a pointless major.”

  She laughs. “Your words, not mine.”

  I stop picking at my thumb and decide to keep going. “I love Richard Lovelace. I think he’s really underrated as a poet. He’s not as famous as the Johns. You know, John Donne or John Keats—” I pause to make sure she’s still listening. She is, her eyes locked right on mine. “—but I guess I don’t have to tell that to your parents.”

  She breaks my gaze and shrugs. “Well, it’s still a stupid name for a child. I don’t think I’ve had a single teacher who’s managed to get it right all the time. Not like Noah; that’s easy.”

  “There was this little thing called an ark,” I say with a smirk. “Most people know about it.”

  She looks down, fiddles in her bag. “Anyway, how much do I owe you?”

  “It’s my treat,” I say.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  I shrug. “I need some karma on my side. Believe me. You’ll be doing me a favor.”

  She pauses for a second, then says thank you, acquiescing. She puts her bag down.

  “Karma?” She raises an eyebrow. Behind her, I see an old school bus through the window, parked in a lot just in front of the woods. It’s painted in bright colors, and there are peace signs on it, plus a light dusting of snow on top. It’s always there at this part of the trip, the part where the train tracks don’t hug the edge of the Hudson, where it quickly turns to only woods.

  I look back at her, hesitating, though I don’t know quite why. The Brooklyn kids from before are heading back down the aisle, and a guy in front of us launches into a coughing fit.

  Is it weird to tell another girl about your plans to get your girlfriend back? Maybe. I’m not sure. I don’t know the protocol on this one, because I’ve never tried to get someone back before.

  I look out the window again, watching as the snow comes down, a little bit faster now. The painted bus is long gone. All I can see is woods.

  Weird or not, I decide to go ahead and tell her. I adjust the petal of one o
f the flowers, then look at her.

  “Does it have to do with those flowers?” she asks.

  I tilt my head to the side. “Maybe.”

  “You’re trying to get your ex back,” she says with utmost confidence.

  “Wow,” I say. “You’re good.”

  She smiles. “Lucky guess.”

  Maybe, but I decide she’s good at reading people. She must be. “Tonight would be the three-year anniversary of our first date,” I say.

  “Romantic,” she says, but she’s got a bit of a smirk when she says it, and her voice is snarky. Like she doesn’t really believe that anything is romantic. Not like that, at least.

  I feel myself go red.

  “So what did you do to screw it up?” she asks quickly, already completely sure that I’m the one who screwed it up.

  She is good at reading people.

  I take a deep breath, trying to think of the best way to explain, wondering if she could even give me some good advice, as we’ve still got over an hour together.

  But I don’t have a chance to get a word out because all of a sudden, I feel the train slowing. There’s a screech of brakes on metal, and I watch as one of the little kids trips and falls, and before I can even jump up to help him, the car begins to shake back and forth, and the overhead lights go out.

  The train comes to a full stop.

  AMMY

  1:23 P.M.

  I SWEAR, NO ONE ELSE ON THIS TRAIN IS FREAKING out as much as I am.

  It’s been almost an hour of this and still, nothing. The ceiling lights are off, and there have been no announcements for the last forty-five minutes or so—not even so much as a crackle on the intercom. The snow falls like it’s its freaking job, covering the mass of trees—all we can really see where we’re stopped—in a blanket of white that’s bright and harsh against the dim in here.

  There was lots of initial grumbling and pacing in the car, Noah quickly abandoning whatever he was about to say about his ex with a “crap” and “come on.” You could hear a mom up front trying to calm her kid, the sweaty guy in the suit sighing loudly, and the lady in front of us going on about how their daughter-in-law is going to be pissed if she has to wait too long at the station to pick them up. But once the most recent announcement came on, the one that said they were looking into the “situation” and for everyone to “sit tight” and reminded people that “Amtrak employees have no additional information,” a lot of people seem to have given up. Even the pacers have lost hope, with only a few stragglers leading the charge. Now we’re all just sitting here . . . waiting.

  I touch my hand to the glass, running my finger in circles through the frost, imagining that I’m cranking some kind of emergency generator that gets everything moving just right. The tips of my nails are ravaged from the last hour—from the last day—from the last year?—and I curse myself for my stupid anxious tic.

  The wedding—or commitment ceremony, to be totally accurate, since my parents aren’t even properly divorced yet—is at six. I still have time, theoretically, but I know that soon Kat will be helping Sophie do her makeup and all that jazz. Not to mention I have to do my makeup and my hair and iron the dress that’s crumpled in my bag. I was supposed to be arriving in only a matter of minutes.

  My phone buzzes, and I pull it out. It’s Kat. I texted her when we first stopped to tell her I might not be getting in on time and that I’d text her when we were moving again.

  Still nothing?

  I send her a sad face, and I think about writing something else, but I realize I have nothing to say.

  My mom didn’t want me to go to this. She begged me not to “validate their infidelity” by attending. And I told her I wouldn’t.

  Until I started to wonder whether she was on my side at all.

  Until I started to realize that if I didn’t get away from her—even if it was just for a week—I might go crazy.

  Until I started to ask myself if I was going to become just like her.

  And so now, here I am, making this gesture that says I’m on Team Dad, hurting her in a way that I don’t think I can take back, and now I’m not even sure if I’ll make it?

  It sucks.

  My breathing quickens, and I bite at my pinkie nail, getting the last bit before the quick.

  I stare through the spiral I’ve made in the frost, like there will somehow be an answer out there, but all I see are trees and snow. It’s completely hopeless.

  I look over at Noah. He’s nervous, too, I can tell by the way he continues to pick at the skin around his thumbs, a different technique from the nail biting, but similar, no less—we have something in common, at least.

  His eyes are locked on the seat in front of his, not a book or a phone or anything. He wants to get where he’s going tonight. His wheels are turning, spinning out all the potential scenarios if he doesn’t.

  Just like me.

  “Excuse me,” I say to Noah suddenly, motioning to the aisle, and he gets up quickly to make space for me. It’s fairly dim in here without the glow of fluorescent lighting, but I head up the center aisle anyway, hoping a little walking will help me calm down.

  I get to the end of the car, and a kid bops his little sister on the head with what looks like a rolled-up New Yorker magazine. An older woman in an expensive-looking full-length wool coat plays sudoku on her iPad. None of these people are trying to make their dad’s stupid wedding non-wedding. None of these people even look like they’re on a time crunch. Or maybe they’re just better at accepting things than I am.

  I reach the end of the car and turn back around, trying not to look like a total lunatic in the process. I walk back to my seat, hardly catching anyone’s eyes, because it’s New York, and just like Kat said, people seem to leave each other alone here—unless you’re fiddling with your suitcase or letting your phone ring unanswered, that is.

  The windows are getting frostier by the minute, and it’s still bright out but a dreary bright, pale and white, like someone has laid a sheet of vellum over the bare trees. Or chosen a phone filter to make it look vintage and blurry.

  Noah stands up to let me in. His eyes are wide open and eager, like a puppy dog’s. “Are you all right?” he asks. He stares at his thumb again.

  I scoot past him, his jersey swishing across the back of my wool sweater as I do, and sit down. I don’t feel all right, not really. I don’t feel all right at all.

  “Yeah,” I say as I mentally weigh the pros and cons of examining my mom’s barrage of text messages. “I just wish I knew how long this would take.”

  “You and the rest of us,” Noah says, and when he sees that’s the opposite of what I want to hear: “Delays are common, especially when the weather’s bad. I’m sure we’ll be moving soon. Whatever the issue is, it probably isn’t that bad.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than anyone.

  I let out a long sigh and pull my phone out of my pocket, but there’s nothing new from Kat.

  I look back out the window, at the condensation that is dripping down, turning my spiral creepy, like something out of a horror movie. I draw my name in the frost above it, then wipe off the moisture on my jeans, leaving a streak of dark on the faded denim.

  I stare at the message icon on my phone. I muted my convo with my mom so I wouldn’t get alerts, but still, the messages have been rolling in the whole trip, I can see by the tiny number over the icon that shows the amount of unread messages—it’s up to twenty-eight now. It’s stressing me out, now even more so since I have nothing to do but sit here.

  I need to rip the Band-Aid off.

  I know I have to.

  It’s going to drive me crazy if I don’t.

  I tap into my messages and click on the convo with my mom.

  I feel my pulse start to quicken as I scroll up, seemingly endlessly.

  Turn around

  You better tell Dara to turn around

  Call me

  Call me

  Call me

  Damn it
, Ammy, call me

  Call me

  How am I supposed to even know you’re OK

  Call me

  Answer me!

  And myriad variations of the above.

  And then one, from just five minutes ago.

  If you don’t call me now, I’m calling your dad

  It’s not even that I care that much about whether it’s a surprise, but it’s just that I don’t want to deal with the madness that would ensue if my mom called my dad, screamed at him in her anxious state on his commitment-ceremony day. I don’t want to deal with the fact that Sophie would surely blame me, that maybe even Kat would start to wonder if I carry more drama with me than I’m worth. That my dad would probably blame me, too.

  I want them all to like me; as much as I hate what he did, I want it.

  In this strange way, I want to belong, even if it’s only for a week.

  Noah must hear my breaths get quicker, because he turns to me. “Are you okay?”

  I nod. “I just need to make a phone call. Sorry.”

  “No worries,” he says.

  My mother answers on the first ring, like she had the cell phone in her hand. I’d bet a kajillion bucks that she actually did.

  “Are you okay?” Her voice is shrill.

  “I’m fine, Mom.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on the train,” I say. “I’m almost there.”

  That’s when she starts yelling. A big mess of words—“you knew how much this would hurt me, you told me you weren’t going to go, you were supposed to be on my side, we were going to watch Gilmore Girls, I had it all planned out”—I can barely keep up with.

  Her voice is loud and hoarse but sloshy, like she’s been crying in between the yelling, and I can practically see the rings under her eyes, the grease in her hair, which hasn’t been washed in days, the torn beds of her nails, which she destroys much worse than even I do.

  I don’t want to end up like her. That’s why I had to go today. I was afraid if I spent another moment in that house I would start to become her. I was afraid I’d start to hate my dad even more than I already do.