The Last Ballad(56)

“It sounds amazing,” she said.

“Sometimes it is,” he said. He polished the silverware in silence for a moment, stared intently at his hands as they worked. “Where are you from?” he asked.

Claire watched his hands and the white rag move across the knives and forks and spoons as he polished them. She felt herself stepping from her own life back in McAdamville and into Donna’s.

“Salisbury,” she said. “My family’s from Salisbury, North Carolina, but I’m finishing school in Greensboro.”

“My family’s from the South as well,” he said.

“Where?”

“Mississippi,” he said. “But we left there a long time ago.”

The train had slowed, but she hadn’t been aware of it until she saw the lights outside her window.

“Is this Charlottesville?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. He stepped out from the behind the bar. “I have to go,” he said. “There are a few passengers boarding.”

“Okay,” she said.

He looked at the table before her. The cookie was gone, and she’d drunk half the milk.

“Do you need anything else?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay,” he said. He nodded. “Good night.”

He turned to go, but she called after him.

“I may still be here,” she said.

He stopped and faced her.

“Just so you’re not surprised,” she said. “I may still be sitting here when you come back.”

He smiled.

“Okay, Donna,” he said.

“Okay, Hampton,” Claire said.

She watched his back until he disappeared down the hall toward the other car. She sat for a few moments, sensed that something about the train had changed. She was somehow aware of the new people who’d just boarded, people who were awake and moving while the others slept, although she couldn’t see or hear any of them.

After a few minutes, she heard the familiar sound of the cars bunching together, and the dining car stuttered forward, and then it allowed itself to be pulled along smoothly. Claire wondered if Donna had slept through the stop, or if the sudden jolt had woken her. She wondered if Donna would whisper her name, hear nothing, and believe that Claire had slept through the stop at Charlottesville.

She tried not to look toward the door through which Hampton had exited, although she caught herself staring into the window and trying to use it as a mirror so that she wouldn’t have to look directly across the dining room. She waited, and after what seemed like a long time she made up her mind to return to the sleeping car, to sneak back into her berth, climb back into bed in her dress, and sleep for the few hours before they arrived in Greensboro.

She moved away from the window, but before she could stand she sensed that someone had come into the dining room. So she relaxed and tried to hide the fact that she’d ever considered leaving. She picked up the glass of milk and drank down what was left of it.

When she lowered the glass it revealed a white man standing in the doorway of the dining car. For a moment, Claire mistakenly believed that she still wore her sleeping gown, and she dropped the glass onto the table, where it rattled against the plate, and she pulled the collar of her dress tight around her neck. Instead of the sound startling him the same way it had startled Claire, the man simply looked toward her, and then he turned and looked behind him in the direction he’d just come.

He wore shirtsleeves and suspenders. His thick, dark hair was brushed back from his forehead. He was perhaps forty, certainly no older than fifty.

The train moved through a turn at a good clip, but the man stood as if he were outside the train and hadn’t even noticed it as it passed. He nodded at Claire.

“Good evening,” the stranger said.

“Hello,” she said.

The man walked toward Claire and stopped beside her table.

“A fellow night owl,” he said. He smiled. “Do you mind if I join you?”

Before Claire had the chance to think about his question, much less answer it, the stranger sat down across the table from her.

“You don’t mind?” he asked after he’d already settled himself.

“Of course not,” Claire said, and then, “I was just about to return to my room.”

“Well, I won’t keep you,” he said. “You go back to your room whenever you’d like.” He looked toward the window. “Nothing like a train at night,” he said. “You agree?”

“Yes,” Claire said. “Did you just board?”

“No,” the man said. “I boarded in D.C. I’ve been in my berth, working.”

He sat back, folded his hands in his lap, and stared at Claire with a cool, distant smile. His eyes fell on the empty glass of milk.

“Trouble sleeping?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I mean, earlier, yes. But I’m feeling tired now.”

“Are you traveling with family?”

“What?” she asked. The stranger’s questions, which she realized were normal, predictable questions, seemed to be delivered in such a way that she didn’t quite understand them.

“Are you traveling with family?” he asked again.

“No,” she said. “I was in Washington. With my classmates. I’m in college.”