Field Notes on Love(46)

    In the fluorescent light of the train, she can see the dark circles under Duncan’s eyes, and he puts a hand over his mouth to hide a yawn. She looks at him closely, realizing he can’t be much older than she is. “How long are your shifts?”

“Not too bad. I got to sleep a little earlier.”

“Are you always on this route?”

“Yup. Chicago to Emeryville. I get off, smell the bay, turn around, and come straight back. Then I sleep for three days and do it all over again.”

“You must know it well. This part of the country.”

“Only what I can see out the window,” he says with a shrug. He gives her a smile that’s meant to be charming. “So where’s your boyfriend?”

Mae doesn’t bother to correct him. She likes the sound of it: boyfriend. “He’s asleep.”

“How long have you been together?”

She doesn’t answer him. Instead, she walks to the other set of doors, across the car. Through the grimy window, the sky is thick with stars. There’s the sound of clanking outside, metal on metal, and Mae looks over at Duncan.

“That’s either a good sign,” he says, “or a bad one.”

She glances down at her phone, thinking suddenly of home. Her dads are early risers; they’re probably at the kitchen table right now, arguing about how many cups of coffee is too many. She starts to thumb over to her list of favorites, when she realizes there’s no service.

“This whole route is pretty patchy,” Duncan says. “We’re in a dead zone now.”

“You make it sound like the start of a horror movie.”

    He laughs at this. “I can never watch those things.”

“Me neither.” She looks again at the stars out the window. “What happens if we’re stuck here for a while?”

“Then we’re stuck here for a while. Me and this guy in the dining car, Raymond, we always make bets on delays. The over-under on this one is six hours.”

“Are you over or under?”

“Over,” he says. “We’re already an hour in, and it doesn’t seem like we’re going anywhere soon.”

“Hey, Duncan, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“What’s your biggest dream?” She doesn’t have her camera with her, but she finds she wants to know anyway.

He doesn’t hesitate, not even for a second. It’s as if he gets asked this question every single day. “A cabin on a lake. Maybe up in Wisconsin. I’d go ice fishing in the winters and take a boat out in the summers. Maybe get a dog to sit with me on the porch. No work. No schedules. No passengers.” He cracks a grin. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Just those stars,” he says, jabbing a thumb at the window. “But without the glass.”

Mae nods. “That sounds nice.”

“Sure does.”

She doesn’t ask his word for love. He’s still looking up at the stars with a thoughtful expression, and that feels to Mae like answer enough.

“Good night, Duncan,” she says with a smile, and he gives her a little wave.

“Good night, Margaret Campbell, room twenty-four.”

    Mae flinches at this, the reminder that’s trailed her halfway across the country. She’s not Hugo’s girlfriend. She doesn’t know what she is, but it’s not that.

Just enjoy it, Priyanka said, which has never been a problem for Mae. In fact, it’s what these types of things have always been: fun and breezy and uncomplicated. There’s no reason why this should be any different.

It’s not that she doesn’t believe in love. But seeing other people’s stories unfold always feels like watching a movie she would never have picked out for herself. Somewhere there must be a version that’s more like the films in her head, bright and colorful and unique.

“You’re a tough nut to crack,” Nana once told her, and Priyanka’s warning that she’s too careful with her heart is still ringing in her ears.

But they’re both wrong. Her heart isn’t the problem.

It’s that she’s never met someone she actually hopes will break through.

When she reaches the door to their compartment, she pauses for a moment. Beneath her feet, there’s a faint vibration, almost like the purring of cat, but nothing else. After a few seconds, it disappears again, and they’re no longer even idling. They’re just stuck.

Trains are meant to be in motion. People too. They should be on their way somewhere, slicing through the dark rather than huddling here beneath it.

She slides open the door. Hugo is still asleep, his face mashed into the pillow, his arm hanging over the edge of the bunk. She steps up to the bed and studies him for a second, then—unable to resist—stands on her tiptoes and kisses him on the nose.

    His eyelids flutter, and when they open, he looks sleepy and unfocused.

“Hugo?” she whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Doesn’t it sort of feel like this is a dream?”

“Yeah,” he says, then closes his eyes again. Mae is about to crawl into her own bunk when she hears his voice again. “A good one?”

“Yes,” she says, and he shifts over, leaving room for her to climb into the bunk beside him. It’s not graceful; she scrabbles to find the step, then bumps her head on the ceiling, and when she tries to shimmy in beside him, her foot gets caught in the safety net. But eventually she burrows her way into the small space, and he slips his arms around her so that she can feel the thud of his heart against her back as she falls asleep.