Lone Star (19 page)

Hannah

We arrived at the station with barely ten minutes to spare. Unlike the morning, it was mad packed with irate travelers, a crash of rhinos, all shoving and yelling their way to the one platform. Chloe and I couldn't find two seats together. I know she blamed me because I wanted to take a look at that girl. My little Zhenya. All the compartments were full. After racing back and forth, we finally found three single empty seats in one cabin.

The five other seats were occupied by an obese middle-aged couple, a father traveling with his small son, and a professor in a tweed suit by the window, reading
A Brief History of Time
by Stephen Hawking, in Latvian probably. There was one empty seat between the small boy and the professor, and one on each side of the lard consumers, who had wisely chosen to sit in the middle two, hoping to deter anyone from sitting next to them. It almost worked. But we were stuck. We tried to ask them to move over so that we could sit together, but they just stared at us as though we were the elephants. Just as well, because I refuse to sit next to enormous foreigners. And I know that Chloe likes the window. Besides, I wanted to sit next to the professor. He looked smart and handsome. Maybe he spoke a bit of English. I could find out.

Chloe breathed a big sigh of relief when we made the train. But not me. I half hoped we'd miss it, and be forced to stay in Liepaja one more day, and maybe tomorrow the weather would improve, and I could walk to Zhenya's house and if she was there I could ask her if she wanted to go with us to the beach. I'll buy you a lemonade, I'd say. And cotton candy if there's a boardwalk like the one in Revere, where there's a Ferris wheel and fireworks
in the summer. I'd ask Zhenya if she wanted to see Revere Beach, maybe go on a roller coaster with me. We have a lake where I live, I'd tell her, and the water is warm in the summer, and there's lots of fish. And in the winter, we could ice skate on it. Chloe could teach you how to speed skate when we're back from college for Christmas break. And I swear to you, I'd never let you out at night.

Chloe

She squeezed in by the window near the massive woman. She felt so claustrophobically cramped. Too many strangers in one confined space. Like spending hours in a packed and broken elevator. At least there was a window. Across from her, Hannah was primping her Marilyn Monroe hair next to the professor, who did not look up from his book, not even at bleached Hannah.

Running her hand over her tousled hair in a weak attempt to smooth it out, Chloe pressed her face to the glass and closed her eyes. She recalled wide-open spaces, swimming in her lake, and Raymonds's little round face, she recalled rocking the boat with Blake to see if they could tip it over while his father waved at them to stop from his sick chair and her mother yelled, I have ice tea, row back, you've been out there for hours.

Her mother and father would be proud of her, Chloe thought. She did well today. Coming here wasn't the waste of time she'd feared it would be. Quite the opposite, really. What had Blake and Mason been up to? How much longer? Maybe she could doze, wake up in Riga. She took a breath, her hands clutching the paperback, and opened her eyes. On the platform, people carried backpacks, suitcases, pushed trolleys and strollers. A pregnant woman was saying goodbye to a man in a suit. They were erotically making out. An old woman carried a toddler in her
arms. A man in a military coat with lots of stars on its shoulder straps was shaking the hand of an obscured young man, perhaps his son. A baby was crying. A young woman comforted him. The conductors were yelling, gesticulating. There was a loud stream in Latvian of one endless announcement after another.

Fifteen minutes behind schedule, the train engines finally spun into action, and Chloe permitted herself a small smile. Yes, it was smelly. And awfully crowded. And soon to be hot. Her shirt was still damp from the rain, and all the windows were closed and she couldn't find her ticket to show the conductor. But at least the train was moving. Soon this would be over. What station was next, Skrunda?

Not a minute after the conductor left, the door opened again and into their stuffy, overcrowded cabin stepped the dreaded eighth passenger, a young dude. No! It was impossible! There was no room here; couldn't he see that? It was as clear as the scowl on her face. A sharply inhaling Chloe despised him from the moment he slid open the door, smiling widely, and stepped inside to look for a seat. He was not only tall and had to bow his head to fit through the glass door, but he carried with him a crapload of stuff, enough shit to warrant his own cabin. Besides the oversized green duffel and a backpack, he wore a bulky leather jacket and a pretentious black beret. And on his back, to top it all off, was a guitar. Chloe nearly groaned. A guitar!

The luggage shelf above their heads was full. Fat people needed big suitcases. Father and son had a suitcase each, the professor a carry-on. There was no room for a man-sized duffel, no room for a man-sized guitar, no room for a man. The guitar looked old and beat-up, and had no case. Nice way to take care of an instrument, Chloe thought. But when he spun around, she saw that the strings were brand new. She didn't know which detail made her most hostile. All of them.

This interloper, at whom Chloe was too upset to look directly, assessed the situation in the cabin. “Hello, there,” he said in a low easy melodic American voice. Cool and casual and friendly.
Like a singsong. A fed-up Chloe stared out the window, ignoring him. Undeterred, the insolent intruder continued to speak. But now he was speaking in what might have been Latvian to the bulky pair next to Chloe. He sounded falsely polite.

And then, just when Chloe thought things couldn't get any worse, things got worse. Because after the trespasser had finished speaking, the chunky Lett chuckled. Chloe couldn't believe the woman didn't see right through him. The lady heaved herself up and, pulling her husband with her, slid over one seat! The eighth seat, right next to Chloe, became available!

Chloe glared in his direction, hoping her internal screaming might dissuade him.

Nope. Just the opposite. Grinning at her with his mouthful of teeth like a simpleton, he took one long gallop through the compartment and was by her side, his duffel, backpack, guitar, jacket, pompous beret, everything. Was his black hair short or was it slicked back in a ponytail? He would have a ponytail, wouldn't he? Oh yes. There it was.

“Hi,” he said to her, dropping the duffel to the floor. “Sorry about all my stuff. Would you mind?”

“Mind what?” Chloe barked. Her mother wouldn't be pleased with her manners. How did he know she spoke English? She could be a bosomy Lett herself.

“Um, scooting over just a wee bit?” he said. His large eyes were twinkling. He probably thought they were dark chocolate in color. “You're in my seat. Maybe you could move a smidge, and then I'd fit right in.” He grinned. “I'm good at fitting into tight spaces.” He didn't just say that! “I'm skinny, you see,” he went on.

She didn't see. She didn't see anything. Chloe flung herself at the window. She wanted to fling herself
through
the window like a waxwing slain. Hannah, who a moment ago had been unsuccessfully trying to engage the professor in conversation, had forgotten all about physics and was avidly gesturing to Chloe, in a back-and-forth pattern through the air, as if to say,
let's switch seats!

Chloe wanted nothing more than to switch: cabins, cars, countries. But why should Hannah get what she wanted? Chloe wasn't getting what she wanted. Peace. Quiet. No personal-space invaders next to her. Imperceptibly she shook her head.

“Wow, it's crowded,” the guy said. No shit, Sherlock. “This may be the last available seat on the whole train. Believe me, I looked and looked.”

“It wasn't crowded this morning,” said Hannah, suddenly the queen of small talk! Having struck out with the professor, she was appealing to the marauder from across the aisle. His skinny denim-clad legs stretched out to Hannah's ballet flats. Chloe tucked in her own feet, feeling exposed in the strappy sandals. She didn't want him to spot her red painted toenails. But there was no way around some other things—like her khaki thigh touching his denim thigh. The grossness of the whole thing. She wished her hair wasn't such a dire mess. Oh, who cared?

He didn't smell like the fat foreigners, but he looked as though he might. He stood the body of his guitar on top of the duffel, holding it by the neck like a cello. Every few seconds he would strum it. At first Chloe thought it was accidental, but no. He was strumming it. Spreading wide his net to catch his prey with his little perfect fourths and his stretched-out legs and his evenly trimmed black stubble. How Chloe wished she hadn't taken music theory her senior year. All the useless information she had learned in that class still fresh. What did Mr. Lecese know about strumming stubbled ponytailed bandits on Latvian trains?

The conductor opened the door and grunted at the unwelcome arrival. “
Billetes?
”

“One moment.” The guy reached into his back pocket, and his elbow poked Chloe in her breast! He stopped, didn't even say excuse me, moved away slightly, and passed her the guitar. “Can you hold it for a sec? I have to find my pass.”

It wasn't as if he asked her for a favor, expecting perhaps a no. Had he ever
heard
the word
no
? He acted as if he hadn't. First he pushed his guitar at her, already standing up, and then he asked
her to hold it. Perhaps the unspoken threat was, either hold my guitar or be elbowed again in your ample bosom.

He took something out of his wallet that did not look like a ticket or a Eurail pass. The conductor glanced at it, glanced at him a moment longer, nodded quickly, his hand almost going to his temple in a salute, and backed out of the cabin. The guy stuffed everything back into his wallet, and sat down.

“I'll take my guitar now,” he said.

She turned to the window and checked her watch for the time. It was only 5:30! The train wouldn't get to Riga until after eight. Chloe couldn't figure out why God was punishing her, tried to think of other things. Yet the boy's presence next to her was enormous and could not be denied. He crowded out all her other thoughts. She couldn't close her eyes. She couldn't read her book. Trying not to breathe, she stared grimly out of the window, her mouth in a clamshell.

For a few minutes, the compartment was almost silent. The professor was reading Hawking. The father was reading the paper and the boy was playing a handheld video game. The male half of the stout couple was napping, while the female half was attempting to involve guitar boy in conversation. Apologetically glancing at the woman while trying to catch Chloe's eye, he said in English with a rueful smile, “I speak only the most basic Latvian. I wish I could explain that to her.” Oh, he fancied himself to be quite the smiler!

What are you telling
me
for, Chloe thought. Tell her. She zeroed in on the passing farms outside, pretending to be deaf, to be a non-English speaker, and to have no peripheral vision.

“Right?” Hannah butted in. “They keep talking to us in Latvian, too, but we don't understand a word.”

“Who's they?” the boy said, pointing to his left. “These two?”

“No, no. I mean in general.” She smiled. Hannah! In the Academy yearbook she was voted the least likely to smile. This was not a joke. This is what it actually said about her in the yearbook. Chloe wanted to share it with the ticketless traveler,
but remembered just in time she didn't want to speak to him. To avoid any possibility of further conversation, she forced herself to open her book.

“What are you reading?” he promptly asked. “Let's see.”

“It's nothing.” To be half-civil, she showed him.
The Way of All Flesh
by Samuel Butler.

“Pretty funny book,” he said, as if he'd read it. “I like its depiction of father and unredeemed son.”

He'd read it!

“I haven't finished it, so I wouldn't know about the unredeemed part,” Chloe said pointedly. “Hope you didn't just ruin the book for me.”

He laughed. Listen to him, all mellifluous and throaty. “No, no. The parenting stuff in it is hilarious. Butler writes that if you want to control your children, keep telling them constantly they're being very, very naughty. My father must have read it.” He shrugged. “Want to know what I'm reading?”

How did one politely say, no, not in the least, not even slightly.

“Yes, what are you reading?” chirped Hannah.

The rotund woman to his left not only continued to beseech him in a low Myrtle Wilson voice, but was tapping on his sleeve to get his attention.

“I'm sorry,” he finally said to her in English. “My Latvian is not good enough. I don't understand what you're saying.”

She said something in Latvian.

“
Es nerunaˉju loti labu latviešu
,” he said. “
Es atvainojos.”

Hannah looked so impressed! Chloe couldn't figure it out. Here is a straphanger, one-tenth the age of the dude she's stepping out with behind the back of her current boyfriend, who is not just any boyfriend, but Blake! Blake, her devoted squeeze, and Hannah's suddenly all aflush because some guy can speak a few words of a foreign language—the language of a country she doesn't even like! Blake has a guidebook too, Chloe wanted to blurt out.

It was hot. Chloe's damp shirt was pressed against the
shoulder of his leather jacket. After a few minutes he mercifully took the jacket off, but not before flinging his arms and elbows and hands in all directions. Women, Chloe wanted to yell in alarm, guard your boobs! Under the leather, he wore a plain black fitted T with the white star of Texas above the pocket. Was he from Texas? Words could not express how much she didn't care.

“Oh! Are you from Texas?” Hannah asked.

“Nah, it's the one state I've never been to.” Yes, the jacket was off, but the rest of him, long, lean, arms akimbo, was still way too warm and way too pressed against Chloe. The neck of his guitar kept banging against her knees, and his huge green duffel took up the floor space where her feet needed to be. Crossing her legs, she turned her body window-ward, but no sooner had she done this than he thrust his book at her.

“Look what I'm reading,” he said.

It was the
U.S. Army Survival Handbook
. Whatever.

“Oh?” said Hannah. “Why are you reading that?” Even the Lettish Myrtle was curiously mouthing the words of the title to herself, perhaps trying to translate.

“Always good to know stuff, don't you think?” he replied to Hannah, but was turned to Chloe. He opened the book to show her. “Did you know, for example, that you should always travel through the jungle wearing a long-sleeved shirt to avoid cuts and scratches?” Approvingly he touched her checkered forearm with his octave-length fingers. “Ah, but you're damp. That's no good. Your clothing must stay dry. Says so right here.”

She pulled her arm away and heaved herself at the window. He was practically talking to the back of her shoulder. “And you shouldn't grasp at brush or vines when searching for the trail because they might have irritating spines or sharp thorns.”

“Good to know,” Chloe said. Irritating was right.

“The black briar is dangerous, wouldn't you agree? When you're trying to find your way?”

“Guess so.”

“And don't pick any mushrooms in the woods,” he continued. “Many will be poisonous.”

“Yeah, we'll be sure not to pick any mushrooms while we're in Riga,” said Chloe.

He laughed, his teeth gleaming. “Yes, you better not. Though by the Daugava near the Old City, they simply pro-LI-fe-rate after a rain, which is almost every day.”

“Funny, hasn't rained once since we've been here,” Chloe said.

He appraised both girls. “How long?”

“This is our fourth day,” Hannah readily replied.