The Girl on the Train

This could be considered an epilogue to the previous “The Most Interesting Man in the World.”  But you may take it as you will…

It will be late at night when you finally get on the train, calves aching, a thin film covering any and all exposed skin, a taste in your mouth that you can’t place but know that it is not something pleasant.  You will take your seat in the almost empty car, the fluorescent lights harshly burning down on the two or three other passengers that occupy various other seats, spread out equidistant, each person their own colony of destitution, each an isolationist nation, starving and slowly dying alone.  You will be exhausted.  You will already be picturing yourself in your bed, looking forward to flipping the switch, shutting off your brain for the day.  “So very close,” you will think…

Two stops down the line, they will get on the train, in your car, invading your territory like hostile enemy forces.  There will be four of them, three girls and one guy, and from the moment they board it will be obvious that they are completely intoxicated.  They will stumble and talk loudly.  They will slur and say stupid, inappropriate things.  They will have a lengthy debate on just where the fuck is this train going? And I think we’re going to wrong way! And no, we’re not, we’re going West I think.  “Jesus,” you will mumble under your breath, “If I’m like this when I drink I’m switching to a less annoying vice, like betting on horse races or watching Jersey Shore.”  All you will want is to avoid being touched by their suffocating shabbiness, their predictable Midwest B-list escapism that will surely be the talk around boring water coolers in the hot, hangover morning.  They will be “average” personified four-fold, and all you will desire it to elude drawing their attention, just quietly slip by, of no consequence and not providing any reason to be talked to…

“Hey, he’s cute,” the blonde girl with dead eyes and gift shop tattoos will say, getting up to come talk to you though you will have given her no indication that this is something you want her to do.

Goddamnit.  You will exhale the word through your mouth, making your tongue take the shape of the syllables but keeping your jaw and lips still; the result will sound like any old sigh, an expletive neatly disguised.

She will sit in the seat in front of you and ask your name, to which you will respond curtly but politely, and follow it up with a toothless smile.  “I’m Miranda,” she will say, her reciprocated smile haphazard, sloppy.  Her eyes will survey you, attempting to focus, losing the battle with the drugs that are depressing her central nervous system.  You will wonder how your eyes look at her (not that she would notice).  Do they glow of impatience? Do they shine with pity, with embarrassment for her?  Or are they just dull, deflated, extinguished…?

Miranda will make small talk with you and you will oblige her because you have never been the type to tell someone to “fuck off” even if you mean it, and have, in fact, always chosen to suffer through such exasperating social encounters rather than appear rude or insincere, though knowing full well that by feigning interest and indulging their unwanted conversations you are actually being both rude and insincere.  Besides, there will be nowhere else to go – you will be a captive audience in the small train car - and your stop will be only a few minutes away anyway. 

“What do you do for the monies?” you will ask.  (You always ask about someone’s job this way, because you believe that “careers” are a dying invention and asking “What do you do for a living” implies that a job keeps you alive, which you believe it does only as far as keeping you comfortable and fed and warm; but really, these are only small parts of actually “living,” just the dirty gears of it, the black-clad stagehands that move the set pieces and pull open the curtains.  “Living” is so much more than this, and you refuse to degrade its worth by using such a carelessly constructed comparison.  You will, instead, choose to sound ridiculous and childlike.)

“I’m…uh…in finance,” she will say, slightly caught off guard by your phrasing (as most people are).  “But I just lost my job.  Corporate downsizing.  I knew it was going to happen, but still.  I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”  She will look like she’s been slapped, like she has just been given terrible news in a public place and whattheHELL kind of person would give you news like that with so many people around?! (you inconsiderate asshole!) You will feel awful, she will have obviously been trying to forget about this all night.

“Well,” you will say, trying to be consoling, hoping to cover up the wounds exposed by what you thought was an innocent question, Jesus I hope she doesn’t start crying or something, “you know what they say about doors…”

Her expression will tell you that no, she does not know what they say about doors, and their ability to close and open and high school graduation speeches blah blah blah.  You will begin to actually feel sorry for this girl.  You will want to help her, but you have no idea how to go about this.

“So, what do you think you are going to do now?” you will ask, trying to sound cheery and hopeful and like losing her job is the best thing that could have ever happened to her.

“I just don’t know.  I think I’d like to move somewhere, maybe California.  But that probably won’t happen.”  She will look so broken, used up.

“Wow, Cali would be amazing, you should totally go!” you will say.  The conversation will turn to traveling, to the places you have each been, to the places you want to go.  You will recount the months after you graduated from college, of moving from Miami to Colorado to Texas, of being so poor that you could not eat, of living in Asia.  You will tell her that you may go to Brooklyn in the fall, that you feel like your time in the Midwest has expired.  She will look at you with wide eyes, unbelieving.

“I can’t believe you’ve been to all those places, have lived everywhere!” she will say, though you will feel undeserving of the attention because you know people who have led lives far more exciting, and you sometimes feel like a fraud knowing these people exist and are doing things you have been too cowardly to do.  “I could never do what you do, just pick up and move somewhere!”

“Sure you could,” you will say, “Anyone can do it.”

“But I don’t have enough money to move...or a job,” she will sigh, looking lost.

“Let me tell you this: you will NEVER have enough money to move, or to go anywhere you want to go.  There will never be enough money, or time, and things will get fucked up and there will be a million reasons why you probably shouldn’t go.  It doesn’t matter.  You just have to go and believe that everything will work out in the end, because it always does.  You won’t die, you won’t starve.  The worst thing that could happen is that you lose all your money and end up right back where you started…but money, in itself, is worthless.  It only has value once we use it for something we truly want.”

She will not know what to say.  “I’ve never met anyone like you before,” she will finally respond, softly.  You will take this as a compliment, but what she will really be saying is, “people do not live like you live.  You are not normal.  This is not how you are supposed to do it.”  You will smile at her, a reassuring type of smile.  The train will slow for your stop, and you will get up to leave.  You will wish Mirada the best of luck, and slip out of the doors into the humid night.

Alone, among her inebriated friends – one of the girls passed out against the window, the guy furiously texting in hopes of finding someone to share his bed with for the night – she will ride to the parking lot, then irresponsibly drive the rest of the way home drunk.  Tomorrow she will wake up, lie around in her pajamas all day, watch T.V. and eat ice cream from the carton.  She will feel sorry for herself, she will not know what the hell she is going to do.  Maybe she will think about the conversation she had with you on the train, but only for a second.  I could not live that way, she will think.  On Monday she will update her resume, send it off to other firms.  She will find another job, perhaps a better one, and eventually she will buy a house.  She will get married, have kids, live here and die here. 

One day far from now, as she watches the sun set from her kitchen window, her thin hands holding a cup of tea close to her pale lips, the steam rising and carrying the sweet smell to her sense, maybe she will wonder.  What would my life had been like if I had gone to California, all those years ago?  What if I would have taken a chance and followed my dreams?

Some questions are not meant to be answered.