I Almost Forgot About You

by Terry McMillan

  “Seattle,” I say, low enough so my hiker neighbors don’t hear.

  “Me, too. Going to a funeral. You look like you might be ready to vacation.”

  I nod.

  “Where do you hail from?”

  “Oakland.”

  She finishes her sandwich. Then digs out two cartons of Yoo-hoo chocolate drink and a narrow package of tiny powdered doughnuts and polishes those off. And then she farts! I swear to God she does. And she doesn’t say excuse me. But it’s exactly what I say to her when she gets up to let me out, and I take my pillow and blanket and reach for my roll-aboard, and she says, “How long are you going to be gone?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m going down to the observation car to look at the stars.”

  “Enjoy,” she says, and moves into my seat.

  I hear the conductor shout “All aboard!” loud enough to be heard a block away. When I walk into the observation car, the entire ceiling is slightly tinted curved glass that drops down to a wall of windows, which are directly in front of seats that swivel. Farther down are rows of built-in rectangular tables big enough for four. The soft blue cushions are like those you’d see in a nice diner. The dining car starts where these tables end. This is where I decide I’m going to live for the next twenty-three hours.

  When I feel the wheels churn and screech against the steel tracks, and the train inches its way out of the station, I feel more excited than I did when Ma and Daddy took us to Disneyland for the first time.

  After the boats finally disappear, I call my daughters, Ma, Wanda, Violet, Mercury, and Marina. I save Stan for last.

  “The train has just left the station,” I tell them, and they applaud and offer their personal safety guidelines about what to do in case of an emergency, all of them except Stan.

  “So your adventure begins,” he says.

  “It does.”

  “Enjoy every minute of it,” he says. “And call or text when you can or when you feel up to it. It’s already tomorrow here. But not to worry. I also love travel photos, especially the ones that look airbrushed! Just let me know when you’ll be arriving in Vancouver, and this way I’ll know how many miles to go before I wake.”

  “Will do.”

  I wanted to tell him I wished he were sitting next to me.

  But I just couldn’t.

  I miss him.

  And I haven’t missed anybody in years.

  I put my pillow on top of the table, wrap my fleece blanket around my shoulders, and lay my head down. When I feel someone shaking me, I look up, and seated across from me are Calico and a scrawny-looking older woman with short, feathery hair I can see through, smiling at me. Or maybe not.

  “I thought you were coming back. Anyway, this is my new friend, Collette. Collette, this is Georgia.”

  “Hello, Collette.”

  “Were you sleeping?” Collette asks.

  “Yes. It’s been a long day.”

  “Tell me about it,” she says.

  “So what is it you do for a living?” Calico asks.

  “I’m an optometrist.”

  “No shit.”

  Even though I don’t want to know, I feel obligated to ask. “What about you two?”

  “I’m currently unemployed,” Calico says. “I’m disabled.”

  “I’m a bebop singer,” Collette says.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I’ve just discovered how much I love harmony, so I’ve been helping out a group in Eugene, which is where I will have to leave you ladies tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That sounds exciting.”

  I can tell these two have a lot in common. Collette’s eyes are glassy.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  “I will be as soon as my meds kick in.”

  “So what are you going to Seattle for?” Calico asks.

  “To start a new life,” I say, just to see what they’ll say.

  “Well, we all could use one,” Calico says.

  Collette just nods in agreement.

  “Yes we do. But you know what, ladies? I’m really tired and need to close my eyes if you don’t mind.”

  “Then sleep away,” Calico says.

  But they don’t leave. And for the next three or four hours, they tell each other their life stories, which is like listening to every soap opera ever made rolled into one.

  —

  I feel the sun on my face, and my neck is killing me. I open one eye and see that the girls are gone.

  We’re in Oregon. Klamath Falls. The town’s tiny brick station, though clearly pretty new, looks like something you’d see in a black-and-white movie. I go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and wash my face with my own products. I would like to change, but I wouldn’t dream of undressing in this stainless-steel bathroom.

  I have a roll and bitter coffee for breakfast. There is no cell-phone service, and I’m told there won’t be for hours, but it doesn’t matter. For the next seven, I won’t stop looking out the window, because this is what I will see:

  Rain.

  Mount Shasta.

  A snow-covered island surrounded by a blue lake.

  Rain.

  Tunnels.

  Forests.

  Mountains.

  Canyons.

  Beavers.

  A red sun.

  Twilight.

  The last of which is precisely when I’m sitting in the dining car eager to order dinner and the train suddenly stops. Other folks seem as baffled as I do, and we’re all wearing that look of anticipation, which is when we hear the announcement that there’s been a gas-line break outside Portland. We’re going to have to stay put until it’s fixed. That it might be two, maybe three hours, but they’ll keep us informed.

  And here come my BFFs. The hostess asks if I would mind if they joined me, and I tell her not at all. I order a burger and fries and a salad made with iceberg lettuce. My girlfriends order the same, except Collette orders hers without the bun.

  “So it looks like we’re stranded, huh?” she says.

  “I’m in no hurry,” Calico says.

  “I thought you were going to a funeral.”

  “Did I tell you that?”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Then I am. Except it’s probably my own.”

  They both think this is funny.

  I almost choke on my hamburger it’s so dry, and I only eat half of it. The fries are hard and yellow, and I can see a puddle of dressing on the plate after I eat a few forkfuls of the wet lettuce. Collette is still futzing with her brown burger. Calico’s plate is empty.

  “Are you going to finish that burger?” she asks.

  I look at it.

  “No.”

  “You mind if I finish it?”

  “No,” I say, shocked that she’s serious.

  “What about the salad?”

  “Knock yourself out,” I say, and push my plate closer to her.

  When the waitress brings three checks, they act like they’re afraid to look at theirs. I take them.

  “This is my treat,” I say.

  “Are you shitting me?” Calico says, as if she’s hit the lottery.

  “Well, that’s awful kind of you, Georgia. It must be nice to be a professional like yourself. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re quite welcome, ladies. But look, I want to get a little reading in and maybe watch a movie, since we don’t know how long we’re going to be on this train.”

  I will have a chance to watch two movies before this fucking train moves, but while we wait, this is what happens on the Orient Express:

  People start smoking in the bathrooms. Cigarettes and marijuana.

  Children run up and down the aisles.

  A young couple at the table in front of me decide to turn it into an art class and invite the children who won’t sit down to sit down and paint on three-by-five index cards they whip out of their backpacks, and they even line up the watercolor trays for the kids, and for the next few hours even some adults decide
they also want to be Picasso.

  I decide to have a drink.

  And this is who I meet while drinking champagne at the other end of the observation car:

  Harriet and Raymond, both seventy-three: Celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They met on a train. They’re from Sacramento.

  Juice: He’s trying to get off meth and figured a train ride would help aid in his recovery. He seems a little wired to me.

  Marvin and Maynard: Twins, forty-two, from Saratoga Springs, New York, both recently divorced, who’ve decided to ride out their pain on a train around the entire United States. They don’t think they’re going to make it past Seattle.

  June: Eighteen, a runaway from Vallejo, California. Going as far as the train goes. She has no money. I give her sixty dollars. It’s all the cash I have.

  People on trains will talk to anyone willing to listen. I’m fascinated by just how different our lives are. And this is what I overhear while waiting for the Starlight to move:

  “I’m getting off this fucking train if you say it one more time. I swear to God.”

  “I love you.”

  “Four times? Really?”

  “They’re getting a divorce? He did?”

  “I’m quitting my job because I hate it.”

  “You lived in thirteen foster homes?”

  “You’re not having it?”

  “You just cannot trust men.”

  “You were born to be a slut.”

  “Meet me in the restroom.”

  I don’t read a word for hours.

  I don’t need to.

  I close my eyes after so many miles of rocking. When we stop in a station to take on new passengers, an oncoming train passes, and it feels like we’re moving, too. But backward.

  When the train finally does move, I close my eyes and dream about Stanley. I reenact our weekend and hit Pause at the place I want to stop it.

  Each time I try to use my cell phone, it simply says NO SERVICE, so I give up.

  It appears that almost everybody’s asleep, but I find myself looking out the window at the deep darkness and the strong rain and at my reflection in the glass, and I’m trying to remember why I wanted to take this fucking train ride in the first place. Oh, yeah. To figure out how I was going to do the things I’ve either already done or am in the process of now doing.

  We arrive in Seattle five hours late. I say good-bye to my friends. The hotel has given away my room. The train to Vancouver leaves in three hours, so I decide to just wait in the station until it’s time to board. Four uneventful hours later, I’m finally in Vancouver. The good news is it only takes me fifteen minutes to go through customs. I look like shit, but I don’t care.

  I’m starting to realize how beautiful train stations are. Airports could learn something from them. Seriously. I paid for the option of spending the day sightseeing and shopping and maybe spending the night here in a five-star hotel and leaving in the morning. I could be in Toronto in four days instead of six. But I don’t want to spend the day as a tourist or the night in a beautiful hotel alone. I want to see Stanley. I decide to call him. I want to hear his voice instead of just remembering it. I hope he doesn’t think the train went off the track or that I had a change of heart and am blowing him off. I sit down on what looks just like a church pew and dial. It rings three times and goes to voice mail. I probably should’ve just stayed home and painted something, because so far the ride on this train has been disappointing, and now I have to get on another one for four or five more days before I’ll even get to Toronto. I just hope I can stand being on another train that long. I feel tears welling in my eyes, and just as they’re about to roll, I realize I don’t have any tissue.

  “Is anyone sitting here?”

  I look up. And there he is.

  “No,” I say, trying to pull myself together.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, and tighten my ponytail and wipe my eyes.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Georgia. Georgia Young.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Georgia Young. I’m Stanley DiStasio.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, too, Mr. DiStasio.”

  “Please, call me Stan.”

  “Stan.”

  “You look like you could use a hug.”

  “I could,” I say.

  And then he reaches over and pulls me inside his arms and holds me like a baby.

  “I was worried because I haven’t heard a peep out of you since yesterday, so I hopped on a plane and flew here. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m so glad to see you, and it was just horrible, and I don’t care if I never get on another fucking train ever again in life!”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “You were right about the service. Mountains and wilderness don’t need to worry about reception. And what a bunch of weirdos and people who don’t know where they’re going. And everybody’s just so damn lonely!”

  “Well, no one better than you to understand that we’re all only trying to find a place to land.”

  I look at him and just blurt out, “I really like you.”

  “I like you, too,” he says. “A lot.”

  “I’m glad,” I say.

  “I also love you,” he says.

  “I think I might possibly potentially but probably love you, too, Stan.”

  “Could you please repeat that, but without all the words that began with p?”

  “I love you, Stanley DiStasio.”

  “That’s much better,” he says. “But it’s Stan.”

  And we sit here on this bench a few more minutes without talking, which is when I get an overwhelming sense of where I am and what I’m doing and how implausible this really is and that it can’t be happening because it feels too good.

  “I can’t afford to do this again,” I blurt again.

  “Do what again?”

  “Start and stop.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Because I think we’ve been waiting a very long time for each other.”

  “Don’t.”

  “This isn’t a movie, Georgia.”

  I sit there and sink. “So what would you say if I told you I fell in love with you thirty-five years ago but never told a soul, not even my own?”

  “I’d believe you,” he says.

  “What?”

  “I knew when you refused to go to the pizza place with me, which is why I brought you the whole box.”

  “Really?”

  “I knew it when you sat up front and didn’t turn back to look at me.”

  “Shut. Up!” I lean against him and push.

  “But I also knew I loved you when you let me join your study group.”

  He chuckles.

  “It was confirmed when you let me touch you and I knew then that one day I was going to touch you again.”

  I hold out my hand. “Touch me again now.”

  And he strokes my fingers. “I’m going to love you soft and hard,” he says.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m going to make you so happy you won’t know what to do except be happy.”

  “This sounds good to me. And I’ll give everything back to you triple.”

  “And I’m going to listen to every word that comes out of your mouth,” he says.

  “I’m a talker.”

  “You think I’ve forgotten?”

  “You know what I want to know?” I ask.

  “I’m listening.”

  “How the universe works.”

  “You mean the planet we’re on right now?”

  “Including the stars. All of it.”

  “That’s going to take some time.”

  “About how many days?” I ask sarcastically.

  “At least a million.”

  When we hear them announce that my train is ready for boarding, I tear up my ticket and toss it in the trash.

  He stands up a
nd pulls my bags closer together.

  I look up at him.

  He looks down at me.

  “So,” I say. “Here we are.”

  “No,” he says. “Here we go.”

  Wanda won the bet.

  Nelson paid up.

  They moved to Palm Desert.

  Estelle and the girls are keeping their old home alive in the Oakland Hills. Gabrielle and Scarlett are both single again. Dove can say, “I eat-teen months,” when asked how old she is, even though she’s twenty months.

  Frankie and Hunter are happy and pregnant again. She says she loves being a mom, and Levi is thriving. He is much cuter than I ever imagined. She got a story published!

  Mona Kwon passed.

  Velvet moved in with her baby daddy and is purportedly engaged and purportedly attending cosmetology school. Miracles do happen.

  Violet and Richard are for sure shacking up. She’s probably going to get reinstated with the bar but has decided she might do well working with battered women. She has apparently grown a conscience.

  Lily and Grover Jr. are engaged and pregnant with twin boys through a surrogate. Better late than never. The practice is thriving. Two new partners. May open an office in Berkeley.

  Marina and Mercury, who claimed they didn’t believe in marriage, are now married. They will graduate from the Academy of Art next year, at which time they believe without an ounce of doubt they’re never having children and are moving to New York.

  Stan and I just had our third child.

  LOL!

  Seriously.

  We’re in Cape Town, South Africa. We’ve been here for six weeks. I rented optometric equipment and have been giving free eye exams and glasses to those who can’t afford them. Nothing ever felt better. Will come back annually.

  We went on safari. Seeing those animals up close scared the hell out of me. I prefer watching them on the National Geographic Channel. However, I loved the accommodations.

  Stan and I have decided that the world is worth seeing. So two or three times a year, we plan to travel to a different country. Or place. Somewhere one of us has never been. Next up is Dubai, then Bora-Bora, then Spain and Australia. We will go back to Africa once a year regardless. Victoria Falls and Ghana and Kenya and Zimbabwe are high on the list. I should just say the entire continent. At home I have yet to see Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. And then there’s the Kennedy Space Center!