by Leah Konen
I shrug. “It’s Hudson proper, I’m pretty sure. But it’s just a little bit out of the main area.”
“Perfect,” he says. “We can split a cab if you want. It shouldn’t even be that much slower. And there are buses every half hour. Which means we could definitely make the two-thirty. It’s just that way through the woods.” He points to the snowy frontier through the window.
“You’re not serious?” I ask. “Go out there? Now? With all our stuff?”
He shrugs. “Three hours will have both of us missing what we need to do. You still haven’t told me why you need to get where you’re going”—he raises that hand again—“which is fine, given that we’re still practically strangers and all, but I’d put money on the fact that you’re not exactly willing to wait that long.”
I pause, knowing that I should say no, that this is insane.
But feeling a flutter of hope all the same.
Realizing that some tiny part of me actually wants to see the ceremony. Actually wants to be part of this family, even if it’s only for a week.
Part of me wonders if it could be longer. If I could put all that other stuff behind me and start new, just like my dad did, as awful as that sounds.
Noah must see my hesitation. “Believe me, I’m not the type of person who normally does stuff like this,” he says. “But I can’t see how this won’t be shorter. Look at it this way: We just happened to sit down next to each other, two people going to the exact same stop? It’s like we’re supposed to do this, because we both need to get home.”
I bite my lip and take him in. He looks like he knows what he’s talking about. And something about what he said is right. Maybe he sat down next to me because whoever is sitting up there pulling the strings knows that we both need to get where we’re going today.
“How long do you think it would be on the bus?” I ask cautiously.
“Not more than two hours, tops. Probably more like an hour and a half. Even with a twenty-minute walk to the bus station, we’d be to our respective locations just in time, methinks.”
“Methinks?” I say. “Really?”
He just laughs, ignoring me. “Whatever. You’ll get where you need to go.”
I raise my eyebrows. That solves the problem of Kat, who still hasn’t texted me back. If it’s too close to the ceremony, I’ll just split a cab with my new friend. The Italian restaurant is walkable from Sophie’s house, so I can go in, get ready, and still be there in time.
I pause, thinking it over.
“But it’s freezing out there,” I finally say. The vestibule alone was enough to raise goose bumps on just about every inch of my body.
He points to the mess of layers at my feet. “I think you’re prepared. And it’s only a mile. That’s just twenty blocks.”
“I’m from suburban Virginia, dude. I don’t live in New York,” I say, tucking an errant lock of hair behind my ear. I’m not trying to be cute or coy or flirty or whatever—please. But I hate the feeling of hair on my face, especially when I’m worried about something. It makes me anxious, and I don’t like feeling anxious. Because that makes me worried that I’m going to turn into my mom. “Speak English,” I say. “Por favor.”
He laughs. “It’s like four laps around your high school track.”
I nod. “Right.”
“You can do it. We can do it.”
I stare at him, at this guy I’ve only known for just over two hours. At this romantic bro-dude who just wants to make it home to get his soon-to-be-dumbstruck girlfriend back. It’s cute, in its own little way. Even if it is clichéd.
Even if I’ve decided in the post–Dad-cheating-on-Mom world that romance is entirely a waste of time. It’s still cute.
But that’s not the point. There are reasons, surely, why I shouldn’t just leave a train car to follow a stranger in the middle of freaking nowhere and in the middle of a freaking snowstorm. “You’re not some kind of creepo sexual predator, are you?” I ask.
He laughs, but then his face goes serious. “Look, I get why you have to ask that. But no, I’m not. I’m honestly just trying to get back to my ex to try to make my case. Perhaps”—he smiles genuinely—“you can even offer me a few pointers. And, look, if you don’t want to sit with me when we get to the bus, I won’t even be offended.”
“It’s only a mile?” I ask hesitantly.
He presents the phone to me. “Less. Point nine miles, to be exact. What could seriously go wrong in point nine miles?”
NOAH
1:48 P.M.
AMMY HANDS THE PHONE BACK TO ME HESITANTLY, without saying a word. I shove it in my pocket. Then I adjust my flowers once again. They’re still in relatively good shape, which will probably change after a mile in this snow. I know it’s borderline nuts to go traipsing across the snowy wilderness with a bunch of hot-pink roses, but I don’t care. I’ll have to risk it.
Rina always wanted me to take risks.
This is a risk. And not because I’ll probably have to replace the flowers I bought her.
It’s a little bit crazy, the whole plan, even though I know from looking at the map that we’ll be okay.
Which makes it way better than a poem or dinner reservations or anything.
Rina, I wanted to be with you so badly I literally walked a mile through a storm to get to you. . . .
Rina, for once, I didn’t think about all the consequences. For once, I just did it.
I turn to Ammy. She’s staring ahead, eyes locked on the seat in front of her. Her cheeks are still rosy from our visit to the vestibule. I’d bet money on the fact that when she answers, she’s going to say no.
Can I still do this without her? Of course.
But am I adventurous enough to head into the great unknown during a storm with a half-dead phone and a bunch of roses? I’m not sure.
If Rina were here, there’d be no question. Rina would turn to me and say, her eyebrows raised eagerly, “Come on, let’s get the hell outta here!”
In two and a half years of dating, Rina learned to weigh all the options for me, so I didn’t have to. Bryson thought it was crappy. He thought I was “whipped.” But I liked that about her. She was the one who urged me to apply to school in the city. Bryson said it was because she wanted to keep me close, because she wanted to go there, too. But I knew that it was also because she knew I’d love it. And I do love it, and I wouldn’t have done it without her.
Rina was the one who told me it was okay to study comparative literature, even though both my parents thought the idea was preposterous. That was just about the one thing my parents could agree on in those days. Rina was the one who looked everything up on the internet, even these crazy stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to her, comp lit professors have quite the leg up on English ones.
Bryson was wrong, dead wrong. I liked that she pushed me. I still do.
The problem was only when she’d want me to do something that I didn’t want to do. The problem was that sometimes she pushed me a little too hard.
Sometimes I wasn’t quite ready to be the person she wanted me to be.
I think about that week at the lake, about standing on that ledge, looking down.
It’s good for you to face your fears, babe. I’m here for you.
You know that she’s obsessed with turning you into Mr. Perfect Boyfriend, right? She doesn’t give a shit about you.
I look out the window. The snow is still coming down, but it looks like it’s slowed. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
I want to get lost. The thought hits me again, just like it did when we were standing there, freezing in the back vestibule.
Screw Bryson. I want to face my fears. I want to have an adventure.
I want an adventure that leads me straight back to Rina.
She has to take me back. Once I explain and apologize and tell her the thought that’s been running through my head all break: that she and I belong together. That nothing changes that.
That
I can be exactly who she wants me to be.
I want that for myself now, too.
I see, for a second, a flash of Rina on my front lawn, three days after the phone call that put it all in motion, five days after the senior-year trip to Lake George that had gone so well until it hadn’t. The welling of her eyes that she was unsuccessfully trying to keep under control. The anger as she demanded why I hadn’t called her in days. The way she told me how much she hates me, how she absolutely can’t believe it.
But you said we could do long distance. You said we could make it work. You said I was like a part of your family.
And I meant it, I think. Until I convinced myself that I didn’t anymore.
How could you dump me over something so fucking stupid?
I don’t know. I still don’t.
I clear my throat, look over at Ammy again.
“So . . . ,” I say. “What do you think?”
AMMY
1:51 P.M.
SO IN ONE OF OUR TWO SOLO SESSIONS, THE THERAPIST my dad graciously footed the bill for after he destroyed our family told me that I should make pros and cons lists when I started to get sad or anxious, as they, in her words, “can provide a sense of control.”
It was this whole big thing that she gave me photocopied workbook pages for, and I had to do it at home like she was my math tutor or something. You just wrote everything out, all the good stuff and the bad stuff, starting with the cons so you could get everything you’re scared of out on the page and out of your head, and then you weighed it all up with a points system.
I kind of hated it, because the points system was totally arbitrary, and the only person in control of it is you, so you can pretty much do whatever you want. I mean, who wouldn’t want to do some stupid exercise to prove that they’d done the right thing, even when they knew 100 percent that they hadn’t?
I imagined my dad’s pros and cons list for leaving the family looked something like this:
Cons:
Destroying the family (5 points)
Ruining Ammy’s junior and senior years and sense of security when it comes to family and love and trust and all that (10 points)
Sending wife into tailspin of anxiety (7 points)
Taking a financial hit at work to transfer up north (2 points)
Pros:
Getting with a hot yoga instructor who can somehow look past gray hair and obvious midlife crisis (5 million points)
Of course, therapist lady said that assigning the points yourself is the point because it helps you decide what you want to do, not what other people want you to do. It’s, like, getting in touch with your inner self or your true desires or some other such bullshit. She made me do it when I was deciding whether to go up to see my dad that first time.
But anyway, despite my reservations, her tip is actually kind of useful. I tell Noah to chill a minute and pull out a pen and Madame Bovary, flipping to the back pages.
There it is, the pros and cons list that got me here in the first place. The one that I made last night, after my mom and I got in our huge blowout fight. After I called Dara, who didn’t answer, because she was too busy getting ready for her stupidly perfect family trip to Harry Potter World. After I texted Kat instead, and Kat told me to get out for a little bit. To come to her. To do what I really wanted to do. To go to the wedding and pretend to be normal for just a little bit.
Cons:
Leaving Mom alone during “the worst day of her life” (10 points)
Knowing she’ll probably get worse in one week without me (10 points)
Having to at least somewhat pretend to ooh and ahh over whatever stupid dress Sophie is wearing (10 points)
Dad probably thinking this counts as straight-up forgiveness, and it doesn’t (10 points)
Mom never forgiving me (15 points)
Pros:
Having a week of fun with Kat (6 points)
Getting to hang out with Bea, too (4 points)
Being close to NYC, so we’ll probably take one trip (3 points)
Not having to go through the emotional turmoil of watching my mom fall apart and get worse by the hour as the commitment ceremony looms (10 points)
Feeling like I’m part of a family again, even a bullshit one, even for just a week (1 million points)
See, I told you these things were morally ambiguous.
Noah glances over, but I turn to the window as I uncap my pen and start to write everything out, covering my work with my hand like I’m the star student in my second-grade class and worried about my neighbor copying.
I know this whole thing is pointless. I’m going to do what I want to do. But it helps, at least. And I’m not going to assign any kind of crazy point values this time. I’ll keep ’em between 1 and 10, add it up, and see where I land.
Cons:
He’s a total stranger (3 points)
Of course a train predator would insist that they’re not a train predator (5 points)
It’s cold as death outside (6 points)
My bag is heavy from all the books (2 points)
What if the bus doesn’t come in this weather? (4 points)
Pros:
Noah doesn’t seem like a predator, esp. since he’s trying to get back with his ex (3 points)
It would be kind of a cool little adventure, street cred and all (3 points)
Kat would love the story (1 point)
The chance to get to Hudson on time, to be there for my dad (7 points)
I won’t have to break my mom’s heart for nothing (10 points)
NOAH
1:55 P.M.
AMMY’S GOT A HAND COVERING THE BOOK SHE’S WRITING in, and it looks as if she’s doing some sort of calculus. Scribbling numbers, adding things up. Is she calculating distance? Hours to home? Something else?
“What are you doing?” I ask.
She waves a hand. “Give me a second,” she says.
I get out my phone and check the directions again. I only have 27 percent, but I figure it’s okay. It’s a straight shot from here. Point nine miles, as I mentioned before. And the bus runs every thirty minutes. We have plenty of time to make the two thirty.
I stare back out the window. The snow is still coming down like the train car is our own personal bunker. It looks cold as all get-out.
Is it kind of a crazy plan? Yes.
But will we be fine? Also yes.
Will it be my chance to prove to Rina that I am the person she wants, once and for all? Most definitely yes.
Finally, Ammy looks up at me. She glances out the window and then back to me again. She closes her book. Then she gives me an almost mischievous look: her eyes narrow into slits; her head tilts to the side.
“If we’re going to do this thing, we better go sooner rather than later. I don’t have a ton of time to waste here.”
It’s all the answer I need. “Let’s go, then,” I say.
I help her pull her suitcase down from the ledge, and I offer to carry her books.
“What is this, Leave It to Beaver?” she asks me, laughing.
“Huh?” I ask, quite frankly a little surprised. Rina loved when I carried her books.
“Never mind,” Ammy says. “Just know that it’s not 1950, and I’ll be just fine.”
When we’re ready, when Ammy has wrapped all of her myriad scarves around her neck and when I’ve tucked the flowers under my elbow, I lead the way down the center aisle, back to our vestibule.
Hardly anyone looks at us, even though we’re carrying all our bags. People are too wrapped up in their own personal dramas, trying to figure out how they’re going to cope with the delay. Luckily, there isn’t an Amtrak employee in sight, since all the announcements made it clear that no one was to leave.
When we reach the back, I open the vestibule door and wait until Ammy is in, too. It shuts behind us, which is good, because no one will see us. It’s not like I think they’ll send the guards after us or anything, but even so, adventure doesn’t exactly come natur
ally to me. I want as few hiccups as possible.
Ammy stares at the door and bites her lip. “You think you can just open it?” she asks.
I shrug. “It says you can do it manually if the power’s out. And the lights are still off.”
She crosses her arms in front of her. The edges of her chunky sweater poke out from her wool coat. For a second, she looks so cozy, all bundled up like that, that I almost don’t want to lead her out into the cold. “Let’s see you do it, then.”
“Hold these a sec,” I say. I hand her the flowers and shrug out of my backpack.
Then I take a deep breath. I’m all of a sudden as scared as I was when I was about to jump off that ledge, but this time I don’t let it stop me.
“Here goes,” I say, without turning to her.
I unslide the safety latch on the bottom. Then I grab the large handle in the middle. It turns under my weight, easier than it should be. The door opens, and there it is, the whole world in front of us.
Our adventure, beckoning.
“Well, that was easy,” I say.
I grab my backpack and toss it out the back. It lands on the snowy tracks with a thud.
I’d guess it’s probably about five feet down.
It’s good for you to face your fears, babe. I know you can do it.
I turn back to Ammy. “Here goes nothing,” I say as I take a step forward.
“Careful, Indiana Jones,” Ammy says behind me.
I look down and, for a second, the ground seems to blur below me.
Just do it, it’s not that big of a deal.
Before I can lose my nerve, I jump.
I land solidly in the snow, though I have to take a couple of steps forward to steady myself, and the jump sends a shock through the bottom of my feet. I’m thankful I wore my hiking shoes, because none of the snow can seep in.
I grab my backpack, dust off the snowflakes so they don’t make everything wet, and turn to face her. Looking up at her, standing in the doorway of the caboose of a damn Amtrak train, I see, once again, just how crazy this plan is.
But I wanted my adventure, and now I certainly have it. Thanks, karma.
“You okay, there, slugger?” Ammy asks from above. She whispers it, like she’s afraid of getting caught. It’s kind of adorable, in its way.