11
CASSANDRA
I was a hot mess.
Saturday ended up being a wash. I tried to get more work done after Orlando left, but it was like the vacuum from his presence created pressure in my head. My headache steadily returned with a vengeance, becoming a full-fledged migraine by noon.
By 3:00 I surrendered and left the office—making sure to glare at the security guard in the lobby. I hadn’t eaten anything all day, but the Chinese take-out I got on the way home didn’t seem appetizing, and after three small bites I knew I wasn’t hungry enough to eat any more.
Think of me. Orlando’s words replayed in my head over and over, his voice like smooth caramel.
I put on some light classical music, but that failed to sooth me too. It was like I was getting sick: my joints ached, the pressure in my head continued building, and I didn’t want to do much more than lay on the couch in a ball.
And all the while, Orlando tormented my thoughts.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him. His arms wrapping around my body. The smile that filled his entire face instead of just his mouth. Even the way he spoke, deep and confident.
Think of me.
It was like he’d stung me with lust poison.
I slept in fits, always waking to the eerie sensation that someone was in the room with me, like I could sense that Orlando was there standing over me, but when I opened my eyes and jerked up on the couch I was alone.
At one point, I got up and guzzled a bottle of old NyQuil in my medicine cabinet. That succeeded in knocking me out for a few hours, but when it wore off I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. If anything, I felt more exhausted. Not just physically fatigued, but mentally and emotionally as well. Like I’d been through a breakup and had spent all night crying.
Good Lord, Cassie. What’s up with you?
Around noon, I forced myself to rise from the couch. I stood under the scalding water of my shower, which gave me enough energy to put on some fresh clothes and get out of my apartment.
I loved going for walks. It got my juices flowing; it helped me think. And today I was hoping it would also help me relax.
It was a partly-cloudy day, but blue sky threatened to peek through the clouds in a few places. And the wind wasn’t blowing terribly strong. Altogether it was a pleasant day, relatively speaking.
I walked south toward the Sears Tower (I refused to call it the Willis Tower, ugh) because I wanted to be around crowds. Gawking tourists and other people out for a Sunday stroll, getting late brunch after a long night of drinking. The city felt different today. Like the contrast had been altered on an old TV, just barely off from the way it should look. I constantly blinked my eyes as if that could make it go away as I wound my way through the city.
Orlando remained in my head, like someone breathing on the other end of a phone.
I’d been an escort for close to two years. I’d been with every kind of man: classy and trashy, confident and shy, black and white and every shade in between. Lots of men fell in love after a weekend of my elite company. I’d had my fair share of stalkers, which my recruiter usually helped keep at bay, but occasionally some slipped through and found me, and refused to let go. Streams of flowers and chocolate and gift-wrapped lingerie they wanted me to wear. I was adept at letting them down, being blunt enough for them to finally get the hint and leave me in peace, and when that didn’t work I’d even gotten a handful of restraining orders. The point being: I was the one for whom severing a connection came easy. I never chose a client twice. The temporary nature of the arrangement was one of the things I enjoyed. I didn’t have “comfort food” restaurants that I frequented on a schedule;, no pizza every Friday night at the usual place; I liked to always try something new.
So what made Orlando different?
It wasn’t just that our weekend had been cut off before it even began. I’d had that happen before, with similarly handsome men. No, there was something different about Orlando. I felt infatuated with him. As I stood at a crosswalk waiting for the light to change, I realized I was examining the faces of the men waiting to cross from the other direction. One man was black, and I was subconsciously comparing his face to Orlando’s. The shape of his nose was too wide, the eyes a hair too close together. And he was too tall by several inches.
God, I was infatuated with him.
Once I realized what it was, I couldn’t make myself stop. The man in a trench coat walking ahead of me was too slender. The guy coming the other way didn’t have the same almond eyes. Every single man my gaze passed over was someone to be compared to Orlando. He was suddenly the gold standard against whom everyone needed to be measured. The perfect man.
Jesus. Maybe I should go home and write his name in my diary 5,000 times.
I passed the Sears Tower and continued west over the river.
This wasn’t me. I wasn’t in the right state of mind. But how could I fix it? Would grabbing Orlando’s ass with both my hands and sticking my tongue in his mouth to taste him give me the closure I needed? Even if I wanted to do that, I didn’t know anything about him. And calling my recruiter to arrange a meeting after what had already happened would have been professionally embarrassing.
An icy fist clenched my heart at the thought of never seeing him again. I recoiled from the emotion. How could I feel this way about someone I’d met for only a few minutes?
It was like I was falling in love with him.
I shivered, and I wasn’t sure if it was with pleasure or disgust.
Union Station appeared to my left as I walked down Adams Street. Where could I go to make me feel better? The aquarium was always soothing, dim lights and giant glass tanks, the fish swimming silently through the water. Yeah, that sounded nice. I wasn’t sure if there was a direct L-Train from here to there, but someone inside would be able to tell me.
I crossed the street and passed through the massive stone columns, feeling better with every step.
No, seriously; I was feeling much better. Physically, it was like the morphine drip was starting to kick in. My migraine faded to a dull ache, and my joints didn’t throb with every step.
Maybe a walk through the city was exactly what I needed.
The interior was one massive room with marble floors and rows of old benches made of brown-lacquered wood. A huge American flag hung from the far wall, and a curved ceiling of skylight windows bathed everything in pleasant natural light. An Amtrak kiosk stood in the middle of the floor in front of the corridors leading to the train tracks, and beyond that was an information booth with maps of Chicago’s L-Train system.
My shoes echoed on the marble floor as I crossed the room.
I don’t know what made me turn my head. Coincidence. Or the invisible strings of fate. But whatever made me do it, as I passed the corridor to the Amtrak tracks I twisted to glance in that direction.
And I saw him.
Even from behind, I knew it was Orlando. He wore black dress pants and a long coat that hung to his knees. He pulled a rolling suitcase behind him, and strode with long, purposeful steps.
He stopped in front of the door to the waiting train, where a conductor was checking tickets.
My feet changed directions and carried me toward him. I glided across the floor like in a dream, eyes unable to leave Orlando, and I wished he would turn around and see me. I stopped when I reached a red felt rope, and a man came over to block my view.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Only ticketed passengers beyond this point. Do you have a ticket?”
“I…” I began, then shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. I’m just, umm, waiting on someone.”
He nodded and went back to his original position.
Orlando was right there. Less than 100 feet away. I could almost call out to him if I wanted.
Where was he going, and with a suitcase? Originally, our date was supposed to go on until Sunday night. Wherever he was going, it was a last minute thing.
I needed to talk to him. I had to talk to him.
“Excuse me,” I asked the ticket-taker, “can’t you just let me through real quick? The person I want to speak with is right there…”
“Sorry ma’am, but I can’t do that. Security.”
“Then can you get him for me?” I pointed. “The black man with the grey rolling suitcase. It will only take a minute.”
“Can’t leave my post.” He looked over his shoulder. “Just call their cell phone.”
I don’t have their cell phone number, because I’m an escort who was set up with him through a recruiter. I looked at the line down by the train. There was a group of four men in matching uniforms talking to the conductor, and all of them had huge boxes of luggage. One of them was shouting so loud his voice carried down the corridor.
“…can’t stow them below,” the man said. “We are a band. These are our instruments.”
The conductor gestured at an open luggage space on the outside of the train.
“We purchased sleeper cars!” the man yelled. “Why can’t we store them in our rooms?” There was a pause as the conductor responded, and then: “We don’t care if our room is crowded! That’s what I’m trying to tell you: we prefer that over our instruments bouncing around…”
Orlando was several passengers behind them in line. For a brief, impulsive moment I considered ducking under the rope and making a run for it, but I wasn’t the kind of woman to create a commotion.
“I’ll be back,” I said, jogging over to the ticketing area. Five rows of automated ticketing machines were mounted against the wall, but I went straight to the counter with a real person behind the glass.
“I need one ticket for that train.” I pointed behind me down the corridor.
The ticket agent looked bored behind his spectacles. “One ticket for the Texas Eagle leaving at 1:05…”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. I had three minutes! I drummed my fingers on the counter while the agent typed on his keyboard.
His eyes studied his computer screen, then slowly tilted back up to me. “Where will you be traveling?”
“I don’t know,” I said quickly. “Where does it go?”
“The Texas Eagle travels all the way to San Antonio before becoming the Sunset Limited line, although that line only runs—”
“I meant where does it go next,” I interrupted. “The very next station. I just need the cheapest ticket you have.”
“Oh. Well, the Texas Eagle makes its first stop in Joliet, Illinois.”
I slapped down my credit card. “Joliet it is, then.”
He took my card and typed some more without any sense of urgency. “I assume you will not be needing a sleeper car for the journey?”
“Nope.”
“One reserved coach seat on the upper level…” he muttered. “Your total—”
“Just book it!” I snapped.
He gave me a sour look, but remained silent for the rest of the transaction.
Ticket in hand, I ran back to the ticket-taker and flashed him my ticket, and before he could make a friendly joke about now being allowed to let me pass I was halfway down the corridor. Orlando was nowhere in sight, and the line to get on the train was empty, so I ran up to the conductor.
“Excuse me, there was a man who just got on this train. Dark skin, grey suitcase. Name was Orlando. Where’s he sitting?”
“Oh,” the conductor scrunched his face. “Umm. Let me see. That gentleman had a sleeper car I believe, in the front car? Ahead of the dining car…”
“Thanks,” I said and started to walk that way, but the conductor stopped me.
“Wait! Ma’am, all entry must be made at this door. You must walk through the cars to reach that.”
He held out his hand to look at my ticket, but I zipped right past him and onto the train.
The bottom floor here was cramped with luggage racks and four individual bathroom doors like on an airplane, with stairs going to the upper level. The stairs were so narrow only one person could take them at a time, and climbed them until I reached the upper floor.
This was a passenger car, with a single aisle down the middle with two seats on either side. Passengers milled around, adjusting their seats and putting away luggage in the open racks above. I strode down the aisle, saying “excuse me,” as I passed people in my way. People who were keeping me from seeing Orlando.
The train horn sounded, but I barely heard it.
I reached the partition to the adjoining car, and pressed the button to open the door. The space between cars was a fabric-and-rubber partition, which could expand and compress like an accordion. It looked hardly strong enough to keep the wind at bay. The next car was identical to the first, but with more children running around in the aisle excitedly. I gritted my teeth and tried not to kick them as I avoided and shoved my way down the car.
The train lurched, and outside the windows I saw the station beginning to move, but by then I didn’t care. My single purpose was to get to Orlando.
Through another set of adjoining doors, with the walkway undulating ever so slightly with the movement of the trains.
The next car was unlike the others: the walls and ceiling were all made of glass. To my left were seats facing the windows rather than straight ahead, and on the right were two-person booths with tables in the middle. An observation car, my mind decided. There were half a dozen people in here, some sitting at tables with laptops open and others taking photographs with their phones as the train moved.
And at the other end, sitting at a booth facing away from me, was Orlando.
I stopped in the middle of the aisle and stared. Now that I was here, I didn’t know what to say to him. A flurry of emotions bombarded me: excitement laced with anxiety, frustration mixed with anger. I didn’t know if I was going to greet him, or confront him, or throw myself into his arms.
“Excuse me,” someone behind me said, and I stepped out of the way to let them pass.
The train passed out of the station; the roof of the track tunnel suddenly gave way to open sky and the tall glass facades of skyscrapers. A few passengers made excited noises as they pointed up at the Sears Tower.
Orlando never turned around; he remained facing the other way.
And then, like a turtle crawling back into its shell, I retreated.
What am I doing? I wondered as I retraced my steps down the passenger cars. The man I wanted to talk to was back the other way.
Think of me, he’d said, because I’ll be thinking of you.
How could he leave the city so suddenly? Was he fleeing me, the same way I was fleeing him right now?
I didn’t know what to say to him. I needed a plan. Now that I was here, it was like the sickness that had ailed me had been lifted. I was finally thinking clearly again.
I found my seat in the last passenger car, and to my relief the one next to me was empty. I dropped myself into the cushion and looked out the window at the city.
I had no idea what I was doing, but right then I didn’t even care.