Maya sits facing forward, chugging into twenty-eight. She hopes that the associated glow of her birthday teamed with the bow on her new green ankle boots will give her an air of allure and – more importantly – confidence that is lacking on this mid-May morning. She peeps into the sanctuary of her slouchy brown leather bag and opens the notepad to check that the note is still there. Still pristine. She deliberately doesn’t touch it yet so clammy palms won’t sully it.
Train Man sits far away from her in the carriage, also on an aisle seat but on the other side of it. Facing backwards next to the automatic Superior Train door that goes through to the next carriage. He is looking down, almost-black hair slightly shorter today, beautiful straight nose lost in a book, although she can’t see what it is from this far.
Maya’s phone dings with congratulatory birthday texts. One from Jacob, one from Clara, one from Herbert and Dolores, another from Nena. She reads them all and smiles, feeling loved but unloved at the same time and wondering whether Train Man might notice that her phone keeps pinging from that far away – she likes the feeling of looking popular. Still he reads. Black rectangular glasses folded on the table in front of him.
Maya likes her birthday, she is happy to have completed another year. She knows she won’t always feel so strong, so appreciates that today, she is. Maya likes other people’s birthdays even more than her own. She loves to bake for them, thoughtfully picks presents and cards and loves to make a fuss. She looks up the carriage at Train Man and wonders when his birthday is; how she would love to make a fuss of him, to make him happy.
With another ding of her phone – Sam this time – it occurs to Maya she has never seen Train Man send or read a text. She has never heard him talk on the phone. She has never heard him calling a special someone to tell them he’s going to be late home. Or to discuss a meeting. Or to make plans for dinner. Or to just hear someone’s voice. He only seems to use his phone to listen to music. If indeed that is his phone he’s plugged into. Maya has never actually noticed.
Suddenly Maya has a feeling of hope.
If he’s not on the phone to a wife or a girlfriend then perhaps he doesn’t have a wife or a girlfriend.
And her stomach trembles a little more, knowing that the moment is approaching, not knowing that in eleven days’ time her worst fear will be confirmed and she will feel small, crumpled, rejected.
The train approaches industrial outskirts and starts to slow as Maya’s heart hastens. The grand shell of Alexandra Palace is her cue to stand up. She will gather her things, slink down the carriage, hand Train Man the note, and confidently ooze into the next carriage; nonchalantly, casually, breezily, like a goddess with green bows on her shoes. She will get off the train at the station and walk as best she can at this height, weaving her way into the bookshop on her left to regain and regroup. That’s the plan anyway.
Maya stands and her legs don’t feel as strong as she expected they would. Metal screeching, snaking towards the terminal. Clickety click over canals towards Camden. Other people are starting to shuffle and stand, eager to get to their coffees and their emails. Maya feels a sense of urgency in her bladder as people begin to stand between her and her beautiful target, unaware, lost in his book, totally oblivious to the turmoil Maya is going through as she approaches him from the other end of the carriage.
‘Excuse me please,’ Maya murmurs to the woman blocking the aisle, moving slowly to reach up to her bag on the luggage shelf that runs along the top of the carriage.
As Maya waits for the woman to move to one side and let her pass, she takes the note out of the notepad and folds it neatly in half.
Train Man is still absorbed, unaware that the woman sitting next to him by the window is starting to gather her duffel bag from the floor between her feet.
Maya reaches the end of the carriage, just before the automatic doors that slide satisfactorily through to the next carriage, and pauses at Train Man’s right knee. Hesitant, clammy, sick.
Train Man folds the top right-hand corner of the page he’s reading, closes his book and leans down to open his grey backpack.
Maya presses the button on her side of the internal door with the clothed elbow of her floral bomber jacket. Her blue high-waisted circle skirt fills the aisle. Doors hiss open and Maya walks on through, as pretty and as unsure as she was on her eighth birthday in a big flouncy skirt, knees trembling. Note still shaking in her hand.
*
‘I froze, it was impossible,’ says Maya. ‘He was totally looking into his bag, I would have had to shake him to get his attention. I’m not on his radar at all.’
‘Don’t be sad Birthday Girl,’ pleads Nena. ‘There’s always tomorrow. Fuck it, give him the note then.’
‘But it won’t be my birthday.’
‘Doesn’t matter. If you end up going on a date, you can fess up then. If you don’t, he’ll never know. Bingo.’
Nena says ‘bingo’ like it’s a good thing but Maya feels sad at the prospect of Train Man never knowing when her birthday isn’t.
‘True,’ she sighs.
Maya looks at the menu but can’t take in the words.
‘I guess I have no choice, it’s my only idea. And I owe it to Velma.’
‘Well then do it. Dress as if it’s your birthday tomorrow and give it another whirl. You look gorgeous by the way.’
Maya doesn’t feel very gorgeous sitting in a burger bar with its metal chairs and plastic red checked tablecloth draped over her big blue skirt, although everyone did their best to make her feel special today.
Lucy took the team out for lunch at a French bistro down Baker Street, and on the walk back to FASH HQ she quietly hinted that a verdict on the site editor job would be imminent. Mid-afternoon, Chloe nipped out and bought a caterpillar cake that everyone stood around a table eating in the communal kitchen, but not before Emma and Sam made everyone sing ‘Happy Birthday’. It was a good work day, but all day Maya had a feeling of failure and emptiness. She won’t go home to someone who loves her, unlike Nena.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Flowers.
‘Enough about Train Man, tell me happy news. What about the wedding? Any developments?’
Nena is bursting with excitement. ‘We’ve set a date!’
Maya is grateful for the shift in focus.
‘Amazing! When?’
‘December!’
‘Ahhh I love a winter wedding! So cool, Nena. Oh hang on, that’s, what, seven months?’ Maya says, counting on her fingers. ‘We’d better get moving. Where have you booked?’ Maya unzips her floral bomber, hangs it on the back of her chair and rubs her palms. She revels in planning mode.
‘Here in London. Simple, elegant, bloody expensive. The venue itself is costing a fortune so we need to keep costs down everywhere else.’
If Nena was ever going to get married, Maya thought it would be Elvis doing the honours in Vegas, or on a dreamy beach in Bahia with her Brazilian relatives. A city wedding to a TV exec is not what Maya expected. But then Nena has always managed to surprise her.
‘Right, well leave the dress with me. We have loads of designer wedding dresses at work, and I have a forty per cent discount.’
‘Bingo.’
‘I could sort Tom out with a nice suit too.’
‘I love you.’
Two Coke floats arrive, and as Maya takes a pen and the spiral ring-bound notepad out of her bag and opens it carefully so as not to reveal Train Man’s note, her Brilliant Imagination skills help her float out of the burger bar and away on a sea of tulle.