Where the Train Turns Around
Even after we got our driver’s licenses, Lottie and I sometimes liked to take light rail into downtown. It was easier than trying to park.
One sticky summer day between junior and senior year, Lottie and I took the train into the city to get ice cream. She’d claimed to have a desperate, unyielding craving for Salt & Straw, a Portland staple. But after we’d been walking for a good five minutes, I realized I’d been duped.
I didn’t recognize my surroundings but I knew we were nowhere near any of the Salt & Straw locations.
“Um, where are we going?” I asked as she led me through a dark alley that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I pulled out my phone and checked our location on the map. It was an area of Portland I’d never been to before, and definitely didn’t want to return to anytime soon.
“Wanna hear something crazy?” she asked in response, and I knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came next.
“Always,” I said, my usual confidence in the word nowhere to be found.
“I found an amazing poker tutor on Craigslist.”
I immediately turned around and started walking back toward the train station. Lottie jogged to catch up to me and grabbed me by the shirtsleeve. “C’mon, Ryn. Don’t be a baby.”
“On Craigslist?” I screeched. “You realize this guy could be a rapist! Or a serial killer!”
“Well, that’s just sexist,” was Lottie’s comeback.
“Excuse me?”
She paused in front of an unmarked door. “The poker tutor happens to be a woman.”
Recently Lottie had gotten it into her head that she wanted to play poker. No, not just play it. Master it. She wanted to be the first female to ever win the World Series of Poker main event in Las Vegas. It was a random dream that, like all of Lottie’s dreams, seemed to have come out of nowhere.
In an effort to familiarize herself with the game, she’d started watching televised poker tournaments twenty-four/seven. When there wasn’t one on TV, she’d turn to the Internet, where there was an archive of recorded games.
I knew this was just another seat in Lottie’s constant game of identity musical chairs, so I’d gone along with it. The way I always went along with her reinventions. Humoring her until the music started again and she set off to find another chair.
“Ryn,” she whined, stomping her foot a little. “Where is your sense of adventure?”
“Where is your sense of survival?”
“Will you relax? This woman is apparently a poker genius. She’s going to teach us everything we need to know.”
“Couldn’t we just download an app or something?”
Lottie pouted. “If you want to be the best at something, you have to learn from the best.”
She knocked on the door. It sounded like gunshots in my ears.
“You told me we were going for ice cream,” I complained in a whisper, glancing anxiously over my shoulder for signs of danger. The alley was eerily quiet and deserted.
“Well, then, there’s your first poker lesson,” Lottie said smugly. “Know when your opponent is bluffing.”
“Please stand clear of the doors. This train is departing.”
Xander and I run through the deserted platform as the doors of the train start to close. He barely manages to slide through, and I quickly realize I’m not going to make it. Xander sticks his arm out, risking amputation. I close my eyes. I can’t watch. The doors are going to crush him.
Lottie’s brain splattered on the dashboard.
Lottie’s slender, mangled body buried in the ground.
Lottie’s blood sprayed across a clock forever stuck at 10:05 a.m.
I hear a whoosh and brave a look. The doors are opening again. Xander’s arm is intact.
I dash inside to find the train completely empty.
“Please stand clear of the doors,” the pleasant female voice says again. “You are delaying the departure of this train.”
We both look up at the ceiling in unison.
“Wow. Talk about a guilt trip,” he says.
The doors attempt to close again. This time, there are no body parts to stop them. The train pulls away from the platform, and I take a seat on the small bench in the front, next to a window that looks out at the darkened track.
“Nuh-uh,” Xander says. “You can’t sit. That’s cheating.”
I look blankly between him and the bench. “Cheating?”
He takes off his messenger bag and sets it on the floor. Then he positions himself between two of the metal poles, spreading his feet apart and extending his arms like he’s on a surfboard.
“What are you doing?”
“Train surfing!” he says gleefully.
“Train surfing?”
“I’ve always wanted to do this, but it’s usually so crowded on these things.” The train speeds up, and he adjusts his weight, leaning forward. “The goal is to never grab the handrail.”
“For your safety and the safety of others, please hold on to the handrails,” the computerized train voice says, as though it can hear him.
I point at the ceiling. “She thinks you’re crazy.”
He beckons me toward him. “C’mon. Try it.”
“Train surfing is really more of a spectator sport. I think I’ll just watch.”
The train lurches to the left and he goes stumbling forward. His arm instinctively reaches for the handrail, but he stops himself just in time, regaining his balance on his own.
“Phew.” He wipes invisible sweat from his brow. “That was a close one.”
He resumes his stance, legs apart, one in front of the other, arms out. He looks ridiculous. I watch him navigate the subtle turns and bumps of the track. I still can’t believe he’s the son of Dr. Max Hale and Dr. Marcia Livingston-Hale. I’ve heard them talk about their son during interviews. Mostly about how amazing and well-adjusted he is. “Because he comes first,” I can picture Dr. Marcia saying. “Kids should come first.”
I want so desperately to ask him more questions about his parents. About his life. About growing up in a house where people talk about things.
“Seriously, Ryn,” he says without breaking his concentration. “You have to try this.”
“I’m fine.”
“Suit yourse—whoa!” The train abruptly slows, almost knocking him over again. He bends his knees until he’s nearly in a crouch.
The woman’s voice comes back over the speaker. “Please hold on. This train is approaching the . . . C gates.”
I look to Xander. He stares blankly back at me. Then we both crack up.
After all of that—a mad dash across the platform, a near amputation, a guilt trip from the train—we got on going the wrong way.
The train pulls to a stop and the doors open. “This is the C gates. All passengers please exit.”
Across the platform, I can see the sign for the train going back to the B and A gates. I stand up.
“Wait,” Xander says, and I notice he’s made no move to grab his bag from the floor. “Let’s stay.”
I’m not following his messed up logic. “The train to the A gates is across the way.”
“But where does this train go? C is the last terminal.”
Who cares where this train goes? I need to get back to the A gates. It’s quarter to six. My flight leaves in two hours.
“The guilt-trip train lady told us to exit,” I remind him.
“She also told us to hold on to the handrails.”
“Which I did!”
The train still hasn’t moved. I hear another voice come from just outside the still-open doors. This one is male. “No boarding from this position. All trains depart from the other side of platform.”
“See?” I point in the general direction of the voice.
“Do you always do everything the automated voices say?” he asks, smirking.
“No,” I reply defensively while at the same time realizing that the truthful answer is a resounding yes. They obviously programmed those instructions for a reason. Even if I don’t know the reason, I’m still inclined to follow them.
“This train has to turn around eventually, right?”
I consider his argument. I suppose he’s right. If C is the last terminal, the train must turn around. But what if it doesn’t? What if this particular train is scheduled for maintenance and disappears into some dark garage and we can’t get out?
“I’ve always wanted to know where the train turns around,” Xander says, and I’m starting to comprehend his choice in Muppet paraphernalia. Animal is the crazy one. The chaotic one who runs around screaming. Who doesn’t follow the rules.
“Haven’t you ever wondered where the train turns around?” he asks with a roguish raise of his eyebrows.
“No,” I say automatically. “I want to get to my gate.”
“Relax,” he tells me, and it strikes a nerve.
“I am relaxed,” I snap even though I feel further from relaxed than I’ve felt all day.
“You still have”—he pulls his phone from his pocket and glances at the screen—“two hours until your flight leaves.”
“What if they push it up?”
He shoos this away like a bothersome fly. “They’re not going to push it up. If anything, they’re going to push it back. Have you looked outside recently? This storm isn’t getting any better. It’s getting worse.”
My heart hammers at the thought. It can’t get worse. It has to get better. I have to get home.
“So really, you have no place to be but right here,” he reasons.
I swipe on my phone to check the weather. To prove him wrong. He has to be wrong. But my chest tightens when I see the tiny little Searching sign where the bars are supposed to be.
There’s no signal down here.
Even more reason to get out of this train. I’ll just ride the escalator up to the C gates, connect to the network, and check the weather. And the information boards, while I’m at it.
“Will you chill out?” Lottie scolds. “You’re acting crazy.”
Because I want answers? I snap. That makes me crazy?
“Because you’re starting to sound obsessive.”
And you’re starting to sound like Dr. Judy.
Lottie laughs her buoyant, infectious laugh.
What’s so funny? I ask.
“You’re a smart girl. You figure it out.”
I need to check those information screens.
“You just checked them five minutes ago.”
I’m beginning to lose patience with her. A lot can change in five minutes, okay?
“Like what?” she challenges.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Xander, who must notice I’ve disappeared into my own head, because he’s looking at me a little strangely. “But I have to—”
Just then, the doors glide swiftly closed, sealing us inside, ripping the choice right out from under me. The train rumbles into motion again. With a giddy “whoop!” Xander resumes his surfing stance. I gaze out the front window. There’s nothing but darkness ahead of us.
Haven’t you ever wondered where the train turns around?
Right now all I can do is hope that the train does turn around. That this journey comes with a return trip back. That I didn’t just surrender my fate to a dark tunnel with no visible light at the end.
At 10:00 you were alive, I say meekly to the voice in my head. At 10:05 you weren’t.
Then, instinctively, I grab on to the handrail.
What Lottie didn’t know—but we soon discovered—was that the Craigslist ad she found for a poker tutor was actually a notice for an underground traveling poker game. Apparently, the name of the poker tutor in the listing—Madeline Meroni—is some secret code directing Portland poker players to the location of the next game.
I would have run the other way, but Lottie, being the girl that she is, didn’t miss a beat.
“Of course we’re here for the game,” she said confidently when the large bouncer at the door peered down on us as if we were ants cowering below a skyscraper. He was as pale as a zombie and twice as frightening.
“What are you doing?” I hissed as the bouncer led us through a dimly lit hallway with a pungent odor that I couldn’t quite identify. “We should leave. Like now.”
“If you want to be the best at something,” she replied, “you have to just jump right in.”
“I thought you said if you want to be the best at something, you have to learn from the best.”
“Exactly. And these guys are the best.”
“At what? Murdering girls and burying their bodies in Vancouver? Lottie, I do not want to be buried in the ’Couve!”
The bouncer turned around and shot us both a glare. It was enough to shut even Lottie up.
We turned left down another hallway, descended a set of dusty stone stairs, and entered a large, smoky basement with a single overheard lamp. A table for ten had been set up in the center of the room, and nine of the chairs were already full. It was a motley assortment of players, ranging from full-on Portland hipster—skinny jeans, flannel shirt, fluffy beard and everything—to a massive bald dude with white eyebrows and a neck tattoo.
Regardless, they all looked like criminals to me. And in a way they were. This wasn’t exactly a legal gambling establishment.
“I think this basement was part of the Shanghai Tunnels,” I whispered into Lottie’s ear. “Where they used to kidnap women and force them into prostitution.”
She shook her head. “That legend has never been proven.”
“Cashier’s over there,” the bouncer grunted. “We don’t take anything smaller than hundies.”
Lottie nodded like she’d done this a thousand times. “Gotcha.” Then she grabbed my arm and pulled me over to the “cashier,” who was really just a blond guy wearing sunglasses and a backward cap, guarding a dinged up metal cash box with a gun placed on top.
I felt my left lung give out. “Lottie,” I screeched, grabbing hold of her coat sleeve and clenching my teeth. “He. Has. A. Gun.”
But she waved this off as if I’d said something as harmless as “He has a dust ruffle.”
“They never use it,” she whispered. “It’s just there to keep people from trying anything. It’s probably not even loaded.” Then she flashed her most perfect Lottie smile at the cashier and produced five hundred-dollar bills from her bra. She pushed them across the table with the tip of her finger. “Buy in for five hundred, please.”
I didn’t need to ask where Lottie got the money. Her father kept a stash of hundreds hidden in a safe in his office. Lottie had cracked the combination years ago. She claimed that he was never around enough to keep accurate count.
“Maybe if he came home more than three times a month, he’d notice when money went missing,” she’d said to me once after swiping a hundred for a food court binge at the mall. “Until then, his loss, our gain.”
“There’s only one seat left,” the cashier said, holding each bill up to a small lamp on the table. “Which of you is going to take it?”
“I am,” Lottie said immediately, and some tiny, infinitesimal part of me felt the snub. Sure, I had no intention of actually playing. Sure, I was about the last person in the solar system equipped to play in an illegal, underground poker game. But the fact that Lottie came to the same conclusion about me stung. Just a little.
The cashier handed her a rack of green-and-white-striped chips and deposited her bills into the cash box.
Lottie hugged the rack to her chest and started toward the empty chair. I stepped in front of her. “Lottie, this is crazy!” I whisper-yelled. “I really think this is a very bad idea.”
“Relax,” Lottie said. “Portland was founded on this kind of debauchery. It’s in our blood.”
“You were born in Chicago!”
“Even better.”
“You don’t know how to play,” I murmured, glancing over my shoulder to make sure none of the other players could hear me.
“I know the basics from watching TV. I’ll just fake it until I make it. That’s what I do best.”
I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I wanted to grab her by her gorgeous cherry red locks and drag her out of there. Or, at the very least, I wanted to come up with another pointless argument for her to breezily negate. But as I watched her sashay to the table and slide into the last empty seat with a confidence that managed to fool even me, all I could think was, Yes, Lottie. That is exactly what you do best.
I watch out the back window as the train rumbles slowly down the track, eventually reaching a fork and veering left to enter another seemingly endless tunnel that leads God knows where.
“This is so cool!” Xander says as he bounces a few times, readying his muscles for whatever comes next.
Death. That’s what comes next. I’m almost sure of it.
The train continues down the tunnel of doom. I still have no idea where it leads, but I know it’s not turning around. And it’s not heading in the direction of the A gates. Where I need to be right now. Where I should be right now. Where I would have been if it weren’t for stupid Lottie and her stupid obsession with Doctor Who.
“Hey!” Lottie screeches in my ear. “Doctor Who is not stupid!”
You can shut up now, I hiss. You and your phone case got us into this mess.
“Wanna hear something crazy?” she asks immediately.
No!
This shuts her up.
“Huh,” Xander muses, bending down to get a better look out the window I’m practically plastered to. “It’s not turning around.”
No shit, Sherlock! I want to shout. But I stay silent, my eyes peeled to the empty track ahead of us. Because I’m a coward. A coward who can’t make her own decisions. Who doesn’t listen to her instincts when her instincts are clearly telling her—no, shouting at her—to get off the goddamn train!
“I wonder where it’s going,” Xander muses.
I grip my phone tighter, threatening to shatter the poor device in my hand. Not that it matters though. I won’t need a phone after I’m dead.
Then, without warning, without ceremony, the train just stops.
Right in the middle of the track.
This is it. This is where we die.
This is where some robot monster sears off the top of the car with its laser claws, reaches down, and rips us right from the train.
This is where . . .
“Please continue to hold on,” the female voice says. “The train will be moving momentarily.”
I exhale the universe out of my lungs. I’ve never been so excited to hear an automated voice in my entire life.
“Aha!” Xander exclaims. “I get it. It doesn’t actually turn around. It backs up onto the other track and then moves forward. So now we’re going to be in the back of the train, instead of the front.”
I nod, like I’ve been coming to the exact same conclusion.
Three seconds later the train starts up again, heading in the opposite direction. The right direction. I wilt in relief.
“All right, old lady,” Xander says, walking unsteadily over to me. The way he has to zigzag across the car to keep his balance makes him look like one of the drunk hobos who wander the streets in downtown Portland. “No sitting this time around.”
He can’t possibly be serious.
“I’m not surfing in a train car,” I vow.
“You are totally surfing in a train car.”
I scoot farther back onto the bench, until I’m pressed against the window. He reaches out and grabs hold of my arm, giving it a tug. “C’mon, cheater. Get up. Use those perfectly good legs of yours.”
I glance down at his hand on my arm. “Oh, look. You grabbed on to something. You lose. Game over.”
He gives me a fake har har laugh. “Very funny, Vegina. But it has to be a real handrail.”
He tugs on my arm again. I don’t like the sensation of his hand on me. It’s too close. Too personal. Too much. But apparently, the only way he’s going to let go is if I play his little game.
“Fine,” I say, scooting forward. He releases his grip.
I stand, feeling the rumble of the track beneath my feet.
“Backpack off,” he orders. “It’ll hinder your balance.”
With a sigh I stuff my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, then reluctantly shimmy out of my backpack and set it by my feet, careful to keep one hand on the pole the entire time.
“Now,” Xander says, returning to his ridiculous surfer stance. “Just let go.”
I swallow and let my grip on the pole loosen. My fingers tingle in protest, wanting to squeeze tighter. I spread my legs to steady myself and release my hands, testing out my balance. It’s more stable than I thought it would be.
Well, this is easy.
Of course at that very moment the train decides to lurch, and I go tumbling forward, halfway across the car. I crash right into Xander. For the second time today.
“Please hold on. This train is approaching the C gates.”
She couldn’t have warned me a second earlier?
Xander catches me with a laugh. And suddenly, the only thing I can feel is his hands on my shoulders. His mouth near my mouth. His eyes close enough to see inside. See all my secrets.
I jump back, grasping for my pole again.
The train pulls to a stop and the doors open.
“Exit here for all C gates.”
I consider darting out right this second. There’s got to be a walkway back to the A terminal. Hell, I’ll walk outside in the snow if I have to.
“Don’t give up,” Xander encourages, as if my thoughts are encapsulated in a tiny cartoon bubble above my head.
A melodic little five-note song plays. It sounds like something you’d hear between scenes of a laugh-track sitcom. “The doors are closing. Please keep clear and hold on for departure to all B gates.”
I look hopefully toward the empty platform. If someone gets on, maybe we can stop this ridiculous game. But no one does. The doors glide shut again. The train starts to pick up speed.
“I don’t think I’m coordinated enough for train surfing,” I tell Xander from my pole. “It’s probably safer if I just stick to the handrail.”
“Safer, maybe,” Xander agrees. “But not nearly as much fun.”
A boisterous cackling laugh vibrates in my brain. “Wow,” Lottie muses. “This guy is good. He’s only known you for what? Two hours? And he’s already got you pegged.”
I’m not pegged.
So much for ignoring her.
“You are sooo pegged. You are like the most peggable person I know.”
“Peggable” is not a word, Lottie.
“It is now. I just invented it.”
You can’t just invent words.
“I can do whatever I want. I’m dead.”
“Everything all right over there?” That was Xander. Although, thankfully, I’m sane enough to tell the difference, I still flinch slightly at the sound of a real voice interrupting my conversation with an imaginary one.
“Yes,” I say quickly.
“You looked like you were somewhere else,” Xander says.
I was, I think at the same time Lottie says, “She was.”
The train slows dramatically. Xander almost loses his balance. He takes two large, stumbling steps to realign himself. The doors open again. No one gets on.
“The doors are closing. Please keep clear and hold for departure to all A gates.”
The voice is music to my ears.
You’re almost there.
One more stop.
The doors close. The train wrenches into motion again. I let go of the handrail and step into the center of the train. If for no other reason than to prove Lottie wrong.
“Good!” Xander encourages, as if I’m a five-year-old afraid to dive off the diving board.
Fake it until you make it, I remind myself.
I spread my legs slightly and stretch my arms out to the side just like Xander’s doing. I’ve never actually surfed before. Lottie wanted to take lessons after she fell in love with one of our coworkers at A-Frame, but by the time she got around to finding a local surf school, she’d already moved on to the guy who worked at the mobile phone kiosk.
“Try to put all your weight in your feet,” Xander instructs.
“Where else would my weight be?”
The train banks slightly to the left. This time I’m ready. I shift to compensate, sticking my butt way out. It’s not graceful but it works. I stay upright.
“Well, that’s attractive,” Lottie criticizes.
May I remind you, this was your idea.
“Actually, I think it was his idea.”
“You’re a natural!” Xander encourages.
We both anticipate the next dip, bending our knees and leaning to the left in an effort to right ourselves.
“Nice!” he says.
My lips curve into a grin. The expression feels foreign. Like a language I spoke as a small child but lost over the years, because I never had a chance to practice it.
“See? It’s fun, right?”
Actually, it is. As stupid as it sounds, it might be the most fun I’ve had in eleven months and thirty-one days.
I feel a pull in my stomach as the train starts to slow. I brace myself for the change, rooting my feet firmly into the floor.
“Exit here for all A gates.”
The doors open and I scoop up my backpack.
“No!” Xander protests. “Just one more stop.”
“But the next stop is baggage claim.”
“The train has to turn around again, right? We’ll just ride it back to the A gates. Plus, you still have two hours before your flight.”
“The doors are closing. Please keep clear and hold on for departure to terminal, ground transportation, and baggage claim.”
With a sigh I set my bag down at my feet. “Okay, one more stop.”
Lottie ended up winning over six hundred dollars that night. It turned out she was a natural at poker. Not that I was surprised. Lottie was a natural at most things. It also probably didn’t hurt that she blatantly flirted with every guy she was in a hand with. I watched her convince a six-foot-four dude with multiple piercings that her crappy two-seven offsuit was something to be afraid of simply by the way she pursed her lips as she bluffed up the pot.
It seemed like regardless of which cards she was dealt—rags, pocket aces, high kickers, low kickers—it never mattered. She always won.
Just like in life.
I sat behind her for three hours while she robbed every single person at that table of their hard earned cash, including a CEO type in an expensive-looking suit. Some of them griped and complained, some of them were just too enamored to be upset.
When she finally decided she’d had her fill, she scooted ceremoniously back from the table and announced, “Well, boys. This was fun. Next time bring more money, okay?”
I cringed at the jab. Even though I had come to relax somewhat since we’d arrived—convincing myself that no one was actually going to die here—I still didn’t think it was a good idea to outwardly insult this lot.
But I was also overjoyed to be leaving.
Her departure was met by a chorus of protests and grumbles. I couldn’t quite figure out if they wanted her to stay so they’d have a chance to win their money back, or because Lottie was infinitely nicer to look at than the rest of the players.
Probably a little of both.
“Sorry,” she offered with a playful cock of her head. “But I have to get up really early tomorrow.” She faked a yawn. “And I need my beauty sleep if I’m going to look this good for you next time.”
Their grumbles quickly morphed into appreciative chuckles.
The single rack of chips she’d sat down with had multiplied by three. She could barely even carry them all. She handed one to me and we took them to the cashier.
“You did good, princess,” he said, counting out Lottie’s chips. “Beginner’s luck?”
Lottie just winked at him. He laughed and counted out eleven crisp hundred dollar bills, sliding them across the table in the same way Lottie had done just hours ago.
Lottie smiled, folded the stack twice, and stuffed it into her bra.
“See you boys next time!” she called out as we headed for the door. But before we could reach it, one of the players—an early-twentysomething guy with light brown hair and matching facial scruff—gently caught Lottie by the hand.
“Hey,” he said as he pushed his dark sunglasses onto his head. Underneath, his small green eyes sparkled the way only Lottie could make eyes do. “That was impressive.”
She raised her eyebrows cockily. “Thanks.”
“I was thinking you could probably teach me a few things.”
Lottie didn’t miss a beat. “I probably could.”
“Do you offer private lessons?”
She twirled a lock of hair around her finger. That was her move. Her signature move. The flirting, the eye batting, the winking, the lip biting, those were just everyday Lottie. She used those on everyone. But this. This she reserved for only the boys she was interested in.
My gaze darted suspiciously back to the boy. I took in his short hair with the tiny gelled spikes in the front, his thick eyebrows, his black-and-white-checkered shirt with black skinny tie. He was certainly more innocuous-looking than the rest of these guys, but that didn’t make me distrust him any less. Don’t all the best wolves know to dress in sheep’s clothing?
“I might have time to give you a private lesson,” Lottie replied suggestively.
The boy smiled. A devilishly handsome grin. Even with the dim lighting of the room, I could see his incisors flash.
“Give me your phone,” she commanded.
He reached into the pocket of his skinny jeans and produced an oversize, top-of-the-line, latest-model device. Lottie grabbed it, swiped it on, and began typing furiously. She handed it back to him. “There you go.”
Then she turned to leave. And I went with her.
“Wait,” the guy said, running to catch up with us in the hallway. “What’s your name?”
“Where’s the fun in telling you that?” Lottie said.
“But how will I know which number is yours?”
She continued walking. Without turning around, she called over her shoulder, “I’m the only girl in your phone that you haven’t slept with yet.”
I didn’t miss her addition of the word “yet.” And I doubt he did either. It filled me with a sense of dread as I followed my best friend past the towering bouncer and into the street.
“Wanna hear something crazy?” Lottie asked giddily as she danced and twirled down the alley toward the train station.
“Always,” I muttered with a sigh.
“I just won six hundred dollars playing poker!”
“Lottie,” I said, nervously clenching and unclenching my fists.
She stopped dancing and looped her arm through mine. “Yeah?”
“Promise me you won’t see that guy.”
She played innocent. “What guy?”
“The one you just gave your number to. I have a really bad feeling about him.”
It was the truth. I did have a bad feeling about the guy. But I had a worse feeling about Lottie. And the kind of trouble she was capable of getting into. Especially with a guy who hangs out in seedy underground poker clubs.
“He was harmless,” Lottie said with a giggle. “You just don’t understand how these things work. Police officers and lawyers play in these kinds of games. None of those guys were dangerous.”
But I wasn’t comforted. “Just promise me you won’t see him.”
She rested her head on my shoulder as we walked. “Oh, Ryn. You know I never make promises I can’t keep.”
Thirty minutes later Xander and I have surfed the Denver International Airport train route—from baggage claim to C gates—four times. We’ve started to memorize every twist and turn, every piece of uneven track, every programmed acceleration and deceleration, shifting our bodies to compensate for them as easily as a real surfer reads the waves. Neither of us has touched a handrail in two complete loops, despite our mutual efforts to throw the other person off-balance.
My legs are beginning to ache from all the crouching. My back is sore from all the leaning. But I’m having too much fun to stop. Plus, if I give up now, I lose.
As we approach the B gates for the fifth time that day, through the windows, I can see two people waiting on the platform outside. The doors open, and I nudge Xander, motioning toward them. He turns, and I immediately see the recognition on his face.
It’s the same couple we saw earlier in the shopping rotunda. The one that was in the middle of that huge fight over a back massager. Or maybe it was over the girl selling the back massager. Regardless, the fight seems to be just about the last thing on the couple’s mind now.
The doors open and they stumble inside, kissing and groping each other with the eagerness of two teenagers whose parents just left for the weekend. They seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that there are other passengers on this train. The man slams the woman up against the far window, pushing his whole body into her and running his hand up and down her side.
So much for Jimmy’s bingo card.
Xander and I exchange a flabbergasted look. Both of us completely unsure what to do. Should we change cars to give them some privacy? What if they start having full-on sex right here? I guess that’s one way to pass the time.
How many babies are born nine and a half months after historic snowstorms?
The musical interlude plays over the speaker, pulling both of our focuses toward the ceiling. “The doors are closing. This train is departing. Please keep clear and hold on for departure to all A gates.”
The woman lets out a gasp in response. When I look over, her head is tipped back and the man has his face buried in her neck.
Xander covers his mouth, trying not to laugh aloud for fear of interrupting them. But seeing him fight so hard is making it even harder for me. I bite my lip, but it’s not working. The uncontrollable giggles are building up. Xander shoots me a warning look.
Don’t do it, his eyes plead. If you lose it, I’ll lose it.
The first snicker erupts, pushing its way out of my clenched jaw in the form of a ridiculous-sounding snort. Xander lunges at me, pressing his hand against my mouth, trapping the laughter inside.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the train, the couple is kissing again, moaning so loudly, it’s echoing in my ears.
Xander and I are both so focused on not breaking into fits of uncontrollable laughter, that neither one of us is prepared for the train’s next shift. The one we both know so well by now.
The automated brakes kick in, lurching the train back, and both of us forward. Then suddenly, we’re flying, out of control, foot over useless stumbling foot, heading right toward the kissing couple.
“Please hold on. This train is approaching the A gates.”
The woman lets out another ridiculously loud gasp.
At the exact same moment, Xander and I both reach for the nearest handrail, admitting mutual defeat, but stopping ourselves just short of a very awkward collision.
We breathe out a synchronized sigh of relief just as the doors open and two uniformed police officers step inside.