THE GIRL WITH the beanie shoved me off and ran to slam the window closed, the red lever clicking back into place, and spun on me. But before she could open her mouth, another door swung open and an Amtrak attendant burst in.
“What the hell was that!” He painted the walls around us with saliva. “Which one of you opened that window?”
My left hand was burning from bracing my fall to the ground. The razor-sharp edges of my nerves—hundreds of them—tickled the inside of my skin, sending waves of pain down each of my fingers and up my arms.
“Somebody start talking!” But neither of us did. “You know, I can kick both of you off this train.”
The attendant looked at me, the girl looked at the attendant, and I closed my eyes, counting the seconds until I passed out.
“There was a man,” she offered slowly, word by word. “He was trying . . . to smoke a cigarette, and . . . we told him . . . that he should leave.”
“Some man conveniently left you two standing here while he made a break for it?” The attendant made a show of sniffing the air. “Does smell a bit like cigarettes, doesn’t it, buddy?”
I looked away, shy and scared and screaming inside with pain. This was not my moment to be courageous and take the fall for her. This was my moment to huddle on the floor.
“Are we sure it wasn’t you who opened the window to smoke?” he spat at her.
On the ground, her purse was open, and I made a quick decision.
She shook her head. “No, no, it . . . wasn’t me. I don’t do that stuff.” Again, she spoke slowly, driving home every consonant with an Indian tilt.
“You don’t smoke cigarettes?” Her eyes flickered to her bag, and the attendant’s followed. “So if I check this purse here, I won’t find any cigarettes? Or something else?”
“No. Not at all.”
He snatched the bag. “I’d hate to find some evidence that you were lying.”
We both held our breath as he rifled through it. I tried to catch her eye but she was focused on the search and seizure, breathing heavily through her nose. A few items popped out and fell to the floor as he dug—some eye makeup, a few tampons, a book called Compassion.
After turning the bag over, the attendant held it back to her. The blood behind his face was starting to saturate his cheeks. “What’d you do with them?”
I found my voice. “She, uh, she clearly wasn’t the one smoking, so unless you want me to, to tell someone about your illegal search of her personal property, I’d stop harassing her.”
He got the message. He could only hold on to her gaze for a few seconds before stepping backward. “If I find out it was either of you who opened that window,” he warned us, “I’m going to enjoy kicking both of you off this train.” He left us in silence.
It was a long minute before we spoke, both of us expecting the attendant to burst back in.
But he didn’t. My heart settled to a normal pace for the first time in fifteen minutes. When we finally made eye contact, she was the first to speak.
“Well?” Something about her voice was very different.
“Well, uh, what?”
“You just jump onto a moving train, then?” It had completely transformed. It was light, quick, proper, and dripping with a beautifully British accent. I smiled. She hadn’t wanted to seem recognizable, so she’d disguised the most unique trait she had: her accent. “Are you here to rob us? Or are you just an idiot?”
I couldn’t tell if it was a joke, or real anger, or even some form of aggressive pity, but she wasn’t smiling. “No. I just . . . really, really hate Nevada.”
“Well, you’re a bit dramatic, if you ask me,” she said, her eyes now scanning the floor. “And you nearly got me thrown off the train, if not for a fucking miracle . . . I have no idea what—”
“What happened to your cigarettes?” I asked, pulling them from behind my back.
Her mouth bent to an almost-smile. “Well, that was clever. Thank you.”
My chest warmed up. I wished Kaitlin could have seen this conversation now. After four years with her, talking to other girls had become impossibly foreign, but here I was, making it look easy.
I studied the floor with her, afraid the eye contact would ruin it. “I’m not the one who faked an accent. That was smart.”
I saw her reflection in the window, smiling for the first time. “What’s your name?”
“Arthur.” I extended my non-broken hand.
“Hello, Arthur. Mara.” She accepted my hand and I held hers for a moment too long. “What happened to your hand?”
“Oh, um, an accident.”
“‘Oh, um’—very cryptic,” she said, and without warning, she dropped my hand. “Well, Arthur. It was very nice meeting you, but please don’t do that to me again.”
“What, uh—” My mouth sputtered into a sentence before my brain could catch up. I wanted to say something to keep the conversation going, but I knew the cause was already lost. It would need to be something interesting, something about her, something observational, something smart—
“You know cigarettes are gonna kill you, right?”
Mara was already somewhere else. Of course she was. I slumped up into the nearly empty coach cabin, moving slowly so it didn’t seem like I was chasing after her.
Kaitlin was right on cue.
“You should warn her.” Her tiny frame slouched against the seat next to me, pretending not to care.
I smiled a little, because I could tell that she did care. “Warn her about what?”
She ignored the question, examining her fingernails. “Do you even know what you’re looking for?”
“Yes.” I reclined in my seat. “Green River.”
“Great. And when you get there?”
My stomach twisted. She was right; the train stopped in Green River at 4:00 a.m., and I didn’t even have a starting place, but I ignored it. “What do you mean, I should warn her?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just saying, to be fair to her.”
“Warn her about what?”
“About you.”
“About me what?”
“Everything.”
“What do you—”
“That you’re not stable. That you have pretend conversations with people. That you get angry and your little switch flips and you go crazy. That you tried—”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is. All of that is true. You’re just too embarrassed to admit it.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter! I’m never going to see her again. Does that make you happy?”
The seat was empty.