The man in front of him was called to a window, and Denny shoved his bags farther up. He was going to get the elderly agent with the disapproving face; he just knew it. “Sorry, sir …” the agent would say, not sounding sorry in the least.
But no, he got the cheery-looking African-American lady, and her first words when he gave her his confirmation number were “Aren’t you the lucky one!” He signed for his ticket gladly, without his usual muttering at the price. He thanked her and lugged his bags to the Dunkin’ Donuts to buy coffee and, on second thought, a pastry as well, to celebrate. He was going to make it out of here after all.
The few tables outside the Dunkin’ Donuts were occupied, and so were all the benches in the waiting room. He had to eat standing against a pillar with his bags piled at his feet. More passengers were milling around than at Christmas or Thanksgiving, even, all wearing frazzled expressions. “No, you can’t buy a candy bar,” a mother snapped at her little boy. “Stick close to me or you’ll get lost.”
A mellifluous female voice on the loudspeaker announced the arrival of a southbound train at gate B. “That’s B as in Bubba,” the voice said, which Denny found slightly odd. So did the young woman next to him, apparently—an attractive redhead with that golden tan skin that was always such an unexpected pleasure to see in a redhead. She quirked her eyebrows at him, inviting him to share her amusement.
Sometimes you glance toward a woman and she glances toward you and there is this subtle recognition, this moment of complicity, and anything might happen after that. Or not. Denny turned away and dropped his paper cup in the waste bin.
The train at gate B-for-Bubba was traveling to D.C., where nobody seemed to want to go, but when Denny’s northbound train was announced there was a general surge toward the stairs. Denny thought of what Jeannie’s Hugh had said the night before; shouldn’t all these people be heading away from the hurricane? But north was where home was, he’d be willing to bet—drawing them irresistibly, as if they were migratory birds. They pressed him forward, down the stairs, and when he reached the platform he felt a twinge of vertigo as they steered him too close to the tracks. He pulled ahead, making his way to where the forward cars would board. But he didn’t want the quiet car. Quiet cars made him edgy. He liked to sit surrounded by a sea of anonymous chatter; he liked the living-room-like coziness of mixed and mingled cell-phone conversations.
The train curved toward them from a distance, almost the same shade of gray as the darkened air it moved through, and a number of cars flashed past before it shrieked to a stop. There didn’t appear to be a quiet car, as far as Denny could tell. He boarded through the nearest door and chose the first empty seat, next to a teenage boy in a leather jacket, because he knew he had no hope of sitting by himself. First he heaved his luggage into the overhead rack, and only then did he ask, “This seat taken?” The boy shrugged and looked away from him, out the window. Denny dropped into his seat and slipped his ticket from his inside breast pocket.
Always that “Ahh” feeling when you settle into place, finally. Always followed, in a matter of minutes, by “How soon can I get out of here?” But for now, he felt completely, gratefully at rest.
People were having trouble finding seats. They were jamming the aisle, bumbling past with their knobby backpacks, calling to each other in frantic-sounding voices. “Dina? Where’d you go?” “Over here, Mom.” “There’s room up ahead, folks!” a conductor shouted from the forward end.
The train started moving, and those who were still standing lurched and grabbed for support. A woman arguably old enough to be offered a seat loomed above Denny for a full minute, and he studied his ticket with deep concentration till another woman called to her and she moved away.
Row houses passed in a slow, dismal stream—their rear windows drably curtained or blanked out with curling paper shades, their back porches crammed with barbecue grills and garbage cans, their yards a jumble of rusty cast-off appliances. Inside the car, the hubbub gradually settled down. Denny’s seatmate leaned his head against the window and stared out. As imperceptibly as possible, Denny slid his phone from his pocket. He hit the memory dial and then bent forward till he was almost doubled up. He didn’t want this conversation overheard.
“Hey, there. It’s Alison,” the recording said. “I’m either out or unavailable, but you can always leave me a message.”
“Pick up, Allie,” he said. “It’s me.”
There was a pause, and then a click.
“You act like saying ‘It’s me’ will make me drop everything and come running,” she said.
Another time, he might have asked, “And didn’t it?” Three months ago he might have asked that. But now he said, “Well, a guy can always hope.”
She said nothing.
“What’re you up to?” he asked finally.
“I’m trying to get ready for Sandy.”
“Who’s Sandy?”
“What is Sandy, idiot. Sandy the hurricane; where have you been?”