Page 46 of The Christmas Express
Back at my seat, Gwen is wide awake and playing Christmas music loudly from a tiny speaker she’s Bluetoothed to her phone. Around us, other passengers are waking up, some enjoying the unsolicited alarm clock, some not so much.
‘Happy Holidays, bunkmate!’ she says to me.
‘And to you. Wait, it’s still only Christmas Eve, right?’ I guess my brain is not quite awake yet to remember the exact day and exactly how long I’ve been on this train for.
‘It is, but today I’m leaving you.’
‘What?’
‘I’m getting off tonight, in Edmonton. Seeing family, surprising them for the holidays.’
‘What family?’
‘My sister and her kids. Haven’t seen her for six months or so and I can’t wait.’
Wow. I didn’t realise how attached I’d got to Gwen, but I guess when you sleep side by side with someone for two nights you can’t help but feel a fondness for them. ‘So, you’re just going to show up? At nine p.m. on Christmas Eve?’
‘Yep. They’re going to be psyched.’
That’s a good attitude. Positive thinking. ‘I’m surprising someone too, when we get to Vancouver the day after tomorrow.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘An ex-girlfriend. She’s getting married in a few days, but . . . it’s a long story.’
‘So, you’re just going to show up? Right before the wedding?’
I nod. ‘She’s going to be psyched.’
Gwen laughs. ‘Well tell me the story. We’ve got all day.’
I like talking with Gwen. She has a lovely life, travelling, living in the great outdoors for much of her time. And she’s a good listener. She reminds me of my mum, but younger, which both pangs and warms my heart in equal measures.
My parents had a long and happy marriage; they were lucky. I often wonder if my mum died more of heartbreak than anything else, passing away so soon after my dad.
Did I do my own heart a disservice by tearing it away from a happy relationship?
As Gwen and I munch breakfast croissants in our seats, talking over the logistics of me arriving in Vancouver and travelling out to Bryn’s and being able to speak to her without anyone else around just days before her wedding, I can tell the confidence is lessening in my voice, just a little. Like an icicle melting, dripping from a roof.
I’m doing the right thing, right? If Bryn’s trying to reach out to me, which I’m still sure she is, I owe it to both of us to at least see what’s happening, and see if she and I are still meant to be an us. Right?
‘Alrighty,’ says Gwen, wiping crumbs from her mouth. ‘I got to get ready for the show.’
‘The show?’
‘The Christmas Eve show in the bar. You haven’t seen the posters?’
My blank look tells her that no, I haven’t seen any posters about a Christmas show. ‘Are you in it?’
‘Sure am. You can be too!’
‘Nooooo, no thank you, I am not a show . . . girl.’
‘Then come along at least. High noon. Be there or be wherever else you wanna be, it’s a free country.’
High noon rolls around, at least in our current time zone which is either Mountain Time or Central Standard Time and I’m not sure which, but here we are. Since breakfast, I’ve located one of the mysterious posters, and it turns out the Christmas Eve show consists of a small band that boarded in Saskatoon and will be leaving us again in Edmonton, all to play a set of festive tunes in each of the bar carriages along the train. And once their set is done, passengers (such as Gwen) are invited to stay in the bars and have their own jingle bell jam sessions.
‘I’m telling you,’ Gwen is saying, polishing a ukulele that she’d been storing who knows where since we first boarded. ‘If you’ve never heard “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on the uke, you haven’t lived.’
