Page 23 of A Very Friendly Valentine's Day
“The Trolley Witch!” I correct him.
Nancy does a bang-up imitation of the old British lady from the Hogwarts Express. “Anything off the cart, dears?”
I squeal with glee, clapping and jumping up and down. Before I’m done applauding her, she has disappeared and shut the door. Now I’m alone in a shoebox with Eddie. Now the room feels even smaller. And it already smells like snowy beach sex in here.
And I’m already thinking about snow.
And the beach.
And sex.
“Should I have tipped her?” Eddie asks as he removes his baseball cap to comb his fingers through his hair. He’s removed his sunglasses, so it’s the first time I’ve seen his eyes today, since he and his driver came to pick me up at my apartment. They’re hazel, and I swear his irises are a different color every time I see him. Right now they’re more green, almost blue. Probably because of all the blue upholstery in here. “Hello?”
“Huh?”
“Nancy. Should I have tipped the lady just now?”
“We tip her at the end of the journey.” I remove my coat and go to hang it in the closet, but it would take up all the space in there.
“Go ahead,” Eddie says. “I don’t need to hang anything up.”
“That had better not be the only coat you brought.”
“It’s warm enough for now. I’ll just buy a heavier coat in New York if I need to. Give it to a homeless guy when I leave.”
“Wow. Baller.”
“I am. AndI’llbe tipping the attendant, by the way.”
I unzip my weekender bag and pull out the container of Clorox disinfecting wet wipes. “No way! Unless you let me pay for half of the hotel room in Chicago.” I insisted on paying for my train tickets, of course. He does earn a lot more money than I do, but I have a trust fund. I’ve always tried not to rely on it, but I can’t let him pay for me when he’s going out of his way to accompany me on this trip.
“Nope. That one’s on me.”
“Then I’ll pay for Nancy. I insist. Just the tip.”
Eddie bursts out laughing. I turn around to see what he’s laughing at and then realize what I just said.
“That’s what she said,” we both say at the same time.
And then I get to work, disinfecting all of the metal and plastic surfaces.
Eddie gets comfortable on the longer of the two sofa seats and looks at his phone. “I forgot to ask her for the Wi-Fi password.”
“Oh, there’s no Wi-Fi on this train.”
“What?” he snaps. “You’re joking, right?”
“No. This is an older train. The one we’ll take between Chicago and New York is supposed to have free Wi-Fi though.” I wipe down the bunk bed’s metal edge above where Eddie is sitting and reach up to wipe the handle that’s on the bottom of the raised bed. Eddie doesn’t move. He’s too busy scrubbing his face and questioning all of his recent life choices to be polite. I step around him and say, “Cell phone service will be pretty spotty too, supposedly.”
“Of course it will,” he mutters.
I place the used wipes in the slot for the trash disposal under a small counter. “But don’t worry!” I take four steps back to my weekender bag and pull out my printout of our route. “Look—we’ll be stopping at thirty stations between here and Chicago! I’ve marked the places where we can get off to stretch our legs and make phone calls and check emails.” I take a seat next to him and point out the train stations that I’ve marked with little smiling stick figures that are holding phones.
His shoulders are shaking. He’s laughing so hard he isn’t making any noise.
“Fine, don’t look at my map.” I start to stand up, but he puts his hands on my hips and pulls me back down beside him.
I really wish he hadn’t put his warm hands on my hips.
