If
he had expected her to open up right away, it didn't happen. After
introducing herself, she quickly turned back to her window and paid
him little attention. He found himself at a loss for what else to
say, so they rode most of the way in silence.
Aidan
felt like he had swallowed a bag of rocks. He had decided that he
wanted to get to know this girl, but he couldn't settle upon what he
wanted to say to her. He tried to recall how he had introduced
himself to the other friends he had made over the years, but he was
too nervous to think clearly right now. As he sat there strumming
his fingers on his leg and wracking his brain, he noticed that she
was scribbling away on a little pad of paper on her lap. She wasn't
really hiding it from him, so he leaned over and took a peek. On the
paper was a pencil drawing of a lake shimmering white in the
moonlight underneath a starry sky. He raised his head to look
through the window and was greeted by much the same scene outside as
the train passed over the bay.
“It's
very pretty” he remarked.
“Thanks”.
She didn't even look up from her paper.
He
looked past her out the window. “You know, I've been taking this
train for four years, and I never really noticed it. I always hated
going home after it got dark.”
“I
like the night”, she said, still not looking up at him. “It's
very quiet and peaceful.”
“Okay,
I get it”, he huffed, feeling rebuked.
“I
didn't mean it like that.” This time she did look up from her
drawing for a moment and smiled a little. She really was very
pretty, and Aidan wished he could spend the whole train ride looking
into her eyes. However, she quickly returned to her drawing and
there was a short silence between them.
“Are
you an artist?”
“Something
like that.” She said, continuing to make little adjustments on her
picture.
“It's
very good”, he said, looking at it again. “You've really
captured how it looks.”
“It's
no substitute for the real thing”, she looked out the window again,
“but it's a full moon and a clear night tonight and I didn't want
to let it go to waste.”
“All
right, I won't bother you any more, then.”
“It's
fine”, she replied. “If I really didn't want you to be here, I
wouldn't have told the conductor to let you on the train.”
He
didn't know how to respond to that, but he was fairly sure he was
blushing. Luckily, she was still working away on her picture and
didn't seem to notice. “We'll be over the bridge soon”, she said
offhandedly. “If you want to take another look at it you should do
it now, it'll just be trees in a minute.”
He
leaned over a bit to look out the window. It really was a beautiful
sight, the moon left a white triangle across the bay that quivered
back and forth as the waves rolled by. After a few moments, the bay
passed by and the trees cut off the view, just as she had said.
“I'm
glad I got to see it” he said, turning away from the window. She
nodded. He watched quietly for another few minutes as she put the
final touches on her picture.
“Is
it almost done?”
“I
suppose it's as good as it's getting”. She held it the sketch up
to the window. “What do you think?”
“It
looks just like it.”
She
removed the page from her pad and handed it to him. “You can have
it. I've seen it plenty of times already.”
“Thanks”,
he said, accepting it graciously. “It was nice talking to you,
too.”
“I
was wondering when you were going to say something”, she said
flatly.
“You
could have spoken to me first.”
“I
gave you this seat”, she pointed out, coyly turning back to look
out the window.
And
with that, he ran out of things to say. After another few minutes
the train pulled into the station, and he retrieved his briefcase
from under the seat and stored the picture in there. “Have a good
evening”, he told her as they got off the train.
“You
too”, she said, and she walked off down the platform He waited
until she was out of sight before he went on his own way. It had
been easier than he thought to talk to her, but they hadn't really
said a lot. “I suppose that's how things usually go”, he thought
to himself as he started the walk home. He looked up at the sky.
The moon was still shining brightly in the sky, but it didn't seem
like anything out of the ordinary from here. He strolled home a
little slower than normal, his nerves finally at ease.
Aidan
turned the key to his apartment a little after 7:40. He put his
briefcase down on the couch, took the picture out, and put it down on
his desk. “I should have got her to sign it”, he thought,
looking at it again, but maybe that would have been a little weird.
He was happy enough to have some reminder that they had spoken at
all, in case he started to think it had all been a dream. He changed
out of his work clothes and heated up one of his frozen dinners. He
was in a good mood, and partially regretted not stopping to get
something to eat on the way home, he felt that he had earned
something a bit better today after all he'd been through. He
contented himself to eat his dinner and watch TV, but his mind was
still focused on the conversation they had earlier. “She wanted to
talk to me, too”, he concluded, replaying bits of it in his head,
and that made him optimistic that he'd be able to talk to her again.
He was already looking forward to going to work tomorrow more than he
had in years. He made his lunch, took a shower, and spent some time
on his computer before turning in early for the night. He slept
well, unperturbed by any strange dreams or dissatisfied thoughts.
---
He
awoke peacefully, slowly opening his eyes as the morning sun greeted
him. “I must have woken up before the alarm again”, he thought,
rolling over to look at his clock, then he nearly fell out of bed.
It
was already 8:00! “I forgot to turn the alarm back on!” he
realized to his horror. He leapt out of bed, threw on his clothes,
grabbed his briefcase and ran out the door without even stopping to
eat anything.
He
had already missed the 7:30 and 8:00 trains, but if he was fast he
might still be able to get to the 8:30, and he might feasibly be able
to get into the building by 9:30 AM if he really hurried out of the
station. He could already hear the trouble would be in for being
late, especially the day after he didn't get all his work done, and
that thought just spurred him on. Unfortunately, his stomach was
starting to realize that it was past 8:00 and he hadn't eaten
anything, and it grumbled to show its discontentment with this
disorganized morning. “We can eat later”, he told himself as he
jogged down the streets to get to the station.
He
arrived at the station at 8:23, which might have been enough time to
get a bagel for breakfast if it hadn't been for the other thirty
people in line who had the same idea. Even the pita place had at
least twenty people in line, which would be cutting it far too close
to the departure time. He swore under his breath and headed for his
train. He showed his pass to the conductor, took a window seat near
the middle, and spent the next few minutes staring at his watch,
trying to convince time to slow down until he got into the office.
As the train filled up the seat beside him was taken by a young man
in casual business attire. “It must be nice to be able to dress
like that and leave for work at a reasonable hour” he thought
bitterly, already back to hating his job. The man was eating a
bagel, too, and that was the last straw for Aidan's stomach. He
opened up his briefcase, retrieved his sandwich and ate it as the
train pulled out of the station. He could always buy a bag of chips
or something from the cafeteria to stand in for his lunch. If he
still had a job by lunchtime. “That crazy dream did tell me to get
out of here”, he thought, “maybe it's decided to take matters
into its own hands”.
Despite
his sour mood and the impending trouble at work, once the train was
underway and there was no longer anything he could do to get to work
faster he found his mind wandering. As the train passed over the bay
he thought about Nisha, and how she saw the beauty there while he
could not. Perhaps the key to happiness lay simply in learning to
appreciate what you had. There had been a time when having his own
apartment and going to work in the city had seemed exciting and fun,
but somehow that feeling had faded and he didn't know how to get it
back. He had definitely felt that same rush of energy when he spoke
to her last night, though, and he knew he wanted to speak to her
again as soon as he could. At least now he had something to look
forward to.
Unfortunately,
such aspirations were preempted by more immediate concerns. The
train squealed as it pulled into Central Station and the noise
brought Aidan back to the real world. He exited the train as fast as
possible and sprinted down the platform to the main area. If he was
quick enough, maybe he could grab something for lunch, there were a
ton of places to eat here. Unfortunately, he noted to his horror
that there were long lines everywhere. “Don't you people work?!”
he protested, unheard over the clamour of a thousand people milling
to and fro. The only place that wasn't busy with the health food
store, so he bought a small garden salad and stuffed it in his
briefcase for later. He glanced at his watch: it was already 9:25,
he absolutely had to get going now if he didn't want to get fired.
He sprinted out of the building and across the few blocks to his
office building. The receptionist said something to him and he
ignored her for the second day in a row, sprinting right past her
into an open elevator. She was probably starting to form a negative
opinion of him, but that was the least of his concerns right now. As
the elevator doors opened at his floor, he held the door open and
peeked his head out to see if anyone was around. Not seeing anyone,
he quietly crept through the hall, past his co-workers, and dove into
his chair. He quietly took off his coat and peeked around the walls
of his cubicle to see if he might have gotten away with it, then
reached over for his empty coffee cup.
“I'm
surprised to see you late on a morning where you have a backlog of
work to attend to, Aidan.”
Aidan
quickly turned to face his boss, knocking over his cup in the
process. Somehow, he hoped he would find someone else standing
there, but things never worked out so well for him. His boss was
standing beside his desk with a disappointed look on his overly round
face. “My alarm didn't go off... it won't happen again”, he
said, sweating profusely.
“Now
now, Aidan, I too was once a disorganized young man who thought that
rules and deadlines were 'un-hip', but I really must insist that you
finish the whole stack of applications today. This is our most
important time of year, you know. Students will be starting their
winter term soon, and business will be looking for acceleration
capital for the start of the new year, and we can't disappoint them.”
“Yes
sir, I'll have these done before I go home tonight.”
“Excellent!
I knew I could count on you, my boy”, he patted Aidan's head,
causing his hair to lie flat and stick to his forehead. “As long
as you keep sight of what's important, you'll go far at Walder
Financial”.
Aidan
nodded obediently and his boss finally left. It really could have
been a lot worse, but the massive stack of papers in his inbox was
punishment enough. There was no way he could get all those done by
the end of the day, particularly not with part of the morning already
gone, he would have to skip lunch and work late tonight if he hoped
to have any chance of finishing them all. He briefly contemplated
distributing a few of his forms to his co-workers when they went to
lunch, but they all must have heard him getting chewed out and they'd
probably catch on right away. He sighed and picked up the top form
from the pile. Sure enough, it was a student loan application. “Oh
yes, I appreciate how important this is”, he grumbled under his
breath, “without the extra 200 dollars a month how would they
afford their booze?” He hastily approved it and moved on to the
second paper in his massive stack.
By
lunchtime he was maybe a quarter of the way through the pile.
Everyone else went off to eat while he remained at his desk. He got
a refill for his coffee and opened up his salad. It was bland and
dry, but at least it was something to eat. He chewed away while
looking up someone's credit score. It had some strikes against it
and was on the border of what they would accept, so he decided to
turn it down. He wasn't really in the mood to be offering people
chances today, and rejecting applications was faster than approving
them. “Better luck next time”, he said as he put the application
on the top of his outgoing pile and moved onto the next one. Today
wasn't a good day to try his generosity.
Many
cups of coffee later Aidan placed another form on the outgoing pile
and looked at his watch. It was 5:30. It was already getting dark
out, but he still had at least another hour to go. He wondered if he
would even be able to make the 6:45 tonight. “There's no way I'll
see her, either”, he thought, suddenly losing most of his
motivation to get his work done. He turned his chair around to look
out the window, wondering what she did all day. “I bet it's much
more interesting than this”. His stomach growled violently, and he
realized that he was still at least two hours away from dinner, and
that gave him an extra push to get back to working on the pile.
“You're
making good progress”, his boss said, stopping by his desk before
he left. “I wasn't sure that you'd actually be able to get it done
today.”
Aidan
looked up from his desk. The discontentment on his face must have
been easy to read, because his boss picked up on it instantly. “Oh
dear, been a rather long day, has it? Well, I won't disturb you any
longer. Chin up Aidan, you'll get there.”
“Have
a good evening”, he said, wanting to get back to his work.
He
finally finished it all a little after 6:40. “Great, I'm not going
to be home until almost 9”, he thought. His stomach rumbled again.
The next train wasn't until 7:15, so at least he'd have time to get
something to eat at the station. He took the elevator down to the
ground floor. Nicole had already gone home, so at least he didn't
have to explain his recent lack of politeness. He let himself out of
the building and walked down the street. It was another cold night,
and he was terribly hungry, so he walked quickly towards the golden
lights of old Central. It was fairly quiet at this time of night on
a weekday, so he was finally able to get himself a proper meal
without spending forever in line. He figured he'd suffered enough
for one day with that salad he ate earlier, so he opted for a
hamburger and fries for dinner. After barely eating all day to
finally have some warm food was so refreshing that it almost made up
for everything that had happened. He wolfed it down and then chose a
spot near the platform to sit and wait for the train to arrive.



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