Cooped Up In Transit

Julia was sitting in the dark, humming along towards Connecticut. Behind her was Boston, her cramped studio, her summer job. Before her was interminable darkness. She felt like her one curtain of light was its own little world, a molecule racing along towards its destination. She didn't know it yet, but she was looking for someone. Someone important. It wasn't the man looking a little too intently at her. Nor was it someone from the book she was reading, though she thought it might be (she would never tell anyone this). But back to the man looking a little too intently. Julia hated taking the Greyhound, but she had quietly forgotten that up until this point.


She was unaware of his gaze until she read a paragraph that reminded her of something poignant from her childhood, and she looked up. "You have beautiful toes," he said.

He was not the mangy creature you'd expect to offer this kind of introduction. Rather, he appeared the epitome of business-like sophistication. He should have been flying first class, flirting with the stewardesses and taking home the business cards of the people around him. He was still flatteringly flattering, but he leered a bit, as if drunk.

Julia smiled at him and looked back at her book.

"You don't see beautiful toes on most women, not beautiful women anyway. Do you know why? All the stress builds up. Trust me. I know what it's like to feel beautiful. Everyone always watching you. The constant pressure of living up to expectations. The immediate judgment people make of you. It builds up, in around your shoulders, up your neck, oh god if someone would just run his fingers through your hair maybe you could release a litle stress, but no one touches you because you're too beautiful, so it pulses in your brain like breathing on a hot day and lingers there a touch too long, then it shoots through your body, every nerve aching for reprieve. Your fingers grasp the armrest. Your back longs to arch, extend, reach toward some unknowable essence. Your toes scrunch up. And you walk around like this all day, on tip-toe, on egg shells, because you can't let your guard down, you can't let someone take you in, take advantage of your beauty, violate your trust. What a sad, lonely existence."

Julia moved her foot from its place on the armrest in front of her. She was stayed by the man's hand reaching across the aisle. She didn't know what she would do if he touched her. Everyone else seemed to be asleep, or tacitly pretending to be. She put her foot back up, and he took his hand back to let it rest in his lap.

"You wouldn't want to worry a beautiful little foot like that on account of a few stray words. I'm sorry. I'll say no more of it. But you do have amazingly beautiful toes. I've seen toes as beautiful before, but not on - "

He smiled sheepishly. Julia narrowed her eyes at him.

"I'm sorry. I'll let you get back to your book, unless that is you wouldn't mind telling how you hurt it."

Julia considered making a moue but then realized she was already doing it. He was grinning again, as if he was somehow exonerated.

"It's just a sprained ankle. Well, it was a bad sprain. You should've seen it a week ago." She hated herself for this. All she wanted was get to Hartford and her younger brother Carl without event. Now, if she wasn't careful--and she had already been careless--she would be stuck for this useless conversation. She remembered now how much she hated these rides.

If he had asked any other question, she would've been much more adept at blowing him off. But she'd been so frustrated.

She had sprained it playing squash. She didn't play much, but she'd had a friend from college in town. The sprain was nothing spectacular (Even with such beautiful ankles?). Yes, even with such beautiful ankles. Everyone knows what an injury's like, with the worry and the uncertain hands and the, sometimes, pacing. The friend was insignificant and hadn't been staying with her. What was significant was the quiet apartment, the struggle to the icebox, the constant thought of elevation. She had written frustrated, half-e-mails to friends and cast them aside to Drafts. She had watched one TV show on DVD after another, left by her guilt ridden friend. She had drank tea.

The problem was she had no real friends in the city. She had been subletting her cousin's apartment, which was vacant due to her cousin's summer abroad. This cousin was older than Julia, galavanting not on a twentysomething exploration swing, but off in search of mid-thirties reinvigoration. She was also looking to invest in Euro property, as she suspected the US dollar would soon drop. Julia was left in a space that felt utterly alien. It was not so much sterile as it was staunch. It was a little too sturdy, or sturdily homey, to really feel intimate. For the first month of the summer, Julia had made herself quite comfortable there and was just getting the gist of the city when she sprained her ankle. But now, it was as if everything had been quietly taken away from her.

She could no longer simply pop out into the cool Boston night and walk along the Charles River. Everything took so much effort. Her summer job became a list of negotiations. She could do this but not that. She could do that, but she'd have to move everything over there and sit down. She could take that over there, but it would really hurt. It wouldn't have been so difficult if she had sprained her ankle within a normal routine. She woke up at the same time everyday here, but she was thinking the whole time about what she was doing, where she was going. That was the point of a summer job, wasn't it? But now the thoughts were so much more tedious. They refused to extend beyond the immediate inconvenience. So Julia had to get out.

She couldn't even drive. Not that she'd had a car. She told herself it would've been better if it had been the left ankle. The truth was she'd been looking for an excuse. This was just not the best one. So she was heading down to see her brother, and from Hartford they were going to drive to New York where their grandma lived. From there, they had talked about going on to North Carolina, Atlanta, New Orleans. After the first few hours of her Greyhound ride, she wasn't sure it would be such a great idea to spend so much time cooped up in transit, but at least she wouldn't be alone with her discomfort.

Just like that, the night had passed. It wasn't quite day, but the sighs of yellow were pushing up into the sky. The oddly provident man actually turned out to be a business man. He even had his own card. His name was John and as he helped Julia out of the Greyhound, he gave her his card. He was in advertising and he told her to call him when she was done with college. He smiled, displaying disarmingly perfect teeth. He was going on to Philadelphia, where he had a conference. He was afraid of planes.

This left Julia alone at the Hartford Greyhound station, waiting for her brother. She called his cell phone but he didn't pick up. She refused to sit down, after having spent so much time sitting. She also felt like sitting might be a concession that Carl wouldn't be there to pick her up soon. As she stood there, trying to balance on one foot without looking like she was balancing on one foot, she imagined rain coming down all at once. It drenched her, and she melted like so many blobs of used water colors. She felt like sitting down. Instead, she called her brother again. No answer. A look around showed her no eyes, no one standing in line at kiosks for coffee or newspaper, no one walking briskly to find their bus. It was six a.m. on a Saturday and everyone was slouched into the wooden chairs (they were really benches divided by armrests)that looked like they'd been varnished in the sixties. A kid was banging on a vending machine, which also looked like a sixties hold-over. One man was at the pay phone, his head pressed against the wall. Outside, cab-drivers smoked cigarettes while their cars idled.

Julia called her brother again. She didn't put it to her ear this time. She just looked at its little screen until she heard the beep of his voicemail. She sat down.

The table she sat at was half a Ms. Pac-man game. How was she Ms. Pacman? Was she that submissive that she took his name without even getting married? Or maybe she was actually progressive, taking his name but not adopting the Mrs., since it means one who has a mister, which means master. (WotB: Mis'ess)

Julia took out her book and wondered about the main character's ex-girlfriend. She seemed like such a non-character, a phantom. Doesn't the emotion he put into their break-up necessitate a more thorough depiction? Her phone rang.

"Julia! Where are you?"
"Where are you? I'm at the Hartford station."
"No, you're not. That's where I am."
"I heard the driver say Hartford."
"Go check what it says outside."
Julia was a little peeved that her brother wanted her to stand up and walk, but arguing wouldn't help. She turned to the nearest person and asked where she was.
"West Hartford, honey."