The 10:10 to New York

I saw her enter the train and walk towards the empty seat across from me. She had an overnight bag that she was trying to put on the top shelf without success. Naturally being a gentleman I stood up and helped her for which I received a thankful smile that warmed my heart. You see, I recognized her as soon as she stepped inside, but was too timid to say anything.  

As the train started to move, I sort of stole peeks at her hoping that perhaps she would recognize me, but after more than fifty years I doubted that she would. I was short and chubby then, and she never really looked at me. But she was still as beautiful as I remembered when I saw her the first day in the school auditorium. 

After a few minutes of eyeing her, she caught me and my face must have turned red, but she just smiled and looked back out the window into the darkness.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare and I’m really too old to engage in pickup lines, but by chance, are you Nancy Thomas, class of ’75 from Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan?” I asked. We were on the 10:10, a local from Washington DC to New York though she just got on at Trenton, in New Jersey.

“Why, yes.” She answered in surprise. “That was my graduation class.” “Did you also go to Stuyvesant” She asked without even a hint of recognition.

Of course, she was older now, but the pixie face that made her so popular with the boys didn’t seem to have changed that much except for a few crows feet around her eyes. If anyone thought of the actress, Audrey Hepburn, that was Nancy Thomas, though a bit prettier, if that was at all possible.

“I did,” I said with bitter memories, “but I doubt you’d remember me…” I said feebly.

I had fallen in love with her at that time, but of course, I didn’t stand a chance in hell of even getting close to her. Besides that face, she was tall, slim and dressed as if she stepped out of a fashion magazine, unlike most of the other girls that dressed at that time in flowery painted jeans and brightly colored blouses that looked like they had just come out of a rainbow painted Volkswagen Van.

She had majored in English, I remembered because it was my major too, and she was in one of my classes. We were assigned a paper together once but I hardly ever saw her, we did most of the work on the phone. Of course, we met in hallways and stairs but she hardly ever looked my way. After graduation, we never saw each other again, but I never forgot her despite having married a wonderful woman and had three children.

“Oh my heavens, its been so long ago.” She said. “Hmmm, I remember a boy named Jerry, oh, what was his last name again. Feinstein or something like that but I see by the look on your face you’re not him. I’m sorry, it’s been a long time…” Her face actually looked as if she really was sorry. “What is your name…”? She asked me.

“Samuel…, uh, Sam Taylor, I was that short, chubby kid in your English class. We did a paper together about President Kennedy, but I’m sure you wouldn’t remember…” I said.

She looked me over seriously as if for the first time. For a moment there was a glimmer of recognition but it didn’t last long. “I think I remember someone, as you say, chubby, but you look nothing like him.” She smiled. “If you were ever chubby, you certainly grew out of it…” She said grinning as if trying to flatter me.

Well, I still have my yearbook with her picture in it. I remembered how I drew little hearts around her portrait as if we were sweethearts. I even faked a message from her next to it. “To Sam, Love Always, Nan!” 

“Do you still live in New York?” I asked her, changing the subject.

“I do. I live on the Eastside in the seventies.” She said. And you? Did you come from DC and are visiting New York?”

“No, I had some business in DC. I just took the last train home. Normally I would have flown back but they canceled flights due to the weather. I still live in Queens, Forest Hills.”

“Oh, Forest Hills? I think I remember you now. I once came to the Forest Hills Tennis Tournament with my parents and the kids that lived there used to sell parking spaces because there was no other place to park and we saw you and parked in the back of your house. I remember you wouldn’t take our money. I don’t think I was very nice to you then. I was with my boyfriend, Ken, something or other, I don’t remember his name anymore.” She leaned forward a little. I think I totally ignored you. I often thought about that because I really wasn’t a mean person, I think I was upset with Ken for something, I don’t even remember that either. Oh, it's just a long, long time ago. I’m sorry…”

I just waved my hand away as if it was nothing of importance, but I never forgot that moment, it had been with me for a long time especially when Ken, it was Kenneth Miller, I never forgot that idiot, but I didn’t want to remind her of it. It was Ken that gave me the finger and a dirty look, like, see who I’m with and you’ll never ever come close to what I got.

“Don’t be silly, we were just kids. I’m sure I did some things I regretted myself.”

“Well, I apologize anyway. So you still live there, in Forest Hills?”

“Yes, after my parents retired, they went to Florida, so I took over their house when I retired from the army.”

“Is that what you did, join the army after high school?” She asked me sincerely.

I waited for a moment. I didn’t want to brag about it but on second thought why not? Maybe I do want to impress her, even now. “Yes, I joined the army,” I said. “ Because I wrote well I was assigned to a JAG officer and he suggested I let the army pay for my education and so I reenlisted and went to school and when I finished, I joined the JAG Corps, you know what that is?”

“Yes, a Judge Advocate General, a military lawyer… isn’t it?”

“Yes, very good. Not too many people know that. Anyway, I stayed in for 25 years and retired as a Colonel. I’m just coming back from a conference in DC.” Some accomplishment for a chubby kid, I thought to myself.

“Oh, my. That’s some accomplishment.” She said as if she had read my mind. “I doubt anyone from our class did anything like that.”

And what did she accomplish I wanted to ask her, though she must have done something impressive just by the way she carried herself. She could have been a movie star. “So what happened to you after graduation. Did you go to college?” I asked wondering if I should have. She probably married that Ken guy and I really didn’t want to know.

“Yes.” She said slowly. “I decided to major in journalism at Columbia and worked myself up to Chief Editor of an International Women’s magazine. Certainly not a Colonel but maybe close to it in civilian life. I finally retired last year.”

“Not too shabby either,” I told her. “So, you traveling alone or with your husband?”

She frowned and shook her head. “Widowed about five years ago. I’m coming back from my daughter’s house in Trenton. Couldn’t take my grandkids anymore, little devils. I love them but I’m glad I don’t have to stay with them all the time. Three days was enough.… You married or…?”

“Widowed too, also about five years ago. Three kids and eight grandkids. All on the West Coast.” I said quickly.

“Fifteen minutes to Penn Station,” the conductor called out.

“Heaven’s that was fast…” Nancy commented.

“Anyone waiting for you at the station?” The question sort of just slipped out of me. I hoped she didn’t think I was too forward.

“No, I’m just going to get a cab. You?” She asked in turn.

“No, no one waiting for me either. I’ll take a cab too. Midtown Tunnel and in a few minutes I’ll be home. Alone.” I said with pinched lips.

“Me too. Alone” She sort of sighed.

“Can we get together one day? You have plans…?” I might as well go for broke, I thought. Nothing to lose…

“Tonight?”

“It could be… I’m in no hurry…”

“OK, why don’t you come with me. We can leave the suitcases with my doorman and have a drink. I’ll buy to make up for my tactlessness in high school. What do you say?”

“I can’t think of a better idea…” I said.”