Delayed

Selena Myers knew that today was going to be a nightmare as soon as she got out of bed. Truth be told, she hated traveling because of stuff like this, and today only added fuel to the fire. First, she burned the ever-loving sweet Jesus out of the blueberry muffin she’d been saving, next the Uber was late, and now the train was, well, somewhere in maintenance limbo. It was supposed to only take 30 minutes, give or take, to get from Boston’s South Station to Providence, Rhode Island. Now, thanks to the traffic and train gods, it was going to take all day. 

South Station was probably supposed to be a grand landmark of the city, but it was a dark and dirty shell of its former self. The windows were scratched and covered with shades, obscuring the slim light source in the building. There seemed to be about an inch of dust covering the expansive linoleum floor, and the screens facing the circular bench were covered with the word “delayed.”  Fortunately, they added places to eat and a circular bench in the middle of the lobby. Cutting her losses, Selena got up, chucked her phone into her blue Longchamp purse, and went to go get a pretzel. After everything she’d gone through to get here, she at least deserved a hot buttery soft salty roll of joy, and a packet of mustard to dip it into. 

She’s stuck in line behind a group of kids here on an exchange trip, looking at their phones and each other and the station with the same wide-eyed hope she did when she first got to Boston. Selena chuckles darkly to herself: heads up, kids. It gets worse from here. 

Maybe she’d be less grumpy when she got her coffee, she thinks as she munches on her beloved pretzel as she stands in the Starbucks line. After all, was there anything a cup of chocolatey, foamy, creamy, caffeinated sugar couldn’t solve? Well, yes, it wasn’t going to make the trains come on time, and it wasn’t going to fix her relationship, but it was going to taste good and be worth the seven dollars she pays for it. 

When she tosses the pretzel napkin and finally sits down with her coffee, she’s finally forced to come to terms with her reality. Here she was, stranded in a train station on her way to a wedding she wanted to pretend wasn’t happening. Ben, the lousy boyfriend, and the even lousier wedding date wasn’t texting her, which wasn’t new, it was fairly on par with the usual, but it just added salt to the opening wound. 

“Mind if I sit here?” Says a voice that doesn’t immediately register, but eventually brings her back to earth. She looks up, to assess her potential new seat partner, and almost chokes on her coffee. In front of her was a man that supposedly only existed in movies–he was 6 foot tall, with honey-brown skin, and had the widest brown eyes she’d ever looked at. His black hair had a slight curl and faded at the sides, which gave her the clue that this was a guy who took pride in his appearance. He probably worked in the financial district, or maybe he was something cool like a surgeon. Or maybe he was stuck in a men’s suits magazine and he came to life one day. 

“So, is that a yes or…?” 

He looks at her quizzically, and those unnaturally neat eyebrows furrow. It makes her slightly mad to look at him–people who look like that shouldn’t bother women who didn’t even brush their hair this morning, and couldn’t be bothered to put together a more sophisticated outfit than black yoga leggings, a purple tank top, and an oversize sweatshirt she got from the North Haven, Maine gift shop. To top it all off, she was wearing boot socks with a pair of worn-out Birkenstocks. 

“Oh yeah, yes, of course.” 

“Thanks.” The tall and handsome stranger smirks as he puts his stuff down. “You looked kind of skeptical for a second there.” 

When he sits down, a haze of cologne fills her senses. She suddenly becomes very aware of the cheap vanilla-sugar perfume she rolled on her neck and wrists. This man definitely belonged to someone, and that someone could afford actual perfume that came from department stores. Then again, here he is in South Station, talking to her. 

“Not skeptical, I just didn’t get the memo we were supposed to dress up for the Amtrak.” 

This comes across maybe more mean-spirited than she meant it, but bullying was apparently her own special kind of flirting. Maybe she also wanted the handsome stranger to be taken down a peg–he already had the face and cologne and the briefcase–someone had to humble him. 

“I think the key is to change out of your pajamas, but not all of us have somewhere to be.” 

Again, she chokes on her coffee and burns her tongue. Damn, that hurts. She catches his eye, which also wondered if he’d gone too far, but that smirk. 

“Well, this is what you wear when your evil stepsister gets married and you’ve been guilt-tripped into participating in the wedding.” 

She wasn’t really sure why she was being honest–she really could have said something snarky and gotten another pretzel, but she had a dress to fit into, and maybe she needed someone to talk to. To her slight disappointment, he responds by looking at his watch and the screen in front of them listing train times and their tracks. 

“Well, my train is indefinitely delayed, so now you have to tell me the whole story. Because to be honest, it sounds like you plagiarized from Cinderella or something.” 

Selena groaned as she checked her phone. 10 missed calls and 7 missed messages from Ms. Gets Whatever She Wants, her stepsister Kylie. 

“I’m not making her up. I wish I were though.” 

He turned to face her now, with one of his unnaturally perfect eyebrows raised. He twirled his hand, to encourage more details as to what made the stepsister evil, beyond the fact she was a stepsister. 

“Does she hate puppies? Is she a triple-murderer? The train is still delayed, and I'm afraid I’ve become rather invested in this story.” 

“I’m pretty sure she was a blonde dictator. Well, she is a blonde dictator. Mussolini with a ponytail. She’s been like that our whole lives, and she was like that in college with her sorority, and now she’s Bridezilla.” 

Selena started picking at her cuticles—she wasn’t normally this talkative, and the fact she was opening up to a complete stranger was so out of character, she wondered if she wasn’t having some sort of episode. 

His face slackened into one of understanding, and suddenly Selena couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. She could probably guess his next questions, and she had her arguments loaded in her throat like bullets in a gun. 

“So what’s the worst thing she’s done? Because Mussolini is a hell of a comparison—it’s like saying someone is the next Stalin or Pol Pot.” 

“Oh, she was worse. She was the VP of Alpha Delta Pi, and she lost the presidency to a girl named Kathryn. She wanted to be the president, so she spread a rumor about poor Kathryn to the entire sorority so she would get kicked out, and she would be crowned President.” Selena took a breath, and then continued: it was a long story. “The rumor was stupid and horrible–something involving cocaine and another sister and Kappa Sigma frat. None of it was true, and the University got involved to get her reinstated. When she came back, the other girls decided to impose a weight limit for recruitment season, so this girl was basically bullied half to death until she finally left.”

“Wow. That IS worse than Stalin. And she didn’t pursue any legal action?” 

“Greek Life as a whole got banned at UVT, so individual incidents got swept under the rug. But don’t worry”–Selena tipped her now empty coffee cup towards his skeptical frown– “I introduced Kathryn to Kylie’s boyfriend at a party. They really hit it off.” Selena winked as she took a swig from her water bottle, and left him to infer just how well they got along. 

“I guess I only have two questions: why are you going to this demon’s wedding, and more to the point, why does she want you there if you lost her a boyfriend?” 

Selena watched his face as the gears in his brain answered the question for him, and his expression turned from incomprehension to wide-eyed to incredulity and finally to that smirk. 

“You..you were going to ruin it, weren’t you? You had the ulterior motive this whole time!” 

Selena bit her lip and looked down at her shoes in an admission of guilt. That was exactly her plan, and it was the only reason she’d agreed to the wedding in the first place. But she wanted to keep this guy on her side, and it seemed like her nefarious plans weren’t a dealbreaker–yet. 

“Okay, fine. Yes, I was going so I could sabotage it. Im a freelance photographer on the side, so she wanted me to take the pics pro bono. So I had this whole plan of going and just taking pictures of everyone’s feet.” 

“Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news for you is that there aren’t any more trains to Providence leaving South Station until tomorrow.” 

Selena opened her mouth, with her vocal cords preparing a loud and furious “what the hell” but he cut her off before she could form the first vowel sound. 

“The bad news is that you won’t get to settle what I’m assuming is a decades-long score with this Lilith of a stepsister. But that’s good news for me because while you explained your entire life story, you never asked me my name.” He holds an accusatory expression for a second but then cracks a smile that says I’ve been on to you this whole time, dummy.  Selena’s cheeks burn and she kicks herself for not putting the pieces together sooner. DUH. 

“Nice to meet you, I’m Daniel Emilio.” 

Now it’s the gears in Selena’s brain that are turning, and she can tell that this stranger who’s not a stranger at all, is enjoying this. That name sounded so familiar, and it comes to her as her jaw opens in a mortified gape. Her face falls into her hands and she doesn’t know whether she’s going to laugh or cry. Maybe both–or maybe she was just going to throw up. 

“But…but how did you know it was me if I didn’t know it was you?” 

Daniel starts laughing–he’s definitely enjoying this. “You may hate her, but physically, you’re the brunette version of your sister. Well, step-sister.” He winks, then continues: “I’ve seen pictures through Instagram, and as the best man, I’ve seen plenty of pictures of you too.” 

Selena kept her face firmly in her hands, and her elbows firmly on her thighs. She was never going to look this handsome man, who’s not a stranger, in the eyes ever again. Hell, she was never going to look herself in the eyes ever again. There was a huge difference between plotting to sabotage someone’s wedding, and actually going ahead and ruining it. 

She hears him say that he’ll be right back and leaves her to fear the worst. At this point, nothing was stopping him from dialing Kylie and turning the entire family against their black sheep daughter, the bisexual granola-hippy liberal who got tattoos, dyed her hair, and majored in art. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been on the receiving end of their ire, but it had been awkward and painful to deal with. She peeks through her fingers and sees a handsome man in a suit buy two pretzels, and two sodas, and talk to a station police officer. She can’t make out the specifics of their conversation, and wonders if there was any real way to take back everything she’d said. I’m sorry, I was talking about someone else haha. 

She does not lift her head in time to see him walk back, but he taps her shoulder with a pretzel. Slowly, she lifts her head and looks into his lopsided smile. “I got you these, just in case you reject my offer, but I propose we cut our losses and call an audible. I asked the station cop over there where we might find some actual good food around here, and I’m pretty sure we’re right next to Chinatown. So, what do you say?” 

He carries his loot in the crook of his elbow and holds out a hand. His suit is now covered in salt and oil, but she’d underestimated him. “Do I get to keep my pretzel if I accept?” 

“I’m not the monster here.” He smirks and holds it out to her. She takes it and accepts the fact that she would be easy to kidnap if said kidnapper had Auntie Anne’s. 

She glared up at him while she took a bite of her bribe. “Something tells me I’d truly be the monster if I just left you to wander Boston by yourself.” 

“Atta girl. Now I get the floor since you didn’t ask me a single question this whole time.” 

“Fair enough,” She concedes, as she slung her duffel bag over her shoulder and helped him gather his things. “Where’d you grow up?” 

“Born in San Antonio, raised in Chicago. Yes, I love deep-dish pizza. No, I don’t care that it’s not technically pizza. Fight me. And yourself?”

“Boston. Born and raised, baby.” 

“Then, by all means, lead the way.” 

If Selena was Elfaba, Kylie was Glinda. She’d always been the villain in the story–always the one with the boys and the attention and the Homecoming crown. Yes, she’d gotten the wedding in Newport. And yes, she’d gotten everything she’d wanted. But today, she was down a photographer and a best man, and Selena was up a new friend and two pretzels. Even Mussolini couldn’t make this train run on time–thank God.