‘me against the world’ b.s. She’s trying to make a name for herself off this mess, and pretending she’s doing something noble.”
“And there’s nothing you can do about it right now. So don’t waste your energy.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s just…this is my life. How can I ever go back there after this?”
“We’ll find a way,” Amanda said. “People need heroes right now. They don’t realize that when all this is over, it’ll be you, not Paulina.”
I couldn’t help but smile at Amanda.
“You have no idea how ridiculous you look,” I whispered.
“Look who’s talking. You know punk went out of style when we were in high school,” she said.
“I’d be hurt if I didn’t know you picked this stuff out.” I looked at the spiral notebook peeking out of the fanny pack. “Hey, can I ask you a kind of personal question?”
“Of course,” she said. Her eyes were dubious.
“Why do you write what you do in those notebooks?”
Amanda looked at me for a moment, our eyes locking, then she turned away.
“Why do you want to know that?”
I paused as an elderly couple inched past, watching us like we were disrupting their peaceful earth just by existing.
“When we were at your house,” I said, “I went into your room when I thought you were in the shower. I noticed the trunk under your bed, and…I don’t know. I just couldn’t help myself. I read them. I read about all those people you’d met, everything you wrote about them.”
“You read them,” she said, more a statement than a question. I nodded, guilt burning through me like hot coal.
I said, “Take curiosity and turn the volume to eleven, and that’s what’s inside me. So I’m sorry. But I need to know.”
She said nothing, her mind somewhere else. I paused, trying to find the words.
“I’ve been around every kind of journalist imaginable, from people who take the most detailed records to people who claim they have a dictaphone in their head. But I’ve never seen anything like that. Why do you keep records of everyone you meet?”
Amanda shifted her body, staring out the window. Roads passing by so fast. So many miles traveled, none really observed. A single tear escaped her eye. She quickly wiped it away.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was five. One second you have the whole world, the next second the world the way you know it just ceases to exist.
“Social services moved me from orphanage to orphanage. I was still in shock. You can’t really explain death to a five-year-old, so for years I thought my parents were just on a long vacation. I don’t know how many orphanages I bounced around, I lost count after the first four or five. Then when I turned eleven, Larry and Harriet Stein adopted me.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out. Amanda stared out the window.
“Most orphans are so happy when they finally find a home. But when I was adopted, it just crushed everything. It was like somebody slapped me in the face and said, hey, your parents aren’t coming back.”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t seem to hear me.
“The whole time I was in those awful places, I watched couples take child after child home with them. My friends disappeared like I’d never even known them. My parents died and nobody wanted me. I was like a girl somebody lost at the bus stop and didn’t bother to look for. I couldn’t make any friends because in time, they all left me.”
“I don’t understand,” I said softly. “Why the notebooks?”
Amanda sat back, resting her head against the seat. She closed her eyes and I could almost see the pain rush through her as she conjured up these painful memories.
“Nobody wanted me, nobody stayed in my life.” A fat tear streaked down Amanda’s cheek. She went to wipe it away, but I gently took her hand, letting the droplet fall. Her eyes were so wide and open, I just wanted to jump in, see everything from the inside.
“I figured that if eventually everyone left me, I had to do something to make them stay. And since I couldn’t physically make them stay, I wanted to remember them. So everywhere I went I brought along a notebook. Whenever I met anyone, even if it was only for a few seconds, I wrote about them. When my friends left me, I would open a notebook and read about my memories. But the worst part was that over time, I started to judge people based on the littlest things. The way a couple held hands. The way a parent spoke to their child. The way someone held a soup spoon. Every detail was symbolic of an entire life. And for me, that was much easier to understand.”
Amanda turned in her seat until she was facing me fully. “We’re pretty similar, me and you,” she said. “We both try to see what’s beneath the surface based on what little we can discern from it. Only you, you dig deeper. Me, I let it go. It’s always been easier that way for me. But you cut through the skin.”
I gripped the armrest as the train shook. Amanda turned back to the window. She had nothing else to say.
Underneath the makeup, her eyes remained the same. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I searched through Amanda’s hidden notebooks, I knew her heart beat to the same rhythm as mine.
Perhaps meeting Amanda under different circumstances could have led to something beautiful, sincere.
Amanda. Studying to become a child advocacy lawyer. She worked to help those who couldn’t help themselves, because help wasn’t there when she’d needed it. Like I wasn’t there for Mya. And now Amanda was here for me.
I placed my palm in hers, her skin cool to the touch. Her fingers closed around mine. Tighter, then tighter still, until our hands were knotted like twine, the bond unbreakable. Her head fell onto my shoulder as I listened to her breathe. Steady. I could almost feel the life coursing through her.
“Where are we?” Amanda asked wearily. I checked my watch.
“We should be at Penn Station in less than two hours,” I said.
“Thank God,” Amanda said, letting out a deep breath. “I need a massage and a painkiller, stat. And we need to get that leg of yours to a doctor.”
“I think I saw an unwrapped Tylenol under my seat cushion. You’re on your own with the massage.”
“Thanks. You’re quite the gentleman.”
Suddenly there was a horrible screaming of metal, and I was thrown forward in my seat. Dozens of suitcases toppled onto the floor around us. I heard the squeal of grinding gears. My soda can fell onto the floor, spilling fizzy brown liquid everywhere. People standing in the aisles flailed for balance as the train jerked back and forth. The high-pitched shriek of metal on metal rang out like fingernails on a blackboard, then filtered through the world’s loudest bullhorn. I jammed my hands over my ears and pressed my body against Amanda’s, holding her. Then the realization hit me like a hammer to the gut.
The train was slowing down.
When we finally ground to a halt, I looked out the window. My heart pumped like mad, my mouth dried up. There was no station outside, no platform to exit onto, no passengers waiting to embark. All I could see was a dusty road alongside the train tracks and a highway off in the distance.
We were trapped.
A static-filled crackle broke through the passengers’ groans, and then a voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats. We’ve just been informed by the Manhattan Transit Authority that they’ve received notice of a possible disturbance on this train. Amtrak staff will be coming through the aisles. Please have both your ticket stubs ready as well as picture identification. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we’ll be underway as soon as this issue is resolved. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”
The microphone clicked off. Cold sweat trickled down my back. In layman terms, there was a situation on the train. In real-life terms, we were in huge fucking trouble if we didn’t get the hell off of it.
I stood up, located the exits at either end of the car.
I took Amanda’s hand and we headed for the nearest exit. Just as we approached the door, a conductor
