I touched one of the numbered panels on Christina’s fortune-teller.
“G-r-e-e-n, and that spells
“What’s the verdict?” I said.
She read my fortune. “You smell funny,” she said, giggling.
“Let me see that,” I said. When I looked, I saw that all the panels said the same thing.
“He does smell funny,” said Laura, laughing. “P.U.”
Throughout the day we teamed up to help different kids. We read a storybook about a talking coffee cup to a girl named Susan, Laura reading the female voices while I read the male characters. We helped an Indian boy build a birdhouse out of Popsicle sticks and glue. The second half of the day we spent helping to operate the train. One of the women working at the center had a husband who ran a model train shop nearby, and he’d built an elaborate train set for the kids, with tracks that ran around the whole classroom. He’d even designed four different towns for the train to pass through, each town in a different corner of the room. Every town represented a different season of the year, too. One was winter: the yards were snowy; tiny icicles hung from the roofs of the houses. In another town, over by the toilets, it was autumn. Children trick-or-treated. Thimble-size jack-o’-lanterns flickered from porches.
The kids’ favorite part of the train set, though, was the tunnel. In one place, near the cubbies, the tracks disappeared into a dark hole in the wall painted to look like an old, rickety tunnel, with little DANGER and ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK!!! warnings all around the entrance. The kids never got tired of running the train through—steering the engine into the tunnel’s dark mouth, watching the cars disappear one by one, then rushing to the tunnel’s exit, at the other side of the cubbies, to wait for the glow of the engine lamp.
They made a game of putting notes in the coal car and sending them around to one another. One kid would stand by the spring section of the tracks, the other in winter, and when the first had put his note in the coal car, he’d make a sound like a train whistle and Laura and I would help the second child operate the control box and bring the train around the tracks, through the tunnel, and finally over to us.
The train tracks were equipped with special hook rails that gripped the engine’s wheels, keeping it from tipping over. That afternoon, though, something must have been off with one of the engine’s wheels, because it kept derailing. We could hardly get the train around a turn without it tipping over. At one point the engine fell off the tracks inside the tunnel. All the kids crowded around the tunnel’s mouth, peering into the darkness. One boy was even trying to stick his head inside the hole.
“Hang on there, Poncho,” I said, and pulled him off the tracks.
Laura started toward the cubbies, where the door to the crawl space was, but I told her I’d go instead. The crawl space was just a sealed-up storage area, but it was dusty and cramped and I knew that none of the women liked going back there.
“My hero,” Laura said. I struck a superhero pose and the kids squealed with laughter.
The crawl space was narrow, only about four feet wide, and lengthwise it ran for about fifteen feet, like a short, dark hallway. I opened the door and slid inside. The air was cold and musty, and when I tried the lightbulb nothing happened. The two train tunnel openings didn’t offer much light, and it took me a good minute of fumbling around to find the engine lying beside the tracks.
“How you doing back there?” Laura called through the tunnel’s exit.
“All aboard,” I yelled back, righting the engine.
Then, out of nowhere, an idea came to me.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ring box. A note one of the children had written lay inside the coal car. I would write a proposal on the other side of the note and then send the train down the tracks.
I glanced down the length of the tunnel at Laura’s face, peering back at me. Taking the note, I got a pen from my pocket and wrote on the blank side.
I folded the note and placed it inside the coal car, beneath the ring box.
“Jacob,” Laura called down the tunnel. “You get lost?”
I made sure the train was righted properly, my hands trembling a little now. Then I opened my mouth to tell Laura to hit the power. But the words froze in my throat.
“Jacob?” Laura squinted into the tunnel’s entrance, searching for me in the darkness. Children huddled around her, tugging and giggling. “Hello?”
The ring box and the note sat waiting in the coal car.
Laura tucked her hair behind her ear. She looked worried. “Should we hit the power? Jake?”
“Hit it,” I finally said.
Laura called over her shoulder to the children. “Flip the switch.” All at once the current surged through the tracks. The engine began to pull away from me, but I wouldn’t release it. I couldn’t get my hands to let go. The ring box and the note shook in the coal car. Folded up, the note showed the message written on the other side of mine.
A shiver ran through me. I looked up at Laura, at her beautiful face at the end of the tunnel, waiting. I was ready for this. For her. I had to be.
“Jacob,” Laura called. “Are you all right?”
The engine’s wheels spun, trying to pull away, but I held on. My heart was pounding fast. I glanced behind me, at the tunnel’s entrance. The hole opened up on the miniature summertime scene. Tiny children climbed trees bursting with flowers. They chased each other toward a bright blue pond. A girl flew a kite high above the rooftops.
“Jacob,” came Laura’s voice. “Jacob?”
I felt light-headed. I took the ring box and note out of the coal car and then I let the train go.
When Laura got off work, we went to a restaurant on the shore. It was all the way out on a pier, overlooking the ocean. The table I’d reserved stood at the far end of the room. It was pressed right up against the huge window and the view couldn’t have been prettier. The dark blue ocean stretched out forever, calm, flat as a cutting board. The sun was already down; the sky was covered in glowing pink gashes.
Still, all I could think about was what had happened back at the day-care room. I kept wondering what was wrong with me. What was so broken? Laura was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear her. Nothing’s broken, I told myself, taking a long sip from my gin and tonic. I just needed more time.
But on went the thoughts: What if it’s not just about time? What if you’re not built for this? What if there is something wrong, something that runs in the blood? What if all you’ll ever be able to do is leave? My face felt hot. I mopped at my forehead with my napkin.
Laura put her hand on mine. “Hey. What are you thinking about?”
I took another pull from my drink. “About you,” I said, trying to smile.
“I hope not,” she said. “You look about ready to kill someone.”
“I have a headache from all the kids today. Sorry. All the fucking noise.”
Laura looked up from the menu. “I thought you liked it there.”
“In doses,” I said, finishing my drink. “I shouldn’t have picked today to come by.” The ice cubes rattled as I set the glass on the table.
“Slow down,” said Laura. “We haven’t even ordered yet.”
I motioned to the waiter to bring me another.
“What is your problem?” Laura whispered loudly, leaning toward me. “What’s going on?”
I felt anger coursing through me, building. Part of me wanted to stop myself. Part of me wanted to apologize and start over, go for a walk down the pier together, look at the sunset on the water.
But another part wanted to hurt Laura; hurt her so bad.
“Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
