Mae: That’s really not the point.
Still, when she puts the phone down, Mae finds herself thinking about Hugo’s eyes, the peculiar mix of brown and green, and the way they were shining when he first saw her. To distract herself, she tries calling Priyanka, but she must be in class now because it goes straight to voice mail. Instead Mae opens her computer and stares at a blank white page for a while, hoping an idea for a new film might magically appear. But when that doesn’t work, she grabs her book—a technical guide to filmmaking that’s required reading for film majors, which she’s not, but that she wants to read in case she manages to transfer early—and passes the time that way.
Later, as the sun dips lower in the sky, getting tangled in the tops of the trees, the train begins to slow for the first time. Mae looks up from her book, spotting landmarks that are familiar from her many trips to the city: the bend in the river where the geese always gather, the old boathouse with crumbling blue paint, the church with the narrow steeple. Just beyond it, she can see the very top of a redbrick building, the one next door to her dad’s gallery, and the rows of telephone poles that run along their street.
She has no right to be homesick. Not yet. But she feels a tug of emotion at the sight of it all, and even though nobody is home right now—the three people she cares about most are still in the city—the proximity to the old yellow house makes her heart ache.
A few people spill out of the train doors when it comes to a stop, and others start to climb on, hefting their suitcases aboard with the help of attendants. Mae looks out the other window at the Hudson, which has turned flat and gray, mirroring the sky.
It occurs to her that she’s never taken the train beyond this point before, not in the direction they’re going. She has no idea how much longer they’ll hug the river, at what point the houses will give way to farms, what the landscape will look like as they move deeper into the western part of the state. And she realizes she’s excited to find out.
The train begins to move again, and she leans her forehead against the window, taking one last look at the town, the word home pounding in her ears like a heartbeat as it disappears from view.
Hugo, alone. He leans forward until his nose touches the window, and watches the river slip by. All afternoon it’s continued to change, shifting from blue to gray to brown. Sometimes it reminds him of the river Wey back home, where he and Alfie and Poppy and George and Oscar and Isla used to play the stick game when they were little or else paddle around in their wellies, coming home speckled with mud. The thought tugs at him, a hook to the heart, but then he blinks again and the river is something entirely new: wide and white-tipped and glittering beneath a sun too bright even for the England of his memories.
He supposes all rivers must look somewhat alike.
Their compartment is quiet, tucked in a corner toward the end of the train, so there aren’t too many people walking by. At one end of the car, there are two small bathrooms and a shower that Hugo hasn’t brought himself to peek at yet. A pile of luggage is sloped on the racks near the metal doors. But that’s about it.
At first he’d been delighted to have it all to himself, this little corner of the train, and he settled inside all that silence and space like it was a woolly blanket. There was something so peaceful about it: nobody telling him to take his feet off the seat or asking him for help with their homework or nattering on while he’s trying to read.
But soon the quiet starts to feel loud, and he’s unable to shake the feeling that something is missing. Maybe it’s that Margaret was supposed to be here, the two of them wedged together on a single seat, the hours flying by as fast as the telephone poles. Or maybe he’s just not used to being alone; maybe that’s something you need to practice, like playing football or the violin.
He picks up the phone and sends a text to the group.
Hugo: Hi from New York.
Poppy: Hi from the kitchen.
Alfie: Hi from the loo.
Isla: Gross.
Oscar: Hurry up. I need to get in there.
George: How’s the train?
Alfie: How’s the girl?
Hugo: Nice.
Poppy: The train or the girl?
Hugo: Both.
George: Do you miss us yet?
Hugo: At least two or three of you.
There’s a knock at the door, and then Ludovic pops his head in.
Hugo pulls his socked feet off the opposite seat. “Hello,” he says so brightly that the attendant looks a little startled.
“Hello,” Ludovic says, examining his notepad. “So we’ll need two sets of sheets in here, yes? What time do you want me to make up the beds?”
“Uh,” Hugo says, wishing he’d thought to ask Mae before she left. “I’m not sure. What time do you reckon?”
“A lot of people have requested nine,” Ludovic says with a shrug, “but a lot of people are also very old. How about ten?”
“Sure,” he says, but once Ludovic is gone, Hugo glances at his watch and realizes that ten o’clock is still hours away. He yawns and presses his cheek to the window, still knackered from all the travel and excitement and jet lag. The rumble of the train is enough to make his eyes flutter shut, and he wakes later to an announcement about dinner.
“All passengers for the six-thirty dinner seating, please make your way to the dining car. That’s six-thirty, folks.”
Hugo stands and examines what he’s wearing: worn jeans and a fraying yellow shirt and a thin pair of flip-flops. He wonders if he looks smart enough, suddenly picturing the scene with all the tuxes in Titanic, which is probably not the best image to call to mind. But it’s not as if he has anything much nicer to wear, so he pulls a jumper on over his shirt and heads off, swaying as he makes his way down toward the dining car.
When he reaches it, there’s a backlog of people waiting to be seated, and so he stands in the metal section that joins two of the cars, the plates sliding beneath his feet like the base of a Tilt-A-Whirl. He looks around for Mae and spots her at the other end—past all the waiters and white tablecloths and other diners, the bread baskets and silverware and menus—waiting in the same spot, and she gives him a smile.
They’ve spent only twenty minutes together. Maybe thirty.
But still, there’s already something familiar about her, standing there in the doorway with a book in her arms, and Hugo can’t help wondering if maybe the thing he was missing earlier was her.
For the past few hours, Mae had watched a steady tide of people drifting into the café, ordering hot dogs and cookies and chips, trying not to spill their cans of beer as they tottered out again. Each time the door opened, she found herself looking up as if waiting for something, though she wasn’t sure what.
It isn’t until this very moment that she realizes maybe it was Hugo.
The waiter motions her over, and she picks her way through this strangest and narrowest of restaurants, giving Hugo a nod as they meet in the aisle.
“Hi,” she says, and he grins at her.
“Hi.”
They’re seated at a table with an elderly white couple who are already poring over their menus. Hugo slides into the booth first, and Mae joins him, careful to leave a few inches of space between.
“Hello there,” the woman says with a faint Southern drawl. “I’m Ida. And this is my husband, Roy.”
Mae starts to introduce herself at the exact same moment that Hugo says his name. They exchange a glance, both a little flummoxed, but Ida just smiles at them.
“Where are you two from?”
Hugo says, “England,” and Mae says, “Just up the road,” the words once again crossing between them. Part of her wants to laugh and part of her wants to crawl under the table. It’s like dancing with someone you don’t know very well, and she feels like she should apologize for stepping on his toes.
“You two are either very much in sync,” Roy says, “or very much out of sync.”