“England and New York?” says Ida. “That’s quite the long-distance relationship.”
“Oh no,” Mae says quickly. “We’re not—”
“You know, Roy was in the navy when we first met, so we had to write letters between visits. But I suppose the world is a lot smaller now.”
“Not too small,” Hugo says with a smile. “Still takes a bit of time to cross it by train.”
Their waiter appears, and Roy is ready for him. “I’ll have a burger and an apple pie. I know what you’re gonna say—you’ll be back to take dessert orders later. But last time, they ran out of pie. So I’m not taking any chances. In fact, we should get slices all around.”
The waiter seems to realize it’s pointless to object.
Once they’ve all placed their orders, Hugo sits back in the booth. “So you’re old pros at this train business, then?”
“Oh yeah,” Roy says. “Ever since I retired, we’ve been going pretty much every summer. Right, hon? Different route each time. It’s a great way to see the country.”
“Is this your first trip?” Ida asks, and both Hugo and Mae nod. “You’ll love it. Trains can be very romantic, you know.”
Hugo—who has just taken a bite of a roll—starts to cough, and Mae tries not to laugh. “We’re actually not—”
But Ida is already off again, talking about the various trips they’ve taken: the one where they stopped off at the Grand Canyon and the one where the train broke down outside Baltimore. At some point, Roy picks up the thread, and then Ida tags in again, and they go back and forth like that through the salad course and straight into dinner.
“We did one in Canada once too,” Ida says when they’re all done eating. She glances down at her empty plate. “The summer after our son died.”
Mae lowers her glass, her throat suddenly tight. Across the table, Ida’s eyes are watery, and they all go quiet for a moment, searching for the right thing to say. Then Roy reaches out and puts a big hand over his wife’s smaller one.
“Remember the dinners on that trip?” he asks in a gruff voice. “We ate like royalty.”
The wrinkles on Ida’s face rearrange themselves as she breaks into a smile. “We really did,” she says, looking at him so fondly that Mae almost feels like she and Hugo are intruding.
It’s fully dark outside now, the night punctuated only by the glowing windows of farmhouses and the occasional town, and Mae can’t help thinking about all the miles Ida and Roy have crossed, all the sights they must’ve seen.
The waiter arrives with apple pie for everyone, and Hugo closes his eyes after taking a bite. “I have to admit I was expecting the food to be rubbish, but this is brilliant.”
Roy grins at him. “You know what they say.”
“What?” Hugo asks, his face blank.
“Oh, uh…as American as apple pie.”
Hugo frowns. “What is?”
“Well, anything American, I guess,” Roy says a little less certainly. “But especially apple pie.”
“Huh,” Hugo says, stabbing at his pie. “I hadn’t heard that one.”
“How long have you been over here, sweetie?” asks Ida, and to Mae’s amusement, Hugo looks at his watch.
“Just about thirty hours now.”
Across the table, Ida and Roy both stare at him.
“Oh,” says Roy. “So you two met across the pond, then?”
Mae looks at Hugo. And Hugo looks at Mae. He lifts an eyebrow, and she can see the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
“No, actually,” she says, her eyes still on him. She can feel a laugh rising in her throat because suddenly it all seems so ridiculous, the unusual circumstances of their meeting, and the very fact that they’re here together right now, racing through the dark on a train in the middle of nowhere. “We met a few hours ago.”
Hugo looks at his watch again. “Five, to be exact.”
“Would’ve been five and a half,” Mae says, “but I was a little late.”
“So you two…just met?” Ida says, her brow furrowed like this is a puzzle she can’t quite work out. “But I thought you were—”
“Nope,” says Hugo.
“But it seemed like you were—”
“Not even a little bit,” says Mae. “We’re both just along for the ride.”
Roy shakes his head. “Well. So then how did you meet?”
“Honestly, Roy,” Hugo says, sitting back with a smile, “it’s a bit of a long story.”
“And kind of a weird one,” Mae adds.
“Right?” says Hugo, shifting in the booth to face her. “I swear I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“What? Spend a week on a train with a total stranger?” Mae laughs. “Me neither. Do you think that makes us equally crazy or equally awesome?”
“I’d prefer awesome,” he says. “Though popular opinion back home was leaning toward crazy.”
“I didn’t even tell my parents. Well, I told them about the trip. But they think I’m with my soon-to-be roommate. If they knew it was some random guy, they’d kill me.” She stops to think about this. “Actually, no. They’d probably kill you.”
“Good to know,” he says. “Hey, totally unrelated, but…how big is your dad?”
Mae laughs. “I have two of them.”
“Even better,” he says with a grin. “They can kill me twice.”
“Did you tell your parents?”
“They’re under the impression I’m traveling alone. But I did tell my siblings. Just in case you were planning on murdering me.”
“And I told my grandmother. Just in case you turned out to be a serial killer. Which we’ve already established you’re not.”
Hugo laughs and then glances over at Ida and Roy, whom they’ve more or less forgotten. The older couple are staring back across the table, their mouths open and their faces a picture of confusion.
“Well,” Hugo says, and when he turns back to Mae, his eyes are dancing. “Now Ida and Roy know too. Which makes it all feel rather official, doesn’t it?”
Mae nods and lifts a forkful of apple pie. “Cheers.”
“To what?” Hugo asks, lifting his own.
“To being awesome.”
“And promising not to kill each other.”
“To really long train rides.”
“And partners in crime who are not actually criminals.”
“To being young,” Ida chimes in, “and adventurous.”
“And to apple pie,” Roy says, raising his fork too.
Hugo laughs as he and Mae clink forks. “I’ll toast to that.”
As they’re leaving, Mae doubles back and bends to say something to Ida. Hugo watches curiously from the doorway as the old woman’s face splits into a grin. When Mae joins him again, she’s smiling too.
“What was that about?”
“I asked if I could interview her.”
He laughs, surprised. “What for?”
“Honestly? I’m not totally sure yet. But there’s something interesting about her, isn’t there?”
Back in their compartment, Mae switches on the yellow light above the seats, then reaches for the black bag she tucked on a small shelf. She unzips it and pulls out her camera with a dreamy look. Hugo sits down across from her, watching as she tinkers with the lens.
“You’re really making a film about Ida?” he asks, incredulous.
“So it would seem.”
“But…why?”
She looks up at him, her blue eyes glinting. “Do you ever have one of those ideas where you don’t quite know what it is yet, but you have this feeling that something will come of it? That’s what it was like talking to Ida tonight.”
She holds the camera up and points it at him, closing one eye.
“Cheese?” Hugo says, and she laughs.
“This is the fun part,” she tells him, lowering the camera again. “Ever since—well, I’ve been waiting for a spark for a while now. I didn’t know if it would ever happen again.”
“I don’t suppose they grow on trees, do they?” he says, and when she looks up at him, he scratches his chin and adds, “Ideas, I mean.”
“No, they definitely don’t grow on trees. But it was never a problem for me before.”
“Before what?”