“What are you reading?” He asks as he sits beside me. The waning light through the Greyhound bus windows make him a grey shadow at first. A young man, still at least ten years older than my just-over-15, blonde curls and blue jeans, an intense focus in his eyes.
I show him the book cover. I had been staring fixedly out of the window for a long while, angrily Not Crying. I’d not yet fully realized the deeper betrayal I felt toward my mother for handing me a bus ticket and 40 dollars instead of asking me to stay. Instead of choosing me. The book was supposed to distract.
I had seen this man, peripherally, moving from seat to seat—chatting, making friends, connections, laughter. A couple heading to their first major league baseball game. A man moving south to look for work.
I am too afraid to talk about anything real, but he listens completely to a book critique for about ten minutes. 17th century vampires! Exciting stuff for teenagers in 1988. He doesn’t press for more.
South Station in the late eighties: dark and loud; terrifying to a girl from rural Maine.
Waiting for my transfer, I sit next to an older woman on a bench. She reeks of cigarettes, wet wool. I try to talk to her but she ignores me, only sliding closer by increments as the bench fillsed. Close enough that she presses against me for a minute or two.
When my bus is called, my pockets are empty.
No wallet, no bus ticket, no book.
I rush back to the bench, it’s empty.
No wallet, no bus ticket, no book, no old lady.
Desperately Not Crying between the ticket window and security—who both only tell me to “check lost and found,” I start poking in pay phone change returns for a quarter to call home.
A flash of those ridiculous, cherubic curls—and then a hand on my shoulder. He voices genuine concern. I ask if I can borrow a quarter.
He helps me look again where I was sitting. Doesn’t criticize my naivety about the “harmless” older woman, only gently points out that people can’t always be trusted.
I hadn’t finished the book, either, I said, and that wallet was brand new. Can I borrow a quarter?
He just smiles, shakes his head, and steers me to the ticket window. Before I can object, he’s purchased a ticket to my destination. There are only a few minutes left to board.
“I at least need your address to send it back,” I insist, stragglers pushing past me to board. He presses a piece of paper into my hand.
“There’s my number,” he says, smiling, backing away. “Call me when you’re safe.”
In my seat, pulling out into the night on the next long part of my journey, I find the small sheet of paper is wrapped around a twenty-dollar bill.
Of course, I call the number the very next morning. And again and again over the next months. The line only rings, endlessly.