Union Station in Chicago. I had always loved it. It's a huge old building that probably takes up half of a city block, with architecture that makes it feel grand and timeless. There are these long stairways, probably ten of them, that you can access from different sides of the building that lead down into the Great Hall, which has marble floors and gigantic columns and old fashioned wooden benches. The Great Hall would be perfect for a romantic reunion scene at the end of a movie-you know, where the guy finally realizes he wants to be with the girl. But she's leaving! So he has to rush to find her! So he runs to Union station, he races down one of those long staircases and into the Great Hall. But he doesn't see her. He thinks maybe she's left already. He sits down on one of the benches and puts his head in his hands. He thinks he's lost her. But then, there she is! She's standing over by the newsstand. She just got a coffee. She turns around and spots him. He looks up and their eyes lock. He runs to her. He tells her he loves her, he can't live without her. They hug. They kiss one of those Hollywood kisses. And credits.
I've never been able to walk through Union Station without imagining all the people who came before me. Who were they? Where were they going? I had those same feelings, mixed with a lot of dread, as I stood with my mom at the ticket counter the day in early June that I left for Nebraska.
"Ok," she said, after we'd finished checking my luggage. She was looking down at my ticket, studying it with an intensity I had only previously seen her apply to instruction manuals. "The train you're taking is called the California Zephyr and it leaves at two o'clock. But the ticket guy said they start boarding about a half an hour before that. So maybe we should go sit in the waiting area." She started nervously looking around, craning her neck to see where we were supposed to go.
The part of Union Station where passengers wait to board the trains is decidedly less impressive than the Great Hall. Picture low ceilings and two smallish rooms crammed with uncomfortable orange and beige plastic chairs, a few stray vending machines, and a few dated-looking TVs all playing CNN. Mom and I found my "gate," which was really just a doorway in the waiting room that had been assigned a letter. Gate F. We sat down in two of those uncomfortable chairs and neither of us spoke for a minute.
"Do you want me to buy you a magazine or a water or...something?" She asked. The forced brightness in her voice almost made me want to take pity on her. But I couldn't stop thinking about what was in store for me-a whole summer of living with strangers and probably feeling incredibly uncomfortable.
"I think I can get stuff on the train if I want," I mumbled.
"Yeah, they have food. But not magazines! Let me buy you a magazine," she pleaded.
"Fine, whatever," I said, exasperated. I knew I shouldn't pout, but I couldn't help it. All morning I had been thinking of everything I would miss out on over the summer. I thought of Clark. He wasn't perfect, and maybe he wasn't right for me, but it was kind of fun getting attention from a guy, even the wrong guy.
"I heard you and Clark made out," Jo had said the day after the party, a sing-song, teasing lilt to her voice. "Details!" She'd clapped her hands together gleefully.
"It was no big deal," I'd said, slightly annoyed. Why, I'd thought, did I have to take her every relationship and every minor development in her every relationship so seriously when she seemed to think everything I did was some kind of joke?
I bristled a little thinking about it as I sat there at Gate F waiting for the California Zephyr to come and take me to the middle of nowhere. Though I would never admit it to my mom, there was the tiniest part of me that was looking forward to getting away from everything. A vacation from my life.
By the time my mom got back with the stack of magazines she'd bought me, passengers were lining up to board my train. There were people from all walks of life-a college age girl with a worn backpack and a guitar case, a man with two little girls who were both bouncing up and down excitedly, an older couple who had been sitting in the chairs across from me and hadn't said a word to each other in the entire half hour I'd been slyly observing them.
YOU ARE READING
Nebraska Stars
Teen Fiction"It was just one kiss. It only lasted a moment, and when we pulled away, reality came rushing back. I could see it on his face. He stepped away from me and even though we were only inches apart, I felt like I was standing across a raging river from...
