Who Kissed Charlie Fine?

Chapter 4

In the three months that followed receiving the invitation, Charlie made a few unsettling discoveries. First, Pam Noble had not RSVPed to the reunion on the Messengers High website. Though her social media accounts were all set to private he was able to find out that she lived in London with a handsome sportscaster boyfriend and found one picture of the couple tagged together on a beach where they both wore enormous sunglasses. He scoured the public accounts of the other girls from the party and found no communication suggesting Pam kept in touch with any of them. He did learn that Robin Tam had regretfully declined giving no reason and that Eric Saxon had yet to reply. The others, it seemed, were very excited for the event. With a national average attendance of reunions at twenty-five percent, it was as good as he could ask for. Second, three days before he and Martin were to set off on their road trip a major issue with his Audi's power steering cropped up coinciding with an inconvenient backlog at his mechanic's shop. A last minute weekend car rental in July meant that availability was limited and Charlie was not impressed with the selection. Martin's solution to this problem was to take the train. It alleviated the very small amount of guilt he had in not being able to share in the driving as he planned to be drunk for the week. Charlie couldn't think of a reason not to and decided they could always take taxis or Uber wherever they liked if they couldn't rent a more up to snuff car in town. Last, but no less frustrating, Girl Guide cookies could not be purchased online. The mint ones were only sold in the fall and winter months which left him with a hankering he could do little about.

The twelve-thirty train to Niagara and Buffalo had been delayed by what had been announced as signalling issues between two midway stations. Since there was no use in pushing ahead at the risk of getting stuck at the half way point, the railway line had decided to wait until the problem was cleared to board its passengers which finally happened at precisely one-forty-nine.

Charlie always preferred a window seat facing forward, mid-train and as far away from a washroom as possible. As the orderly passenger line dispersed along the platform, he was strategizing to position himself and Martin, (nostrils-deep in a true Irish coffee), for just such a spot when his attention was drawn to an odd figure nearby who likewise seemed to be jockeying for a specific position, somewhere between a pair of little old ladies and an overwhelmed mother with two red-faced toddlers in tow. This tall stranger wore an expensive overcoat over a raggedy suit, not unlike a subdued carnival barker. He averted his sharp grey eyes from the mother in front of him in favour of Charlie's direction. Met by Charlie's own interest, he blinked to clear them of some timely grit and turned them on the train doors.

As they continued to wait for permission to board, the stranger seemed to put on what was to Charlie's mind an overt display of patience. He rocked back and forth to the tips of his toes and back on legs so rangy it seemed his knees might bend both ways, and he flapped the pockets of his long coat to a slow, rhythmic count so that the sides of his crumpled yellow hair bounced slightly at his sideburns. Anyone out of earshot would have assumed from the pursed lips under his beakish nose that he was whistling, but Charlie was close enough to know that he wasn't. He was both comically suspicious and slightly predatory and Charlie's instinct was to trust him as much as a closed shower curtain he was sure he'd left open. His instincts were proven correct when after a minute, he witnessed the stranger pass a deft palm over the front opening of the mother's purse in what was surely a practice run for a real pickpocketing. Charlie almost applauded, but sensing correctly that the man, still facing forward, was now straining one eye in an almost monocular fashion to watch Charlie again from his periphery, he decided to play as unaware as Martin or the poor young mother was, to give this stranger the confidence to give himself further away. There was nothing to see here, was there? Just a heron in a duster pretending not to be interested in splashes.

At last attendants began waiving passengers in. Charlie and Martin boarded, the stranger still watching them from the next door between cars as he asked an employee some question of obvious answer in order to stall making his seat decision until Charlie had made his. What Charlie did was to take a fat billfold out of one pocket and move it clumsily to another, slowly enough for greedy eyes to follow, before sliding into his window seat.