TAKE IT EASY • TC ✔️

19: Smoke and Mirrors

If hell was a place, this might have been it.

Lucia's train to Albany had been delayed by half an hour. Something to do with a hold up at the station. Lu had heard one woman claim, very loudly, that the driver had been drunk. Someone else had said something about a power shortage, and someone else had said something about a difficult passenger holding up carriage three.

The station was teaming with people. It was Friday rush hour - people were commuting back and forth between the two cities in time for the weekend - and her mother had really picked the worst time for Lu to travel. The worst time.

She watched someone shove a half-eaten baguette back into its wrapper, and lob it into the bin they were passing. Watched someone else spit out their gum and grind it into the pavement - which, ew, digusting - and watched someone else trip over their own suitcase.

There weren't any actual seats left on the platform, so Lu had resorted to squatting outside the waiting room. There was a sort of pipe running around the outside of the room, close to the floor. She wasn't sure if it had been intended as a form of seating, but it definitely beat sitting on the floor, so she took what she could get.

Someone was shouting, someone else was yelling, there was a baby crying, and Lucia began to wonder if she too would prosper from a quick sob, when the doors of the waiting train opened. She hauled herself off of the uncomfortable piping, and trundled her way down the platform to the first class carriages, weaving her way through the hordes.

Travelling first class when she could barely afford to splash out on one of the overpriced coffees from the cafe on the platform felt like a cruel joke. She felt like an imposter as she lugged her baggage on board, passing bored, haughty faces as she navigated the way to her designated seat.

The seat itself was annoyingly comfortable. It wasn't quite plush, but it felt as if it could be. There was a plug socket to her right, more leg room than even Lucia knew what to do with (which was more than welcome after all those journeys she'd spent with her knees tucked up by her ears) and when the hostess came to offer her some light refreshment, Lucia had tried to pay for it.

She could have done with a water or something, and she was scrabbling around in her purse for some loose change when the hostess had spoken up.

"It's complimentary, dear," she'd smiled condescendingly, and Lu had tittered. Taken a bottle of orange juice and slithered down into her seat as far as she could. The hostess had glided on with the trolley, and Lu had sat there, mortified, for a good two minutes, her cheeks flushed as she wondered if anyone had noticed her blunder.

No one seemed like they would care, even if she had; they were all far too wrapped up in their own worries to pay any attention to hers. Lu didn't know whether she liked that or not, but it was mortifying all the same.

The journey, apart from it's rocky start, was for the most part smooth. By the time they reached Croton-Harmon, Lu was engrossed in Pride and Prejudice, which she'd taken to re-read after having started it with Timmy a few days ago. The girl didn't really do much else in the two and a half hours it took to get to Albany. She read. She sipped at her orange juice. She texted her mom to let her know that she was on her way.

Lu

on the train x

Lu deliberated over sending the kiss or not, but kept it in the end. She could at least try to preserve the appearance of amiability, at least try to set things off on the right foot; if that included sucking up to her mother temporarily, then so be it.

She read. Read some more, steadfastly avoided the eye of the hostess as she passed through with the trolley again, and carried on reading.

Lu's mother was usually quite proficient when it came to texting. Unlike so many her age, the woman prided herself on fast, succinct replies. Texting Guilia was almost like texting one of those do-not-reply bots; her responses were instantaneous, brief, and usually a pain in the ass.