“Thanks,” I say. “I…I’m s-sorry.”
“For what?” my seatmate asks.
“For s-sitting here crying like this. I’m not usually like this. I swear.”
“Travel can be very stressful,” he says. “Especially in this day and age.”
“It’s true,” I say, taking some more nuts. “You can just never tell. I mean, you meet people and they seem perfectly nice. And then it turns out that all along they were just lying to you to get you to pay their matriculation fees because they lost all their money in a game of Texas Hold’em.”
“I was actually referring to terrorist alerts,” my seatmate says somewhat dryly. “But I guess what, er, you mentioned could be troubling as well.”
“Oh, it is,” I assure him through my tears. “You have no idea. I mean, he just outright lied to me-telling me that he loved me and all of that-when all along I think he was just using me. I mean, Andy-that’s the guy I left, back in London-he seemed so nice, you know? He was going to be a teacher. He said he was going to devote his life to teaching little children to read. Have you ever heard of anything that noble?”
“Um,” my seatmate says, “no?”
“No. Because who even does that in today’s day and age? People our age-how old are you?”
“I’m twenty-five,” my seatmate says, a little smile on his lips.
“Right,” I say. I open my purse, fishing inside it for some tissue. “Well, haven’t you noticed that people our age…all they seem to think about is making money? Okay, not everyone. But a lot of them. No one wants to be a teacher anymore, or even a doctor…not with HMOs and all of that. There’s not enough money in it. Everyone wants to be an investment banker, or a corporate headhunter, or a lawyer…because that’s where the money is. They don’t care if they’re doing anything good for mankind. They just want to own a McMansion and a BMW. Seriously.”
“Or pay back their student loans,” says my seatmate.
“Right. But it’s like, you don’t have to go to the world’s most expensive college in order to get a good education.” I’ve managed to locate a wadded-up piece of tissue at the bottom of my purse. I use it to mop up some of my tears. “Education is what you make out of it.”
“I never actually thought of it that way,” says my seatmate. “But you could have a point.”
“I think I do,” I say. The buildings that had been whizzing past my window have turned to open fields. The sky is a golden red as the sun begins to slide down toward the western horizon. “I mean, I’ve been out there. I’ve seen it for myself. If you’re studying something like-I don’t know. History of fashion or something-people think you’re a freak. No one wants to pursue anything creative anymore, because that’s too risky. They may not get the kind of return on the financial investment they’ve made in their education that they think they should. So they all go into business or accounting or law or…or they look for stupid American girls to marry so they can live off them.”
“You sound as if you’re speaking from personal experience,” my seatmate observes.
“Well, what else am I supposed to think?” I’m babbling. I know I’m babbling. But I can’t seem to stop myself. Any more than I can stop the tears that continue to flow down my cheeks. “I mean, what kind of person-you know, who wants to be a teacher-works as a waiter, and ALSO collects the dole?”
My seatmate seems to consider this. “A financially needy one?”
“You would think that,” I say, sniffling into the tissue. “But what if I told you that this was also a person who lost all his money playing Texas Hold’em, then asked his girlfriend to pay his matriculation fees, and then, as if that were not enough, also told his entire family that…she’s…I mean, I’m…a fatty?”
“You?” My seatmate sounds suitably stunned. “But you’re not. Fat, I mean.”
“Not now,” I say with a little sob. “But I was. When we met. But I lost thirty pounds since the last time I saw him. But even if I was fat-he shouldn’t go around telling people that! Not if he really loved me. Right? If he really loved me, he wouldn’t have noticed I was fat. Or he would have, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Not enough to tell his family.”
“That’s true,” my seatmate says.
“But he did. He told them I was fat!” New tears erupt. “And when I got there, they were all, ‘You’re not fat!’ Which is how I knew he’d said something about it. And then he goes and gambles away the money his parents-his hardworking parents-gave him for school! I mean, his mother-his poor mother! You should have seen her. She’s a social worker, and she made me a giant breakfast and everything. Even though I don’t like tomatoes, and every single thing she made had tomatoes in it. Which is another sign Andy never loved me at all-I specifically told him I don’t like tomatoes, and yet he didn’t pay any attention. It was like he didn’t even know me at all. I mean, he e-mailed me a picture of his naked butt. What would make a guy think a girl would WANT to see a picture of his naked butt? I mean, seriously? Why would he think that was an okay thing to do?”
“I really couldn’t say,” my seatmate says.
I blow my nose. “But see, that’s just typical cluelessness on Andy’s part. The scariest part is, I felt sorry for him. Seriously. I didn’t know about the welfare fraud or that he was going around calling me fat, or that he was using me just to pay his gambling debts. And the worst part is…Oh God, I can’t be the only one this has ever happened to, can I? I mean, haven’t you ever thought you loved someone and done things you regretted with that person? And then wished you could get them back, only you can’t? I mean, haven’t you?”
“What kind of things are we talking about?” my seatmate wants to know.
“Oh,” I say. It’s amazing, but I’m starting to feel a little bit better. Maybe it’s the comfortable seat, or the golden glow flooding the train car as well as the tranquil countryside we’re passing. Maybe it’s the fact that I finally got some liquids into me. Maybe it’s the sugar from the peanuts.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s that saying all of this out loud is restoring my faith in myself. I mean, anyone might have been tricked by as smooth an operator as Andrew-I mean, Andy. ANYONE. Maybe not my seatmate, since he’s a guy. But any girl. ANY girl.
“You know the kinds of things I’m talking about,” I say. I look around to make sure no one is listening. All the other passengers appear to be dozing, listening to things through headphones, or too French to understand me anyway. Still, I lower my voice. Blow job, I mouth meaningfully.
“Oh,” my seatmate says, both of his dark eyebrows going up. “That kind of thing.”
The thing is, he’s American. And he’s my age. And he’s so nice. I feel totally comfortable talking about this with him, because I know he’s not going to make any judgments about me.
Besides, I’m never going to see him again.
“Seriously,” I say, “guys have no idea. Oh, wait, maybe you do. Are you gay?”
He nearly chokes on the water he is sipping. “No! Do I seem gay?”
“No,” I say. “But then my gaydar isn’t the best. My last relationship before Andy was with a guy who dumped me for his roommate. His MALE roommate.”
“Well, I’m not gay.”
“Oh. Well, the thing is, unless you’ve given one, you can’t know. It’s a major deal.”
“What is?”
“Blow job,” I whisper again.
“Oh,” he says. “Right.”
“I mean, I know you guys all want them, but they’re not easy. And the thing is, did he so much as attempt to give me anything in return? No! Of course not! Not that I didn’t take care of, you know. Myself. But still. That’s just impolite. Especially since I only did it out of pity for him.”
“A…pity blow job?” My seatmate has the strangest expression on his face. Sort of like he’s trying not to laugh. Or that he can’t believe he’s having this conversation. Or maybe a combination of both.