City of Boys by Beth Nugent Page B

come, they are overcooked, and when she breaks the center of one with her fork, only a disappointing dribble of yolk bleeds out over her toast. Mr. Gregg enters the car and sits at a table across the room from them. He watches them eat, and when Alice meets his gaze, he nods at her in a businesslike way. She smiles, then looks away, and her father turns to see whom she is smiling at. He watches Mr. Gregg open his newspaper and prop it up in front of his face, then turns back to Alice.
    —Looks like you have a friend, he says. Alice mashes her egg down into her toast.
    —Alice, her mother says, —don’t play with your food. You’ll be hungry later if you don’t eat now.
    —It’s overcooked, her father says. —Can’t you see it’s overcooked? He smiles at Alice. —Who’s your friend? he asks.
    —Will you leave her alone? her mother says. —Will you just leave her alone and let her eat her eggs?
    They are all quiet a moment and Alice’s mother scrapes her fork across the top of her French toast, then pushes her plate away.
    —I’m already sick of the food on this train, she says. —I’m sick of the food and I’m sick of the room and I’m sick of the goddamn scenery. I’m going to smoke.
    Mr. Gregg does not turn as she passes him on her way out of the car, but when she is gone, he looks around to see the door close behind her.
    Alice’s father pulls her plate of French toast toward him.
    —I’m afraid, he says, —that your mother is not a very happy woman. He pours syrup over the French toast. —No, he says. —Not a very happy woman at all.
    He cuts the French toast into quarters, then into smaller pieces, and does not once look behind him as he begins to eat.
    Back in the cabin Alice’s father kneels over the paper he has most recently bought, looking for stories about the suicide, but, he tells Alice, they must be too far from Kansas City to get any coverage.
    —Wait, he says. —Here’s something. It says here that he was a family man. Everyone was very surprised. They didn’t even know where he was going. He gazes out at the floor over the newspaper.
    —I can understand that, he says. —I really can. When he looks up, he seems startled to see her.
    —Hey, he says, —you should be having fun. You should be
doing
something. What would you be doing at home right now?
    —I don’t know. Reading. Watching TV, Alice says, but what she would in fact do after breakfast is go to her room and sit on her bed and run her hands up and down her legs from her ankles to her knees, pushing the nerves one way, then the other, until her parents called her for lunch or dinner.
    —Well, he says, —you can do a lot more than that here, and he sits back on his heels and waits for her to leave.
    Through the window of the smoker, Alice watches her mother, who is sitting at a table by herself. She lights her cigarette and smokes it without looking around, but her shoulders stiffen each time the door opens at either end of the car. She is waiting, but not for Alice, so Alice goes to her seat by the window in the coach car. Outside, dogs and cows and pigs are clumped against the gray dirt, or sit underdry trees. As the train slows through a crossing, Alice looks out at a blue car waiting for them to pass; a woman is at the wheel, and a boy beside her; in the flash of passing, Alice is sure the boy has looked up and met her eyes. She imagines herself in the car. The boy and his mother might be going to swimming practice, or skating, perhaps, or to a store to pick out a new outfit, but sooner or later they will drive past these same trees and go home again. They know nothing of what it is to be on this train.
    Soon the train pulls into another stop, and Alice watches the platform outside for her father; he appears just outside her window, but does not see her inside. He stretches, and stands still for a moment, looking out away from the train, then bends and pushes coins into a newspaper box.
    When Alice wakes, it is