Page 4 of Leaving the Station
“Um, maybe?” she says. “Like, the old president who sucked or whatever.” She rolls her eyes and I try not to laugh as she continues. “So, he signed this law, and then the government got to own the railways.”
“How old are you?”
She crosses her arms. “Why do people always ask me that?”
“Would it help if I told you how old I am?”
She nods.
“I’m eighteen.”
“I’m nine,” she says.
“That’s half my age.”
“Duh.”
“I’m Zoe,” I tell her.
“That’s a good name,” she says approvingly. “I’m Aya.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Aya,” I say. “That’s a good name too.”
“Thanks, it’s Japanese,” she tells me. “That’s where my great-grandparents are from. Did you know that Japan was the first country to have rail lines that were made just for high-speed travel?”
“I didn’t.”
“It’s true! The first-ever bullet train was the Tokaido Shinkansen. But ‘bullet train’ isn’t itsofficialname; it’s just what they call them in English. The old slow trains from before the Shinkansen that went from Tokyo to Osaka took six hours and forty minutes. But guess how long the Shinkansen took?”
I know from previous experience speaking to children that I should highball the number. I don’t want to upset this child who has deemed me worthy of her train facts.
“Five hours?” I guess.
“Four!” she says, her face lighting up.
“That’s so cool.”
She goes on to tell me about how, in 1997, the Shinkansen was only delayed on average eighteen seconds from schedule, when a tall woman walks into the café car with a worried look on her face. The look eases slightly when she spots Aya.
“There you are,” she says, smoothing Aya’s hair, which is shaped into a classic childhood bowl cut. “What did I say about wandering off?”
“To not do it,” Aya mumbles.
“Or at least tell me where you’re going.” She glances at me, and her eyes are bloodshot. “Sorry about her.”
“No no, not at all.” Aya has been the first person on this train that I’ve actuallylikedtalking to, and I tell her as much.
Her mom leads her in the opposite direction then, toward the sleeper car, and as the door slides open, Aya turns around and waves to me. I wave back.
Clearly, I’m not the only one trying to avoid my parents.
I ease back into my seat and let my eyes unfocus. In this first hour of the trip, I’ve had more conversations with strangers than I’ve had since the first week of college. But maybe this is what’s meant to happen on a long train ride. We’re going to be sharing this small space for at least a few hours, possibly days. We need to build some train solidarity.
And I don’t mind the conversations like I usually would, because the people I’ve been speaking to don’t know anything about who I am off the train. To them, I’m a way to pass the time. They’re not my college friends, who I’ve done a fabulous job of disappointing.
And they’re certainly not my parents, who’ve pushed me my whole life to be the person they want me to be.
It was a constant, from when they had me quit dance in third grade to “focus on my studies,” all the way up to the day my dad dropped me off at college.
