Page 9 of Leaving the Station
“What is it?” I asked him.
“That, my friend, is anAmorphophallustitanum.” He smiled at me. “Do you speak any Latin?”
I shook my head.
“Look it up when you get back to your dorm.” He patted the side of the pot. “It’s also known as the corpse plant, and it only flowers once in a blue moon. But when it does, it’s a sight to behold.” He grinned at the plant and his face came alive. “It’s the largest flowering plant in the world, and it smells like a rotting corpse. Hence its nickname.”
I didn’t want to sound unenthused about this shit-smelling plant that didn’t currently exist, so I just nodded.
When I got back to my dorm, I did as he told me and looked up the definition ofAmorphophallustitanum.
It means giant misshapen penis.
Monday, 11 a.m., near Rensselaer, NY
The first morning of the trip speeds by. I should be bored, staring at the overgrown shrubbery lining the tracks, but instead, it’s almost meditative.
“We’ll be pulling into Albany in about an hour here, folks,” the conductor says over the loudspeaker sometime around eleven. “If Albany’s your final destination, take a second to gather your belongings. We’ll have a bit of a stopover there—you’ll have one hour to stretch, grab some lunch, and explore New York’s beautiful capital.”
The train, as it turns out, does not stop directly in Albany, but in Rensselaer, a town situated across the river from “New York’s beautiful capital.” Rensselaer might not be the seat of the state’s government, but itishome to a large construction debris landfill, which I overheard someone in the café car tell their partner.
After this stop, the train will veer off, eventually leaving New York behind, the place where I’ve spent nearly four of the longest months of my life.
I thought when I escaped to the opposite side of the country I would be able to change how people saw me, how I sawmyself, but it only made me more confused.
When the train stops, I run to a nearby store called Daughter of Egg to grab a snack, and wind up with four family-sized bags of pretzels. When I make it back to the station, the conductor is shouting, “All aboard,” which I thought only happened in movies.
The train is now double the length it was when we pulled into Albany, because this is where the cars that originated in New YorkCity and the ones that originated in Boston merge. Which also means there will be twice as many people on the train as there were before.
I drop three bags of pretzels off at my assigned seat.
“Hungry girl,” not–Guy Fieri says.
The sheer skeeviness of the comment nearly melts the flesh off my bones. “It would appear so.”
I don’t tell him I’ll see him around this time as I walk through coach to the café car with the fourth family-sized bag of pretzels in hand.
The conductor gives his spiel to the new people who’ve joined us, then adds, “Lunch in the dining car will begin shortly. We’ve got a great menu here, folks. Nothing quite like a meal on the train.”
I hadn’t considered eating in the dining car, but it’s something to do. So, as the attendant passes by, I flag him down.
“I’d like to make a reservation.”
He nods and smiles at me like I’ve given him a precious gift. “Are you in a sleeper car?”
“No.”
“That’s quite all right,” he says. “Only asking because meals come free with a sleeper ticket.”
“I’m in coach.”
“And that’s gorgeous,” he says. He looks down at his notepad. “How does one thirty sound?”
I check my phone—which is on but in airplane mode—as if I have anywhere else to be. “One thirty sounds great.”
He grins. “Wonderful.”
An hour and many pretzels later, the conductor announces that they’re seating 1:30 reservations. When I arrive in the dining car, an attendant tells me I’ll be at table four. “Have fun,” she says.
