The long wooden bench along the platform would have been empty if not for the fair-skinned figure seated at its very end. In fact, the entire platform would have been empty.
Every time she looked around at the vacant space surrounding her, she'd immediately double-check her ticket to reconfirm: yes, she was in the right place. The next train due to arrive was the outbound overnight train, which, yes, she held a ticket for. None of the other travelers had seen fit to arrive so early.
As other passengers began to filter in, the anxious need to check the ticket faded and in its place, she started absent-mindedly pulling a strand of her dirty blonde hair taut with one hand. With the other, she would press the strand between her forefinger and thumb and run them together along its full length, until they bumped into her other hand, at which point she'd squint critically at the fanned ends of the strand for a moment before dropping the length of hair and picking up the ticket again. The train eventually pulled up; the conductor began helping people board; she gathered up her backpack, got on, and chose herself a sleeper cabin in the middle of the car. She took one of the upper bunks, pulled out a book, and prepared to let the time unwind until departure. It would be a while yet before things got underway.
As she got settled, another traveler was making her way through the station towards the train, a woman of the very same height, very same build, darker complexion. She worked through the narrow corridor of the car, trailing a neatly packed rolling suitcase, pausing with pursed lips for the occasional passenger blocking the way as they moved their bags into a cabin, until she came to a stop at this very same cabin, which looked empty to her at first.
She stood in the doorway. In the darker interior, a young woman looked up from her book. They made momentary eye contact. She took out her phone and sent a brief message to someone, waited a second, and read a reply that made her purse her lips more firmly than the obstacles in the hallway had. She stashed her suitcase and took a seat on the lower bunk opposite, crossed her arms, and began a vigil over the doorway.
This state of affairs lasted all of a couple of minutes, before her toe began tapping the floor in a steady, impatient rhythm.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
It was incredibly distracting.
"I'm sorry, but do you mind?"
The tapping came to an instant halt.
"Sorry." A second later, she offered by way of explanation: "I'm usually the first."
"The first?" The book was set aside.
"The first in the cabin. I'm usually early. You beat me."
"I left a lot of extra time. I wanted to make sure I was in the right spot."
"You don't usually take this train?"
"I don't usually take any train."
"Where are you from?"
She was, as the other woman had immediately suspected, an American. Her fellow traveler was from a small village, by way of her central country's drab capital.
"Your English is practically flawless. Where did you learn it?"
She had had to study it in school. The rest came from movies and television shows.
"I'm Mara." She raised her hand to the first woman, who draped her hand in hers in a delicate handshake from above.
"Katie."
"What brought you over here?"
Katie found herself here, in the middle of gothic cathedrals and Old World cafes, by reason of schooling. She was studying abroad for the summer. In her highly specialized field, there were a handful of programs worldwide, and she had applied to this one, not seriously expecting that she would be accepted; but she was. She had spent several weeks scrambling to keep up with the coursework. In overreacting to the initial workload, she surprised herself by getting ahead of the material for the first time this week. She could, if only for the weekend, relax a bit. She decided to parlay this window of unfamiliar freedom into an opportunity to get out and experience more of the continent. Train was the only realistic option - flying would have been too expensive.
"You take this train a lot?"
"It's my milk run."
"The map was a little confusing. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to get off."
"Do you have your ticket handy?"
Did she. She handed it to Mara, who gave it a quick look.
"Where are you trying to get to?"
Katie described the general location of the hostel she was aiming for.
"You want stanice centrale. That's my stop as well. You'll get off with me."
She exhaled a relieved "thank you" as she took the ticket back. One less worry, one less thing to go wrong.
"Why did you get here so early?"
"I prefer it. It's easier for me to relax and enjoy the trip if I'm here and I know I'm going to make my connection."
"When I caught my flight at the beginning of the summer," Katie shared, in the reassuring, confessional tone of someone divulging a shared weakness, "I got to the airport three hours early. I didn't want to miss my flight."
They were both silent for a bit. "You know, you didn't seem relaxed when you got here."
Not everyone in her party shared her point of view.
She was traveling with her longtime boyfriend, with whom she was running a coffee shop in the city of their destination. His name was Gianni. They were headed back after a quick visit home for her.
"'What-a-deefference does it make?' she mugged in a faux accent and baritone, 'As long as we get to the destee-nation, what do I need to sit and wait in the train for? It is-a just a waste of time.'"
After a pause, "You know - typical guy. Only sees things his way."
"Yeah, so selfish," Katie offered supportively.
"I shouldn't complain," Mara gently corrected herself, "It's just boyfriend and girlfriend stuff. He's a stand-up guy."
"How did you two meet?"
