The Christmas Surprise

by R. R. Banks

  I narrowed my eyes at the conductor.

  "If I had reserved a sleeper cabin, would I be standing here in the middle of the aisle fighting with the man who stole my seat?"

  "There are no reserved seats, ma'am," the conductor said, his voice taking on a stiffer tone. "You will need to move on."

  "But he came in from the back! He flagrantly ignored the rules of train boarding etiquette."

  "There are no rules, ma'am. Any passenger is able to select any available seat."

  "There should be rules."

  "Ma'am, if you don't move along and find an available seat, I am going to have to have you escorted from the train."

  "No, no. That won't be necessary. I have a cruise to get to." I struggled my bags in front of me and made my way through the passage that connected the car to the one ahead of it. Just before I got all the way through, I poked my head back around toward the man. "May you buy a cup of coffee that sloshes all over you and get a cramp in your neck from sleeping at an awkward angle."

  Before the conductor could call in security, I pushed my way through into the next car and struggled my way to an empty seat in the middle. Shoving my bags into the overhead compartment, I plopped down into the seat and glared at each person that passed, noting that most averted their eyes as though it was completely normal to see a total meltdown when boarding a train.

  I had only been sitting for a few seconds when I realized that I needed to go to the bathroom. Apparently, the showdown over the seat had been enough to keep me distracted and not thinking about it, but now I realized that I was in a somewhat dire situation. I waited until the stream of passengers had lessened and got up, pulling one bag down and shoving it into my chair as a visual dibs. I made my way down the aisle, noting that it was much easier now that I wasn't carrying anything, and paused in between the restrooms wedged at the end of the aisle. Both had red 'occupied' indicators. I could have waited, but that would have required another episode of blocking the aisle for the people behind me, so I journeyed on, passing through the next car to reach the next set of restrooms. The same red indicators greeted me, as they did at the next bathroom, and the one beyond that. The train was moving beneath my feet and the shaking was doing nothing for my current situation. I was getting ready to turn around to try the ones behind me again, but then I noticed the door ahead of me that noted the private sleeping cabins lay beyond.

  I remembered what the conductor had said about the reserved cars and a thought came into my mind. If people were reserving those cabins, that meant that they intended to sleep in them, which meant that they were probably intending on spending more than a couple of hours in them, which meant…

  I glanced over my shoulder casually. Noting that no one seemed to be looking at me, I pressed the release on the door and slipped through, closing it behind me as fast as I could so that no one could sense that I didn't belong and snatch me back out. I spied an open door halfway down the aisle and walked toward it, going past so that I could glance into it out of the corner of my eye, and then backing up to go inside. Just as I hoped, there was a private bathroom tucked into the corner. I couldn't help but be impressed when I stepped inside. This wasn't the stark, often swaying bathroom that I remembered from my last train trip. This actually felt almost comfortable, and even had a shower in it. I was tempted to barricade the door and spend the next few hours sitting in a hot shower to pregame for the tropical week ahead.

  I ducked into the bathroom and closed the door.

  This trip was getting off to a fantastic start.

  Chapter Three

  Graham

  Who makes the decision to keep a bar car closed during an overnight train trip during the holidays? That was a serious fail. I was going to be making some phone calls when this was over.

  I made my way back through the train toward my cabin, intending on calling Adam and asking if he could still find me a drink. The train was already moving. I wasn't sure how the whole tradition-borderline superstition thing worked, but I was hoping that if I at least got the drink within the first leg of the trip, whatever negative effect would be lessened. I walked through the door to the sleeper cabins and down the hallway toward mine. When I reached the door, I noticed that it was partly open. I hoped that meant that Adam had already made sure that the bathroom had been fixed. As soon as I had had my drink, I intended on taking a shower and pulling out the bed. It was still early, but this was one of the rare moments in my life when I didn't have work spread out in front of me or a meeting before the start of the work day in the morning. I was going to take advantage of the hours of train ride ahead of me to catch up on some sleep and give me a head start on building up the energy that I knew I was going to need to keep up with Charlie.

  I was smiling at the thought of seeing my little boy and getting to play with him again when I noticed that the door to the bathroom was closed. It had been open when I left, reassuring me that it had, in fact, been cleaned again. I reached for the handle, but before I could grab it, the door swung open and I heard a sharp gasp as someone walked into me. I stumbled back slightly, then grabbed the person by the shoulders and righted both of us. I looked at the person and saw that it was a woman. Her face was flushed with embarrassment as she stuttered, stumbling over words that never quite formed themselves.

  For a second I thought that she might be on the staff of the train, but then I realized that she wasn't wearing any type of uniform or identifying accessory. Instead, her tall frame was packed into black stretch pants and a long black sweatshirt.

  Festive.

  "Can I help you?" I asked.

  The woman looked at me for a few more uncomfortable seconds and then pushed past me out of the cabin. I watched her, dumbfounded, and then closed the door. I had started to go into the bathroom for my shower when I heard a knock. Thinking that it might be my mysterious visitor returning to complete some of the words that she had started, I opened the door. Instead of the redheaded woman though, I found Adam. The young man looked at me with a smile.

  "Hello, Mr. Castle. I was just checking to make sure that everything is to your liking now."

  "I actually haven't had a chance to look at it," I admitted. I pointed behind me toward the bathroom. "Did you see someone in here?"

  "You mean the janitorial staff?" he asked, sounding confused.

  "No," I said. "There was a woman. I don't think that she works for the railway."

  Adam shook his head slowly.

  "No, sir. I didn't see anyone."

  "OK. Thank you."

  Adam started to turn away.

  "Wait." He turned back to me. "I just went up to the bar car, but there was a sign on it that says it's closed. Could you bring me a drink?"

  "I could, but the bar has just reopened if you would rather visit it yourself."

  He was looking at me as though he thought that the last thing that I needed was alcohol. I ignored the look and gave him a nod.

  "Thank you."

  He backed up to let me step out of the cabin. I promptly locked it and started toward the bar.

  A few minutes later I was sitting in the lounge, sipping my drink slowly as I watched the world go by through the window. No matter how many times that I rode the train, the speed never ceased to surprise me. The sound and sway of the enormous machine always made it seem that it must be moving slowly, just easing its way down the tracks. Looking out through the window, however, was a reminder of the speed that the train actually achieved when it hit a straight stretch of railway. A reflection in the glass caught my attention and I turned to see the woman who had been in my cabin walking past the table and sidling up to the bar. She seemed to be purposely avoiding looking at me, as though that would make it so that I couldn't see her.

  I took my drink and walked up to her. Even as I stepped up beside her, she kept her eyes focused firmly ahead of her, locked on the empty space that had only seconds before been occupied by the bartender.

  "Hello," I said.

 
She took a sip of the drink in front of her as if to steel herself, then looked at me.

  "I'm sorry. I'm not interested."

  She turned back and suddenly became very focused on the surface of the bar.

  "No," I said, putting my drink down on the bar and leaning around slightly so that I could look at her. "You were in my room."

  She looked at me and shook her head with a tiny, forced smile.

  "No. You must be mistaken."

  "I'm not mistaken. You came out of my bathroom."

  She gave a sigh and sagged onto the bar.

  "Fine," she said. "Yes. I was in your room. All of the other bathrooms were occupied and so, I borrowed yours for like 30 seconds. I didn't mean to offend you."

  This was officially the strangest first conversation that I had ever had.

  "It's alright," I said. "I just thought we should at least be introduced to each other. Seeing as how we share a history and all.”

  She swallowed the rest of her drink in one gulp and slid off of the barstool. "If you'll excuse me."

  I watched her leave, then took my place at the table again. By the time that I finished the drink, I felt sufficiently lulled into complacency and ready to return to my cabin. I made my way down the aisle, catching sight of the woman again as I entered the second car. She was crushed in her seat, curled toward the aisle away from the man who was sleeping in the window seat but seemed to have tipped over and was gradually sliding closer to her. She rolled her eyes when she caught sight of me.

  "Are you serious? I told you that I was sorry for the whole cabin thing. Must you continue to throw it in my face?"

  "Actually, you didn't say that you were sorry, and I was just going back to the room now. It's not like there's a lot of routes that I can take to get there." I watched as she tried to adjust her position so that she looked less compacted. "Are you alright here?"

  "I'm fine," she said firmly. The man made a sound that was somewhere between a snort and a strangled snore and nestled down further, looking distinctly like he was cuddling her. "I'm actually just going to get some sleep."

  I nodded.

  "Alright. Sleep well."

  She waved at me and curled her arms up, folding her hands and resting her head on them on the back of her seat in a very convincing sleep position. I continued on through the train and finally made it into the shower that was more appealing by the minute. I felt like the stress of a long, painfully busy week had suddenly released now that I was facing a long stretch without work and it left me drained. Though I had planned on just a quick rinse, the hot water felt so amazing that I ended up standing under it for half an hour, letting the hard stream massage the tense muscles of my shoulders and back until they felt loose. I climbed out and dressed, ready to pull out one of the books that I always packed in my bag, but paused when I heard someone knock on my door. Expecting Adam offering to help turn down the room for the night, I opened the door. This time, instead of the young steward, I saw the redheaded woman.

  "Hello," I said. She made an exasperated sound and pushed past me into the room. "Please, come on in. Don’t mind me.”

  I closed the door and turned to look at her. She was pacing the few steps back and forth that the room would allow her and shaking her long arms.

  "I had to get away from that man. Did you hear him? He was louder than a freight train."

  "An interesting choice of words considering you are on a train."

  "I couldn't take another minute of being his teddy bear."

  "So, you just decided to borrow my room again?" I asked.

  "Do you have a better suggestion?"

  "The cafe car?"

  She stared at me for a beat.

  "Dammit!" she exploded.

  She started for the door, but I held up a hand to stop her.

  "No, wait. It's fine. You can take a breather in here if you want to. Since we’re becoming best buddies and all.”

  She glared at me, then looked around.

  "Speaking of which." She held her hands out as if to encompass the room. "I thought this was supposed to be a sleeper car."

  "It is."

  "I see two chairs. Are you supposed to shove them together and create like a little nest? Because I don't think that you'd fit in there."

  "Not exactly. See that handle in the wall?" She narrowed her eyes at the wall and then nodded. "Pull on it."

  She complied, and the bed folded down from the wall.

  "There's seriously a bed in here," she said.

  "There is. Thanks for setting up my room for me."

  Her glare could have cut through me, but she took it away after a few seconds and dropped down into one of the chairs near the window.

  "I hate trains."

  "Then why are you on one?"

  "Because I decided at the last minute to go on a cruise and there were no flights available to get me there. So here I am."

  "Well, since we're currently sharing a room, at least for a while, I think that we should continue our introductions. I'm Graham."

  "Holly," she said.

  I smiled.

  "That's perfect," I said. "You must really love Christmas."

  She rolled her eyes.

  "Not particularly.”

  "But your birthday must be in December."

  Holly looked at me with an expression I could only describe as being one of disgust.

  "Why does everyone say that?"

  "Because your name is Holly. You know...Holly."

  "Yeah, Holly. A plant. It's not like my name is Noel or Navidad or anything."

  "Do you know someone named Navidad?"

  "The point is, no, I don't really love Christmas, and my birthday is in the middle of summer."

  "But why?"

  "Because that's when my mother gave birth to me."

  "I mean, why are you named Holly?"

  "Because that's the name that she chose."

  "Well, that was an enlightening conversation. Thank you for sharing."

  I was feeling less and less hospitable toward this woman and was looking forward to her finishing her respite and leaving me alone.

  "Where are you going?"

  And apparently that wasn't going to be happening right now.

  "I'm going to visit my son for Christmas."

  "You have a son?"

  "Yes. His name's Charlie. He's five."

  "Why does he live so far away?"

  We're just going to jump right to the personal sharing portion of the evening. Alright.

  "He lives with my ex-wife. She decided that she wanted to go back to the town where she grew up."

  "That's sweet."

  "Not really. She left because she said that she hated it and never wanted to see it or any of the people in it again."

  "Oh," Holly said, sounding both surprised and confused. "Then why did she move him back there with her?"

  "And now you've been brought up to date with my state of mind."

  "So, what are you doing on a train? Couldn't find a flight?"

  "No, that wouldn't be a problem. I just don't fly."

  "You don't fly? Why not?"

  "Because I'm afraid of it."

  Holly laughed.

  "You're afraid of flying?"

  "Always have been."

  "You do know that you are far more likely to die riding in a car than you are flying in a plane, right?"

  "That statistic is totally skewed."

  "How do you figure that?"

  "How much time do people spend in the air and how much time do they spend in cars? And how many people are in their cars at any given time as opposed to the number of people who are in a plane at any given time? Of course, if you do something hundreds if not thousands of times more frequently than something else you are going to be more likely to face something negative with it. That's like saying it's far more dangerous to own a cat than it is to jump into the water with sharks because it's more likely that you are going to be injured or even killed by a hou
se cat than by a shark, statistically speaking. People ride in their cars every day. Multiple times a day. They might fly a couple of times a year, if that. So, yes, it is more likely that they are eventually going to encounter some sort of vehicular accident than it is that they will be involved in a plane crash, but if you compare the number of people who ride in cars each year with the number of people who fly, and then you compare the number of people who are killed in cars with the number of people who are killed in planes, you'll see that the percentage is much higher in planes. Therefore, you are actually more likely to die in a plane crash according to statistics."

  Holly stared at me, looking somewhat dumbfounded.

  "You seriously believe that, don't you?"

  "Yes."

  "And what about the years when there are no commercial airline deaths but hundreds of thousands of vehicle accident deaths?"

  "Maybe the right people weren't on the planes."

  "OK, so now it's not about statistics. It's about some strange Final Destination thing. You're only more likely to die in a plane crash if you were supposed to die in a plane crash, and if you were and you don't get on a plane, then you're safe?"

  "I think that you're missing the logic of my argument."

  Actually, she had found the logic of my argument and shot it all to hell, but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of admitting that.

  "Well, I have been on plenty of flights in my life. I used to fly every couple of weeks. And I've never died in a plane crash."

  "You also haven't died in a car crash."

  She glared at me and I figured it was probably time to segue the conversation away from transportation disasters.

  "You said that you're on the way to a cruise?" I asked.

  "Yes," she said, her voice relaxing and sounding more pleasant with that single word. "A week of blissfully floating around in the ocean and laying out on beaches."

  "Are you meeting your family there?"

  "No. I don't have any family."

  "You don't?"

  "Not that I have anything to do with anymore."