Checking In

by Stylo Fantome

  “Thanks, but if you understand, can you explain to me what's going on?” she continued with her questions.

  “It's the train,” he spoke slowly, as if she were stupid.

  “Alright. Okay, so a train is coming,” her brain started racing. She hadn't seen any tracks outside, no subway station or anything like that. “When will it be here? How will I know it's mine?”

  “Because it's coming for you. It'll be here in, ooohhhh ...” he glanced up at a clock, then gasped. “Holy cow! You gotta go, it's gonna be here any minute!”

  Adele was surprised as he started moving around the counter, but then the waitress appeared back at her side. She grabbed her by the elbow and helped her out of her seat.

  “Would you like your coffee to-go, miss?” she inquired as she escorted Adele to the door.

  “No, I'm good. But wait – what train? And how do I pay?” Adele demanded. Both the greasy cook and the waitress laughed.

  “Pay? Why dear, you've already paid. Off you go now! And here, here's some pie for the trip,” the waitress handed her a paper bag with the top folded down. Adele didn't know what else to say, so she allowed herself to be pushed out the door.

  She walked away from the diner and stood in the poppies. Put her hands on her hips, crinkling the bag. There were no tracks that she could see. There was no break in the poppy field, indicating where any subway entrances might be, or any often used train tracks might be laying. She frowned and turned back towards the diner, intending on going back inside and figuring out just what in the hell was going on.

  But then the most amazing thing happened. While she was staring, the diner began to move. There was a groaning sound, and inside the windows, Adele could see people sway from the inertia. Then just like an actual rail car, the diner started to roll forward. It was slow at first, as it slid past her, then it started to pick up speed. Before she could even process what was happening, the speed quadrupled and the diner car shot off into the horizon, quickly disappearing from view. Her jaw dropped.

  “What the fu-”

  The air was sucked from her lungs as a train barreled past, right in front of her. She shrieked and stumbled backwards, falling on her ass. She gasped for air, holding her hands over her ears to block out the noise. She'd never been so close to a train while it was in motion, going full speed. The sound was so loud, the wind ferocious.

  Just as she was beginning to catch her breath, the locomotive began to slow down. The deafening roar quieted to simple click-clacks as the wheels moved along the rails. Rails that hadn't, she was almost positive, been there before. Then there was a soft screeching and the train came to a complete stop. Steam poured out from underneath the beast, and all she could do was stare as the doors at the ends of the cars started opening up.

  “Oh no, I'm sorry! Are you okay? I was supposed to be here earlier.”

  She looked at the train car nearest to her and watched as a man stepped down to the ground. He stopped when he got to her side and he gently grabbed her arm, helping her to her feet. She didn't know what to think anymore. She started laughing, holding out her arms while he brushed off her dress.

  “I'm crazy,” she gasped for air. “Oh god, I'm completely crazy.”

  “No,” he chuckled as well, then bent down to pick up her bag of pie. “Not crazy, I promise. Disoriented, sure, but not crazy. C'mon, let's get you inside.”

  He helped her into the train. She laughed the whole time, deciding to go with it. If she was gonna hallucinate, she might as well enjoy it. She was wiping tears from her eyes by the time he'd seated her in a room. The beds had been turned up and the table was down. The laughter started again when she watched him take out her piece of pie.

  “Did I take acid?” she asked him. He smiled, but didn't respond. Just placed a plastic fork next to her plate before taking his seat across from her. “I've always been curious about acid. This is awesome. I can't wait to tell ...”

  She couldn't think of the word. The name. Who was she going to tell about her amazing acid trip? Her laughter died off and she stared down at her pie. It was strawberry-rhubarb. Her favorite.

  “You're not on acid, Adele,” the man told her. She glanced up at him.

  “Who are you?”

  She was shocked when he held out his hand.

  “I'm Johannes. I'm here to take care of you,” he answered. She froze with her hand halfway to his.

  “Take care of me?” she sought for clarification. He leaned over the table and shook her hand.

  “Yes. Now eat – you must be hungry,” he insisted.

  “If I eat, will you answer my questions?” she decided to barter. He folded his arms across his chest and nodded.

  “I will answer any question you can possibly think of,” he promised. So she shrugged and picked up her fork.

  The pie was delicious. Like her grandma used to make. The guy was right, she was hungry. Voraciously so. While she shoveled the dessert into her mouth, she glanced at her new friend. She'd never met him before, she was positive. She was good at remembering faces, and his was definitely a face worth remembering.

  He had light brown hair which he'd gelled and styled to the side, showing off the closely shaved sides of his head. His eyes were blue and his skin tan, like someone who spent a lot of time at the beach. His shoulders were broad and his body lean, and when he'd walked with her into the train, she'd noted that he was fairly tall. At least over six-foot. Basically it all added up to a very, very attractive man.

  Finally, she wrapped her lips around the very last piece of pie. She moaned at how good it tasted, then shoved the plate and fork away from her. Brushed her hands against each other and down her dress to get rid of any crumbs. After running her tongue across her teeth to catch any stray pieces, she cleared her throat and looked straight at him.

  “Alright. Where am I?” she started with the questions right away.

  “You're on a train.”

  “Ha ha. Who are you?”

  “I told you, my name is Johannes.”

  “Last name ...?”

  “Sorry, no last names here.”

  “But where is here?”

  “Here is now.”

  “Now?”

  “Now was then. Now we're here,” he was very patient as he spoke what sounded like absolute nonsense.

  “Stop it. Just tell me ... what happened,” she tried again. He nodded his head.

  “Alright. You were waiting to be picked up. I missed my train which made me late, so you went into the diner, I'm guessing. So nice of them to feed you – this train doesn't have a dining car,” he informed her. She stared at him for a long second, then took a deep breath.

  “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?”

  He got out of his seat and she kept screaming, slapping at him when he came near her.

  “Calm down, Adele. Calm down. If you get too upset, it won't be good for anybody,” he told her, trying to grab hold of her arms.

  “Who gives a shit? I hope it's awful! Am I being kidnapped? Is that it? Did you drug and kidnap me? HELP! HELP, I'M BEING ABDUCTED!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.

  Bizarrely, he didn't try to quiet her. He actually started laughing. He seemed so unbothered by her accusations that she eventually stopped shouting them. She still struggled against his hold, and had to blink away real tears when he squatted down in front of her.

  “No, Adele, you're not being kidnapped,” he promised, reaching out and wiping away a tear that had managed to escape.

  “Then what is going on? Why can't anyone tell me? Just tell me,” she pleaded.

  “Because you won't listen.”

  She looked away from him and didn't bother trying to stop the next set of tears. She began to shake in her seat as she quietly sobbed. He sighed and moved to sit on the bench next to her, forcing her close to the window. His arms came around her shoulders, holding her tightly in a sideways hug. It should've been awkward, a complete stranger holding her, but it wasn't. He felt comforting. His
touch, his smell, his presence. It was all familiar to her, somehow. She stared out the window and tried to remember how to breathe.

  “Hey,” he said softly. “Hey, can you see out the window?”

  “Yes,” her voice was hoarse from all her shouting.

  “Look ahead, if you can. What do you see?”

  She craned her neck. The train was moving really fast. Faster than she'd known they were capable of. It was going around a slight bend, so she could see a mountain ahead of them. Or at least, she assumed it was a mountain – it was a solid wall of rock coming out of the ground, they were too close for her to see the top. She watched as the the front cars disappeared into a tunnel.

  “I see a tunnel,” she whispered, then glanced back at him. He was smiling down at her.

  “You know what that means,” he said, which of course meant she had no clue. She shook her head and his smile got bigger. “You have to close your eyes and hold you breath and make a wish. If you can do that till the other side of the tunnel, your wish will come true.”

  Adele turned to look back out the window. They were getting closer. She'd never heard of that superstition before, and didn't really believe in wishes. But the day was already so far beyond bizarre, she was pretty sure the laws of physics and time weren't applying to her anymore. Why not make a wish?

  So as the front of their car entered the tunnel, she took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut tight.

  I wish ...

  The Kane Series

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Tate said, putting her hands on her hips. “Some how, this is my fault?”

  Jameson rolled his eyes. “Isn't it always?”

  A rolled up sock hit him in the side of his head.

  Why do they have to behave like this?

  Sanders sighed and glanced at his watch. He didn't have time for this, he should be taking care of his own problems. Yet here he was, trying to broker peace between the two most important people in his life. The two most tumultuous.

  As annoying as it was, though, a teeny, tiny, deep down buried piece of himself was happy about it all. It was how they operated. Jameson ran cold to the point of freezing. Tate ran hot to the point of boiling. Sanders was in the middle, so carefully balanced, he usually managed to keep them in check. That's what he should be doing right now, he knew. Stopping the fight before it could really gain ground and explode into something ridiculous, like public indecency.

  Why can't they argue like normal human beings? Just apologize and be done with it. Why does it always have to end in sex?

  “You certainly like to think so,” Tate replied, then snatched the thrown sock out of Jameson's hand when he held it up. “But I had nothing to do with this, like always. You plan things, Jameson, and forget that sometimes people have other plans.”

  “No, I just don't care about other peoples' plans.”

  “Well, I'm not going,” she threatened, then she hopped on one foot as she pulled on the sock.

  “Oh, you're going.”

  “No, I'm not.”

  Jameson's arms folded across his chest, and Sanders let out another sigh. This was going from bad to worse. Nudity was imminent.

  “This wasn't a request, Tatum.”

  “Well, I just don't care,” she made fun of him as she sat down to put on her running shoes.

  “Can we please,” Sanders finally spoke up. “Please not do this?”

  Tate looked up at him like she'd forgotten he was in the room. Jameson didn't even respond, acting as if he wasn't in the room, at all.

  “I'm sorry,” she apologized quickly, like she always did with him.

  So why can't she do it for Jameson?

  “Good, then go back upstairs and get ready,” Jameson was the one to respond. The fire in Tate's eyes reignited.

  “No,” she stated firmly, standing up. “I had plans – we had plans. I'm going for my run, then I'm going to dinner with Sandy, and you can go to dinner with your investors, and you can just explain to them that your girlfriend gives zero shits about shareholding and market cornering.”

  “Market cornering?”

  “Or what-the-fuck-ever,” she groaned, rolling her hand at him while she put her ear buds in.

  “Tate, please, stop being difficult. It's one night. Sanders set it up, for christ's sake,” Jameson pointed out.

  Sanders managed to hide a flinch as Tate shifted her gaze onto him. She never flashed fire at him, ever. Not since Spain. No, what she gave him was much worse than she ever gave to Jameson. He couldn't stand to see her hurt, not over anything.

  “You set it up?” she asked. He cleared his throat and avoided her gaze. It was a bad idea – it caused her to march up and stand right in front of him. She made him nervous when she was so close. Brought back memories he'd prefer to keep buried.

  “Yes,” he answered in his driest voice. “I thought since he was here, it made sense to arrange a business meeting. I know these people have been wanting to do business with Jameson for a long time, and I feel it is a wise investment opportunity. I would like to invest my own money, and since Jameson is my broker, it made even more sense to have him meet with them.”

  “Are you shitting me?” she asked. “Money? You two are the richest men I've ever met, and you're screwing over date night for money?”

  Sanders wasn't quite sure how to respond to her. He had an odd relationship with money, he knew. It was an afterthought to Tate. She'd been raised in a wealthy family, but then had lived an extremely poor young adult life, so she treated it like a whim. Something here one minute, gone the next.

  Jameson had been born into an even wealthier family, and his wealth had only ever grown over the years. It was dependable, reliable, unlike human beings, so he treated it like something he could control. Something he could wield with power, take away in anger.

  Sanders had been born into a poor family, in poor circumstances. He hadn't known anything of real money until he'd met Jameson. Money was like a gift to him. A god send, it had quite literally saved his life. It made people pay attention to him when they otherwise wouldn't, made them listen. It also made it so he would never, ever, have go back to the life he'd been born to, so he hoarded it zealously.

  Plus, it was just common sense. A good investment was a good investment, why not take one evening out of their vacation to listen to these people talk?

  But as he stared at Tate, he wondered if it was a mistake. She and Jameson were only visiting for a short time. One night out of seven – almost 15% of their total vacation. When Sanders thought of it that way, it did seem like a lot to ask. He wasn't going to go broke any time soon, and neither was Jameson.

  “I,” he almost stammered, so he stopped himself. Cleared his throat again and finally looked her directly in the eye. “I didn't think of it that way. It simply seemed like a good investment opportunity. I apologize.”

  “Jesus, you two,” she grumbled, stepping around him and into the entryway.

  “Tate,” Jameson barked. “Shut the fuck up and get back in here. Let us apologize, then go upstairs and get changed for dinner.”

  “You know, it's not a big deal,” she finally agreed as she turned to face them. “It's not, I get that. You want to meet these dudes, make some money, you're already here, why not kill two birds with one stone, I get it. What I don't get is how you can't seem to get how I'm feeling.”

  “And how are you feeling?” Jameson mocked her, his eyes like ice chips.

  “I'm feeling like I wasted my time. I planned tonight, made reservations, set things into motion. Hired a car, got an outfit. Worst of all, I got excited. The three of us, back together again. When will we get this chance again? Just the three of us, like old times? It was a big deal to me. I made the mistake of thinking it would be a big deal to both of you, as well.”

  Sanders was very good at not showing his emotions. He'd spent his whole life training himself not to, so no one ever knew when they dealt him a blow. Tate's words cut him to his core. She was right, i
t should have been a big deal to him. It was, when he thought about it. Every moment he got to spend with her – with them – was a big deal. Knowing that he'd made her feel like it wasn't special, like spending time with them didn't mean much to him, it hurt, and because it hurt, he couldn't speak. He couldn't show it. So he held it inside and stared over her shoulder and tried to think of the best way to apologize.

  “Tatum,” Jameson groaned. “No one is dying, so can we stop with the fucking dramatics? We'll cancel this goddamn meeting and go out on your dinner date, alright?”

  Sanders' eyes fluttered shut. Oh, Jameson. If Sanders had trouble knowing how to apologize, then Jameson just flat out didn't know how to at all, period.

  Maybe Tatum is correct, maybe he does just ruin everything. Possibly for his own amusement.

  “Dramatics? Fucking dramatics?” Tate said, walking backwards to the door. “How's this for dramatics?”

  She gave them both the finger with one hand, while yanking open the door with the other. Then she stepped outside and slammed it shut so hard behind her, it bounced out of the frame and fell back open. They listened as she hurried down the stoop steps, then watched out the living room windows as she jogged down the street.

  “If I may say something,” Sanders started immediately.

  “Jesus, not you, too.”

  “I don't think you handled that very well,” he continued. Jameson chuckled and sat down in a chair near the windows.

  “I handled it perfectly. She's going to run for about ten minutes, maybe less, replaying this whole scenario in her head until she's so mad, she can't see straight. Then she'll run back here and yell at me some more.”

  “I'm sorry, sir, but can you explain to me what your definition of 'perfect' is? Because I think it's very different from my own.”

  “She'll be so mad, that when I apologize, it'll seem like an even bigger deal. It'll completely end the fight. Trust me, Sanders. This is how she and I operate. You don't have to like it, but you invited us here,” Jameson reminded him while he picked up a newspaper.

  “Forgive me, but I didn't invite you. You told me you were coming to visit.”