The Christmas Train

  “Well, they sort of are. I mean, you spend so much time on them, you learn their quirks, their strengths and weaknesses. Some are more temperamental than others, some more forgiving. It’s sort of like having a relationship. I know that sounds strange, but that’s just the way it is.”

  “Hmmm, with some of the relationships I’ve had, dating a hundred-ton diesel might be a welcome change.”

  Regina laughed. “My mother, Roxanne, works on the Southwest Chief, as the chief of on-board services. That’s the big boss. I’m going to see her when we get into Chicago. I’ll let her know you’ll be on. Now she can tell you some stories.”

  “Is that common? I mean, do lots of family members work for Amtrak?”

  “Well, I’ve got my mom, and I don’t know how many uncles and aunts and cousins and such spread all over. That’s how I found out about working on the trains. And my son works for Amtrak too. He’s a coach cleaner.”

  Tom stared at her. “Your son? You look like you just got out of high school.”

  “Agnes Joe was right: You are slick.” She smiled shyly. “But thanks for the compliment. And you get some really famous people as passengers. Singers, athletes, movie stars — and they’re all nice, for the most part.” Her expression grew more serious. “Where I come from, working on the train, that’s something special. People look up to you. It’s cool, you know?”

  Tom nodded. This element really intrigued him. He’d have to work it into his story. “You think some of the other people on the train will talk to me?”

  “Oh, sure, I’ll spread the word. Everybody who works on a train has stories to tell.”

  “I bet they do.”

  As she left, Tom felt the train start to move. Diesel electric trains have no need of a transmission, so there were no obstinate gears to shift. The resulting acceleration was smoother than the finest automobile on the road. Tom checked his watch. It was 4:05 P.M. exactly. The legendary Capitol Limited, carrying Tom Langdon on a mission, was on its way.

  chapter five

  Cleared for takeoff by rail traffic control, the Capitol Limited soared down the metal- and wood-ribbed runway, lifting off cleanly. It dipped its stainless-steel sheathed wings in salute to a passing band of birds, flushed out a nest of lobbyists plotting near the Capitol, and headed west, as Mark Twain had in his relative puberty. The young Sam Clemens had made the trek from Missouri to the Nevada Territory on a bouncy overland stagecoach, sleeping on mailbags at night and riding on top of the stage in his underwear by day. While he encountered much that was beautiful and rare, he also fought alkali deserts, desperadoes, ornery Mexican pugs, bad food, and boredom, while Tom Langdon was pulled along by a thousand tons of raging horsepower and enjoyed a comfy bed, toilet, and Agnes Joe in the next room. Tom wasn’t yet certain whether he or Mark Twain had gotten the better travel deal.

  He called Lelia on his cell phone. He hadn’t told her about the train trip because he wanted to surprise her. She was certainly surprised, but not exactly the way he intended. Her reaction made him thrilled that there were currently about three thousand miles separating them.

  She yelled into the phone, “You’re taking a train all the way across the United States of America? Are you insane?”

  The way she said it, Tom was beginning to think he was.

  “Folks used to do this all the time, Lelia.”

  “Right, during the Stone Age.”

  “It’s for a story, about Christmas.” He didn’t want to share with her the other reason he was doing it, because he wasn’t really sure how she figured into his future — at least the one he hoped to discover on this trip.

  “I’ve chartered a private jet that leaves at six P.M. sharp on Christmas Eve.”

  “I’ve got my skis, I’ll be there. The train gets into LA that morning.”

  “What if it’s late?”

  “Come on, it’s a train. We make our station stops, we pick up passengers, we let out passengers, we roll along, and we get into LA in plenty of time.”

  He heard her let out a long sigh. Actually, lately she’d been letting out many long sighs. They had that seemingly ideal relationship where they didn’t have to live with each other every day. Where issues of cooking, cleaning, which end of the toothpaste gets squeezed or who gets what side of the bathroom weren’t present to produce a destructive force on the otherwise happy couple. They ate out a lot, took romantic walks along the beach in Santa Monica or shopped on Fifth Avenue, slept until noon, and then didn’t see each other for a couple of months. If more marriages were put together like that, Tom firmly believed, the divorce rate would plummet. So, he wondered, why all the sighing of late.

  “Just get here. I don’t want to mess up everybody’s plans.”

  “Everybody? Who’s everybody?”

  “The people going with us to Tahoe.”

  This was news to him. “What people?”

  “Friends from the industry — my agent, my manager, and some others. We talked about this.”

  “No, we didn’t talk about this. I thought this was just going to be you and me. We’ve done this the last two years.”

  “That’s right, and I thought a change would be nice.”

  “Meaning what? That you’re getting bored being with just me?”

  “I didn’t say that!”

  “You didn’t have to. The army of people you invited into our Christmas said it loud and clear.”

  “I don’t want to argue about this. I just thought that a nice group of people together for Christmas at Tahoe would be fun. You know most of them — it’s not like they’re strangers — and it’s not like we won’t be spending time alone, we will. I only booked us one bedroom, honey. And I bought a new teddy, just for you. It has a Christmas theme, a naughty one,” she added in her best breathless tone. Tom’s skin started tingling. It was no wonder the lady made such a good living with her pipes.

  It had always bothered Tom that women thought they could win an argument with a man simply by appealing to his baser instincts, by holding out the mere possibility of award-winning carnal knowledge. It was the gender-battle equivalent of a preemptive nuclear strike. He thought it unfair and, quite frankly, disrespectful of the entire male population.

  And yet he heard himself saying, “Look, baby doll, I don’t want to argue either. I’ll be there on time, I swear.”

  He clicked off and for a few moments had visions of naughty teddies dancing in his head. Sometimes I’m such a guy, he thought ruefully.

  While he was chiding himself there was a bustle of movement in the train corridor. By the time Tom opened his compartment door and drew his bead, all he could see of the passing group was a trailing arm and leg. Though he’d only gotten a glimpse, there was something familiar about that arm, and that leg. He assumed they were heading to another section of sleeping compartments. VIPs, of course, would have first-class accommodations. He thought about following them, to see if it was actually the folks from the limousine, but concluded he’d catch up to them later.

  He sat back down and watched the scenery go by. The ride had been very smooth so far, and the sound of the revolving train wheels was soothing. It really wasn’t a clickety-clack sound, he decided. It was more of an extended hum, and then hush, hum and then hush, and then a big old siss-boom-bah. It was good to know that he had that weighty issue worked out.

  The first stop was Rockville, Maryland, barely twenty-five minutes after leaving Washington. Near Rockville was St. Mary’s, a modest white church located on a small hill. It was here that F. Scott Fitzgerald was buried, for no other apparent reason than in fulfillment of his request to be planted for eternity in the country. Tom made a mental note to write out very specific instructions concerning his own future interment, then pulled out his laptop and entered some observations for his story, though he hadn’t really seen all that much. Besides being mauled by Agnes Joe and humbled by Lelia, the trip thus far had been fairly sedate.

  He got up to see whom he could find to ta
lk to. The train started up again, and he placed one hand against the wall in the corridor to steady himself. Somebody had strung holiday garlands up along the passageway, and there was even a Christmas wreath on the wall next to the door connecting the train cars.

  As he passed Compartment A, the elderly priest he’d seen in the waiting area earlier came out and bumped into him as the train rocked along.

  “Hello, Father,” Tom said, cutting a handshake short to help steady the older man. Eleanor Carter was Catholic, and wherever in the world she and Tom had happened to be they’d gone to Mass. She’d always joked that she’d just keep hammering away and at some point Tom would either be saved or spiritually lobotomized. Actually, he’d briefly wanted to be a priest when he was in high school. As a teen, he was skinny and awkward, growing far too quickly for his tendons and coordination to keep up. That and his startling and persistent acne made him incredibly unpopular. As a result, he contemplated a career of solitude, introspection, and prayer. Only two things stopped him: He wasn’t Catholic, and then there was that annoying vow of celibacy. After he had learned about that requirement, Tom wanted to be a rock star instead.

  “Retired now,” the holy man said amiably. “Though I still dress like a priest because I own no other clothes besides a chocolate-brown polyester leisure suit from the 1970s that I still ask forgiveness for.”

  “Once a priest always a priest.”

  “I’m Father Paul Kelly, late of Saint Thomas Aquinas.”

  “Tom Langdon. You spending Christmas in Chicago?”

  “No, I’m going on to Los Angeles. My sister and her offspring live there. I’m spending the holidays with them.”

  “Me too. Taking the Southwest Chief, I guess.”

  “The very one. From what I hear of the countryside we’ll be seeing, that’s truly God’s work.”

  “Maybe I’ll catch you in the lounge car after dinner. We can whittle down some cigars I brought.” Tom had noticed the stem of a pipe sticking out of the priest’s coat pocket.

  Father Kelly graced Tom with an impish smile, and he placed a gentle hand on Tom’s sleeve. “Bless you, my son, trains indeed are the civilized way to travel, are they not? And perhaps we’ll see those film people around too,” he added.

  “What film people?”

  Father Kelly drew closer and checked the corridor, apparently for eavesdroppers. Tom instantly imagined himself to be an undercover spy for the Baptists or Methodists, on assignment in Rome, discovering closely guarded ecclesiastical secrets from a gossipy priest and later writing about it with profitable hilarity while scorching memorandums flew furiously around the Vatican.

  “They came in a grand car, pulled up almost to the train. I discreetly inquired as to who they might be, being a curious person by nature — and of course people feel at ease confessing all sorts of things to a priest. Trust me, Tom, if people can imagine it, they’ll confess it, whether they’ve actually done it or not, and thank the Lord, they usually haven’t. There are two individuals, so I heard. From what I could gather, one is a famous film director or producer or some such, though I didn’t get his name. The other is a star or maybe a writer. They’re taking the train across the country in preparation for a film they’re doing about such a trip.”

  Film people, thought Tom, a star. Maybe that was why something about one of them looked familiar. “That’s pretty coincidental,” he said.

  “Why is that?” Father Kelly asked.

  Tom explained to him that he was writing a story about the train trip, and the elderly priest seemed pleased to hear it. “Well, you picked the right subject to write about. I’ve taken many a train in my time, and they’re always full of surprises.”

  “I’m beginning to see that,” said Tom.

  chapter six

  After he left Father Kelly, Tom passed through the next section of sleeping accommodations. These were the standard compartments, without bath or shower facilities. Communal baths were on both levels, and, as Regina had informed him, there were also larger showers on the lower level, which he’d probably be using since he wasn’t going to risk getting stuck in the one in his compartment. In the deluxe car section, because of their larger size, the compartments were situated on one side and the aisle on the other. In the standard section, the smaller compartments ran down both sides of the car, with the aisle in the middle. Tom noticed that across this corridor were stretched a pair of hands, holding one to the other.

  As he drew closer, he saw that it was the young nervous couple. They had compartments right across from one another, with the guy on the right and the girl on the left.

  “Okay, do I have to pay a toll to pass through?” he said jokingly.

  They both looked at him and returned the smile.

  “Sorry,” the guy said, while the girl looked away shyly. They were about twenty and looked like brother and sister, with their blond hair and fair skin.

  “So, on your way to Chicago for the holidays?”

  “Actually,” began the young man a little sheepishly.

  “Steve,” interrupted the woman, “we don’t even know him.”

  “Well,” Tom said, “it’s different on a train. We’re all on this long journey together. It opens people up. I’ll go first. I’m a writer, doing a piece about a trip across the country. There’s my story, so what’s yours?”

  The two looked at each other, and Steve said, “Well actually, we’re getting married.”

  Tom knelt down and extended his hand to them both. “Congratulations. That’s great. I’m Tom, by the way.”

  “Steve. My fiancée is Julie.”

  “So are you tying the knot in Chicago?”

  “Uh, no, we’re getting married on the train,” Steve said.

  “The train? This train?”

  “No,” said Julie. “On the Southwest Chief, on the way to LA. It leaves tomorrow afternoon.” Her accent sounded Southern to Tom, while Steve’s speech cadence suggested New England origins.

  “That’s great. I’m going to be on that train too.”

  Tom had actually planned to propose to Eleanor on a train heading back to Frankfurt after their visit to the great cathedral in Cologne, Germany. They were riding in third class on the train even though they had purchased first-class tickets but hadn’t realized it, because their German wasn’t very good. Back then the train route paralleled the Rhine, and Tom had been wondering when would be the best time to pop the question. His original plan had been to ask her in the cathedral, but there’d been lots of tourists with cameras and screaming kids around, and it just didn’t seem right. He only planned to do this once in his life, and he wanted to get it absolutely perfect.

  The smooth ride of the train, the busy day behind them, a couple of glasses of Pilsners and thick German bread and juicy sausages inside them, coupled with the moonlight reflecting off the legendary and romantic Rhine, all combined to make it seem like the ideal time.

  Tom envisioned himself getting down on one knee in the aisle, pulling out his ring, pouring out his love for her, and proposing right there. He imagined her crying and then him too. The entire third-class section of economy-minded Germans would stand up and give them an ovation, because obviously the marriage proposal ritual would transcend all language and culture barriers. When they arrived in Frankfurt perfect strangers would wish the newly engaged couple the best in both German and pretty good English, and some of them would even press crumpled Marks in their hands.

  And yet none of that had happened because he hadn’t proposed that night to Eleanor, or any other night. He just sat in his seat, the ring in his pocket feeling like a cannonball; he couldn’t begin to lift the thing and place it on her finger.

  He refocused on the couple. “So, is the wedding party and your family already on board, or are they meeting you in Chicago?”

  Now Julie looked away, and Steve licked his lips. Tom had obviously touched a nerve here.

  “Well, actually, our families don’t, you know . . .”
r />   “Don’t know you’re getting married?”

  “Don’t know and don’t approve of us getting married,” said Julie as she dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Come on, Jule, Tom doesn’t need to hear about this.”

  “Well, he asked,” she shot back.

  Steve looked at Tom and tried to affect a carefree attitude. “So we’re doing it on our own. Because we love each other.”

  But Julie said, “His family doesn’t approve of me. They think because I’m from some little podunk Virginia town in the Appalachian Mountains that I’m some sort of white trash. Well, my father might have worked in the mines since he was sixteen, and my mother never finished high school either, and” — she looked at Steve — “your parents are high society in Connecticut, but my family is not trash. They’re every bit as good as yours, and in lots of ways better,” she added with fervent Southern spirit.

  Tom noted that he’d been right about their origins: the Virginia gal and the Connecticut boy. “So, does your family approve of the marriage?” he asked Julie, trying to defuse the tension a little.