Page 7 of Leaving the Station

“Oh, hey,” I say, trying to sound casual. I slide my phone into the front pocket of my overalls, suddenly self-conscious about

my Tetris abilities.

“You have to do a T-spin,” Oakley repeats.

“A what?” My heart is racing.

“A T-spin,” she says, leaning forward. “You know the T-shaped block?”

I nod, unsure whether or not I’m dreaming.

“You create a slot for it then spin it into place. Here, I’ll show you.” She holds out her hand. When I continue sitting like

an absolute lump she points to my pocket and says, “Your phone.”

I give it to her.

“You can’t get a really high score without a T-spin,” she says as she moves to my side of the booth so we can both see the screen.

She has me type in my password, then navigates to the Tetris app and proceeds to intricately set up the pieces so that there’s a perfect space for the T-shaped block.

Then she rotates it 90 degrees and it falls into place with a flash, clearing two rows.

“A double T-spin is worth more than a Tetris.” She hands the phone back to me.

“How did you know that?”

“I know a lot of things.”

She’s changed her clothes since lunch and is now wearing pajamas—a pink silk set with matching slippers.

“Did you get dressed in one of the bathrooms?”

I need to get out of my overalls and into sweatpants, but I don’t want to do it in the cramped bathroom stalls. If my overalls

fell into the Amtrak toilet, I would have to abandon them there.

She shakes her head. “I’m in a sleeper car.”

“By yourself?” I ask, then I realize how that sounds so I add, “I thought they were usually for families.”

“They’re for anyone who wants to sleep in an actual bed.”

Or anyone with $1,000 to spare .

A coach seat on this train cost me around $150 for both parts of the trip. A lot of money, but not horrible. The cheapest

room in a sleeper car costs over $350, and that’s only for the Lakeshore Limited route, which is the New York to Chicago leg.

I have so many questions about Oakley: How could she afford a sleeper car? How does she know so much about hyperspecific Tetris

plays?

But I start with the most pressing one: “Why are you here?” I ask. “In the café car, I mean.”

She gets up and moves back to the other side of the booth so that we’re facing each other.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither.”

I stare at her reflection in the train window. She stares back at mine.

“Virginia and Clint were kind of wild,” I say after a minute, trying to make small talk. I look away from Oakley’s reflection

and over to the corporeal version of her that’s sitting across from me.

“Yeah, kind of,” she says. “But I know tons of men who are exactly like Clint, down to the ‘college will brainwash you’ part.”

She sighs then. “And they’re all oppressively heterosexual.”

There’s an obvious next question: Is she heterosexual? I wouldn’t usually be brave enough to ask, but it’s the middle of the night on a cross-country train and I’m

talking to a hot girl who I may never see again. All bets are off.

“Does that mean you’re not?” I ask. “Heterosexual?”

She tilts her head. “What do you think?”

“That you’re not,” I say. Then quickly clarify: “As in, I don’t think you’re straight.”

“That would be correct,” she says. “And I don’t think you are either.”

“No shit,” I say, gesturing to my whole deal—the DIY haircut, the ripped overalls.

“You’re the one who used ‘being from Seattle’ as an excuse for your outfit.”

“Both can be true,” I say. “I can be queer and from Seattle. Plus, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Clint and Virginia.”

“Fair,” she says. “I don’t think they’d quite understand the nuances of a soft butch aesthetic.”

My face heats as I pull on a strap of my overalls. “Is that what you think this outfit is?”

“Well, yeah,” she says. “And I would say I lean more toward the femme side of things, though I don’t think those terms have

much use beyond their historical definitions.”

Once again Oakley’s speaking like she’s teaching a college-level course on gender and sexuality. The Tees would have discussions

like this sometimes, but when they did, I felt like an outside observer. Here, though, with all of Oakley’s attention focused

on me, I have an answer, or at least an opinion, even if it isn’t as eloquent as hers.

“I don’t think that’s true at all,” I say. “Having a label you can identify with, it helps a lot of people, and it’s rude

to say that they don’t have use.” My leg is bouncing. “Maybe rude’s the wrong word, but it’s narrow-minded. Not that you’re narrow-minded.”

“No, yeah,” she says, sounding excited. “That makes sense, but I also think we shouldn’t have to fit into those stereotypes

at all.”

“I’m not the one who gave some random person they just met a label.”

It comes out harsher than I mean to, but I don’t even know what I’d call myself and definitely don’t want to be defined by an aesthetic, queer or otherwise.

Like I said, labels can be helpful. But only if you know how to label yourself.

“Okay, I’m glad I found you here,” Oakley says, eyes wide. “This is the kind of thing I’ve been wanting to talk about for

months.”

“What? Queer labels?”

“Not specifically,” she says, wired now. “This is just what I thought I’d be talking about all the time when I moved to New

York.”

“But you didn’t get to?”

She shrugs and turns away. After a moment, she asks, “Where are you heading?”

It doesn’t escape me that she ignored my question. But asking someone on the train where they’re heading is the equivalent

of asking someone at college what their major is, so I knew it was coming.

“Back to Seattle,” I say. “To my parents’ house.”

“I’m going back to Washington to see my parents too,” she says. “They live in Ritzville.”

I frown. “That’s not a real place.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, it is,” she says. “It’s in Eastern Washington, about an hour outside of Spokane.”

I make half-hearted jazz hands as I say, “Ritzville,” like it’s the title of a vaudeville show.

But then I take in what she said: Oakley isn’t getting off the train in Chicago. She’s going to Washington.

She’s going to be with me for the next three days.

“I’ve literally never heard of Ritzville,” I say when she doesn’t add anything else.

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” She hugs her knees to her chest. “People from Seattle have blinders on. You have no

idea what’s happening in the rest of the state.”

“That’s not fair.”

“You didn’t even know that my town existed.”

“How am I supposed to know every town in Eastern Washington?”

“You’re not,” she says. “But you have to at least acknowledge that there are places you don’t know. Places where other people

live and work and pray.”

“Exactly—they’re praying at church. I’d bet you money there’s not a single Jew living there,” I say, ignoring her comment

in favor of being contrarian. “Or at least that there’s not a synagogue.”

“No, yeah, there definitely isn’t,” she says.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that there isn’t a synagogue,” she says plainly.

“Why’d you say ‘definitely’ like that, then?” I don’t know why I’m getting defensive, but if I’m talking to someone who has

some weird thing about Jews I’d rather know now. “I’m Jewish—and look, no horns.” I scrape through my short thick hair like

I’m doing a lice test.

I’m being a piece of shit—at least that hasn’t changed.

She rolls the sleeves of her silk pajamas, then unrolls them. “My Sunday school teacher would always say that people think

Mormons have horns too.”

“Wait, what?” I ask, confused by the subject change. “That can’t be right.”

“Why are you so convinced everything you say is right and everything I say is wrong?”

“I’m not,” I tell her, and it’s true. Based on the limited interactions we’ve had, I’m pretty sure Oakley is much smarter than me. Sure, I take tests well, but that’s the extent of it.

Oakley, on the other hand, knows things, and she’s good at expressing her ideas. But frankly, the things she knows are bizarre.

She leans back in her chair. “I don’t think the horns thing was ever true, though. Mormons just love imagined persecution.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “What are you talking about?”

“What would you say if I told you I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” she asks, not answering

my question.

“I’d say that’s a mouthful.”

“I mean, what would you say if I told you I was Mormon?” she asks with no hint of an answer either way.

I laugh, an automatic response to being slightly unnerved. “I don’t know,” I say. “Are you?”

She unfolds her legs and leans forward. “I was.”

I laugh nervously again, but her face doesn’t change. “Wait, seriously?”

“Are you going to ask me to prove it?”

“No,” I tell her. “It’s just that this sounds like a setup for a joke,” I say, shaking my head. “A Jew and a Mormon walk onto

a train.”

“It’s not a very funny joke,” she says. “And I’m not a Mormon anymore.”

“Well, that’s the setup. The funny part is the punch line.”

“Yes,” she says, pulling her hair out of her ponytail and braiding it over her shoulder. “I know how jokes work.”

“Right, of course,” I say. “Because you know everything.”

“If the shoe fits.”

“Can I ask you something?” I say, trying to get back on solid ground. “About Mormonism?”

“All right,” she says. “But if it’s about underwear or planets I’m leaving.”

“It’s not,” I tell her, though it might’ve been. “No, here’s what I want to know: Did you believe it? I mean, did you really think that all of it was true?”

“That’s a big question.”

“You agreed.”

She raises her hands, like I caught her in a lie. “Yes, I believed it.” She fidgets with one of her earrings, her pointer

finger and thumb squeezing her earlobe. “I believed that Jesus Christ was my savior, that He lived a perfect life, that I

got to be a part of His restored church on Earth—the one true church.” She flinches as she says this. “I liked that there were rules, and that if I followed them, I would be rewarded.”