Page 8 of Leaving the Station

“But did you believe it?” I repeat. It’s the genuine belief part of religion that I’ve always been stuck on.

I wish I could believe wholeheartedly in a greater power, in a life beyond. Then, maybe, I wouldn’t be so panicked about figuring

out who I’m supposed to be right now, in this life.

“Yes, of course,” she says. “I really did. I read my scriptures; I prayed every day, on my knees, listening for the Spirit.

Even when I started asking questions, I prayed then too.”

“What kinds of questions?”

“No no, you asked your one thing,” she says. “Now I get to ask mine.”

“‘What kinds of questions’ hardly counts. It’s more of a follow-up.”

“You can’t change the rules.”

“Fine.” I need to know what questions led her to stop believing in an entire religion; they must’ve been pretty powerful.

But fair is fair.

She shifts in her seat. “Do you believe in God?”

I frown. “That’s what I asked you.”

“No, you asked me if I believed in Mormonism,” she says slowly. “I’m asking you if you believe in God.”

I dig under my fingernail. “Another super chill question.”

“I answered yours.”

There are a few people who’ve fallen asleep sitting up in booths, but other than that, the train is quiet. There’s nothing

happening except for this conversation. So I answer her question.

“No,” I say. “I don’t.”

She doesn’t respond; she’s braiding her hair, watching me.

“Is this your strategy? Get me to keep talking so that you don’t have to ask another question?”

She doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t think it matters that I don’t believe in God,” I tell her. “Because that’s not what I like about Judaism. The parts

that are God-heavy have always freaked me out. I don’t like reading the English translations of the prayers we say at services,

‘Blessed be our God, ruler of the Universe,’ and all of that stuff.”

Oakley’s watching me carefully now, her back straight.

“I think what I really believe in are people,” I say.

“Maybe that’s cliché, but... I don’t know.

When I’m at synagogue and everyone’s singing together and the candles are lit and the ark is open, it feels bigger .

” My idea solidifies as I say it. “There’s something holy about being with other people. About the fact that I can say I’m

Jewish and it connects me to my ancestors going back thousands of years.”

Oakley stills. “That’s not the answer I thought you’d give.”

“What did you think I’d say?”

“Nothing serious,” she tells me.

“I could say something wild to cancel it out.”

“Like what?”

“Like that I believe squirrels are government spies.”

She laughs. “No, you don’t.”

I smile. “No, I don’t.”

We talk for a bit longer; about hikes we’ve been on in Washington and the people we’ve spoken to on the train.

The conductor announces that we’ve arrived in Cleveland, and that, “If this is your stop you’d better wake up,” and then we

make a few brief stops in towns in Ohio that I’ve never heard of, though I don’t say that to Oakley.

When I flip my phone over to check the time, it’s five in the morning.

Oakley and I were talking for most of the night.

Some of the people sleeping in coach have wandered into the café car, and there’s the faintest hint of blue in the previously

black sky.

Oakley yawns. “I should probably try to sleep.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to try too?”

The thought of going back to my seat next to Guy Fieri as everyone’s waking up is the worst thing in the world. “Maybe. I

don’t know.”

“You should try,” she says. “It was nice talking to you, Zoe.”

“Was it?”

She gives me a weird look. “Obviously, yes.” She turns to go, but before she does, she says, “If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have

looked for you here.”

Three Weeks into College

I debated not answering my dad’s call. It would’ve been so much easier.

But with every ring, my Jewish guilt spiked. So I picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, kid,” his disembodied voice said in my ear. “How’s my future doctor?”

“Good,” I told him. It was an automatic response; anything else would’ve led to more questions. It would’ve required me to

tell the truth, that I wasn’t a future doctor. I wasn’t a future anything .

The idea of a successful, productive life in the future tense was hard to imagine, because I couldn’t picture myself any different

than I was now.

It was easier to tell my dad, “Good,” and leave it at that.

He told me about fall in Seattle, and I mentioned the foliage on the East Coast, about autumn in a city where the trees weren’t evergreen, where things changed. He told me how the Mariners were doing and whether they would make it to the playoffs (almost certainly not). He told me

about my grandma’s physical therapy and how she wished I would call more.

I didn’t tell him about my job at the greenhouse or the Tees. I especially didn’t tell him about Alden.

We didn’t talk about anything of significance at all.

“My classes are going well,” I assured him once again. “And actually, I’m meeting up with my bio study group, so I should

go.”

“Good for you,” he said, and sounded like he meant it. “Study hard, but don’t go overboard.”

“I won’t.”

It was the first honest thing I’d said.

I went to Rex’s dorm after that, where we were having a “Tees Night In.”

Autumn brought sheet masks, Shelly brought weed, and I arrived empty-handed, feeling foolish.

When our faces were covered with bologna-like masks, Autumn took a selfie, then put her head in my lap.

“Is this okay?” they asked.

“Of course,” I said, surprised.

We were talking about our first queer crushes, and when the conversation turned to me, I was suddenly hyperaware of my body,

of the part of my thigh Autumn’s head was touching.

“I haven’t really... ,” I began.

There was no good way to finish that sentence.

I hadn’t really had a queer crush. There were girls in high school who I thought were cute, and there were TV shows I watched more for the actresses than the plot.

But there wasn’t a name I could give, because the only one that came to mind was Alden.

“That’s so valid,” Shelly said, and the conversation moved on.

They were all so nice to me, so considerate. And yet I felt like an impostor in their presence.

So when I got a text from Alden asking if I wanted to meet at the Straight, I jumped at the opportunity.

“I’m not feeling so well,” I lied, excusing myself from Rex’s dorm room.

The Tees told me to feel better, and I did as I stepped outside into the late-night air.

Alden was sitting on what I’d begun to think of as our couch, shuffling a deck of cards.

“Hey,” he said, grinning when he saw me.

“What’s up?”

“You ever been to the bowling alley?” he asked.

“I thought that was just a place they bragged about on tours,” I said. “No one actually goes there, right?”

“We could!” He sat forward, like an excited puppy.

“Doesn’t it close at ten?” It was nearly midnight then.

“Not if you know the custodian.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Do you know the custodian?”

“I do.” He pulled out his phone. “He’s my uncle.”

“And why haven’t you mentioned this before?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t seem relevant.”

“You mean like when we snuck into the clock tower and your uncle could’ve busted us?”

“But he wouldn’t have,” Alden said. “He’s a cool uncle. I call him Big Paul.”

“How come?”

“Because my cousin is Little Paul,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

He pressed his uncle’s contact after that and put him on speaker. He said we could go into the bowling alley for fifteen minutes

while he was waxing the basketball court upstairs, but after that we had to get out.

“And don’t fucking touch anything,” Big Paul added.

“You got it, boss,” Alden said.

We ran from one side of campus to the other, with Alden in the lead. He moved through the world with such ease, and when I

was with him, I could too.

I was finally able to admit to myself that what I felt toward him was a crush, but that word was so amorphous.

“Crush” could mean anything.

But whatever it was, I liked it.

Alden was opening a bizarre, underground world to me. He was like a character in a movie, a manic pixie dream boy, and I didn’t

mind.

“I need bumpers,” I told him as we opened the door to the darkened basement bowling alley.

He laughed as he turned on the lights and the large room powered up. “No, you don’t.”

“I’m telling you, I do. Or I’ll get gutter balls.”

He reached out to grab my hand, and I let him take it. “Well, good thing we’re not bowling.”

With that, he pulled me across the cavernous space until we were standing in front of the middle lane.

“Now take off your shoes,” he said, turning toward me.

“Absolutely not.”

He didn’t respond to that, just pulled his sneakers off.

“Ta-da,” he said, arms spread wide. He was wearing crisp white athletic socks that stopped halfway up his calves. I cursed

myself for not throwing away my ratty socks before college. I was wearing a pair that I had won from a DJ at a friend’s bat

mitzvah and hadn’t had the heart to get rid of all these years later.

“You don’t have to take your shoes off,” he said finally. “But if you do...”

He walked back a few steps, then ran forward, sliding down the lane.

I rolled my eyes but reached for my shoes. There’d been so many times that I’d missed out on parties or friendships or life because it wasn’t what was expected of me, because my parents wouldn’t have approved.

But my parents were across the country.

“Let’s gooooo,” Alden shouted from the end of the lane, jumping up and down and sliding in the process. “On my count.”

When he reached three, I took off, my body tilting backward and my feet gliding along the lane.

I wanted so badly to impress him.

“I’M GONNA FALL INTO THE BALL RETURN!” I shouted as I careened toward Alden and, ultimately, my doom.

But before I could get sucked into the void, he caught me and pulled me toward him, hands around my waist.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I got you.”

It felt like a promise.

Tuesday, 6 a.m., outside Toledo, OH