Читать книгу Two Rivers - T. Greenwood - Страница 15

“W here the hell you been, Montgomery?” Lenny asked. He was standing outside the train station, smoking a cigarette. “I told you. I was at the wreck. I went home to dry off. Change my clothes,” I said.

“Well, get in here,” he said, snubbing out his cigarette under his boot and blowing three perfect smoke rings into the air. He held his finger up and put it through one of the rings, letting it circle his finger, smiling stupidly like he’d exhibited a new and remarkable talent.

The station was eerily empty. All trains coming through Two Rivers had been delayed or diverted. Normally, there was a bustle of activity at the station at any given time of the day. Today there was no motion but the whirring of the ceiling fans. I shut the door to the freight office and tried to concentrate on the pile of paperwork that had accumulated in my inbox. As luck would have it, the ceiling fan in my office was broken. It was hot, especially with the door closed, but I didn’t want to be bothered. Within minutes Lenny was knocking.

Lenny had been a thorn in my side since he transferred up from Brattleboro five years before. He was the station agent, in charge of overseeing all of the operations at the station. His interpretation of this job description was poking his nose into my office, and generally impeding all operations at the station with his incessant drivel.

“The news wants to interview me,” he said. “Burlington. NBC.” He was examining his cuticles, trying to be blasé about it, I suppose.

“What for?” I asked.

“Duh,” he offered by way of explanation, opening his buggy eyes wider. “ Earth to Montgomery. A train wrecked in the river today.”

“I mean, why do they want to interview you? You haven’t even been down there yet, have you?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to show up all morning. I couldn’t exactly leave, could I?”

“Why don’t you go down there now?” I asked, hopeful.

“Maybe I will .”

“Great. Can you close the door on the way out?”

Since Lenny’s arrival in Two Rivers I had found myself in more than a hundred such inane conversations. Every single exchange we had had a certain prepubescent quality to it. I worried sometimes that I might actually wind up in a school yard brawl with him one afternoon. I didn’t know how much longer I could stand this job.

After Lenny was gone, I trudged through some bills of lading. I wanted to get through the mountain of paperwork so that I could get back to the apartment, to Marguerite, before Shelly got home from school. I was working on deciphering handwriting on an order when the phone on my desk rang, startling me so badly I felt like I’d been sucker-punched.

“My daughter!” the voice cried. “Please tell where my daughter is!”

Sweat broke out onto my forehead in cold drops. I thought about Marguerite at the river’s edge, the sunlight behind her. My mama’s dead.

“Excuse me?” I managed.

“Oh God, is she dead?” Her accent was thick. Southern.

I closed my eyes, thought of Marguerite reaching for my hand.

“Ma’am, please slow down. The connection’s not so good. How can I help you?” Sweat ran down my sides; I could smell myself, the dank scent of the river and my own wet fear.

“My daughter was on the train. At least I think she was on that train. Dammit, we haven’t heard nothin’ from nobody. Who’s in charge up there?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I understand you’re upset. Please, let me see what I can do to help.” I wiped my wrist across my forehead, blinked hard to squeeze the sweat out of my eyes.

“Her name’s Sara. Sara Phillips. She got on in Virginia, headed to Montreal. Was she on this train? Where is my daughter?”

“Sara,” I said, my skin tingling with sudden relief. Release. But my body felt like it had just woken from a nightmare; everything was still buzzing. I breathed deeply. “This is the freight office. Let me give you the number for the railroad. They should have a passenger list.”

The woman was sobbing on the other end of the line.

“Ma’am?” I said, softly.

“Yes?”

“A lot of people made it out of the wreck just fine. I was there. I saw a lot of people who walked away without even a scratch.”

“Thank you,” she said. “This is the third number I’ve called, and you’re the first person who’s listened to me.”

“Call that number,” I said. “They can help you. If they can’t, call me back.”

When I hung up the phone, my neck was bristling. I closed up the file I’d been struggling with and stood up. If I’d smoked I would have gone outside for a cigarette. Instead I went out into the station and got a Coke from the vending machine. I drank the whole can in three gulps; it burned my throat but seemed to quench my thirst.

I needed to get the passenger list. At least then I could get Marguerite’s mother’s name. Marguerite’s last name. For Christ’s sake, I didn’t even know her last name. Where exactly it was that she’d been coming from. Then I’d just make the phone call. She was a minor, a child . Her father, no matter what he’d done, had a right to know where she was. Where his wife was.

But just as I was about to make my way to the ticket office, one man carrying a camera and another carrying a microphone came through the front doors.

“Do you work here?” the one with the microphone asked. He was well-dressed, drenched in spicy cologne.

I nodded.

“Name?” he asked.

“Montgomery,” I said. “Harper Montgomery.”

“Have you been down to the scene of the accident?”

I nodded again.

The camera guy suddenly shined a bright light on the cologne guy and he started talking into the mic. “At the junction in Two Rivers, a passenger train carrying ninety-four people derailed early this morning on its way to Montreal. The number of casualties is not known yet as many passengers are still missing. We are here with Harper Montgomery, an employee at the Two Rivers station. Sir, can you tell us what you saw today?”

I don’t remember what I said, I only remember the smell of cologne, the stifling heat, and the blinding white light in my eyes as I tried to articulate the wreckage.