The Girl on the Train Page #2

Or get off

at the next stop.

Shouldn't ask

for your number then?

Let me see your hand.

You gonna tell

my fortune?

That's easy.

You'll know moments of joy. You'll

lose what you love. You'll die.

Can I get a second opinion?

The other thing

about trains is,

you get to see the world

passing in real time.

When you're eight miles up,

you can convince yourself...

you're still the same person

when you get off.

So, a million questions

without a questioner,

a hundred replayed nights.

How do I find myself

in this sweaty bed?

Who is this person

beside me?

Why are there more scars

than I remember wounds?

Right. Memory is flawed.

But isn't memory all that knits our moments

of existence into a sense of self?

Of course, philosophical

questions lose power...

when you're staring

at your own mortality.

It's one thing to know you're

going to die at some point...

in the indeterminate future,

another to watch

the clock wind down.

And, yeah, I'm not

the only dead guy in the room.

So you went back

to work?

I had to finish

the project.

But now you had a name.

There were no Lexi's

in Westport.

There were three Alexandras,

but none of them were her.

When we got to the camp,

everything is very simple.

A man points left or right,

and you live or you die.

For my mother

and sisters, death.

I was big enough to work, so my

father and I go to the right.

I still held the little cross

in my hand,

but I saw that they were taking every

little piece of gold they could find...

Rings, bracelets.

You could only keep

the fillings in your teeth.

That they took

when you were dead.

I decided then and there...

that I would hold on to the little

cross the girl had given me,

no matter what.

I slipped it under my tongue.

Having a mission,

even if it's

only in your mind,

keeps you alive.

When I wasn't working,

I found myself

wandering the streets.

I would think I saw her

maybe a dozen times a day.

Somehow, I'd always wind up

back at the same place.

I remembered an old photo

I'd seen somewhere.

Watch things in real time,

and it's easy to believe

we're part of the world,

that our motion

is more than random,

our presence

more than accidental.

But a long exposure

reveals the truth.

We're just ghosts,

illusions we perpetrate

in ourselves.

So a guy's getting his

morning coffee and paper.

In line in front of him,

he sees this vision.

Gorgeous. I mean, right out

of the swimsuit edition.

And she's buying

a lottery ticket.

He's smitten.

Can't get a word out.

He lets her get away.

The next day, he goes back to the

store and he asks the owner,

"Do you know the girl who

bought the lottery ticket?"

And all the English this guy knows

is, "You buy something or get lost."

Right?

Well, our boy figures people

are creatures of habit,

so he finds himself

the nearest coffee shop,

plants himself where he's

got a view of the store,

figuring sooner or later

she'll come by for her ticket.

He gets obsessed.

Days turn to weeks.

Seasons change.

He shows up late for work. He's

unavailable for his friends.

But wouldn't you know it. The day he

finally decides to give it all up...

She shows up.

Turns out

she was out of town.

Let me guess.

He never makes his move.

Why?

He sees the future.

They'll have their affair, and in

time it'll be no more than that...

An affair.

He can anticipate

the purr of her throat,

the scratchy quality

of her voice in the morning.

He closes his eyes,

and he can almost smell her.

It'll be good, but they have

about as much chance...

of making it in the long run as

she does of winning the lottery.

Because good

is never perfect.

In his fevered mind,

he's realized...

the unbridgeable distance

between real and ideal.

So he would rather let her walk

away with her sad lottery ticket.

He would rather let her live in

the purity of his imagination...

than succumb to the spectacle of

flesh and blood, scent and sorrow.

He's lost something, sure...

Another conquest, maybe even

an enduring relationship.

But think what he gets

in return.

He will forever be the man who

waited in the snow and rain...

day after day

for the lottery girl.

He will be the one

who walked away...

at the moment

his dream was realized.

He will be mythic.

You want to know

what really happens?

Sure.

He's out of that

coffee shop so fast,

he sloshes his half-caf latte

on his hand, extra hot.

He almost knocks her over, they strike up

a conversation, and they begin dating.

Two kids and a summer home

in Montauk?

Lasted eight months. "It's not

you, it's me." That kind of thing.

What? Don't be smug.

He gave it a shot.

My version

would've lasted forever.

Now I know your secret.

Didn't know I had one.

You'd rather have a great story

than a great love.

You didn't think it was odd

running into her like that?

I guess I wasn't

thinking at all.

What?

I haven't quite figured out

if you're a victim or a suspect.

Well, I suppose you could pretty

much say that about anyone.

And the lottery ticket?

She won.

You try to find me?

There are no Lexi's

in Westport.

I didn't say

I lived in Westport.

You gotta give a guy

a fair chance.

I found you, didn't I?

You look different.

Different day.

What color was your hair?

Here's the thing about two

people meeting on a train.

If they know they'll

always be strangers,

it frees them.

You can create me any way you

want, and I'll never disappoint.

I could ask you to kill for me, and I

won't know if you'll carry it out.

We have no reason

to lie to each other...

unless the lie

is prettier than the truth.

We're no longer

on the train.

No?

How did you find me?

Don't tell me you're one of those New Age

types who don't believe in accidents.

You're not gonna ask me

to kill someone, are you?

Why don't you

show me what you do.

Can I get you

a pain pill for that?

Actually, the pain

helps me remember.

Sisters at Saint Jude's

would agree with you.

Catholic school?

You bet.

Her patron saint.

I held the cross

under my tongue...

until there was

a bloody sore.

I ate with it...

like that.

I slept with it.

Eventually the pain fades

and the callous appears.

My father only made it

a few weeks.

One morning

he refused to work,

and they beat him to death

with their rifles.

Bullets were too expensive.

When I was young, my mother used to

tell me this story when things got bad.

"The world ended when Jesus

hung on the cross," she'd say.

And all of history

is just a dream...

in the last instant

of a Roman centurion's life.

Coffee?

That's when she asked you

to tail Carl Pruitt.

Not at first.

I knew she was hiding something,

something from her past.

It wasn't so much

what she said...

It was

the way she said it?

More the way she didn't say

what she didn't say.

You some kind

of cop detective?

Yeah.

You don't look like cop.

Yeah? What's a cop

look like?

Better dressed.

Guy cheating on his wife.

I seen it all right here.

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