Claudia and Sandwiches

On a train ride home from Chicago, Claudia is reminded that she is a coward.

Passing out sandwiches on the train. He looks down into the bag �" “Claudia? Here’s yours.” She takes her sandwich from across the aisle and goes back to staring out the window. “Annette?”

“Oh, give it here!” Annette snatches it from him with a grin. “I’m hungry.” She winks. Claudia rolls her eyes, though no one else sees.

Eric laughs and pulls his sandwich out. “And this one’s mine.”

The countryside slides by the window outside the train, dead branches grasping at the grey sky, pulling it down on top of them and suffocating Claudia with its closeness. Her legs ache. She’s been all over Chicago with her sister and sister’s boyfriend, and has nothing to show for it but a sandwich. Memories of cold wind and icy pavement are already fading, and the money she’d brought is still sitting in her coat pocket; nothing had caught her eye, or rather, several things had, but she’d lost her appetite for shopping the moment Eric started admiring Annette too loudly, and from then on her money had stayed firmly in her pocket, and she had stayed outside the dressing rooms.

She had sulked. She was still sulking, and Annette and Eric (best to refer to them in the same breath, they were together so often) weren’t noticing. And why should they, they have each other.

Claudia sniffs and bites into her sandwich (ham and provolone). Delicious. Swallow, repeat, ignore the giggling from across the aisle.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t buy anything today!” Annette says, and the comment is obviously directed at Claudia �" even Eric has a new pair of Converse in a bag by his feet. “I mean, it’s Chicago.”

“Didn’t feel like it,” Claudia mumbles. Annette shrugs as if to say “Your loss,” and leans back in her seat so she can only see Eric.

Claudia wishes that she were alone, and not for the first time today either. If she were alone she could get up and explore the train without her sister asking where she was going. Not that her sister would even try to stop her, but the look on her face �" and Claudia knew the look, the one with the raised eyebrow and twisted mouth that meant weirdo �" just knowing that it will be there stops her. She’s seen it before, and doesn’t want to see it again. But just as she can see the face her sister would give, she can also see where she would go. Down toward the end of the train she would find a nearly empty car, not crammed with people like this one. It would have only a couple of people in it, and the seats will be nicer. There would be a man reading a book, and because in her imagination Claudia is not a coward, she would go up to him and ask what he’s reading, because she can’t see the cover; the book is laying on his lap.

“2001: A Space Odyssey,” He would say, and Claudia would smile, because his voice is low and smooth and oh so interesting. And also because while not her favourite (she actually can’t recall what her favourite book is at the moment, she’s read so many) it is a book that she likes quite a lot.

“I love that book,” Claudia would say, and because she is not a coward, she would then say, “I’m Claudia. What’s your name?”

Annette giggles. Loudly. And then screams, “Claudia, help meeeeee!” Eric is tickling her. Claudia gives her the dirtiest look she can muster and gets up from her seat. Still giggling, Annette asks, “Where are you going?”

“The bathroom.”

Claudia actually goes to the bathroom. Claudia knows that she is a coward.